Intel's plans to launch its latest Sandy Bridge processor in the first quarter of 2011 is expected to help boost demand from the enterprise market as the segment will be going through a new PC replacement trend, according to sources from motherboard makers.

Advanced Wireless Semiconductor Company (AWSC) and Win Semiconductor, two major Taiwan-based GaAs wafer foundries, have both reported new record highs in monthly revenues for August 2010.

Taimide Technology, a leading supplier of polymide (PI) films for the flexible PCB (FPCB) industry, will invest NT$800 million (US$25 million) to build a new plant in the Hsinchu Science Park (HSP) to produce PI films for HDI boards, flexible displays and e-paper applications.

Despite that first-tier notebook makers expect a 10% sequential growth in their notebook shipments in the fourth quarter of 2010, sources from component makers have said that their order visibility for December still remains unclear, unlike in previous years.

The outlook for IC packaging and testing throughout the second half of 2010, especially the fourth quarter, is weak, according to YL Hsu, general manager for United Test and Assembly Center (UTAC) Taiwan.

Overall TV shipments continued to show resilience, bouncing back from dismal 2009 levels, but there were some indications of trouble in key markets. Global TV unit shipments rose 26% on year and 2% sequentially to 56.2 million units in the second quarter of 2010, according to DisplaySearch.

On September 6, the Yangzhou government of China's Jiangsu Province, will host an event in Taipei to attract investments in the solar, LED lighting, e-book reader and smart-grid sectors. The government is expected announce generous incentives to encourage Taiwan-based companies to establish operations in the area.

Steve Jobs' unveiling of the second-generation Apple TV will give Apple an entry in the market for Internet-enabled living room devices, the fastest-growing major segment of Internet-connected products, according to iSuppli.

Chunghwa Telecom (CHT) plans to undertake LTE field tests at the 2010 Taipei International Flora Expo scheduled for November 6, 2010 to April 25, 2011, with the plan subject to approval by the National Communications Commission, according to CHT.

First International Telecom (Fitel), one of the six WiMAX licensees in Taiwan, will start operation in Hsinchu City, northern Taiwan on September 9 and then in Taipei in November-December 2010, according to the company. Fitel is the last WiMAX licensee to begin operating.

The Apple iPhone 4 is expected to be introduced in Taiwan around September 15, 2010, which is also the smartphone's official launch date in the China market, according to sources from Taiwan's handset industry. Taiwan's three largest telecom carriers opened pre-order registrations in August and more than 150,000 people have since applied for the smartphone, the sources said.

Largan Precision, a Taiwan-based maker of optical lens kits, on September 5 reported consolidated revenues of NT$1.174 billion (US$36.6 million) for August 2010, a new monthly record for the third consecutive time.

Nanya Technology and Inotera Memories have both reported growth in August 2010 sales from the previous month, despite DRAM price corrections in the contract market.

Lite-On IT is exhibiting in-house digital cameras and DV camcorders under the licensed use of the Hewlett-Packard (HP) brand at the IFA 2010 consumer electronics and home appliances show taking place in Berlin, Germany.

Topcell Solar International (TSI), a solar cell manufacturer wholly owned by United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC), will officially open on September 16, 2010. The company's solar cell capacity for 2011 will reach 400MWp and 1GWp in 2012.

Although Taiwan-based LED chipmaker Epistar will adjust its shipment mix in the wake of a demand slowdown from the LED-backlit TV segment, the company's internal target for third-quarter 2010 gross margin remains at 35%, according to industry sources.

Asia Optical has upward adjusted the 2010 shipments goal for its CIS (contact image sensors) from 18.5 million units originally to 20 million units, increasing 42.9% form 2009, due to better than expected orders, according to the company.

It's apparent that the physics lexicon has been dragged kicking and screaming out of the 19th century with a recent paper published in Nature Photonics titled "Hacking commercial quantum cryptography systems by tailored bright illumination." I never thought I would live to see the word "hacking" used in its proper context in a physics paper. But enough about physics lingo. What about the quantum encryption hacks alluded to by the title?

What we have is another paper demonstrating that the weak point of quantum encryption systems is the point where classical meets quantum. This is not the first hack of its kind, but, it is, in true hacker tradition, the first focused on a commercial system.

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After months of pressure from state attorneys general, Craigslist pulled its adult services listings offline over the Labor Day weekend. Visitors to the site were greeted with a black bar with the word "censored" in white text (as seen to the right) where the link to the adult services listings would normally be.

The adult services listings have been a perpetual source of concern for law enforcement, including numerous state attorneys general, who have said that listings facilitate prostitution and that children are often victimized by the ads. Craigslist originally had an Erotic Services section, but shut it down in May 2009 in response to pressure from law enforcement. The company had previously attempted to stave off criticism by verifying listings over the phone and working with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, but decided that having an entire section of the site devoted to the sex trade was a bad idea. Shortly after the erotic services section was yanked, it was replaced with the adult services section.

The new section, which required credit card payments for listings that were reviewed by moderators before going live, failed to mollify critics. The attorney general of Connecticut and 37 of his colleagues across the country subpoenaed the classified site over what they described as its brothel business. In late August, Kansas attorney general Steve Six called on Craigslist once again to shut down adult services, saying that the site had not done enough to fight "illegal sexual activity on the Internet."

At this time, it's not clear whether craigslist is going to get out of the adult services business altogether. The classifieds giant has remained silent so far, not offering any rationale for its move. If this does indeed mark the end of the line for the adult services section on Craigslist, it doesn't mean that all adult services ads will magically vanish; they're likely to migrate to other parts of the site. That said, the attorneys general will no doubt view the apparent shutdown of the adult services section as a victory in their war against the online sex trade.

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The Associated Press didn't need any help from a bunch of unshowered bloggers pecking away at their keyboards from the basement offices in which they play "reporter," thank you very much. Now it knows better.

At the AP's 2009 annual meeting, Chairman Dean Singleton reminded his audience (read the speech) that the AP and its members "are the source of most of the news content being created in the world today." The collective remains "the gold standard of newsgathering and reporting throughout the world." And with 62 journalists killed, beaten, or detained in 2008, journalism "is not a profession for the fainthearted, or those who work in their pajamas."

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