Asus earns profits in November

Asus (TPE: 2357) announced on Dec. 8 that the company earned a total of US$1.6 billion in November, due to its roaring smartphone business.

Asus said that the revenue for November was a 5.1% growth, to compare with what it was for October. The total revenue for the first 11 months this year was US$14.5 billion, which was a 2.73% growth, to compare with the total revenue for the same period a year ago.

Asus said that its main income for November came from its sales of smartphones. A total of 1.3 million smartphones were sold within the month, while more than 1 million of them were sold in Asian countries. For December, Asus said that the total revenue will drop but it will all come back again in March.

During the fourth quarter, Asus said that sales of its laptops, smartphones, and tablets have been growing except the CPUs.

Demand for iPhones encourages the nation’s exports: MOF

Taiwan’s Ministry of Finance (MOF) said on Dec. 8 that the nation’s exports increased 3.7% year-on-year to US$26.68 billion last month due to strong demand for new iPhones.

“Electronics exports continued to grow by double digits last month, led by robust sales of domestic firms, especially in the semiconductor industry, said Yeh Maan-tzwu (葉滿足), director for Department of Statistics.

Yeh said that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), the major supplier for iPhone 6’s chips, has indicated plans to increase capital investment expenditure for 2015 and suggested the need to expand its capacity to meet orders.

MOF’s report said that electronics exports rose 10.2% to US$8.79 billion in November, making up 32.9% of overall exports. Shipments of optical products increased 11% to US$1.74 billion during the same period, while basic metal products gained 9.5% to US$2.36 billion.

MOF’s report also said that exports came to US$288.2 billion and rose 3.3% from the same period of first 11 months last year, and outpaced the statistics agency’s forecast last month of 3.1% growth for the year. The report said that exports to the United States grew 11.4% to US$3.02 billion last month but the exports to the Europe advanced at a more modest 3.7% at US$2.22 billion.

Exports to China, the nation’s largest trade partner, contracted 0.3% to US$10.82 billion, due to the Chinese economic slowdown, the report said.

Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou urges to sign agreements with the EU

Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said on Dec. 9 that the nation is hoping to sign more free trade agreements with the EU.

“It will help both GDP grow,” Ma said.

The president made his remarks during his conversations with a group of delegates from French National Assembly, led by Yves Jego. Ma told Jego that he is hoping for more cooperation and interactions with France, as well as other EU members.

“An additional 11 European countries have signed agreements with us so we are expecting when France is in the picture as well,” Ma said.

Hong Kong is the world’s second most expensive place for house prices: survey

The latest “Global Living Survey: Global Cities Compared” ranked Hong Kong as the second most expensive city in a global survey of average prime residential new-build prices, at US$3,290 per square foot.

London took the lead for all the cities in the world with an average of US$3,380 per square foot, while New York checked in the third place with average prices of US$3,040 per square foot.

The survey, organized by international property consultant CBRE, looked at residential prices in 10 key global cities favored by high-net-worth individuals, also including Paris, Sydney and Singapore, among others.

“Depending on market trends, Hong Kong and London regularly oscillated between first and second place in the residential rankings,” CBRE said.

Chinese banks call for lower reserve ratio

Banks in China are urging the nation’s central bank to allow them to lend out more of their deposits, the China Economic Review reported on Dec. 9.

“The radio should be reduced to an ‘appropriate’ level to help banks and support the economy,” said Lian Ping (連平), chief economist for the Bank of Communications (SHA: 601328).

Lian said that the profitability of China’s big banks has come under increasing pressure as a rare drop in bank deposits is forcing lenders to curtail lending or look for more expensive sources of financing. Also, bank executives said that a planned deposit-insurance system and further cuts in interest rates also have the potential to reduce banks’ profit margins.

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Travelling overseas may be fun, until language barriers make almost everything inconvenient. Thankfully, Information Services International Dentsu (ISID) Ltd., a Japanese IT service firm, is currently experimenting with a new type of IC card, one that would be used to help tourists with this very problem.

Basically, the new smart card will provide automated language translation functionality via standard NFC system. While the system itself is linked to various related databases and other services, the IC card itself will provide the user with personal registered information. Its information would be promptly relayed to the system whenever the smart card is required to translate something.

For example, a display terminal could automatically translate itself into the user’s native language by simply swiping the card over the screen. The card will allow the user to conveniently access terminals, read signs and understand displays and notifications. Technically, it provides convenient overall navigation for tourists, without the time delay that is usually associated with these kinds of language barriers.

