News in brief related to Information Technology.
Mideast's biggest IT fair next week in Dubai
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - The Middle East's largest information technology fair is to be held on September 25 to 29 in Dubai, with a growing number of participants reflecting the booming IT industry in the region, organizers said on September 22. GITEX 2005, the 25th edition of the show, will feature 2,724 exhibiting companies from 61 countries at the Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Center, they said in a statement. "GITEX has grown substantially to attract impressive 116,346 visitors in 2004 ... and this year, visitor numbers are expected to cross 120,000," the statement said.
Bloggers' handbook released to help dissidents
PARIS - A bloggers' handbook aimed at helping dissidents in repressive countries avoid detection when they publish on the Internet was released on September 22 in Paris with the support of the French government. The press rights group Reporters without Borders (RSF) said that the 86-page book - which is also available at its Website - offers "handy tips and technical advice on how to remain anonymous and to get round censorship, by choosing the most suitable method for each situation ... Bloggers are often the only real journalists in countries where the mainstream media is censored or under pressure," RSF said.
Sony to cut 10,000 jobs under restructuring plan
TOKYO - Sony announced plans on September 22 to cut 10,000 jobs across its global operations and axe 11 factories as part of a restructuring plan aimed at reversing a slump at the Japanese electronics icon. The company will reduce its cost base by 200 billion yen ($1.8 billion) and sell or close 11 of its 65 manufacturing plants, Sony's new British-born chief executive Howard Stringer said as he presented a keenly awaited three-year business recovery plan. Sony said that it would focus on three core sectors - electronics, videogames and entertainment.
SKorea's Samsung SDI to shut down German TV tube plant at yearend
SEOUL - South Korea's Samsung SDI said on September 22 that it would shut down a conventional TV or cathode ray tube (CRT) production plant in Germany at the end of this year, citing shrinking demand and growing losses in Europe. The display-panel maker said that 750 jobs would be lost in the closure of the Berlin plant, SDIG. "Since the CRT TV market in Europe is shrinking drastically every year, heavy losses are anticipated if we keep operating the German plant," said SDIG president Kim Dong-Sik. "The closure was inevitable." SDIG, which was established in 1993, employs about 1,000 workers.
STMicroelectronics to invest another $500mn in Singapore
SINGAPORE - European chipmaker STMicroelectronics plans to invest $500 million to bolster its Singapore operations, the firm's president and chief executive Carlo Bozotti said in remarks published on September 22. "We are investing as needed," Bozotti told the Business Times newspaper. He said that the company was beefing up its Singapore presence by relocating its chip-testing operations here from the United States and Europe. "The bulk of our activity is content and it is very important for us to establish and exploit the very competitive engineering base we have here," he said.
US arrests 17 in crackdown on 'rogue' Internet pharmacies
WASHINGTON - US drug agents arrested 17 people in a crackdown on what was described as a multimillion-dollar network of "rogue" Internet pharmacies selling a variety of controlled drugs. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) administrator Karen Tandy said that Operation CYBERx targeted more than 22 Internet pharmacies and arrested the alleged ringleaders in Texas and Florida. "The alleged drug dealers who operated these rogue Internet pharmacies took orders for controlled substances over the Internet, which were then shipped to the doors of US citizens without a valid prescription," the DEA said in a statement.
IBM inks deal to set up R & D center in southern Poland
WARSAW - US computer giant IBM has signed a deal to open a research and development (R & D) center in the southern Polish city of Krakow, officials said on September 21. "This is first and foremost an investment in human potential and in new technology," economy minister Jacek Piechota was quoted by Poland's PAP news agency as saying. The center will be a first for IBM in eastern and central Europe and will be up and running in two years, providing jobs for 200 people, according to the computer giant's bosses in Poland.
EU to consider aid if Hewlett Packard cuts jobs
BRUSSELS - The European Commission will consider ways of helping displaced workers if US computer giant Hewlett Packard goes ahead with big job cuts in Europe but has no authority to block the plan, its head Jose Manuel Barroso said on September 21. "We will analyze the situation with the French authorities and see whether within our existing funds we can find aid if it [the restructuring] does take place," the head of the European Union's executive arm told a news conference. However, it was "not within the power of the commission to prevent companies from dismissing members of its workforce", he said.
