■ Software
Trend Micro future's bright
Trend Micro Inc, which is to supply anti-virus software for Microsoft Corp's Hotmail e-mail service, said it may add US$50 million in sales to household computer users outside Japan next year, partly because of the agreement. "We will see an extra US$40 million to US$50 million in the consumer market outside of Japan in 2005," Steve Chang (張明正), the Tokyo-based company's chief executive officer, said yesterday in a telephone interview from Taipei. Chang declined to say how much the company, which has seen its shares almost double in the past year, will earn from the contract.
■ Copyrights
Pirates sub-contract prison
A five-year piracy investigation by Sony has discovered its popular PlayStation game consoles being assembled in a Chin-ese prison, a news report said yesterday. The inquiry has unearthed a network of at least 10 pirate operations with a production capacity of 50,000 units a day for PlayStation consoles and controllers, as well as mod-ifying chips, the Finan-cial Times said in a dispatch from Shanghai. The factories Sony identified as part of the piracy ring have been raided numerous times by the Chin-ese authorities and their owners fined in recent years, the newspaper said. How-ever, they have continued operating by setting up the sub-contracting network, it said.
■ Gaming
New consoles in demand
Nintendo Co boosted its shipment forecast for its new console amid high demand in the US and Japan. The company will now ship more than 2.8 million of its dual-screen Nintendo DS systems to North America and Japan by the end of the year, Nintendo said in an e-mailed statement. Earlier this month, Nintendo said it planned to ship as many as 2.8 million units, 800,000 more than a previous estimate, by Dec. 31. Nintendo started selling the Nintendo DS in the US in November and in Japan this month. Many retail stores have run out of the game console, which costs ?15,000 (US$143.75) in Japan and $149 in the US.
■ Production
Shin-Etsu spreads to US
Japan's Shin-Etsu Handotai Co, the world's leading silicon-wafer maker, plans to more than double production capacity for 300mm wafers, a report said yesterday. The company plans to invest a total of at least ?200 billion (US$1.9 billion) in Japan and the US to raise its combined monthly 300mm wafer pro-duction capacity in the two countries to 700,000 units in a few years, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun said. It will be the firm's biggest capital investment, with the hope of capturing half of the global market for 300mm wafers, from the current share of 30 percent, it said. Under the plan, Shin-Etsu Handotai will become the first Japanese company with 300mm-wafer production operations overseas, the paper said.
■ Media
Media Corp listing dazzles
The first overseas listing of a Chinese media company made a dazzling debut on the Hong Kong stock exchange yesterday, with shares of Beijing Media Corp soaring 20 percent. Beijing Media is the advertising arm of Beijing Youth Daily, the Chinese capital's second-biggest selling newspaper with a circulation of about 600,000. Beijing Media's share price closed at HK$22.7 (US$2.91), far higher than the IPO price of HK$18.95, set at the top end of the indicative range.
Nvidia Corp yesterday unveiled its new high-speed interconnect technology, NVLink Fusion, with Taiwanese application-specific IC (ASIC) designers Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯) and MediaTek Inc (聯發科) among the first to adopt the technology to help build semi-custom artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure for hyperscalers. Nvidia has opened its technology to outside users, as hyperscalers and cloud service providers are building their own cost-effective AI chips, or accelerators, used in AI servers by leveraging ASIC firms’ designing capabilities to reduce their dependence on Nvidia. Previously, NVLink technology was only available for Nvidia’s own AI platform. “NVLink Fusion opens Nvidia’s AI platform and rich ecosystem for
‘WORLD’S LOSS’: Taiwan’s exclusion robs the world of the benefits it could get from one of the foremost practitioners of disease prevention and public health, Minister Chiu said Taiwan should be allowed to join the World Health Assembly (WHA) as an irreplaceable contributor to global health and disease prevention efforts, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. He made the comment at a news conference in Taipei, hours before a Taiwanese delegation was to depart for Geneva, Switzerland, seeking to meet with foreign representatives for a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the WHA, the WHO’s annual decisionmaking meeting, which would be held from Monday next week to May 27. As of yesterday, Taiwan had yet to receive an invitation. Taiwan has much to offer to the international community’s
CAUSE AND EFFECT: China’s policies prompted the US to increase its presence in the Indo-Pacific, and Beijing should consider if this outcome is in its best interests, Lai said China has been escalating its military and political pressure on Taiwan for many years, but should reflect on this strategy and think about what is really in its best interest, President William Lai (賴清德) said. Lai made the remark in a YouTube interview with Mindi World News that was broadcast on Saturday, ahead of the first anniversary of his presidential inauguration tomorrow. The US has clearly stated that China is its biggest challenge and threat, with US President Donald Trump and US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth repeatedly saying that the US should increase its forces in the Indo-Pacific region
ALL TOGETHER: Only by including Taiwan can the WHA fully exemplify its commitment to ‘One World for Health,’ the representative offices of eight nations in Taiwan said The representative offices in Taiwan of eight nations yesterday issued a joint statement reiterating their support for Taiwan’s meaningful engagement with the WHO and for Taipei’s participation as an observer at the World Health Assembly (WHA). The joint statement came as Taiwan has not received an invitation to this year’s WHA, which started yesterday and runs until Tuesday next week. This year’s meeting of the decisionmaking body of the WHO in Geneva, Switzerland, would be the ninth consecutive year Taiwan has been excluded. The eight offices, which reaffirmed their support for Taiwan, are the British Office Taipei, the Australian Office Taipei, the
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