FUJITSU AND SIEMENS CONSIDER SPLIT

Germany’s Siemens reportedly wants to end its PC joint venture with Japan’s Fujitsu. The Financial Times reported that Fujitsu Siemens, as the unit is called, has not competed effectively against Dell and HP, as had been hoped. With revenues of €6.6 billion ($10.3 billion) in its last fiscal year and a pretax profit of €106 million, the unit also makes minicomputers and servers.  

The two companies have a 100-year history of working together but management shakeups at Siemens and a sale of assets have led to a closer look at the FSC unit. Analysts say that Fujitsu has a right of first refusal on Siemens’ 50 percent stake in the venture. The unit could also be sold to another PC maker, like Lenovo or Acer. Analysts estimate that a sale would cost €2 to €3 billion.

HOW DO YOU SAY IT IN GOOGLE?
The world may be getting smaller but it is still a tower of Babel. Google is working on a translation service that will include human intervention, reports French tech site www.01net.com. There are a number of automatic translation services on the Web. Google has long offered a “translate this” button. But results are usually crude, giving viewers the gist of messages rather than an accurate translation.

Google admits so in a FAQ on the translation service, defining the machine translation as Google Translate and the human version as Google Translation Service. While still undergoing tests, the service will address 40 languages, covering 98 percent of the world’s Internet users, according to Google. Translators will not be Google employees but will use Google tools including the Translate service now available. Sounds like Google is setting up a kind of exchange where translators and clients can negotiate on terms.  Anything to make the Web more accessible.

NOT TOO GAUCHE TO BROWSE          

While U.S. cities and telecom companies battle over free Internet access, Paris has embraced and implemented municipal Wi-Fi. The service was launched a year ago and is available in many city parks, gardens and libraries. The city of Paris reported today that the city had a record number of users of free Wi-Fi in May. Some 23,113 users connected to the Internet using the city’s free service. Some 399 transmitters are located at 258 locations. This doesn’t include free Wi-Fi that is increasingly available in bars, restaurants and other locations. So why is it that you almost never see someone with a laptop open at one of the outdoor café? It must be considered gauche to Google.

ASIA U? NOT SO GOOD.

Asia is growing in importance as a new source of technology innovation but its universities still get no respect. The latest ranking of the world’s universities by Shanghai Jiaotong University ranks Asian universities far below those in North America and Europe. The list, which uses such factors as the number of Nobel Prize winners, highly-cited researchers and per capita academic performance, gives eight of the top 10 spots to the U.S. and two to the U.K.  Harvard University is No.1, followed by Stanford and UC- Berkeley. Oxford and Cambridge listed 4th and 10^th  respectively, according to Singapore’s Straits Times.

Tokyo University (picture) was the highest ranked Asian university at No. 19. China’s Nanjing University was rated No. 223, two spots above Peking University, usually considered China’s best. Taiwan’s National Taiwan University was also rated higher at 159. Two universities in Hong Kong also won better ranks than those in China.