Intercultural Business News

The lithium car battery is primed to become a “major disruptive force” over the next decade, dictating the fate of the world’s largest vehicle makers, reshaping the electronics industry and sparking possible tensions between the mineral haves and have-nots.

As carmakers ponder moves into greener manufacturing, the risks of mistakes grow greater with every new battery maker or technology that emerges. With the industry rules reset by lithium, analysts say, new businesses are expected to appear from nowhere. Many will fail but some may go on to become the new General Motors or Toyota.

Will LIthium Replace Internal Combustion?

Lithium batteries and the prospect of some future worldwide market for electric cars have already propelled Wang Chuanfu, the founder of the car and battery maker BYD, to become China’s richest man as shares in his company soared. A year earlier, he was 103rd in the rankings.

The prospect of lithium’s rising dominance over a post-oil economy has begun to draw warnings from government and industrial sources that seismic shifts are about to take place. The investment scene surrounding batteries, analysts say, may become more complex as new companies emerge to challenge the established players and speculative bubbles inflate throughout all stages of the battery-making process.

Read More>Times Online

The price of gold has touched an all-time high for a third consecutive day – after a continued decline in the dollar kept it attractive to investors.

Gold reached $1,058 an ounce, powering past Wednesday’s high of $1,048.4. On Tuesday it passed the $1,033.9 an ounce record set in March last year.

Analysts said that there was still potential for prices to rise further if the dollar remained weak.

Gold Price Hits All Time High

However, there was caution that it may represent a price bubble.

Speculative bubble?
 FACTORS IN GOLD PRICE RISE
Weak dollar
Speculation
Inflation risk
Time of year
Why prices are high and does it matter? 
“Investors are turning towards gold as a hedge in dollar weakness,” said Adrian Koh, an analyst at Phillip Futures in Singapore.

Read More>BBC News

SINCE it was unveiled in 2007 Amazon’s Kindle has dominated the fledgling market for devices that let users download and read electronic books. Now it faces a formidable challenge. On August 25th Sony unveiled a new, expensive electronic-book reader for the American market that will compete with Amazon’s offerings. Both firms are betting that demand for devices dedicated to displaying electronic text will grow explosively. They could be disappointed.

Although Sony has sold e-book readers in America for several years, the Japanese firm allowed Amazon to gain the upper hand with the Kindle, which offers users the novel ability to download books wirelessly from Amazon’s online store. Now Sony is trying to reassert its technological supremacy with its new device, dubbed the “Daily Edition”, which will be available in December for a hefty $399. This boasts not only a wireless link, but also a touchscreen interface that is much slicker than the Kindle’s clunky buttons.

The Sony "Daily Edition"

 Yet Amazon still retains one big advantage: its vast online book emporium. To level the playing field, Sony has struck a deal with Google that gives users free access to more than a million books scanned by the internet firm. It has also embraced an open electronic standard that lets customers buying e-books from Sony read them on other devices running the software. And it has inked deals with public libraries so users can borrow electronic books that disappear automatically when the loan period expires.

Read More>Economist.com

Nokia, the world’s top mobile phone maker, plans to make laptops, branching out from its traditional mobile phone market to enter the fast-growing netbook sector with a “mini-laptop”.

The Finnish company is looking to broaden its base in mobile devices that connect to internet, crossing the border between two converging industries in the opposite direction to Apple, which entered the phone market in 2007 with the iPhone.

The next logical step for Nokia?

Nokia has seen its profit margins drop over the last quarters as traditional handset demand has slumped, although sales of smartphones have accelerated. Research firm IDC expects netbook shipments this year to grow more than 127 per cent from 2008 to more than 26 million units, outperforming the overall PC market that is expected to remain flat and a phone market which is shrinking some 10 per cent.

Nokia’s first netbook, the Nokia Booklet 3G, will use Microsoft’s Windows software and Intel’s Atom processor to offer up to 12 hours of battery life while weighing just 1.25 kilograms. It will have a 10-inch screen and 3G wireless capability to connect to the web

Read More>Times Online

The UK Government is expected to announce a deal today with Liechtenstein, the tiny Alpine principality, to effectively end secrecy for Britons who hold accounts in the tax haven.

HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) has agreed with Liechtenstein to start exchanging information.

Up to 5,000 British investors have an estimated £3 billion stashed away in secret accounts in the country.

Liechtenstein will no longer be a British Tax Haven

Investors are expected to be offered the chance to volunteer details of their deposits in return for limited penalties and low risk of prosecution. The Liechtenstein authorities will be asked to close the accounts of those who do not take up the amnesty.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown has been keen to join international efforts to end secrecy in offshore tax havens and earlier this year HMRC signed similar deals with Guernsey, British Virgin Islands, the Isle of Man and Bermuda. The Alpine principality is outside Britain’s direct influence.

Read More>The Times Online