Aside from automatic translation, the smart cards will also be used as a general identification card, and can be used to gain access to tourist destinations, as well as shortening checking procedures and providing a convenient form of payment for all kinds of facilities.

ISID had already initiated an experiment that will prove the system’s feasibility. A group of 20 individuals from Japan has been selected to go overseas in France to test the system and the smart card’s functions. Specifically, the trial run is currently being held at Enghien-les-Bains in Paris, France, which is the location for one of the most internationally integrated resorts in the world. The experiment period started last November 6, and is scheduled to end on November 11.

ISID hopes that with the successful implementation of its contactless smart card system, tourists in Japan will have a better, more pleasant and more relaxing experience within the country.

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Philae is the name given to the Rosetta mission lander of the European Space Agency (ESA). It’s preparing to land on a comet 405 million kilometers from Earth. The tongue-twisting name of that comet is 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko.

Five potential landing sites had been suggested. The press was notified of the final choice in a briefing today in Paris. Site “J,” judged to be the least risky landing location, is on the smaller, 4 km wide lobe, of Comet 67P. This space voyager will have a visitor on November 11 if all goes as planned. The alternative site “C” would place the lander on the larger section of the comet which looks like two irregular pitted balls connected at the hip. The sites were chosen for having maximum daylight hours and a flat landing surface.

67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko close-up. Credit ESA/ATG medialab

The 100 kg (220 pound) lander will be taking measurements while resting directly on the comet’s surface as it whizzes through space. Jean-Pierre Bibring, a lead lander scientist and principal investigator of the CIVA instrument (Comet nucleus Infrared and Visible Analyze) at the Institut d’Astrophysique Spatiale (IAS) in Orsay, France said: “We will make the first ever in situ analysis of a comet at this site, giving us an unparalleled insight into the composition, structure and evolution of a comet.” Seven micro cameras will take a 360 degree panorama of the landing site.

On August 6, after more than 10 years journeying in space, the lander arrived at the comet. Then, discussions and analysis of potential landing sites commenced. When Philae, 405 million kilometers from Earth, was able to hover within 30 km – less than 19 miles – above the comet a final decision could be made.

Dordain explains Rosetta’s mission at ESOC conference

“After ten years, five months and four days travelling towards our destination, looping around the Sun five times and clocking up 6.4 billion kilometres [over 4 billion miles] we are delighted to announce finally ‘we are here’,” says Jean-Jacques Dordain, ESA’s Director General.

Just nine months ago, the hibernating spacecraft woke up and commenced reactivating the orbiter’s 11 science instruments and 10 instruments on Philae in preparation for making scientific observations. As a bonus, on its way to rendezvous with 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, the space probe was able to come close enough to asteroids Šteins and Lutetia to get never-before-possible views of the space junk and gather science data about them as well. At its destination, Philae will attempt to send and detect radio waves through the comet’s interior to learn more about its internal structure. Scientists hope to glean information about the comet’s make up and activity.

For a year, Rosetta will hang out with the comet on its elliptical 6.5 year obit swinging around the Sun as it heads back out towards the planet Jupiter. They will pass between the orbits of Mars and Earth as they fly by at 55,000 kilometers or 34,175 miles per hour. Hang on to your hat.

Created in 1975, ESA’s mission is to “ensure that investment in space delivers benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.” The ESA is made up of twenty states, most of which are members of the EU. It works with cooperative agreements with non-member states and Canada. NASA also contributed to the Rosetta mission. Here is also an animated version of the landing, via YouTube

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In the five years since GlobalFoundries broke ground in Malta, Saratoga County, New York for their Fab 8, they have exceeded their promise of job creation in the community. Instead of its initial projection of 1,200 new jobs, the company is responsible for approximately 2,400, including construction of the Technology Development Center on its existing 223 acre campus.

The direct jobs have a trickle down effect resulting in 3,000 indirect jobs according to a study by Dr. Everett Ehrlich, business economist. GlobalFoundries also made a capital investment of $6.9 billion, plus the building of the new Technology Development Center which increases that number by $2.1 billion as reported by the Saratoga Economic Development Corporation (SEDC). In January, Abu Dhabi’s Advanced Technology Investment Company’s (ATIC) chief executive said they plan to invest up to $10 billion over the next two years in GlobalFoundries’ upstate New York semiconductor factory.

