■COMPUTERS
Data hold time may be cut
Microsoft said yesterday it was prepared to cut the amount of time it retains Internet users’ search data to six months from 18 if other Web giants also agreed to do so. The EU is piling pressure on Internet companies to reduce the amount of time they hold users’ personal Web searching data, saying in April that there was no basis for such information to be kept more than six months. Microsoft’s arch-rival Google said in September that it was halving the amount of time it keeps search data associated with a user’s unique Internet address to nine months from 18 months. “Microsoft evaluated the multiple uses of search data and is prepared to move to a six-month timeframe,” the US software giant said in a statement.
■SINGAPORE
More job cuts expected
More job cuts are expected in the first quarter of next year, a survey reported by the Straits Times showed yesterday. About half of the 629 bosses surveyed intend to cut jobs in the first three months of next year, compared with 10 percent who were polled on staff cuts between October and last month. The jobs cuts will be through retrenchments, not replacing staff who leave, and freezing hiring plans, it said, citing a survey by global human resource consultancy Manpower Inc, which had polled the 629 employers in Singapore. The survey showed that 46 percent of the bosses polled were expected to cut jobs while only 8 percent intended to recruit.
■SOUTH KOREA
IMF predicts recovery
The country’s economy, buffeted by the global meltdown, is fading fast but looks set to slowly recover next year, an IMF official said yesterday. “General measures of economic activity are decelerating rapidly,” Subir Lall, division chief in the Washington-based organization’s Asia-Pacific department, said in a speech. Lall cited slowdowns in consumer spending and exports as well as falling business confidence as evidence for the emerging weakness in Asia’s fourth-largest economy. The IMF is predicting economic growth of 2 percent next year for South Korea, compared with 5 percent last year.
■AUSTRALIA
Confidence at record low
Business confidence held at a record low last month, reinforcing speculation the economy may slide into its first recession since 1991. The sentiment index fell 1 point to minus 30 from October, the lowest level since the series began in 1989, according to a National Australia Bank Ltd survey of more than 560 companies conducted between Nov. 23 and Nov. 30. “The results of the November survey make grim reading,” said Alan Oster, chief economist at National Australia in Melbourne. “The financial crisis is now having real effects on the Australian economy, with significant revisions down on business views about future employment and investment.”
■AUTOMOBILES
Japan tests battery stations
Better Place, a US company that promotes electric vehicles, said yesterday it would build battery exchange stations in Japan as part of a government pilot project to encourage the use of green cars. Better Place builds battery exchange stations, where drivers with no time to charge can trade drained batteries for charged ones — providing infrastructure that helps make electric vehicles more practical. The Japanese Environment Ministry invited Better Place to take part in the feasibility project for three to six months, starting next month in the port city of Yokohama, Better Place said.
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
BEIJING’S ‘PAWN’: ‘We, as Chinese, should never forget our roots, history, culture,’ Want Want Holdings general manager Tsai Wang-ting said at a summit in China The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday condemned Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) for making comments at the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit that it said have damaged Taiwan’s sovereignty, adding that it would investigate if the group had colluded with China in the matter and contravened cross-strait regulations. The council issued a statement after Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團有限公司) general manager Tsai Wang-ting (蔡旺庭), the third son of the group’s founder, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), said at the summit last week that the group originated in “Chinese Taiwan,” and has developed and prospered in “the motherland.” “We, as Chinese, should never
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