Nokia sells its 1 billionth mobile phone
HELSINKI - Nokia, the world's leading mobile phone maker, said on September 21 that it had sold its 1 billionth portable phone since it began producing the devices at the beginning of the 1980s. "Earlier this summer Nokia sold our 1 billionth mobile phone, a Nokia 1100 sold in Nigeria," Kai Oeistaemoe, senior vice-president of Nokia's Mobile Phones division, said in a statement. "It will be new growth markets like Nigeria that will fuel the growth toward 3 billion subscribers by 2010," up from the world's current 2 billion subscribers, he added.
Mobile numbers net up to $90,000 at Qatar auction
DOHA - Mobile phone numbers went under the hammer for up to $90,000 in a charity auction organized by Qatar Telecom (Qtel) in this wealthy Gulf Arab state, company officials said on September 21. Some 100 phone lines were up for grabs at a two-day auction held in a Doha hotel that raised a total of 5 million Qatari riyals ($1.5 million). The number 5111511 fetched 320,000 riyals. Qtel, in which the Qatari government holds a 55-percent stake, monopolizes the telecom industry in Qatar. Walid Al Sayyed, Qtel's executive director of communications, said that proceeds from the auction went to charity.
Australian police Internet child porn squad makes first arrest
SYDNEY - An Australian police squad targeting Internet child porn made its first arrest on September 21 after being tipped off by Belgian authorities, justice minister Chris Ellison said. Ellison said that the Australian Federal Police's Online Child Sex Exploitation Team (OCSET) used new powers allowing officers to track offenders online in the arrest of a 33-year-old computer technician from Adelaide. "This arrest sends a clear message that the Internet is not an anonymous place," he said. "Those who would download and distribute child pornography are being hunted by law enforcement authorities."
French police make raids for Internet pedophilia
PARIS - Police carried out a series of raids in several regions of France on September 21 as part of a coordinated investigation into Internet pedophilia being carried out by the European police agency Europol, a police source said. The source said that raids were carried out in eight countries as part of Operation Icebreaker, following similar police action across Europe on June 14 and 15. About 20 places, including companies, corresponding to Internet addresses were targeted, and police in Paris, Versailles, Rennes, Orleans, Bordeaux and Strasbourg were involved, the source said.
Infineon to sell off memory chips division in autumn
FRANKFURT, Germany - Infineon, Europe's leading semi-conductors maker, is to sell off its loss-making memory chips division before the end of the year, the business daily Handelsblatt reported on September 21. A supervisory board meeting on November 17 would give the go-ahead to a spin off of the division, the newspaper said, quoting sources close to the company. Infineon's new chairman Wolfgang Ziebart has been planning the move since he took over as head of the company a year ago, Handelsblatt said. Ziebart believes that the poor-performing memory chips business is weighing on the share price of Infineon as a whole.
Konica Minolta targets Chinese market for mobile phone camera lenses
TOKYO - Japanese camera maker Konica Minolta hopes to cash in on China's growing market for camera phones with a new sales company in Shanghai to market lenses for mobile phones. Konica Minolta's optics unit has invested about $500,000 in the marketing business, which aims for sales of 10 billion yen ($90 million) in the year to March 2007, the company said in a statement on September 21. "The formation of the new company was completed this summer and it will start operating fully later in the year," said company spokesman Katsuyuki Sakai.
Canon to boost investment in organic flat-panel displays
TOKYO - Canon said on September 21 that it would boost research and development spending by about two-thirds to advance new organic flat-panel display screens and rear-projection televisions. "It is part of our strategy to consider large-size displays as one pillar of our business," a spokesman said. Electro-luminescent displays, which sandwich a very thin layer of organic material between two plates, use less power and offer brighter images and wider viewing angles than liquid crystal display (LCD) panels, making them suitable for devices such as digital cameras and mobile phones.
