News Of The World
Sydney Morning Herald
Sunday March 29, 1987
Fujitsu takeover scuttled
BOWING to intense pressure from the Reagan Administration officials, the US company Fairchild Semiconductor has called off its sale to Japan's Fujitsu.
The action came soon after the US Defense Secretary, Mr Weinberger, the Commerce Secretary, Mr Baldrige and the Central Intelligence Agency asked the White House to try to block Fujitsu from buying Fairchild Semiconductor, a maker of computer chips.
The primary objection to the sale centred on national security. But beyond the spoken objections, some Federal officials concede, was the mounting trade friction with Japan.
As a military contractor, Fairchild is an important supplier of some advanced components used in military equipment and computer systems, including the communications systems used to control nuclear missiles and supercomputers.
Defense Department and CIA officials said they did not want to see the American computer industry become dependent on semiconductors produced by Japanese-owned manufacturers_particularly companies like Fujitsu, which is trying to break into the American computer market.
JAPAN PLEADS ITS CASE
TOKYO: Immediately after Fujitsu's deal to buy Fairchild Semiconductor fell apart, Japan's Ministry of International Trade and Industry pleaded that Japan was trying to abide by the semiconductor agreement between the two nations.
The Prime Minister, Mr Yasuhiro Nakasone, directed officials of the trade ministry to demonstrate that the agreement was working.
The United States has threatened to scuttle the agreement on April 1 unless Japan stops what American officials charge are violations of the agreement.
The collapse of the Fairchild-Fujitsu deal seemed to drive that point home last week. Japanese trade officials convened a rare news conference to say that the semiconductor trade picture would improve. They acknowledged the need for co-operation and said that measures they have taken to reduce Japanese semiconductor production have begun to curb a "grey market" in Southeast Asia and other areas where some chips are being sold below cost or dumped.
ARMY SURPLUS SECRETS
LONDON: Computer student Mark Storer, 24, got more than he bargained for when he bought a second-hand computer from an army surplus store.
The $A106 unit came complete with a disc containing secret information about a military radar establishment.
COMPUTERS COLD CURE
MELBOURNE: Do not throw away the lemon and honey, hot water bottle and vapours just yet_but a group of Melbourne scientists believes the paraphernalia of the most miserable days of winter may soon be obsolete.
The group is using advanced computer graphics to design a new drug for the treatment of influenza of any strain.
According to Professor Peter Andrews, of the Victorian College of Pharmacy, the group is trying to develop molecules which fit into the protein of the flu virus, preventing it spreading.
Designing a new drug was like finding a specific piece to fit a very complex jigsaw puzzle, with one major difference. "In the case of the jigsaw we know that somewhere among the pieces on a table someone has already made the right piece to fit," he said. "In our case we have to design a new piece from scratch."
Professor Andrews said computer graphics were helping his team to visualise and quantify their ideas. Compared with the previous research methods, where random screening meant only one in every 10,000 chemicals tested eventually became a marketed drug, it was much more efficient.
FINGERPRINTS FOIL CRIMS
MELBOURNE: Victorian Police have linked up with Australia's $17 million nationwide computer fingerprinting system. Victoria is the fifth in line after NSW, South Australia, Western Australia and Northern Territory to plug into the NEC automated fingerprint identification system (AFIS).
Queensland will link up next month and Tasmania and the Federal Police are expected to link up later this year.
The Australian system is regarded as one of the most advanced in the world
And Australian police will lead the world, ahead of Japan and the United States in fingerprint identification when every State plugs in to the system.
The system eventually will hold more than two million fingerprint files and the computers will be able to match 2,400 prints a second.
Since the first print was entered into the system in May last year, the system played a major role in identifying 601 criminal suspects at an identification rate of 21 per cent.
Police regard the rate as astounding, and the highest in the world.
CHIP LEAPS TALL BUILDINGS
BONN: West Germany and the Netherlands have developed Europe's first computer superchip prototype and hope to beat the industry leaders in Japan and the United States into the market.
The Technology Minister, Heinz Riesenhuber, said that production of the four-megabit chip should start by late 1988 or early 1989.
The new superchip could store more information and carry out more demanding tasks than existing chips and its manufacture could eventually bring down the price of electronic equipment.
NORWAY SNEAKS TECHNOLOGY TO SOVIETS
OSLO: Norwegian authorities have launched a major inquiry into the State-owned arms manufacturing company Kongsberg Vaapen-Fabrikk over allegations that it broke Western embargo rules by selling high-technology products to the Soviet Union.
Police and Government officials have been on the case for two weeks, and the Government apparently regards the matter as serious.
A report in The New York Times, quoting sources in the US State Department, alleged that the company supplied the Soviet Union with advanced computerised control systems for machine tools used in the production of submarine propellers.
© 1987 Sydney Morning Herald