■ Gaming
Sony to pay damages
Japanese electronics giant Sony Corp's video game unit has been ordered to pay US$90.7 million in damages over a patent infringement lawsuit in the US related to the PlayStation2 console, the company said yesterday. But the Tokyo-based company will fight the decision by the federal district court in Oakland, California, and appeal to the US High Court, a Sony Computer Entertain-ment spokesman said on condition of anonymity. In the March 24 decision, Sony Computer Entertainment was ordered to pay damages to Immersion, based in San Jose, California, which develops and licenses digital technology. In a 2002 lawsuit, Immersion accused Sony of patent infringement with the Dual Shock controller for PlayStation and PlayStation 2.
■ China
Hu heads central bank
China yesterday appointed central banker Hu Xiaolian (胡曉煉) as its top foreign exchange regulator, filling a vacancy created when the former currency chief was made chairman of a state-owned bank. In her new post as head of the State Administration for Foreign Exchange, Hu will be in charge of managing China's huge foreign reserves and carrying out planned currency trading reforms. The appointment isn't expected to cause any abrupt changes in China's foreign exchange policy, which has kept the value of its currency -- the yuan -- at about 8.28 to the US dollar for more than a decade. Hu, 46, has spent most of her career with the foreign exchange administration (SAFE). She became deputy director at SAFE in 2001, and was named one of three executive assistant presidents at China's central bank in August last year. She replaces Guo Shuqing (郭樹清), who was named chairman of China Construction Bank on Friday.
■ Acquisitions
Web firms regain popularity
Internet companies are once again popular acquisitions for traditional media firms, the San Francisco Chronicle said. IAC/InterActiveCorp's agreement to pay US$1.85 billion for search engine Ask Jeeves Inc, Yahoo Inc's plans to buy online photography company Flickr and Hewlett-Packard Co's purchase of Snapfish are among the acquisitions announced last week, the newspaper said. While the pace of acquisitions hasn't matched the late 1990s, the activity reflects an increase from the slower pace of recent years, the newspaper said. Yahoo and Google Inc are benefiting from high demand for online advertising, prompting traditional media companies to expand their Internet presence to get a larger share of the advertising market.
■ Airlines
Flights to China to double
Singapore Airlines (SIA) said yesterday it will increase by 50 percent its passenger capacity to Beijing from June 1. SIA, one of the world's most profitable carriers, will fly three times daily between Singapore and Beijing, up from two times a day. "This represents a 50 percent increase in capacity from the twice-daily flights, or an additional 288 seats a day," SIA said in a statement. With the launch of the additional service, SIA and its regional wing, SilkAir, will be operating 120 flights weekly to the Chinese cities of Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Nanjing, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Xiamen, Chengdu, Chongqing, Fuzhou and Kunming.
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
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
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