GlobalFoundries Fab 8 first job fair drew nearly 1,500 applicants in Saratoga, New York

GlobalFoundries has an interesting history. It came into being in March 2009 through a partnership between AMD and Mubadala Technology (formerly known as ATIC). In January 2010, the company picked up Chartered Semiconductor. In 2012, AMD [NYSE:AMD] divested itself of GlobalFoundries which is now wholly owned by Mubadala Technology (formerly known as ATIC). With corporate offices in California’s Silicon Valley and manufacturing facilities in Germany, Singapore and New York, GlobalFoundries now has five 200mm fabs and three 300mm fabs in production.

In Saratoga, their first chips were manufactured in 2012 using the 32nm SOI (silicon on insulator) process. The customer for the 32nm microprocessors which featured HKMG (High-K Metal Gate) and eDRAM was IBM. The SOI process was used to build the microprocessor that powered IBM Watson, the question-answering computer that won the Jeopardy quiz show.

Since then, the relationship between IBM and GlobalFoundries has waxed and waned. Big Blue was courting GlobalFoundries to buy its not-so-profitable chip-manufacturing operations. However, reports indicate that GlobalFoundries’ bid was lower than what IBM had hoped for. It is said that GlobalFoundries wanted IBM’s intellectual property, not its physical property which is no longer state of the art.

GlobalFoundries has not relied solely on IBM business. For example, a fabless semiconductor company is using the 55nm eFlash NVM Platform from GlobalFoundries which is a member of the Automotive Electronics Council (AEC). Scaleo chip headquartered in Sophia-Antipolis, France specializes in automotive electronics for powertrain and in-vehicle information. The company has developed a new family of microcontrollers embedding unique technologies related to real-time process and control of highly electrified internal combustion engines and electric motors using the GlobalFoundries’ Platform. The microcontrollers are based on programmable logic and a set of ISO 26262 compliant functional safety features to improve powertrain system safety integrity and accuracy.

GlobalFoundries technicians work in a cleanroom

The Scaleo order is only one of many opportunities for prospective GlobalFoundries employees to work on. If you want to be one of the many international applicants interested in working at the Malta campus on the grounds of a former missile testing range, GlobalFoundries is hiring. A few of the open positions are: hardware test engineer, manager of information technology, senior financial analyst, and equipment technician.

Despite its success, GlobalFoundries has its problems ranging from anecdotal to tragic. This week, three individuals were charged with grand larceny for stealing scrap metal from the plant. On a more serious note, a man employed by a construction company working on the new Technology Development Center was fatally injured as they were moving an industrial air exchanger into a fourth floor opening. Construction was suspended during an investigation of the accident.

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Google’s Cloud Platform has been predicting the winners of the World Cup since the round of 16 and so far has been 11/12 after getting 8/8 correct in the round of 8. Google’s Cloud Platform combines Cloud Dataflow, BigQuery and Compute Engine in order to arrive at their final results.

According to their predictions, which have been almost perfect with the exception of the France v Germany game (I predicted Germany) with Germany beating France, defeating Google’s perfect record. In fact, Google gave France a 69% chance of winning that game, but the result was 1-0 with Germany defeating France.

So, then, why did Google get things wrong? Well, they claim that they got things wrong for a lack of data, not getting enough data points that could help them more accurately adjust the percentages of each team’s probability. Google’s predictions are based upon an inductive model that is derived from game-play data rather than a model based off of changes in betting behavior or certain pre-existing models. The FiveThirtyEight Blog has had a running World Cup Prediction table that uses a different model that is based upon ESPN’s SPI (soccer player index) and has some flaws including not accounting for player injuries and suspensions. They have, however, posted a blog that addresses these losses to the Brazilian team in the Semi Final and Final.

Google says they got the France v Germany wrong because in the first four games of the World Cup, France simply took more shots and had more shots on target than Germany. Additionally, their shots were from a location closer to the goal than Germany’s indicating a stronger likelihood that they would have such things happen against Germany as well.

Google also said that in their first four games, Germany allowed their opponents to take more dangerous shots. This made the possibility that France would be able to score against Germany a much higher probability. Germany also allowed their opponents to pass better in their third of the field, which is a major factor in many games’ final scores. And the statistics in the game continued in Google’s favor in the Germany v France game with the exception of the final score itself. France had 13 shots and 9 on target while Germany only had 8 and 6 on target, indicating that France had plenty more chances and merely squandered them (or was merely unlucky).

