■ Playstation 2
Sony to sell Web adapters
Sony Corp, the world's biggest maker of video-game consoles, will start selling equipment to hook its PlayStation2 to the Internet through retail stores in May, seeking to add users to its online game service in Japan. Sony Computer Entertainment Inc will sell adapters for ¥3,980 (US$33) at stores throughout Japan, the company said. The adapters will also be sold as a package with hard disk drives, the price of which has yet to be announced. PlayStation2 users currently have to buy or rent the devices from Internet providers such as NEC Corp's Biglobe and Fujitsu Ltd's Nifty Corp unit. Sony is trying to widen the gap with new rival Microsoft Corp by winning more online customers. Microsoft Xbox adapters are already available at stores. Sony plans to boost the number of online PlayStation2 users in Japan from 200,000 at present.
■ Computers
NEC works on `quantum'
Researcher in Japan have made a major step in the quest to develop a quantum computer -- a still largely hypothetical device -- Japanese electronics giant NEC said yesterday. In what they claimed was a world first, researchers at NEC and the state-funded Institute of Physical and Chemical Research successfully enabled the interaction of pairs of solid-state elemental particles in a circuit. The interaction -- known as quantum entanglement -- may enable scientists to build a computer capable of calculating in milliseconds what it would take today's supercomputers hundreds of millions of years to computer. The researchers published their results in the British science journal
Part of a quantum computer's power would stem from its ability to make multiple calculations simultaneously. Data units in a quantum computer, unlike those in today's machines, can exist in more than one state at a time.
■ ACNielsen
Former staff charged
Twelve former ACNielsen employees have been charged with falsifying interviews and questionnaires in a survey conducted for the Hong Kong Tourism Board, the anti-graft agency said yesterday. The 12 were arrested in July following a complaint alleging that a manager of ACNielsen (China) Ltd took bribes in exchange for allowing fake questionnaires, the Independent Commission Against Corruption said. The researchers were assigned to interview tourists leaving Hong Kong from the Chek Lap Kok airport between February and July last year, it said. The ICAC said some of them submitted questionnaires though they were absent from work. The Hong Kong Tourism Board and ACNielsen cooperated during the investigation, the agency said.
■ Research
China to spend billions
China will invest as much as 700 billion yuan (US$85 billion) in the next five years to develop genetically modified crops, a new mobile-phone standard and other new technologies, said Minister of Science and Technology Xu Guanhua. Last year, China spent 104.3 billion yuan, or 1.1 percent of the country's growth domestic product, on scientific research and development. Xu estimates China's central and provincial governments invested as much as 30 billion yuan in research and development.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat
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