GAMING
Electronic Arts names CEO
Video game giant Electronic Arts on Tuesday named Andrew Wilson as its new chief executive. Wilson, who had been heading the company’s sports unit and online portal for digital games, joined the California group in 2000 and worked in Asia and as head of the FIFA game titles. Executive chairman Larry Probst said the company had conducted a “rigorous search,” both inside and outside the company. Electronic Arts is known for its Sims titles, and the Battlefield and Need for Speed series.
ENERGY
Alaska wants LNG plant
Alaska wants ConocoPhillips to reopen its mothballed Kenai Peninsula liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant to provide an incentive for petroleum companies to explore and invest in Cook Inlet. In a Sept. 5 letter to ConocoPhillips president Trond-Erik Johansen, acting Natural Resources commissioner Joe Balash requested that the company apply for a three-year federal LNG export license for the plant at Nikiski, about 110km southwest of Anchorage. ConocoPhillips in March announced it would not extend its natural gas export license beyond March 31, but said it would consider a new license if the needs of local gas markets were met and sufficient natural gas was on hand to export.
PHARMACEUTICALS
Epanova decision in May
US regulators have accepted an experimental fish oil-based heart drug from AstraZeneca for review and will make a decision on whether to approve it by May next year. Epanova, for treating people with very high levels of fatty triglycerides in their blood, was developed by Omthera Pharmaceuticals, which AstraZeneca acquired earlier this year. AstraZeneca yesterday said that the US Food and Drug Administration had set a date of May 5 to act on the Epanova submission. Cardiovascular medicine is a key area for AstraZeneca, whose top-selling drug is the cholesterol fighter Crestor. The UK-based group is working on a fixed-dose combination of Crestor and Epanova that, if successful, would extend the Crestor franchise beyond 2016, when the drug’s US patent ends.
FINANCE
Trader says he is scapegoat
A former JPMorgan Chase trader said on Tuesday that the government was making him a scapegoat for the “London whale” trades while letting off his boss. Lawyers for Julien Grout, who was indicted by a grand jury on Monday for fraud and false securities filings in the case, said that he acted under orders from his managers in masking the massive derivatives losses that rocked the bank last year. Grout, who worked under senior trader Bruno Iksil in JPMorgan’s London office, “has been unjustly used as a pawn in the government’s attempt to settle its highly politicized case against JPMorgan Chase,” said Edward Little, an attorney for Grout.
INTERNET
3D search-printer developed
Yahoo Japan Corp has developed a voice-activated Internet search that links to a 3D printer, letting users look online for blueprints to deliver solid objects in a few minutes, the company said. The search engine scours the Internet for information that it can use to print palm-sized renderings of items as diverse as hippopotamuses or fighter jets. The devices use slices of information about a 3D object and gradually deposits fine layers of material — such as plastic, carbon or metal — to build a copy. Yahoo Japan has no firm plans on commercializing the technology.
To many, Tatu City on the outskirts of Nairobi looks like a success. The first city entirely built by a private company to be operational in east Africa, with about 25,000 people living and working there, it accounts for about two-thirds of all foreign investment in Kenya. Its low-tax status has attracted more than 100 businesses including Heineken, coffee brand Dormans, and the biggest call-center and cold-chain transport firms in the region. However, to some local politicians, Tatu City has looked more like a target for extortion. A parade of governors have demanded land worth millions of dollars in exchange
An Indonesian animated movie is smashing regional box office records and could be set for wider success as it prepares to open beyond the Southeast Asian archipelago’s silver screens. Jumbo — a film based on the adventures of main character, Don, a large orphaned Indonesian boy facing bullying at school — last month became the highest-grossing Southeast Asian animated film, raking in more than US$8 million. Released at the end of March to coincide with the Eid holidays after the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan, the movie has hit 8 million ticket sales, the third-highest in Indonesian cinema history, Film
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) revenue jumped 48 percent last month, underscoring how electronics firms scrambled to acquire essential components before global tariffs took effect. The main chipmaker for Apple Inc and Nvidia Corp reported monthly sales of NT$349.6 billion (US$11.6 billion). That compares with the average analysts’ estimate for a 38 percent rise in second-quarter revenue. US President Donald Trump’s trade war is prompting economists to retool GDP forecasts worldwide, casting doubt over the outlook for everything from iPhone demand to computing and datacenter construction. However, TSMC — a barometer for global tech spending given its central role in the
Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯), an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) designer specializing in server chips, expects revenue to decline this year due to sagging demand for 5-nanometer artificial intelligence (AI) chips from a North America-based major customer, a company executive said yesterday. That would be the first contraction in revenue for Alchip as it has been enjoying strong revenue growth over the past few years, benefiting from cloud-service providers’ moves to reduce dependence on Nvidia Corp’s expensive AI chips by building their own AI accelerator by outsourcing chip design. The 5-nanometer chip was supposed to be a new growth engine as the lifecycle
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