toshiba on wednesday unveiled its new research institute. the facility was established at the invitation of the singapore government. several senior government officials were in attendance at the opening ceremony. singapore sees water as a key growth industry. the city state has been working to nurture water-related businesses in firms and researchers from abroad. toshiba says the institute will explore technologies to remove harmful substances from waste water using a special metal powder. it will also work on a technology to extract rare metals. toshiba believes the institute will give it quick and easy access to information on water businesses and help increase its sales across asia. >> translator: we hope the new research institute will provide opportunities to work with global firms in water-related businesses and find partners to launch new businesses, using our special metal powder. >> we must continue to invest in new means, new ideas and new technology that will help us continue to be able to ensure water supply is adequate, afforda

toshiba now only produces flash memory type chips. it is unclear whether hynix will join them, but if it does, it's likely to become the biggest rival for micron. that's all from nikkei business report. back to you. >> thank you very much for that. >>> over in south korea, efforts are in place to give the country's small and medium sized companies more opportunities to grow. let's go live to seoul. >> christine, this is called korea new exchange and suggests it's a new exchange created just for small and medium sized companies. this in a bid to help them raise capital without having to resort to bank borrowing. it will be the third exchange after the kospi and country's financial regulator says it will make requirements easier for smaller players. for example, companies with a minimum revenue of $4.4 million and equity capital of $1.3 million can list, which is a third of what's required. only professional investors can invest on the new exchange. they will encourage pension funds to take part. but critics say it could hurt to lure fr

merging lcd panel operation with toshiba. aol shares up 40% this morning.t comes after the company announced it has agreed to sell 800 of its patents to microsoft and grant it a license for its remaining patents in a deal worth over a billion dollars. aol plans to return some of the proceeds from the sale to its shareholders. >>> part of a major new bear area road will be ready earlier than expected. >>> -- >> he was like i love you, i'm sorry, i'm not even believing a word he says now. >> new twist in the student-teacher affair that caught national attention. why the 18-year-old girl now says she walked out on her 41-year-old boyfriend.h@ i remember the days before copd. my son and i never missed opening day. but with copd making it hard to breathe, i thought those days might be over. so my doctor prescribed symbicort. it helps significantly improve my lung function, starting within 5 minutes. symbicort doesn't replace a rescue inhaler for sudden symptoms. with symbicort, today i'm breathing better, and that means... game on! symbicort is for copd, includi

sony and two other electronics companies toshiba created this firm by mergie ining their liqu crystal subsidiaries. they plan to sell their subsidiary with about 3,000 employees later this year. all seven board members of sony including chairman howard stringer and the ceo plan to forego their bonuses for the last business year. >>> corporate bankruptcies in japan declined in fiscal 2011 for the third straight year. the fall is attributed to increasing reconstruction projects after last year's marc says a little over 11,400 companies went under last fiscal year. that's down 0.5% from 2010. the number fell 27% in thdisast hit areas in northeastern japan. the reason was assistance the government provided for companies struck by the earthquake and tsunami. the research firm notes, however, business situation may be worse than it appears in the coastal regions where residents had to evacuate following the fukushima nuclear accident. in these areas it says about 1,500 companies have had to suspend business but have not filed for bankruptcy, or authorities cannot locate the owners. >>> now,

you went toshiba lee for an mri, how'd that go? >> let me tell you about that. first nodule found on wednesday that was confirmed to be cancerous, she thought was 1.3 september meters. it's larger. it's 2.2 but it was caught very early. but because i had this mri today, at sibley hospital and i can't say enough about them, they found another one. a second nodule. so it's so important for you to have the testing. and to get to it quickly. so i have to go back this afternoon and have another biopsy. i have already one for the first nodule and i need one for the second one and then on monday my surgeon, dr. magnet will sit down with me and we'll talk about what steps we're going to take and by the way, i want you to join me. i need you to join me on this journey. andrea roane -- >> we have cameras following you. >> she's going to tell story. >> again we're not trying to make a news story for channel 9. this is not what this is about. there are your fans calling you already. it's not about us doing the story but it's about you taking charge of your own health and de

