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DUBAI: The Ford Mustang will soon become the newest member of a very exclusive club - vehicles in continuous production for 50 years. To help mark this milestone, 50 companies will sell products including watches, T-shirts, model cars and more that celebrate the Mustang’s first 50 years. “During its first 49 years of production, Mustang has come to evoke a variety of emotions in our customers - freedom, independence and being true to one’s self - just to name a few,” said John Nens, Ford’s team lead for Global Brand Licensing. “We’re marking this Mustang milestone with a distinctive collection of licensed products from select manufacturers that will carry the unique Mustang 50 Years logo.” All of the new merchandise will be easily identified with a custom logo that celebrates 50 years of Mustang. The logo was crafted by Ford designer Michael Thomson. It features the Mustang’s trademark gal- loping pony in silhouette over the characters “50 YEARS.” This new icon has a clean and sophisticated appearance in either white on black or black on white. Only 50 companies will be licensed to create products bearing this special logo including highquality die cast models, videogames, watches and apparel. “We’re working closely with our licensees to ensure every item reflects the unique qualities of Mustang,” said Nens. “Like the car itself, we want our licensed products to convey an attitude of strength, passion and the highest quality.” Over upcoming weeks and months, other Ford licensees will reveal a variety of Mustang products featuring the Mustang 50 Years logo to mark this special moment in automotive history and kick off the next 50 years of Mustang. From the Tuskegee Airmen to 50 Years of Mustang Celebrating its centennial this year, Union, NJ- BUSINESS Ford marks countdown to 50 years of Mustang Gulf Bank names ‘Best Retail Bank in Kuwait’ Award by Asian Banker for 3rd year running KUWAIT: Gulf Bank has been named the ‘Best Retail Bank in Kuwait’ for the third consecutive year by The Asian Banker, one of Asia’s leading consultancies in financial services research, benchmarking and intelligence. The awards ceremony was held on 21 March in Seoul - South Korea during The Asian Banker’s annual international awards dinner. In selecting Gulf Bank for the 2013 award, The Asian Banker and an international panel of judges carefully assessed the Bank’s overall performance and services it provides its customers against a stringent set of criteria and compared these results against those of its local banking competitors. Accepting the award on behalf of Gulf Bank was Khaled Al-Mutawa, General Manager, International Banking and Investments at Gulf Bank, who said: “The Asian Banker is a renowned and much respected title, and we are very honored to have been selected by it to receive this award once again. For Gulf Bank, this is a great achievement, as it underlines our long term commitment and success in delivering to our customers the range and standards of product and services they are looking for. This award helps to endorse the Bank’s position as a leader in the Kuwaiti market and reinforces its reputation as a provider of high quality and innovative financial services. We will continue to maintain our commitment towards our customers with energy and enthusiasm, and on behalf of everyone at Gulf Bank, I would like to thank The Asian Banker and its panel of distinguished international judges for this prestigious endorsement of our efforts.” ABK offers free safe deposit boxes for World MasterCard, Prestige card holders KUWAIT: Al-Ahli Bank of Kuwait’s World MasterCard and Prestige cardholders can now avail a free safe deposit box available at numerous ABK branches. In the words of Stewart Lockie, GM, Retail Banking at ABK, “At ABK we strive to provide premium services to our customers, some related to banking and others related to lifestyle, in order to cater to a diverse segment. Our initiative like a free safe deposit box for a year comes as an added value to the wide range of services and benefits already in the reach of World KUWAIT: Bentley Motors announces its financial results for the year ending 31 December 2012, reporting a significantly increased operating profit of euros 100.5 million compared to euros 8 million in 2011. Bentley boosted its total turnover by 29.9 percent to euros 1.453 billion and its profit margin increased to 7 percent. Demonstrating the global reach of Bentley’s business, exports accounted for 87.3 percent of Bentley’s total turnover, equating to a total export value of Euros 1.269 billion. The company’s market share in the luxury segment rose by 4.9 percentage points to 20.1 percent. Bentley also made a strong start to the New Year. Deliveries to customers grew by 39.5 per- MasterCard and Prestige cardholders.” Lockie added “Free safe deposit boxes allow customers to keep their valuables in a secure place, especially while travelling. Since boxes are offered in various branches around