■INTERNET
Yahoo buys news provider
Yahoo Inc is buying freelance news site Associated Content in a deal that will add a more folksy touch to one of the world’s biggest Web sites. Financial terms weren’t disclosed. The acquisition announced on Tuesday will enable Yahoo to supplement its regular lineup of stories by full-time reporters with independently produced material that typically isn’t covered by traditional media outlets. Associated Content, launched in 2005, has developed a low-cost news model that relies on about 380,000 freelancers who share their expertise on a variety of subjects.
■OIL
CNPC buys stake in SSPD
China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC, 中石油), China’s top oil producer, said yesterday it had acquired part of a Shell subsidiary in Syria, the latest move in its global quest to secure energy resources. The deal gives CNPC a 35 percent stake in Syria Shell Petroleum Development (SSPD), which was wholly owned by Royal Dutch Shell, the Chinese company said in a statement. SSPD has interests in three production licences — Deir-Ez-Zor, Fourth Annex and Ash Sham, which are operated by the Al Furat Petroleum Company. Shell has a 31.25 percent stake in AFPC, it said.
■SOFTWARE
Kindle heading for phones
Amazon.com Inc is hoping to snag even more customers for the electronic books it sells by releasing a version of its Kindle e-reader software for phones that use Google Inc’s increasingly popular Android operating system. The free Kindle for Android software will be out this summer and will join a growing roster of programs for such products as Apple Inc’s iPhone and iPad and Research In Motion Ltd’s BlackBerry smart phones. The software lets users read books they have bought from Amazon’s online Kindle store. As with other versions of the online retailer’s Kindle software, Kindle for Android keeps track of where you are in a book. That means you can start reading on an Android phone and continue at the same place on a Kindle e-reader or another gadget with Kindle software.
■TELECOMS
Smartphone sales soaring
Smartphone makers sold 49 percent more handsets in the first quarter as Research in Motion, Apple and manufacturers of Android phones extended gains, Gartner Inc said. Global sales of all cellphone models gained 17 percent to 314.7 million units as manufacturers expanded market share with price cuts, Gartner said in a statement. Google’s Android software leapt past Microsoft Corp’s Windows Mobile and Linux to run almost 10 percent of smartphones shipped, compared with 1.6 percent last year. Nokia Oyj’s main smartphone system, Symbian, declined to a 44.3 percent market share. Nokia remained the largest maker of cellphones overall, with its market share falling by 1.2 percentage points to 35 percent.
■ECONOMY
Volcker warns on deficit
Europe’s debt crisis shows the risks for the US if it does not get its budget deficits under control, former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker said on Tuesday. “If we need any further illustration of the potential threats to our own economy from uncontrolled borrowing, we have only to look to the struggle to maintain the common European currency, to rebalance the European economy, and to sustain political cohesion of Europe,” he said in a speech at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research in California.
EXPRESSING GRATITUDE: Without its Taiwanese partners which are ‘working around the clock,’ Nvidia could not meet AI demand, CEO Jensen Huang said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and US-based artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer Nvidia Corp have partnered with each other on silicon photonics development, Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said. Speaking with reporters after he met with TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) in Taipei on Friday, Huang said his company was working with the world’s largest contract chipmaker on silicon photonics, but admitted it was unlikely for the cooperation to yield results any time soon, and both sides would need several years to achieve concrete outcomes. To have a stake in the silicon photonics supply chain, TSMC and
IDENTITY: Compared with other platforms, TikTok’s algorithm pushes a ‘disproportionately high ratio’ of pro-China content, a study has found Young Taiwanese are increasingly consuming Chinese content on TikTok, which is changing their views on identity and making them less resistant toward China, researchers and politicians were cited as saying by foreign media. Asked to suggest the best survival strategy for a small country facing a powerful neighbor, students at National Chia-Yi Girls’ Senior High School said “Taiwan must do everything to avoid provoking China into attacking it,” the Financial Times wrote on Friday. Young Taiwanese between the ages of 20 and 24 in the past were the group who most strongly espoused a Taiwanese identity, but that is no longer
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake and several aftershocks battered southern Taiwan early this morning, causing houses and roads to collapse and leaving dozens injured and 50 people isolated in their village. A total of 26 people were reported injured and sent to hospitals due to the earthquake as of late this morning, according to the latest Ministry of Health and Welfare figures. In Sising Village (西興) of Chiayi County's Dapu Township (大埔), the location of the quake's epicenter, severe damage was seen and roads entering the village were blocked, isolating about 50 villagers. Another eight people who were originally trapped inside buildings in Tainan
‘ARMED GROUP’: Two defendants used Chinese funds to form the ‘Republic of China Taiwan Military Government,’ posing a threat to national security, prosecutors said A retired lieutenant general has been charged after using funds from China to recruit military personnel for an “armed” group that would assist invading Chinese forces, prosecutors said yesterday. The retired officer, Kao An-kuo (高安國), was among six people indicted for contravening the National Security Act (國家安全法), the High Prosecutors’ Office said in a statement. The group visited China multiple times, separately and together, from 2018 to last year, where they met Chinese military intelligence personnel for instructions and funding “to initiate and develop organizations for China,” prosecutors said. Their actions posed a “serious threat” to “national security and social stability,” the statement
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