AUTOMOBILES
Toyota wants cars to ‘tweet’
Toyota Motor Corp is setting up a social networking service with the help of a US Internet company and Microsoft so drivers can interact with their cars in ways similar to Twitter and Facebook. Toyota. and Salesforce.com, based in San Francisco, announced an alliance yesterday to launch “Toyota Friend,” a private social network for Toyota owners that works similar to tweets on Twitter. In a demonstration at a Tokyo showroom, an owner of a plug-in Prius hybrid found out through a cellphone message from his Prius called “Pre-boy” that he should remember to recharge his car overnight. Toyota’s service, built on open-source cloud platforms that are the specialty of Salesforce.com, as well as on Microsoft’s platform, will start in Japan next year, and will be offered later worldwide, Toyota said.
SOFTWARE
Mahindra posts loss
India’s recovering fraud-hit software outsourcer Mahindra Satyam yesterday swung to an unexpected quarterly net loss, from a profit the previous quarter, due to one-off US lawsuit costs. The company showed a fourth-quarter net loss of 3.27 billion rupees (US$72 million) for the three months to the end of March, compared to a net profit of 589 million rupees in the previous quarter ended last December. In response, Satyam’s shares fell nearly 6 percent to a day’s low of 72.3 rupees at the Bombay Stock Exchange. Analysts had forecasted a profit for the quarter.
THAILAND
Exports fuel fast growth
Economic growth accelerated to the quickest pace in a year in the first quarter of this year, helped by surging exports, official data showed yesterday. GDP expanded 2 percent compared with the previous quarter, and by 3 percent from a year earlier, the government’s economic planning agency said. The economy grew by 1.3 percent quarter-on-quarter in the In October-December period. The agency maintained its forecast for GDP growth this year of 3.5 to 4.5 percent. With inflation also soaring, the robust figures added to expectations that the central bank will increase the official cost of borrowing again soon in an attempt to prevent the economy overheating.
ECONOMY
Concerns grow about Europe
Rising concerns emerged yesterday over the state of European economic recovery — with key indicators slowing sharply, and eurozone stragglers behind Germany and France showing signs of stagnation, a widely watched survey said. London-based research giant Markit’s composite eurozone index for manufacturing and services output, compiled via company purchasing managers’ questionnaire replies, suggested eurozone growth slowed to a seven-month low this month. Its index fell from 57.8 last month to 55.4 this month. Any score above 50 indicates growth, and this month marked the 22 successive months of economic expansion. However, the deceleration in the rate of growth was also the largest since November 2008, Markit said. “It is not clear the extent to which this reflects temporary factors such as the timing of Easter and disruptions to supply chains emanating from the earthquake in Japan,” said Chris Williamson, Markit chief economist, a view backed by external economists. “But a deterioration in business confidence in the service sector to the weakest since July 2009 suggests that a more fundamental slowing in the pace of economic growth is occurring.”
Taiwan will prioritize the development of silicon photonics by taking advantage of its strength in the semiconductor industry to build another shield to protect the local economy, National Development Council (NDC) Minister Paul Liu (劉鏡清) said yesterday. Speaking at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee, Liu said Taiwan already has the artificial intelligence (AI) industry as a shield, after the semiconductor industry, to safeguard the country, and is looking at new unique fields to build more economic shields. While Taiwan will further strengthen its existing shields, over the longer term, the country is determined to focus on such potential segments as
UNCERTAINTY: Innolux activated a stringent supply chain management mechanism, as it did during the COVID-19 pandemic, to ensure optimal inventory levels for customers Flat-panel display makers AUO Corp (友達) and Innolux Corp (群創) yesterday said that about 12 to 20 percent of their display business is at risk of potential US tariffs and that they would relocate production or shipment destinations to mitigate the levies’ effects. US tariffs would have a direct impact of US$200 million on AUO’s revenue, company chairman Paul Peng (彭雙浪) told reporters on the sidelines of the Touch Taiwan trade show in Taipei yesterday. That would make up about 12 percent of the company’s overall revenue. To cope with the tariff uncertainty, AUO plans to allocate its production to manufacturing facilities in
COLLABORATION: Given Taiwan’s key position in global supply chains, the US firm is discussing strategies with local partners and clients to deal with global uncertainties Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) yesterday said it is meeting with local ecosystem partners, including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), to discuss strategies, including long-term manufacturing, to navigate uncertainties such as US tariffs, as Taiwan occupies an important position in global supply chains. AMD chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) told reporters that Taiwan is an important part of the chip designer’s ecosystem and she is discussing with partners and customers in Taiwan to forge strong collaborations on different areas during this critical period. AMD has just become the first artificial-intelligence (AI) server chip customer of TSMC to utilize its advanced
Chizuko Kimura has become the first female sushi chef in the world to win a Michelin star, fulfilling a promise she made to her dying husband to continue his legacy. The 54-year-old Japanese chef regained the Michelin star her late husband, Shunei Kimura, won three years ago for their Sushi Shunei restaurant in Paris. For Shunei Kimura, the star was a dream come true. However, the joy was short-lived. He died from cancer just three months later in June 2022. He was 65. The following year, the restaurant in the heart of Montmartre lost its star rating. Chizuko Kimura insisted that the new star is still down
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