Global mobile phone subscribers hit 2bn
HELSINKI - There are now over 2 billion mobile subscribers around the world, an industry group reported on September 18. The GSM Association's Wireless Intelligence service said in a news release that, "the bulk of new growth now is coming from large, less well-developed markets such as China, India, Eastern Europe, Latin America, and Africa ... The total number of mobile connections is now equivalent to nearly a third of the estimated world population of 6.5 billion," the Finnish group added.
World broadband customers top 176mn
LOS ANGELES, CA, USA - Another 24 million new customers were added to the ranks of broadband subscribers around the world during the first six months of 2005. More than 176 million homes and businesses were hooked up to high speed as of June 30, with DSL accounting for about two-thirds of the connections, the DSL Forum reported on September 20. "Broadband is on track to achieve at least 200 million global subscribers by the end of 2005, with more than 10 countries achieving 20-percent market penetration," said Tim Johnson of Point Topic, which authored the report on behalf of the DSL forum.
Opera browser goes free to fight Firefox
OSLO - Norwegian group Opera Software said on September 20 that it would offer its Web browser Opera free and without advertising banners, in a bid to outdo rival Firefox and become the world's second most used browser. "We want to become the second-biggest browser. The number one is a little inaccessible," Opera Software chief executive Jon von Tetzchner said in a reference to Microsoft's Internet Explorer. A lighter version of Opera has until now been available for free download on the Internet, but with ad banners.
Sony looks to new TVs to top Taiwan market
TAIPEI - Sony Corp. of Japan said on September 20 that it is aiming to become Taiwan's top seller of liquid crystal display (LCD) televisions with the launch of its new BRAVIA models unveiled in Japan last week. "We are confident that we can win the status of top vendor now that we are introducing to the local market our 'BRAVIA' family of LCD TVs," said Hiroyuki Oda, who heads Sony Taiwan's consumer electronics division. Three BRAVIA - 'best resolution audio visual integrated architecture' - LCD TV models meant for the Taiwan market will be fitted with screens of 32 and 40 inches (80 and 100 centimeters).
EU says it has received fresh complaints about Microsoft
BRUSSELS - The EU has received "informal complaints" about US software giant Microsoft, which has long been in the hot seat with EU regulators, EU competition commissioner Neelie Kroes said in an interview published on September 20. "We have had informal complaints and we are using our time now to look at them," Kroes told The New York Times, which did not say who had made the complaints. The US newspaper said that Kroes had said that the informal complaints received by the commission, which polices competition issues in the EU, focused on the bundling of existing applications and future ones.
BMI, TAP to trial in-flight mobile phone, laptop e-mail services
GENEVA - British company BMI Airlines and Portuguese carrier TAP are set to give in-flight mobile phone and laptop e-mail services a trial run, the Swiss-based information technology firm OnAir said on September 20. OnAir, a joint venture of Geneva-based SITA Information Networking Computing and European giant Airbus, said that the trials would be the first-ever on commercial flights, after a series of in-house dummy runs. The services are scheduled to be offered from late 2006. OnAir said that by then it expected the technology, which is being developed with help from Siemens, to have a green light from regulators.
South Korean anti-trust watchdog fines Samsung Electronics
SEOUL - South Korean electronics giant Samsung has been fined for obstructing an investigation into unfair practices, anti-trust regulators said on September 20. The Fair Trade Commission (FTC) said that Samsung Electronics, the world's largest maker of computer memory chips, was fined 60 million won ($57,670). "Samsung Electronics has obstructed our investigation into unfair contracting practices with its subsidiary, Semes, by destroying or fabricating documents," an FTC official said. Semes, a chip equipment manufacturer, is 68 percent owned by Samsung Electronics, the flagship of South Korea's largest Samsung conglomerate.
