TECHNOLOGY

Coronavirus:
iPhone makers to make masks

Electronics giant Foxconn, maker of the Apple iPhone, is taking the unusual step of switching part of its production to making surgical masks.
The firm is also pushing to be allowed to reopen its regular production lines making electronics, which have been closed due to the coronavirus.
The outbreak has seen demand for masks soar and caused a shortage of supplies around the world.

Foxconn aims to produce two million masks a day by the end of the month.
“In this war against the epidemic, every second counts,” the firm said on the social media platform WeChat.
“The earlier we take precautionary actions, the earlier we can prevent the virus, the earlier we can save lives, the sooner we can overcome this.”
As well as the iPhone, Foxconn, the world’s largest electronics manufacturer, makes parts and consumer electronics products including the iPad, Amazon’s Kindle, and PlayStations.
The company said it had already started test production of masks at its flagship manufacturing plant in Shenzhen in southern China.
The masks would in the first instance be to protect its workers from infection, something that the firm believes: “is not just Foxconn’s biggest corporate responsibility, but also our social responsibility”.
Once full production had started it would start providing masks to people outside the company, it added.
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The firm also said that it would use a new generation of infrared temperature measurement equipment at its facilities to help detect any potential coronavirus infections in its workforce.
Like other companies, Foxconn responded to the outbreak by closing most of its operations during the Lunar New Year break. In previous years it had kept its factories running during the holiday. It is now seeking permission from the authorities to restart work at the closed plants.
The announcement came as concerns grow that factory closures and travel restrictions across China will have a major impact on the supply of goods around the world.
Some analysts have estimated that global smartphone shipments could fall by as much as 10% this year, and cause a shortage of iPhones, especially the new iPhone 11.
US car maker General Motors has also joined efforts to resolve the surgical mask shortage.
Its Chinese joint venture SAIC-GM-Wuling has announced that it will set up 14 production lines with the goal of making 1.7 million masks a day.

Apple sold more watches last year than all Swiss watchmakers combined

APPLE may not disclose itself how many Apple Watches it has sold, but according to a new report on the smartwatch market, the company is doing more than just keeping time with some of the world’s best-known watchmakers.
That report, from digital and consumer research firm Strategy Analytics, said that during 2019, Apple sold an estimated 30.7 million Apple Watches around the world, an amount that was 36% higher than the 22.5 million watches Apple sold in 2018.
Strategy Analytics said that even more notable than Apple’s year-over-year increase in watch sales was the fact that the company is doing more watch business than the entire Swiss watch industry, which sold 21.1 million watches last year. And while Apple’s Apple Watch sales rose, the 2019 sales for all Swiss watchmakers fell by 13% from the 24.2 million watches sold in 2018.
Analysts at Strategy Analytics said Apple’s gains in the watch market show that there is a symbolic shift going on among consumers regarding how they choose what kinds of timepieces they wear on their wrists.
“Analog wristwatches remain popular among older consumers, but younger buyers are tipping toward smartwatches and computerized wristwear,” said Neil Mawston, executive director at Strategy Analytics.
In addition to not divulging how many Apple Watches it sells, Apple also doesn’t break out revenue figures for the Apple Watch. Instead, Apple includes the Apple Watch in a category of “wearables, home and accessories” in its quarterly business reports. When Apple reported its fiscal first-quarter results in late January, it said wearables, home and accessories sales reached US$10bil (RM41.40bil), up from US$7.3bil (RM30.22bil) in the year-ago period.
Steven Waltzer, a senior analyst with Strategy Analytics, said that even though traditional Swiss watchmakers such as Swatch, Tissot and TAG Heuer have begun to develop their own smartwatches, they are running out of time to counter the gains of rivals like Apple. – The San Jose Mercury News/Tribune News Service

Tech giants face probe into decades-old deals

AMAZON, Apple, Alphabet, Facebook and Microsoft are facing fresh scrutiny over whether they stifled competition by buying up smaller rivals.
The Federal Trade Commission has asked the firms to hand over information about a decade of deals, warning it could lead to action being taken.
The tech giants already face several government investigations into whether their practices harm competition.
FTC chair Joseph Simons said “all options are on the table”.
“If during this study, we see that there are transactions that were problematic, it is conceivable we could go back and initiate enforcement actions to deal with those transactions,” he said. Actions could include forcing companies to unwind deals or break off parts of their business, he added.
Simons said the FTC’s probe was separate from the investigations being undertaken by the Justice Department, a coalition of states attorney generals and Congress.
It is using authority that it has previously used to examine cigarettes, alcohol advertising and internet providers.
Critics of the tech giants say the firms have consolidated power over the last decade by buying up potential rivals. Examples include deals such as Facebook’s 2014 purchase of WhatsApp, Apple’s 2014 acquisition of Beats and Amazon’s takeover of Diapers.com, which was announced in 2010.
They have called on US regulators take more action, pointing to fines and other measures issued in Europe.
The orders that the FTC announced on Tuesday concern deals completed between 1 Jan 2010 and 31 December 2019, focusing on the many, often smaller, transactions that the firms were not required to report to the government.
The FTC said it expected its request to yield information on “hundreds” of purchases and inform debate about whether the US should change its rules for what kinds of deals are subject to government review.
Currently, firms must report any deal worth more than about $90m to the government.
Officials did not specify a timeline but said they hoped to move quickly. The agency has faced calls by some members of the US Congress to move more aggressively against the tech firms such as Facebook.
The companies involved did not comment. -BBC