Kuwait, it gives customers the much required flexibility. Branches with safe deposit boxes are Ahmadi, Fahaheel, Farwaniya, Hadiyah, Jahra ,Jabriya, Jleeb, Salmiya, Sharq, Shuwaikh, Al-Qurain, Zahra, Al-Andalus and Sabah Hospital and of course the main branch at head-office.” DUBAI: Sultan bin Saeed Al-Mansouri, Minister of Economy stressed that the UAE has become a strategic hub for foreign investments and leading international establishments, thanks to its solid economic fundamentals and wise economic policies that are based on openness, diversity and flexibility. Nowadays, the UAE enjoys a leading status as pivotal destination for investments. Al-Mansouri said the “Investment Map Project” is the latest initiative launched by the Ministry aimed at attracting foreign investment capital and promoting UAE among investors. Furthermore, it enlightens potential businessmen from around the globe about investment opportunities and better understand the realities here. He said the ministry of economy is keen to develop the economic legislative system in the country as it continues to work on putting the final touches on a number of draft laws to enhance UAE business performance, most notably the foreign investment law, corporate, industry and small and medium enterprises, competition and intellectual property rights protection. All these draft laws are in their final stages. The new investment law will give extra protection for foreign investors, and includes incentives to encourage foreign investment, and aims to enhance the investment climate in the UAE and to ensure economic diversification in line with UAE Vision 2021. Sultan bin Saeed Al-Mansouri said that the AIM which is held under the patronage of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, UAE Vice President has gained an ever increasing regional and international attention since its inception two years ago, especially in light of political, economic, financial and climate crises which still threaten the future of the world. The meeting has become a comprehensive platform in bringing the attention of government, decision makers, private sector and other related entities including the civil society as it offers exclusive discussions to exchange views between participants from around the world. This event is also important as it allows the concluding of trade deals and ratification of the agreements between the countries of the world. Al Mansouri hailed the efforts of Ministry of Foreign Trade headed by Sheikha Lubna bint Khalid Al-Qasimi, the Minister of International Cooperation and Development and her role in making this meeting a success in its past editions. The Ministry of Foreign Trade was the host of this event, however Ministry of Economy will now host this event as MOFT tasks were shifted to MoE as per the new cabinet formation announced by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum. The Ministry of Economy will build on efforts to make this event a destination for Bentley boosts profits and turnover Operating profit rose to 100.5m euros in 2012 cent in the first two months of 2013. “With the new Flying Spur due to arrive with customers in the middle of the year, we expect to see a double digit growth rate for the rest of 2013,” Dr Wolfgang Schreiber, Bentley’s Chairman and CEO, said. The global growth and expansion of the Bentley brand was driven by 16 new global dealers in 2012, taking the total number to 173 dealerships in 50 countries. This year, 40 more new Bentley showrooms will open around the world. Commenting on the results, Dr Schreiber said: “Our performance in 2012 and in the beginning of 2013 underlines Bentley’s position as the leading manufacturer of luxury vehicles and a based Schott NYC was one of the first manufacturers to sign on for the 50 Years licensing program. Irving and Jack Schott established their company the same year Ford began producing the Model T on the first moving assembly line. Great-grandson and COO Jason Schott runs the family business today, along with his mother Roz Schott, president, and his uncle, Steven L. Colin, CEO, producing premium jackets, shirts and accessories. During World War II, Schott NYC dedicated its entire capacity to making sheepskin bomber jackets, leather flight jackets and peacoats for American soldiers, sailors and pilots fighting overseas. Among those who went into battle in Schott jackets were the pilots of the 332nd Fighter Group, better known as the Tuskegee Airmen. “I can’t think of a better partner with whom to celebrate our 100th anniversary,” said Jason Schott. “We are honored to collaborate with an iconic fami- investors from around the world. Minister of Economy also stressed on the importance of the third edition of this meeting which be held on April 30. He said that the AIM draws a true picture of the global economic landscape in light of the crises and challenges. It also monitors the repercussions of these crises on foreign direct investment, referring to the accelerated change in the international econo- ly