INTERNET
Google lawsuit dismissed
A US judge on Thursday dismissed a long-running lawsuit challenging Google’s huge book digitization project, ruling that the scanning of millions of books is not copyright infringement. Judge Denny Chin dismissed the case which dates back to 2005, saying Google’s project is “fair use” under copyright law and “does not supersede or supplant books because it is not a tool to be used to read books.” Plaintiffs, led by the Authors Guild, had argued that Google’s “Library Project” violated the rights of authors by scanning works without obtaining approval from the authors. However, Chin concluded that Google’s use of the copyrighted works is “highly transformative” in that it enables readers to find out about new books and permits book text to be transformed “for purposes of substantive research, including data mining and text mining ... thereby opening up new fields of research.”
SOLAR ENERGY
Firms invest in solar plants
Internet giant Google and investment firm KKR will invest US$400 million in six solar plants in California and Arizona, the companies announced on Thursday. The plants are expected to be operational by January next year. They will be managed by Recurrent Energy, a California solar developer. The companies plan to sell the electricity to municipal users and local utilities, including Southern California Edison. Five of the plants are in California and the sixth is in Arizona. A Google spokeswoman said the total investment in the projects is US$400 million.
RETAIL
Wal-Mart sees Q3 profit
US retail giant Wal-Mart Stores Inc on Thursday notched a 2.8 percent rise in third quarter profit from a year ago, but trimmed its full-year profit forecast against a tough competitive backdrop. Wal-Mart Stores Inc, the world’s largest retailer, said net income for the third quarter came in at US$3.7 billion on revenue of US$115.7 billion. Earnings translated into US$1.14 per share, a cent above analyst forecasts. Revenue, up 1.7 percent from last year’s third quarter, was well below the US$116.8 billion consensus estimate.
GAMING
Firm buys Dwango shares
Nintendo Co, the creator of the game franchises Mario and Zelda, bought 612,200 shares in Dwango Co, a company that provides content through mobile phones, according to a statement filed with the Tokyo Stock Exchange yesterday. Nintendo is not planning to distribute games through Dwango’s video delivery system Niconico, Nintendo spokesman Yasuhiro Minagawa said. Nintendo currently promotes its games through the system, he said. Nintendo acquired the shares at the request of Dwango chairman Nobuo Kawakami for his personal funding needs, he added.
HEALTHCARE
Kleenex maker to divest
Kimberly-Clark Corp, the maker of Kleenex tissues and Huggies diapers, plans to spin off its healthcare business, leaving management to focus on its consumer and professional brands. The tax-free deal would create a stand-alone, publicly traded company with about US$1.6 billion in annual sales, Dallas-based Kimberly-Clark said in a statement on Thursday. The unit that would be separated makes products such as sterile wraps, surgical face masks and catheters. About 70 percent of its sales last year were in North America, with most of the rest in Europe and Asia. In the third quarter, revenue rose after the division posted declines in the previous four quarters.
Intel Corp chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) is expected to meet with Taiwanese suppliers next month in conjunction with the opening of the Computex Taipei trade show, supply chain sources said on Monday. The visit, the first for Tan to Taiwan since assuming his new post last month, would be aimed at enhancing Intel’s ties with suppliers in Taiwan as he attempts to help turn around the struggling US chipmaker, the sources said. Tan is to hold a banquet to celebrate Intel’s 40-year presence in Taiwan before Computex opens on May 20 and invite dozens of Taiwanese suppliers to exchange views
Application-specific integrated circuit designer Faraday Technology Corp (智原) yesterday said that although revenue this quarter would decline 30 percent from last quarter, it retained its full-year forecast of revenue growth of 100 percent. The company attributed the quarterly drop to a slowdown in customers’ production of chips using Faraday’s advanced packaging technology. The company is still confident about its revenue growth this year, given its strong “design-win” — or the projects it won to help customers design their chips, Faraday president Steve Wang (王國雍) told an online earnings conference. “The design-win this year is better than we expected. We believe we will win
Power supply and electronic components maker Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) yesterday said it plans to ship its new 1 megawatt charging systems for electric trucks and buses in the first half of next year at the earliest. The new charging piles, which deliver up to 1 megawatt of charging power, are designed for heavy-duty electric vehicles, and support a maximum current of 1,500 amperes and output of 1,250 volts, Delta said in a news release. “If everything goes smoothly, we could begin shipping those new charging systems as early as in the first half of next year,” a company official said. The new
SK Hynix Inc warned of increased volatility in the second half of this year despite resilient demand for artificial intelligence (AI) memory chips from big tech providers, reflecting the uncertainty surrounding US tariffs. The company reported a better-than-projected 158 percent jump in March-quarter operating income, propelled in part by stockpiling ahead of US President Donald Trump’s tariffs. SK Hynix stuck with a forecast for a doubling in demand for the high-bandwidth memory (HBM) essential to Nvidia Corp’s AI accelerators, which in turn drive giant data centers built by the likes of Microsoft Corp and Amazon.com Inc. That SK Hynix is maintaining its
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