■ Chipmaking
Hynix inks SanDisk deal
South Korea's Hynix Semiconductor, the world's second-largest memory chipmaker, said yesterday that it had forged a patent cross-licensing and product supply deal with US-based SanDisk. Hynix said the agreement would help it settle patent suits in the US. It follows a similar alliance announced on Tuesday between the South Korean firm and Japanese rival Toshiba, which also settled a patent dispute. It said it also agreed to set up a joint venture with SanDisk to make memory components and sell NAND memory system solutions. SanDisk is the world's largest supplier of flash data storage card products.
■ Banking
HSBC goes local in PRC
HSBC, Standard Chartered Bank, Bank of East Asia and Citigroup have won approval to incorporate locally in China, making them eligible to launch full yuan services, state media reported yesterday. As locally incorporated companies, the four lenders can provide yuan and foreign exchange services for Chinese citizens after completing the commercial registration process, probably by next month, the China Daily said. They would be no longer confined to taking only deposits larger than 1 million yuan (US$128,000) per client, a limit applied to foreign banks who choose not to take on local status. All four banks said they expected to start operations soon.
■ Telephony
Skype turns to PayPal
Skype said on Tuesday that users of its Internet telephone service will soon be able to transfer money to each other using PayPal. Skype and online financial transaction service PayPal, both owned by California-based Internet auction firm eBay, expected to formally announce the new service by the end of next month. Skype was bought by eBay in October of 2004 and uses a peer-to-peer network to enable users to make free Internet telephone calls to each other on computers. Skype reportedly ended last year with more than 150 million users. Skype users will need to have PayPal accounts to transfer money to each other.
■ Publishing
Cellphone comics planned
Japanese publisher Shinchosha will soon launch what it calls the country's first digital subscription magazine, an online comic regularly transmitted to mobile phones, a news report said yesterday. Com2 will contain about 200 pages of cartoons and is geared toward cellphones so readers in tech-savvy, comic-book-crazy Japan can keep up with their favorites on the go. The new service will be launched tomorrow. It will originally have cartoons in Japanese only, but Shinchosha plans to add English and Chinese.
■ Petroleum
Police question Total boss
The head of French oil group Total, Christophe de Margerie, was called in for questioning yesterday by police probing suspected corruption in Iran and Cameroon, a source close to the matter said. Margerie was to be questioned on suspicions of corruption to win a gas contract in 1997 with the Iranian national oil company NIOC to operate a gas field called South Pars. The investigation was being conducted by the police finance squad, the source said, after a report that Margerie was to be questioned appeared in the French regional newspaper Est Republicain.
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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