business that shares our commitment to domestic production.” While the Ford Mustang is classically identified with the wild horse of the American West, it was actually named for the famed North American P-51 fighter plane, the preferred mount of the Tuskegee Airmen in the final year of the war. Over the next half-century, the Schott Perfecto leather jacket figured prominently in iconic images of Marlon Brando, James Dean, Peter Fonda, the Ramones and Bruce Springsteen. Today Jay-Z, Lady Gaga and Adam Levine can all be spotted in Schott jackets. Later this year, Schott NYC will reveal a limited-edition leather jacket celebrating 50 years of Mustang. “The Mustang attitude of freedom and mobility is universal and enduring, and fans around the world will be honoring that heritage with numerous celebrations as we move forward,” said Steve Ling, Ford Car Marketing manager. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 3, 2013 UAE strategic hub for foreign investments Mansouri outlines ‘investment map project’ truly global brand. Through sound investment and product planning, we now have our strongest model line-up ever and are increasing our market share.” The results follow another successful year in 2012 in which the company achieved global growth of 22 percent with 8,510 cars delivered to customers, with the top three regions comprising the US (2,457), China (2,253) and the UK (1,031)1. These sales were driven by the introduction of a host of new models such as the Continental GT and GTC V8. The Continental family accounted for 62 percent of total sales, the Flying Spur contributed 25 percent and the Mulsanne 13 percent. UAE Minister of Economy Sultan bin Saeed Al-Mansouri KHOBAR: Sadara Chemical Co, a joint venture between Saudi Aramco and Dow Chemical , raised 7.5 billion riyals ($2 billion) from the sale of an Islamic bond to fund a large petrochemical complex in the east of the kingdom. The Islamic bond, or sukuk, which has a lifespan of 16 years, was priced at 95 basis points over the sixmonth Saudi interbank offered rate (Saibor), a statement from Sadara said yesterday. The sale is part of a $12.5 billion debt to fund the construction of the project, which will produce more than 3 million tonnes of petrochemicals each year when completed in 2016. The $19.3 billion facility, located at Jubail Industrial City in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province, will be the world’s largest chemical complex ever built in a single phase. Strong demand from investors in Saudi Arabia meant the sukuk’s size my in light of the multiplicity of attractive investment destinations. The new realities require concerted efforts and professional implementation of creativity and innovation in planning for future projects. He described the UAE as a motivating environment for investors, as it allows full ownership in free zones, and has state of the art infrastructure, availability of efficient and highly qualified manpower, the protection of intellectual property rights and laws against piracy, strategic geographical location which is a gateway to the MENA and South Asia for international companies that look for premium investments. Al-Mansouri emphasized on promising investment opportunities in the aviation, tourism and hospitality, retail, health care, industry, oil and gas, renewable energy, financial services, logistics and education. The minister underlined that UAE economy has countless features and characteristics including premium investment environment supported by security, political stability and modern infrastructure. This is in addition to the strategic location as international trade hub providing access to all regional and international markets as well as advanced laws that protect capital, investment and flexible economic legislations and low custom tariffs with rates ranging from zero to 5 % and the absence of income tax. He stressed on the importance of the foreign direct investment to the United Arab Emirates and its impact on sustainable development, and role in strengthening the national economy, and success of UAE’s strategy to build a sustainable economy based on knowledge and innovation, and in line with UAE Vision 2021. Aramco, Dow JV raises $2 billion from sukuk was increased from the original target of 5.25 billion riyals, which was covered 2.6-times, the statement said. Given the huge amount of liquidity local investors have to deploy and the limited number of sukuk instruments to invest in, a sukuk offering from an Aramco-linked entity was always going to attract high demand. Sadara’s prospectus, released at the launch of the transaction last month, said the firm could increase the amount raised to as much as $2.5 billion-equivalent. Deutsche Bank, Riyad Bank, Alinma Bank and Bank Al Bilad arranged the sukuk. The sukuk is the second project finance sukuk sold in Saudi Arabia. The first was the 3.75 billion riyal ($1 billion) issue in October 2011 from Saudi Aramco Total Refining and Petrochemical Co (SATORP), a joint venture between Aramco and France’s Total. — Reuters