Even so, its interesting to see how even though we have all this data and all these great models, nothing can make up for good old human error (in this case, France’s inability to put the ball in the back of the net). Google also has some interesting predictions for the next round, The Semi Finals. They predict that Germany has a 59% chance of beating Brazil, and that does not take into account the loss of Neymar to a broken back. They’ve also lost Thiago Silva to a suspension due to collecting his second yellow in his last game, which Brazil is obviously appealing.

In terms of Netherlands vs Argentina, Google has Argentina winning with 61% odds in their favor, but I believe that does not take into account the loss of Angel Di Maria. But as Nate Silver stated in the FiveThirtyEight blog above, very few players outside of Lionel Messi and Ronaldo have anywhere near a significant enough impact on a team’s ultimate performance.

Overall, it will be interesting to see how accurate Google’s predictions will ultimately be and whether or not they can improve upon their record using their own cloud platform to do the work. Obviously, this is a promotional post by Google to promote how they can do so much vast data crunching with their platform and how it provides clear and accurate results (even though their model is mostly responsible for that).

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As we fight for our Net Neutrality rights in the US, Europeans, who have their Net Neutrality rights already set in stone are about to get Netflix. Netflix has been the core of many of the Net Neutrality debates in the United States because of how successfully it has challenged the cable operators (who are also ISPs) traditional businesses. Netflix has announced they they plan to expand their service into more European countries than they are already serving, adding the two biggest countries in Europe.

Countries where Netflix is currently available – Credit: thebestofnetflix.com

So, in addition to the US, Canada, and basically ALL of the Americas, Netflix is also available in the U.K., Ireland, The Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland. Netflix plans to add Germany, France, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium and Luxembourg. Effectively, Netflix is doubling the coutries that they’re serving in Europe, but in reality they’re more than doubling their potential audience with the addition of Germany and France, the two biggest countries in Europe.

While this news may be welcome by many, the sad truth is that the Netflix experience in the US is not going to be comparable to the one that Europeans are experiencing. Because of the way that content licensing works in Europe and who holds the copyrights it makes it incredibly difficult for Netflix to have the same size library in Europe as they do in the US. However, adding Germany and France into the mix should also increase the availability of content to Netflix users in Europe because of the sheer size of Germany’s and France’s media markets.

Realistically, though, we won’t really know what to expect from Netflix in these countries until the service launches, primarily because they will probably be making deals with content providers up until the last day. And if Netflix’s past experiences in the US are any similar to what they were in Europe, it will be a slow and steady improvement over time. But the good thing is that for shows like House of Cards, Europeans will not have to worry about whether or not they will get the content because Netflix owns the rights to it.

The post Netflix Expands Further into Europe appeared first on VR World.

As we fight for our Net Neutrality rights in the US, Europeans, who have their Net Neutrality rights already set in stone are about to get Netflix. Netflix has been the core of many of the Net Neutrality debates in the United States because of how successfully it has challenged the cable operators (who are also ISPs) traditional businesses. Netflix has announced they they plan to expand their service into more European countries than they are already serving, adding the two biggest countries in Europe.

Countries where Netflix is currently available – Credit: thebestofnetflix.com

So, in addition to the US, Canada, and basically ALL of the Americas, Netflix is also available in the U.K., Ireland, The Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland. Netflix plans to add Germany, France, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium and Luxembourg. Effectively, Netflix is doubling the coutries that they’re serving in Europe, but in reality they’re more than doubling their potential audience with the addition of Germany and France, the two biggest countries in Europe.

While this news may be welcome by many, the sad truth is that the Netflix experience in the US is not going to be comparable to the one that Europeans are experiencing. Because of the way that content licensing works in Europe and who holds the copyrights it makes it incredibly difficult for Netflix to have the same size library in Europe as they do in the US. However, adding Germany and France into the mix should also increase the availability of content to Netflix users in Europe because of the sheer size of Germany’s and France’s media markets.

Realistically, though, we won’t really know what to expect from Netflix in these countries until the service launches, primarily because they will probably be making deals with content providers up until the last day. And if Netflix’s past experiences in the US are any similar to what they were in Europe, it will be a slow and steady improvement over time. But the good thing is that for shows like House of Cards, Europeans will not have to worry about whether or not they will get the content because Netflix owns the rights to it.

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