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.
NEW IDENTITY: Known for its software, India has expanded into hardware, with its semiconductor industry growing from US$38bn in 2023 to US$45bn to US$50bn India on Saturday inaugurated its first semiconductor assembly and test facility, a milestone in the government’s push to reduce dependence on foreign chipmakers and stake a claim in a sector dominated by China. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi opened US firm Micron Technology Inc’s semiconductor assembly, test and packaging unit in his home state of Gujarat, hailing the “dawn of a new era” for India’s technology ambitions. “When young Indians look back in the future, they will see this decade as the turning point in our tech future,” Modi told the event, which was broadcast on his YouTube channel. The plant would convert
Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) yesterday said the DRAM supply crunch could extend through 2028, as the artificial intelligence (AI) boom has led the world’s major memory makers to dramatically reduce production of standard DRAM and allocate a significant portion of their capacity for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips. The most severe supply constraints would stretch to the first half of next year due to “very limited” increases in new DRAM capacity worldwide, Nanya Technology president Lee Pei-ing (李培瑛) told a news briefing. The company plans to increase monthly 12-inch wafer capacity to 20,000 in the first half of 2028 after a
Property transactions in the nation’s six special municipalities plunged last month, as a lengthy Lunar New Year holiday combined with ongoing credit tightening dampened housing market activity, data compiled by local land administration offices released on Monday showed. The six cities recorded a total of 10,480 property transfers last month, down 42.5 percent from January and marking the second-lowest monthly level on record, the data showed. “The sharp drop largely reflected seasonal factors and tighter credit conditions,” Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房屋) deputy research manager Chen Chin-ping (陳金萍) said. The nine-day Lunar New Year holiday fell in February this year, reducing
Zimbabwe’s ban on raw lithium exports is forcing Chinese miners to rethink their strategy, speeding up plans to process the metal locally instead of shipping it to China’s vast rechargeable battery industry. The country is Africa’s largest lithium producer and has one of the world’s largest reserves, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS). Zimbabwe already banned the export of lithium ore in 2022 and last year announced it would halt exports of lithium concentrates from January next year. However, on Wednesday it imposed the ban with immediate effect, leaving unclear what the lithium mining sector would do in the
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