ALBUQUERQUE: It’s the end of the line for Roadrunner, a first-of-its-kind collection of processors that once reigned as the world’s fastest supercomputer. The $121 million supercomputer, housed at one of the nation’s premier nuclear weapons research laboratories in northern New Mexico, will be decommissioned Sunday. The reason? The world of supercomputing is evolving and Roadrunner has been replaced with something smaller, faster, more energy efficient and cheaper. Still, officials at Los Alamos National Laboratory say it’s among the 25 fastest supercomputers in the world. “Roadrunner got everyone thinking in new ways about how to build and use a supercomputer,” said Gary Grider, who works in the lab’s high performance computing division. “Specialized processors are being included in new ways on new systems and being used in novel ways. Our demonstration with Roadrunner caused everyone to pay attention.” In 2008, Roadrunner was first to break the elusive petaflop barrier by processing just over a quadrillion mathematical calculations per second. Los Alamos teamed up with IBM to build Roadrunner from commercially available parts. They ended up with 278 refrigerator-size racks filled with two dif- technology End of the line for Roadrunner supercomputer Crisis hotlines turning to text to reach teens NEW YORK: They stream in from teens around the United States, cries for help often sent in by text message. “I feel like committing suicide,” one text read. “What’s the suicide hotline number?” Another asked: “How do you tell a friend they need to go to rehab?” DoSomething.org, an organization that encourages activism among young adults, gets plenty of text messages asking for help, but it isn’t a hotline. So the nonprofit’s CEO, Nancy Lublin, is leading an effort to establish an around-the-clock text number across trigger issues for teens in the hope that it will become their emergency line, perhaps reaching those who wouldn’t otherwise seek help using more established methods of telephone talking or computer-based chat. “Most of the texts we get like this are about things like being bullied,” Lublin said. “A lot of things are about relationships, so we’ll get texts from kids about breakups, or ‘I like a boy, what should I do?’ But the worst one we ever got said, ‘He won’t stop raping me. It’s my dad. He told me not to tell anyone. Are you there?’” Lublin hopes the Crisis Text Line, due to launch in August, will serve as a New York-based network, shuttling texts for help to partner organizations around the country, such as The Trevor Project for gay, lesbian, bisexual and questioning youth or other groups already providing hotlines on dating and sexual abuse to bullying, depression and eating disorders. As more teens have gone mobile, using their phones as an extension of themselves, hotline providers have tried to keep up. Fewer seem to operate today than in decades past. A smattering reach out through mobile text, including Teen Line in Los Angeles, though that service and others offer limited schedules or specialize in narrow areas of concern when multiple problems might be driving a teen to the brink. Some text providers operate in specific places or rely on trained teen volunteers to handle the load across modes of communication. Several agreed that text messaging enhances call-in and chat options for a generation of young people who prefer to communicate by typing on their phones, especially when they don’t want parents, teachers, friends or boyfriends to listen in. Katie Locke, 26, in Philadelphia was one of those teens in 2006, when she found herself in a suicidal panic after a fight with an old friend. At 18, she said she grabbed her phone, left her college dorm room and headed out in the cold to sit on a bench to talk with a worker on a crisis phone line she knew from one of her favorite blogs. The number was the only one she had handy and it didn’t offer text, which she would have preferred. “People don’t always have the (mobile phone) minutes or aren’t in a position where they can speak aloud if they’re in danger from somebody around them,” Locke said. “I know for me there were other times when I probably should have called a crisis hotline and didn’t because of the anxiety about calling. That was such an enormous barrier, to have to dial a phone number.” Brian Pinero, director of the National Dating Abuse Helpline run by a nonprofit called Love is Respect, knows that lesson well. The organization launched phone and computer-based chat in 2007, and chat quickly grew to the more heavily used method of contact. The Austin, Texas-based group launched text in 2011 and it’s now about 20 percent of the operation, Pinero said. According to research from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, one in four teens is a “cellmostly” Internet user. Texting among teens increased from about 50 texts a day in 2009 to about 60, with the number running into hundreds for some. “Phone calls are not the way young people