1 Lifeline for world’s biggest shipbuilder (Straits
Times) South Korea's National Pension Service agreed to a restructuring of
bonds issued by Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering, helping the
world's largest shipbuilder tide over a financial crisis.
The decision means the shipbuilder, unprofitable in
each of the past four years, will likely get more time to make payments on
bonds that are due this month. NPS is the biggest holder of the debt.
A decision on the financial restructuring of Daewoo
was the biggest test for South Korea's lenders after Korea Development Bank,
the shipbuilder's majority shareholder, allowed Hanjin Shipping to collapse
last year after refusing to support its debt restructuring plan. KDB was in
favor of restructuring the loans, saying Daewoo doesn't have the cash to pay.
Hanjin's demise stranded about a hundred container
ships around the world and roiled the global supply chain, putting some 11,000
jobs at risk. A Daewoo shutdown could be much worse, jeopardizing up to 50,000
jobs and $34 billion of vessel orders from companies including AP Moller-Maersk
and Statoil.
KDB and the Export-Import Bank of Korea said last
month they would provide 2.9 trillion won in additional loans and swap about
1.6 trillion won of debt for equity if other creditors and bondholders agree to
convert up to 80 percent of their debt and extend maturities for remaining
loans by as much as five years.
2 Apple enters self-driving car race (Dawn) Apple is
joining the fiercely competitive race to design self-driving cars, raising the
possibility that a company that has already re-shaped culture with its iPhone
may try to transform transportation, too.
Ending years of speculation, Apple’s late entry into
a crowded field was made official with the disclosure that the California
Department of Motor Vehicles had awarded a permit for the company to start
testing its self-driving car technology on public roads in the state.
California law requires people to be in a
self-driving car who can take control if something goes wrong. Apple confirmed
its arrival in the self-driving car market, but wouldn’t discuss its
intentions. Its interest in autonomous vehicle technology, however, has long
been clear.
Like others, Apple believes self-driving cars could
ease congestion, prevent millions of crashes and save thousands of lives
annually in traffic accidents often caused by drunk or distracted motorists. Self-driving
cars could also be a lucrative new market. And Apple has been searching for its
next act for a while, one that will take it beyond its mainstay phones, tablets
and personal computers.
Although iPhone’s ongoing popularity has helped
Apple remain the world’s most valuable company, the company hasn’t had a
breakthrough product since the 2010 debut of the iPad, currently in the throes
of a three-year sales slump. The dry spell has raised doubts as to whether
Apple lost some of its trend-setting magic with the death of co-founder Steve
Jobs in 2011.
Apple will be vying against 29 other companies that
already have California permits to test self-driving cars. The list includes
major automakers, including Ford, General Motors, BMW, Volkswagen and Tesla, as
well as one of its biggest rivals in technology, Google, whose testing of
self-driving cars has been spun off into an affiliate called Waymo.
3 ‘Tablet toddlers’ sleep less (Gulf News) The more
toddlers play with touchscreen devices the less they sleep, according to a
study that suggests the findings could be cause for concern. For every
additional hour using a touchscreen phone or tablet during the day, children
aged six months to three years slept nearly 16 minutes less in each 24 hour
period, researchers reported in the journal Scientific Reports.
But the study could not determine if the extra
screen time was responsible for tiny tots sleeping less, or if the loss of
shuteye had any adverse health effects. One expert not involved in the research
said the results "should be interpreted with extreme caution."
Sleep is critical for cognitive development,
especially during the first few years of life, when the brain and sleep
patterns evolve in tandem. Earlier research has shown that television watching
and video game use are linked to sleep problems in children. But the burgeoning
use of touchscreens by an even younger cohort remained unexplored.
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