■AUTOMOBILES
GM recalls 5,000 vans
General Motors Co (GM) is recalling about 5,000 heavy-duty Chevrolet Express and GMC Savana vans because of a faulty alternator. The automaker also halted sales of the vans on Friday. It has also stopped production of them until it can fix the problem. GM spokesman Alan Adler says there have been no injuries related to the recall. The recalled vans were built in February and March.
■HOUSING
US moves on foreclosures
After months of criticism that it hasn’t done enough to prevent foreclosures, the Obama administration is announcing a plan to reduce the amount some troubled borrowers owe on their home loans. The multifaceted effort will let people who owe more on their mortgages than their properties are worth get new loans backed by the US Federal Housing Administration. That would be funded by US$14 billion from the administration’s existing US$75 billion foreclosure-prevention program.
■AVIATION
EU seeks to end dispute
The EU’s trade commissioner said on Friday he hopes the EU and the US can solve a trade dispute over illegal subsidies to aircraft manufacturers Airbus and Boeing. Karel De Gucht told reporters after talks with the US’ trade representative Ron Kirk that he wanted a “negotiated settlement” to avoid “mutual retaliation.” The WTO last week backed a US complaint over EU subsidies for Airbus and is expected to rule by the end of June on a parallel European complaint over US payments to Boeing.
■RECYCLING
US trails on can recycling
The US trails Brazil, Germany, Russia and some other countries in its rate of recycling aluminum beverage cans and Alcoa Inc.’s chief executive said Friday that needs to change. The Pittsburgh-based aluminum maker dedicated a US$24 million expansion project of its can recycling operation in east Tennessee. Alcoa president and CEO Klaus Kleinfeld said the expansion will help support a goal of boosting the current 54 percent rate of recycling beverage cans in the US to 75 percent by 2015. The rate in Russia is currently 75 percent, 91 percent in Germany and 95 percent in Brazil, Alcoa said.
■ENERGY
BP Solar closes plant
BP Solar said on Friday it is closing its landmark Frederick manufacturing plant as part of a reshaping of the US solar industry in a cost-cutting move that will eliminate 320 jobs. The company, a San Francisco-based unit of London-based BP PLC, said the sharply falling price of solar-power modules prompted it to shift its remaining in-house production to lower-cost joint ventures in China and India and contract with other manufacturers for the rest. The company said solar panel prices have fallen nearly 50 percent in the past 18 months.
■COMPUTERS
Fujitsu cedes iPad rights
Japan’s Fujitsu has ceded rights to the “iPad” name to Apple, just in time for the tablet computer from the California company to hit US stores next month. Fujitsu originally registered the iPad name with the Patent and Trademark Office in March 2003 in connection with a handheld scanner for retailers made by the Japanese company. The US Patent and Trademark Office records, obtained on Friday by technology blogs and PatentAuthority.com, show that the iPad trademark was assigned to Apple on March 17. The details of the transaction between Fujitsu and Apple were not available.
AI REVOLUTION: The event is to take place from Wednesday to Friday at the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center’s halls 1 and 2 and would feature more than 1,100 exhibitors Semicon Taiwan, an annual international semiconductor exhibition, would bring leaders from the world’s top technology firms to Taipei this year, the event organizer said. The CEO Summit is to feature nine global leaders from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), Applied Materials Inc, Google, Samsung Electronics Co, SK Hynix Inc, Microsoft Corp, Interuniversity Microelectronic Centre and Marvell Technology Group Ltd, SEMI said in a news release last week. The top executives would delve into how semiconductors are positioned as the driving force behind global technological innovation amid the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution, the organizer said. Among them,
When she was in fifth grade, Scarlett Goddard Strahan started to worry about getting wrinkles. By the time she turned 10, she and her friends were spending hours on ByteDance Ltd’s TikTok and Google’s YouTube watching influencers tout products for achieving today’s beauty aesthetic: a dewy, “glowy,” flawless complexion. Goddard Strahan developed an elaborate skin care routine with facial cleansers, mists, hydrating masks and moisturizers. One night, her skin began to burn intensely and erupted in blisters. Heavy use of adult-strength products had wreaked havoc on her skin. Months later, patches of tiny bumps remain on her face, and her cheeks turn
Demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips should spur growth for the semiconductor industry over the next few years, the CEO of a major supplier to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) said, dismissing concerns that investors had misjudged the pace and extent of spending on AI. While the global chip market has grown about 8 percent annually over the past 20 years, AI semiconductors should grow at a much higher rate going forward, Scientech Corp (辛耘) chief executive officer Hsu Ming-chi (許明琪) told Bloomberg Television. “This booming of the AI industry has just begun,” Hsu said. “For the most prominent
Former Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) yesterday warned against the tendency to label stakeholders as either “pro-China” or “pro-US,” calling such rigid thinking a “trap” that could impede policy discussions. Liu, an adviser to the Cabinet’s Economic Development Committee, made the comments in his keynote speech at the committee’s first advisers’ meeting. Speaking in front of Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰), National Development Council (NDC) Minister Paul Liu (劉鏡清) and other officials, Liu urged the public to be wary of falling into the “trap” of categorizing people involved in discussions into either the “pro-China” or “pro-US” camp. Liu,