express themselves,” said Danah Boyd, a senior researcher at Microsoft Research and an assistant professor of media, culture and communication at New York University. Comparisons of text hotline volume and efficiency are hard to come by. Researcher Deb Levine, executive director and founder of the nonprofit ISIS, for Internet Sexuality Information Services, said it’s clear the number of hotlines of all kinds has declined significantly since a heyday in the 1980s. But chat and text help have been on the rise for more than two years, she said. Most are small-scale operations serving specific communities, said Levine. The Planned Parenthood Federation of America is in its second year of running one of the largest text and chat outreach operations for people ages 15 to 24, targeting African-American and Latino youth through promotional campaigns on MTV, websites and mobile providers, social media, wallet cards, video and Seventeen magazine. Through February, nearly 185,000 conversations - 22,447 via text - were recorded, according to Planned Parenthood. About a third of conversations on health-related topics - including birth control, abortion and pregnancy tests - were with users both under 25 and African-American or Latino. Debbie Gant-Reed sees the need every day. She’s the crisis lines coordinator at a 24-hour help line in Reno, Nevada, called the Crisis Call Center. The center has been providing 24-hour text help for two and a half years, fielding about 500 text conversations a month. “We’re now taking texts from all over the country,” she said. “You can chat all you want but you’re going to get older people. Young people don’t chat. They text.” —AP Six European countries move against Google over privacy PARIS: Authorities in six European countries have taken steps to force US Internet giant Google to comply with EU privacy rules, France’s Cnil data protection agency said yesterday. France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, and the United Kingdom “have launched actions on 2 April 2013 on the basis of the provisions laid down in their respective national legislation” to force Google to bring its privacy policy in line with European regulations, Cnil said in a statement. In October last year the data protection agencies of the 27 EU states warned Google that its new confidentiality policy did not comply with European law and gave it four months to make changes or face legal action. When that TORONTO: With smartphone and tablet users getting younger, new apps can help parents of 2-to-13-year-olds monitor and control their children’s use of the Internet. A Pew Research Center study shows that more than one-third of American teenagers own a smartphone, up from more than a fifth in 2011. For nearly half of these users, the phone is their main way of getting online, making it difficult for parents to supervise their behavior. “When you have a smartphone, you basically have the Internet in your pocket wherever you are - away from your parents’ eyes,” said Anooj Shah, a partner in Toronto-based company Kytephone, which develops apps. Kytephone’s namesake app allows parents to control the apps and sites their children use and the people they receive texts and calls from. The company on Monday released Kytetime for 13-to-17-year-olds. The new app has many of the same features as Kytephone but does not include the ability to block calls. Earlier this month, Net Nanny, a monitor- deadline expired in February several European data protection agencies set up a task force to pursue coordinated action against Google. Cnil said it had seen no changes to Google’s privacy policy after the company’s representatives met on March 19 with the task force that includes the data protection agencies of France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Cnil added it had notified Google that it had launched an inspection procedure. Google rolled out the new privacy policy in March 2012, allowing it to track users across various services to develop targeted advertising, despite sharp criticism from US and European consumer advocacy groups. —AFP Apps help parents monitor children’s Internet use ing software company, released a browser app for Apple Inc’s iOS devices to filter Web content and block profanity. “Smartphones and tablets have added new technology, with new challenges (for parents) - full Web browsing capability, unlimited texting, access to hundreds of thousands of good, bad and malicious apps,” said Russ Warner, chief executive officer of the Salt Lake City-based company. The Android version of Net Nanny, which sells for $12.99, can control which apps a child uses. The app is also available for iOS devices, with fewer applications, for $4.99. The company is also introducing Net Nanny Social, a subscription, Web-based tool to help parents monitor problems such as cyberbullying, sexual predators and identity theft on social networks including Facebook and Twitter. The service costs $19.99 per year. For parents of 2-to-8-year-olds, Bostonbased Playrific