Six charged with child sex offenses against 'Katrina evacuees'
BATON ROUGE, LA, USA - Louisiana authorities said on September 19 that they had charged five men and a woman with offenses related to using the Internet to solicit minors who they believed to be Hurricane Katrina evacuees. State Attorney General Charles Foti said that the six were arrested after a sting operation in which they allegedly chatted online with investigators posing as 13- to 15-year-old girls living in emergency shelters without their parents. The charges ranged from contributing to the delinquency of juveniles to computer aided sexual solicitation of a minor, Foti told journalists in state capital Baton Rouge.
Ascom/Fela, Damovo consortium make cheapest bid in Czech toll tender
PRAGUE - A consortium comprising Ascom/Fela and Damovo ABD group has made the lowest bid for a contract to supply and run an electronic toll system on Czech motorways, deputy transport minister Jiri Kubinek said on September 19. Swiss consortium Ascom/Fela and Luxemburg-based Damovo ABD are willing to build and run the system for 15 billion koruna (€514 million, $623 million), he said. Three other bids were received in the tender. Italy's Autostrade offered its system for 17.5 billion koruna, Austrian Kapsch PVT asked for 22 billion koruna and a grouping of A-WAY and AZD Praha wanted 33.7 billion koruna.
Baidu to appeal Chinese court ruling of copyright infringement
BEIJING - China's biggest Internet search engine Baidu said on September 20 that it would appeal a recent court ruling ordering it to pay fines for violating copyrights by providing MP3 search technology. "We believe that the district court order was based on a misunderstanding of the search engine technology and therefore is without merit," Decheng Li, a lawyer with Zhonglun WD Law Firm, which represents Baidu, said in a statement. "We will vigorously appeal on behalf of our client." Nasdaq-listed Baidu last week confirmed that it was being sued by a number of music giants including Universal, EMI and Sony BMG.
Mother and son arrested in Corsica over Internet scam
AJACCIO, France - Authorities in Corsica have arrested a young man and his mother over a scam that netted more than €1 million from 700 Internet users in Europe and North America, police said on September 19. The state prosecutor's office on the island, which lies off the south coast of France, said that the pair enticed "clients" from France, Germany, Belgium, Spain, Switzerland, the US and Canada to make large investments - sometimes running to tens of thousands of dollars - by offering very favorable returns. Victims of the €1.2 million ($1.46 million) fraud also paid a membership fee of €580.
Vodafone reports strong demand for 3G services
LONDON - British telecommunications giant Vodafone said on September 19 that sales in its third-generation (3G) devices increased sharply in recent months, adding that it was on track to meet its expectations for the full year. In a statement before a meeting with analysts and investors, Vodafone said that it had sold 4.35 million 3G devices by August 31 - an increase of about 1 million customers since July. Vodafone, which launched its 3G services last November, said that a Christmas range of 3G handsets would further boost sales in the technology.
Samsung Electronics unveils world's first 10-chip package
SEOUL - South Korean electronics giant Samsung Electronics said on September 19 that it has developed the world's first 10-chip MCP (multi-chip package), which would boost space efficiency in mobile phones and other portable devices. The new multifunctional chip package can mix different memory chips depending on its application, Samsung said. The MCP has become a core part of mobile phones, delivering high capacity and small size. US market researcher iSuppli Corp predicts that the global MCP market will rise from $4.9 billion this year to $7.6 billion in 2008.
Time to pay for 'New York Times' columnists
NEW YORK, NY, USA - The wit and wisdom of The New York Times Op-Ed columnists will start costing online readers on September 19. By charging for access to columns on its Internet Website, The New York Times will be veering from a longstanding practice among most newspapers of making all articles available free online. The works of columnists such as Thomas Friedman and Maureen Dowd will be available online to newspaper subscribers and to those who pay an annual fee of $49.95 for a service called "TimesSelect", according to The Times.
Libyan Website to protect human rights
TRIPOLI - A humanitarian group led by Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi's son, Seif Al Islam, launched a Website on September 15 to report human rights violations in the country. The site gives all Libyans an opportunity to report past and present violations, the Qadhafi International Association of Humanitarian Organizations said. The Website carries telephone numbers, regular mail and e-mail addresses through which people can report violations. "No more silence ... No more abuse against women ... No more torture ... And no more arrest without judicial permission," said the site.
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