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World Business Quick Take

■ Petroleum
Oil prices rally in Asia
Oil prices rallied in Asian trade yesterday, touching a six-month high in a market jittery over Iran's nuclear intentions and the country's detention of 15 British naval personnel, dealers said. US military exercises in the Gulf involving two US aircraft carriers also unsettled the market, they said. New York's main oil futures contract, light sweet crude for delivery in May, was up US$0.98 (NT$32) at US$63.91 a barrel from US$62.93 in late US trades yesterday. Brent North Sea crude for May was up US$1.18 at US$65.78. Dealers said the market was looking ahead to the US Department of Energy's weekly update on energy inventories later yesterday.

■ Telecoms
Beijing seeks to halt porn
Beijing police are threatening prison terms and fines for people who transmit pornography via cellphones after merchants were caught selling blue movies on mobile phone memory chips, a report said yesterday. Sending pornographic video, photos or messages via cellphones can land the user in detention for two weeks or result in a fine of up to 3,000 yuan (US$400), the Xinhua news agency said. Merchants who sell such content can face up to three years in jail, it said. Police made the announcement after arresting 19 cellphone dealers who were selling memory chips with recordings of pornographic material, the report said.

■ Electronics
OLED development pushed
General Electric Co and Konica Minolta Holdings Inc are accelerating the development of more efficient and environmentally friendly lighting products, the two companies announced on Tuesday. Fairfield-based GE and Tokyo-based Konica Minolta said their goal is to bring Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) lighting to market in the next three years. OLEDs are thin, organic materials pressed between two electrodes that illuminate when an electrical charge is applied. Developers say OLEDs will provide a different way to light homes and businesses and could increase efficiency and environmental performance.

■ Pharmaceuticals
Genentech plans facility
US biotechnology company Genentech Inc will invest US$140 million in a drug manufacturing facility in Singapore, the city-state's investment promotion agency said yesterday. The facility, which will employ about 100 employees, will produce Lucentis, a drug for treating age-related eye disease, the Economic Development Board said in a statement. Genentech is based in South San Francisco, California. Construction of the plant, Singapore's fourth such biologics facility, is expected to begin in the second quarter of this year and Genentech will likely secure a license to operate in 2010.

■ Internet
Yahoo e-mail improved
Yahoo announced on Tuesday it was giving users of its Web-based e-mail service unlimited storage capacity as a tribute to Yahoo Mail's 10th birthday and today's data-rich Internet lifestyle. In a phased roll-out beginning in May, Yahoo will eliminate the 1 gigabyte cap on memory for people with free e-mail accounts and 2 gigabyte cap of memory for those who pay for premium accounts. Yahoo bought Web-based e-mail service Rocketmail and it had four megabytes of storage when it was relaunched as Yahoo Mail in October 1997.

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