has a free app with a locked browser that allows only content suitable for children, including educational videos, interactive games and books. —Reuters ferent types of processors, all linked together by 55 miles of fiber optic cable. It took nearly two dozen tractor trailer trucks to deliver the supercomputer from New York to northern New Mexico. The supercomputer has been used over the last five years to model viruses and unseen parts of the universe, to better understand lasers and for nuclear weapons work. That includes simulations aimed at ensuring the safety and reliability of the nation’s aging arsenal. As part of the U.S. nuclear stockpile stewardship program, researchers used Roadrunner’s high-speed calculation capabilities to unravel some of the mysteries of energy BEIJING: Apple apologized to Chinese consumers after government media attacked its repair policies for two weeks in a campaign that reeked of economic nationalism. A statement Apple posted in Chinese on its website Monday said the complaints had prompted “deep reflection” and persuaded the company of the need to revamp its repair policies, boost communication with Chinese consumers and strengthen oversight of authorized resellers. State broadcaster CCTV and the ruling Communist Party’s flagship newspaper, People’s Daily, had led the charge against the American company. They accused Apple Inc. of arrogance, greed and “throwing its weight around” and portrayed it as just the latest Western company to exploit the Chinese consumer. The attacks quickly backfired, though, and were mocked by the increasingly sophisticated Chinese consumers who revere Apple and its products. State-run media also inadvertently revived complaints over shoddy service by Chinese companies. Nonetheless, Apple responded with an apology from CEO Tim Cook. “We’ve come to understand through this process that because of our poor communication, some have come to feel that Apple’s attitude is arrogant and that we don’t care about or value feedback from the consumer,” Cook’s Chinese statement said, as translated by The Associated Press. “For the concerns and misunderstandings passed on to the consumer, we express our sincere apologies.” Although Apple enjoys strong support from Chinese consumers, the vehemence of the attacks and the importance of the Chinese market appeared to have persuaded the company to appear contrite. The People’s Daily newspaper ran an editorial last Wednesday headlined “Strike down Apple’s incomparable arrogance.” “Here we have the Western person’s sense of superiority making mischief,” the newspaper wrote. “If there’s no risk in offending the Chinese consumer, and it also makes for lower overheads, then why not?” Chinese observers accused flow in weapons. Los Alamos has been helping pioneer novel computer systems for decades. In 1976, the lab helped with the development of the Cray-1. In 1993, the lab held the fastest supercomputer title with the Thinking Machine CM-5. “And to think of where we’re going to be in the next 10 to 15 years, it’s just mindboggling,” said lab spokesman Kevin Roark. Right now, Los Alamos - along with scientists at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California - is using a supercomputer dubbed Cielo. Installed People’s Daily of gross hypocrisy and pointed out that the newspaper had maintained a stony silence when Chinese companies were implicated over food safety, pollution and other scandals. Meanwhile, CCTV was shamed when it emerged that celebrities had been recruited to blast Apple on Weibo, China’s version of Twitter, in what had been billed as a grassroots campaign. “The public responded in two ways to this incident,” popular commentator Shi Shusi wrote on his Weibo account. “One group supports this criticism but quite a number of people felt that there are state monopolies which have severely violated customer’s rights, but which are not being exposed.” Popular business magazine Caijing said its readers identified a long list of abusers, including state banks that lend to those with political connections while stiffing ordi- nary savers with low rates on deposits; a government oil company that sets gas prices and other rates as it sees fit; and state telecom providers notorious for their lack of customer service. “If media is going to go after Apple, let’s hope they spare some thought for those big Chinese communications companies and other monopolies, the ones that enrich special interests in the name of being publicly owned,” Cai Tongqi, a lawyer from the eastern province of Jiangsu, wrote on Weibo. Consumers seem unfazed by the state media’s attacks on Apple. Perusing the wares at an Apple reseller in Beijing’s tony China World mall, recent college graduate Zeng Lu said she considered the controversy a sign of the Chinese consumer’s growing maturity. “It’s great to see Chinese consumers standing up for their rights, but it’s ridiculous for the People’s Daily to get involved,” Zeng said. “They should be criticizing state companies instead.” Apple’s