■ Automobiles
Ford loses US$5.8bn in Q3
Ford Motor Co said yesterday it lost US$5.8 billion in the third quarter, blaming the cost of its "Way Forward" restructuring plan. The company's net loss of US$3.08 per share for the July-to-September period was wider than last year's third-quarter loss of US$284 million, or US$0.15 per share. Excluding restructuring costs, the company said it lost US$1.2 billion, or US$0.62 per share, from continuing operations. Excluding special items in the third quarter of last year, Ford lost US$191 million, or US$0.10 per share. Wall Street had been expecting a loss of US$0.61 per share for the quarter, according to a survey of analysts by Thomson Financial.
■ Internet
Betcorp plans selloff
Internet gaming company Betcorp Ltd of Australia said it plans to sell its operations in Toronto, Canada and Antigua for US$11 million to Bodog Entertainment Group SA. The sale will remove Betcorp from the online gaming market in the US and was forced by changes to US laws making it an offense for US residents to pay overseas online entertainment companies for gaming, the company said in a statement. The laws made it impossible for Betcorp to offer services to US residents, who had formed 85 percent of the company's revenue, it said. The statement was released late Friday, but was first reported yesterday. Betcorp would receive a cash consideration of US$9 million payable in five installments, and Bodog will assume liabilities of US$2 million.
■ Oil
Shell to buy up subsidiary
Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Europe's second biggest oil company, offered to buy the 22 percent it doesn't already own of Shell Canada Ltd for C$7.7 billion (US$6.8 billion) to take full control of a unit producing crude from oil sands. Shell will offer C$40 a share for the stake, The Hague-based company said yesterday in a PR Newswire statement. That's 22 percent more than the closing price of Shell Canada's stock on the final day of trading last week. The proposal "is a further step in simplifying the group structure" after the company merged its Dutch and UK boards last year, Shell said yesterday. Shell's oil sands project is in a region known as the Athabasca in northeastern Alberta, where oil-laden sands are strip mined and then processed with heat and solvents to extract the tar-like crude.
■ Semiconductors
Inventor sues Hitachi
A former employee sued Hitachi yesterday for compensation stemming from a patent for chip technology, his attorney said, a week after Japan's Supreme Court handed down a landmark ruling backing inventor rights. The lawsuit by Yoshihiko Okamoto was filed in Tokyo District Court, demanding &$165;200 million (US$1.7 million) in payment from Japanese electronics maker Hitachi Ltd, his lawyer Hidetoshi Masunaga said. The contested technology deals with duplicating the patterns of integrated circuits on chips in mass production, Masunaga said. Hitachi applied for patent on the chip circuit technology developed in 1988, when Okamoto, 55, was an employee at Hitachi, the business daily Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported. Although Okamoto initially received more than &$165;20 million for the patent from Hitachi, he is demanding extra as the company earned at least &$165;8 billion from licensing of the patent, according to the report.
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
WARNING: From Jan. 1 last year to the end of last month, 89 Taiwanese have gone missing or been detained in China, the MAC said, urging people to carefully consider travel to China Lax enforcement had made virtually moot regulations banning civil servants from making unauthorized visits to China, the Control Yuan said yesterday. Several agencies allowed personnel to travel to China after they submitted explanations for the trip written using artificial intelligence or provided no reason at all, the Control Yuan said in a statement, following an investigation headed by Control Yuan member Lin Wen-cheng (林文程). The probe identified 318 civil servants who traveled to China without permission in the past 10 years, but the true number could be close to 1,000, the Control Yuan said. The public employees investigated were not engaged in national
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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