Phoney web business

Fair-trade officials in Taiwan are probing reports that Samsung paid people to criticise rival HTC online. Samsung is alleged to have hired students to post negative comments about phones made by Taiwan’s company HTC. If found guilty of engaging in “false advertising”, Samsung could face a fine of up to of US $400,000. A Taiwanese website had published documents that showed Samsung recruiting students to criticise HTC and praise Samsung. Samsung Taiwan said it had not been told about the investigation.

Poison in disguise

Information technology professional John Alexander, 58, had diabetes for 15 years. About two years ago, he shifted to a widely accepted Ayurvediac therapy of consuming cinnamon to control his blood sugar levels. In the course of time he developed an abnormal liver. Doctors could not figure out the cause of his disease as his diet and lifestyle did not warrant such problem. His wife, Mary, looked up for information on the Internet and realised that the cinnamon Alexander was consuming could be the culprit.

Emergence of South

RISE of the developing world, or the South, has resulted in a shift in the dynamics of the global market. This is the underlying theme of the 2013 Human Development Report by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Despite being low on human development index (HDI), a measure of health, education and income, developing countries like India and China have become strong enough to influence international decision-making on policies relating to trade and environment, claims the report.

EU threat to farmers

The Microsoft way

A favourite Bill Gates story is this. In 1998, the boss of Microsoft was talking to management students at the University of Washington to share his business philosophy. Here’s what he said then about piracy: “Although about three million computers get sold every year in China, people don’t pay for the software,” he said. “Someday they will, though.

Hopes in bloom

A Sikkimese daily carried a cartoon strip on its front page last February. Two honey bees look perplexed while a fellow bee is perched atop a flower, inebriated and moaning “Oh! My God”.

Organic thread

Menacing US diplomacy

There is something that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has in common with US diplomats—or at least the intellectual property (IP) attachés posted at various diplomatic missions: a dislike of NGOs.

Gamble for guar, soy

The ancient mariners

Humankind’s tryst with seafaring dates back to thousands of years. Since the earliest ventures on rafts that took people in Asia to the Polynesian islands, seafarers have used a variety of vessels to fish, to travel, to explore, to trade or to fight. Brian Fagan’s Beyond the Blue Horizon is a comprehensive account of this primordial quest.