popularity flies in the face of China’s ardent attempts to push its own brands and develop internationally competitive companies. The company also has resisted trends to enter joint ventures and move research and development to China. It also ignores big state media such as CCTV and People’s Daily. Apple relies on Chinese factories, though, to make iPads, iPhones and other popular products. Sales of Apple products in the region, which includes Taiwan and Hong Kong, grew 67 percent to $6.8 billion in the first three months of 2013, compared with the same period a year earlier, according to the company. Apple sold 2 million iPhone 5s during the first weekend it was available in China, in December. The region is Apple’s third largest market, accounting for 13 percent of all sales last year. More than 17,000 outlets sell its products in mainland China, a figure that includes 11 Apple stores and 400 premium resellers. In January, Cook said he expects China to replace North America as its largest source of revenue in the foreseeable future. The attacks on Apple center on complaints over Apple’s repair policies in China - specifically its practice of only replacing faulty parts rather WEDNESDAY, APRIL 3, 2013 in 2010, it’s slightly faster than Roadrunner, takes up less space and came in at just under $54 million. Roark said in the next 10 to 20 years, it’s expected that the world’s supercomputers will be capable of breaking the exascale barrier, or one quintillion calculations per second. There will be no ceremony when Roadrunner is switched off Sunday, but lab officials said researchers will spend the next month experimenting with its operating system and techniques for compressing memory before dismantling begins. They say the work could help guide the design of future supercomputers. —AP Apple apologizes in China after service criticism Apple accused of arrogance, greed BARCELONA: A hostess holds a new smartphone “Galaxy Grand” by Samsung at the 2013 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in this February 26, 2013 file photo. Smartphones using the Android platform boosted their US market share in recent months, extending their lead over Apple’s iPhone, a new survey shows. Android, the free mobile operating system from Google, accounted for 51.2 percent of US smartphone sales in the three-month period ending in February, said the survey from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech. —AFP than providing new iPhones, as it does in other markets. Critics say that allows Apple to avoid having to extend its service warranty by another year. Until Monday, the Cupertino, BEIJING: People walk past an Apple store in Beijing yesterday. Apple chief executive Tim Cook has apologised to Chinese consumers after the US technology giant was subjected to a barrage of criticism in state-run media over alleged “arrogance” and double standards. —AFP California-based company had kept silent apart from issuing a statement March 23 explaining its repair policy and pledging its deep respect for the Chinese consumer. Yet consumers and analysts say the complaints hardly justify Beijing’s campaign of vilification. Such nationalist outbursts are not uncommon, although previous campaigns against foreign companies have often been tied to perceived national slights, as often befalls Japanese firms in China. Beijing accused Google of being an arm of American “information imperialism” after the company announced in March 2010 that it would cease censoring its search responses inside mainland China and instead send visitors to its uncensored search engine in Hong Kong. Beijing is also angry over Washington’s efforts to exclude Chinese high-tech firms Huawei Technologies Ltd. and ZTE Corp. from the US market, amid worries over security. A spending bill signed by President Barack Obama two weeks ago includes a clause barring NASA, the National Science Foundation and the Justice and Commerce Departments from contracting with firms tied to the Chinese government. Washington and Beijing have also sparred over more recent hacking attacks, including a forensically detailed report by cybersecurity firm Mandiant that tied Chinese hacking to a unit of the People’s Liberation Army based in Shanghai. Apple, however, may have been singled out simply because it is “the biggest open target,” said Jim McGregor, senior counselor at consultancy APCO Worldwide. “We’re still seeing a lot of things wrapped up in economic nationalism,” McGregor said. Even before Monday’s apology, he had predicted Apple would make a show of contrition to get its relations with the Chinese authorities back on track. Duncan Clark, managing director of BDA China Ltd., a Beijing research firm, said the assault probably stems from a combination of factors, including the failure of Chinese companies to make breakthroughs in high-end consumer electronics. “There’s a general sense of frustration that China can’t move further up the value chain,” Clark said. —AP
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