INDIA
Rajan introduces stimulus
New Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan started his first day in office on Wednesday by announcing short-term measures to boost confidence as the troubled Indian economy slows and the currency tumbles. Rajan had not been expected to make specific policy changes on the day he was sworn into office, but he announced the measures at a televised news conference. Among the measures he promised for the coming months were that existing banks would be able to open new domestic branches without the central bank’s permission and that long-awaited new banking licenses would be issued by January. The central bank will also soon issue inflation-indexed savings certificates and take steps to encourage financial services for the poor, including making payments easier through mobile banking, he said.
ENERGY
Caracas told to pay Conoco
An international arbitrator has ruled that Venezuela made no genuine effort to fairly compensate ConocoPhillips after seizing the US oil company’s assets in the country. The World Bank’s International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes effectively ruled on Tuesday that Caracas is bound to pay Conoco fairly for the assets, which were nationalized in 2007 by the government of then-president Hugo Chavez. Venezuela “breached its obligation to negotiate in good faith for compensation for its taking of the ConocoPhillips assets in the three projects on the basis of market value,” the tribunal said.
TECHNOLOGY
Motorola loses patent case
Google Inc’s Motorola Mobility did not act in good faith when it demanded patent royalties from Microsoft Corp for use of video-compression and Wi-Fi technology, a federal jury said on Wednesday. The jury in Seattle acted in its first day of deliberations. Microsoft was awarded about US$14.5 million in damages, the Seattle Times newspaper reported in a blog post. The verdict could help the two companies resolve a dispute over patent royalties for both fundamental technologies in electronic devices and features that make them easier to use. More broadly, the case is one front in a global debate on how to handle patents that relate to technology included in industry standards used by all manufacturers.
INTERNET
Yahoo unveils new logo
Yahoo has adopted a new logo for the first time since shortly after the Internet company’s founding 18 years ago. The redesigned look unveiled late on Wednesday is part of a makeover that Yahoo has been undergoing since the company hired Google executive Marissa Mayer to become its CEO 14 months ago. Mayer has already spruced up Yahoo’s front page, e-mail and Flickr photo-sharing service, as well as engineered a series of acquisitions aimed at attracting more traffic on mobile devices. The logo was shown both with purple letters and in white with a purple background spelling out the word Yahoo!, with no letters touching and ending with an exclamation point.
VIDEO GAmes
Xbox coming in November
Microsoft’s new Xbox One console will go on sale on Nov. 22 in 13 launch countries, the US tech giant said on Wednesday. The company had previously said the entertainment and gaming console would be available sometime in November. In June, Microsoft said the launch would be in 21 countries, but last month cut that back to 13, saying the plan had been too ambitious.
BYPASSING CHINA TARIFFS: In the first five months of this year, Foxconn sent US$4.4bn of iPhones to the US from India, compared with US$3.7bn in the whole of last year Nearly all the iPhones exported by Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) from India went to the US between March and last month, customs data showed, far above last year’s average of 50 percent and a clear sign of Apple Inc’s efforts to bypass high US tariffs imposed on China. The numbers, being reported by Reuters for the first time, show that Apple has realigned its India exports to almost exclusively serve the US market, when previously the devices were more widely distributed to nations including the Netherlands and the Czech Republic. During March to last month, Foxconn, known as Hon Hai Precision Industry
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and the University of Tokyo (UTokyo) yesterday announced the launch of the TSMC-UTokyo Lab to promote advanced semiconductor research, education and talent development. The lab is TSMC’s first laboratory collaboration with a university outside Taiwan, the company said in a statement. The lab would leverage “the extensive knowledge, experience, and creativity” of both institutions, the company said. It is located in the Asano Section of UTokyo’s Hongo, Tokyo, campus and would be managed by UTokyo faculty, guided by directors from UTokyo and TSMC, the company said. TSMC began working with UTokyo in 2019, resulting in 21 research projects,
Taiwan’s property market is entering a freeze, with mortgage activity across the nation’s six largest cities plummeting in the first quarter, H&B Realty Co (住商不動產) said yesterday, citing mounting pressure on housing demand amid tighter lending rules and regulatory curbs. Mortgage applications in Taipei, New Taipei City, Taoyuan, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung totaled 28,078 from January to March, a sharp 36.3 percent decline from 44,082 in the same period last year, the nation’s largest real-estate brokerage by franchise said, citing data from the Joint Credit Information Center (JCIC, 聯徵中心). “The simultaneous decline across all six cities reflects just how drastically the market
Ashton Hall’s morning routine involves dunking his head in iced Saratoga Spring Water. For the company that sells the bottled water — Hall’s brand of choice for drinking, brushing his teeth and submerging himself — that is fantastic news. “We’re so thankful to this incredible fitness influencer called Ashton Hall,” Saratoga owner Primo Brands Corp’s CEO Robbert Rietbroek said on an earnings call after Hall’s morning routine video went viral. “He really helped put our brand on the map.” Primo Brands, which was not affiliated with Hall when he made his video, is among the increasing number of companies benefiting from influencer
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