sony and two other electronics companies, toshiba and hitac hitachitachi made this company. all seven board members of sony including chairman howard stringer and ceo kazuo hirai plan to forgo their bonuses for the last business year. >>> corporate bankruptcies in japan declined in fiscal 2011 for the third straight year. the fall is attributed to increasing reconstruction projects after last year's march disaster. a private create research firm teikoku data bank says a little over 11,400 companies went under last fiscal year, down 0.5% from 2010. the number fell 27% in disaster hit areas in northeastern japan. the reason was assistance the government provided for companies struck by the earthquake and tsunami. the research firm notes, however, that the business situation may be worse than it appears in the coastal reege rad regions where residents had to evacuate following the fukushima daiichi accident. in these areas, it says 1500 companies had to suspend business, but not file for bankruptcy or authorities cannot locate the owners. >>> japan's current account balance in

japan's electronicsmaker toshiba is planning to join sk heinicks in the bidding.hey plan to decide on who they'll work with in may. >>> managers at facebook say they'll list their shares on nasdaq. the initial public offering for shares in the social networking giant is expected to be one of the largest ever by an i.t. firm. facebook executives outlined their plans in a document submitted to the u.s. securities and exchange commission. company spokesperson said they would go public but many investors have wondered whether they would list on nasdaq or on the new york stock exchange. nasdaq is a technology focused exchange that hosts i.t. giants including apple and google. facebook's spokespersons have not announced the date of their ipo but sources say it will be the end of may. the firm's total market value is expected to be more than $100 billion. facebook now has more than 900 million users. >>> the executives are shoring up the business before they go public. they'll spend $550 million to buy aol patents from microsoft. microsoft is acquiring more than 900 pate

many of which are japanese and will be keeping track of the likes of toshiba, for instance which makes the flash memory chip and also asahi glass which also helps to make some of the touch screens for the iphone and for the ipad. so a couple of stocks there. but many others as well. we'll keep track on all of the. following the rally in rope european indexes, we did see the gains for the euro as well. markets sidestepping some of the political issues in the netherlands and the french elections as well. but looking at the levels now on the screen. 81.45-47 dollar/yen. but euro/yen 107. the euro has gained and markets coming back a touch after some of the concerns yesterday. ai? >> ramin, still a big focus on ntral banks and seey da well. >> yeah definitely. of course we've been talking about the federal reserve meeting at the federal open market committee which wraps up today and a lot of focus is going to be on fed chairman bernanke. not a lot is expected in the sense of any changes to the monetary policy but market players and economists will be watching out for any changing in slight

the company also selling its cash register business to toshiba for $850 million.ell 2.4% in the after ho s hours. in frankfurt it's down 0.9%. meantime intel's first quarter profit fell 13%. revenues were flat. the chip maker expects sales to pick up in the second half of the year as it ramps up its production. that's going to power super thin notebooks called ultra books. it will impact gross margins more than expected. >> we continue to see pc unit growth. we saw strong growth in the notebook segment of the market. really we saw a continuation of demand trends that we had seep at the end of last year and very consistent with our expectations. >> intel plans to launch the first smartphone based on its technology sometime this quarter. in fact, we saw shares fall 3g% in the after hours session. right now in frankfort they're down 3.5%. and yahoo!'s first quarter profit rose, beating targets. we saw revenues edging up 1%. ceo scott thompson outlining more details of his construction plan. making ecommerce and mobile the bigger sanction. he's working with ailbaba. h

toshiba, played in japan, costs about $38. 32 gigabytes cost apple about 2 $38.y phi, $29. the camera, about $18. this the battery. costs about $5. now, when you take the battery out you have underneath the processor. this is the brains of the operation. this part right here and the associated parts. the processor alone costs about $26. here's the part you get to enjoy mostly when you've got an ipad. that is the display and case. the display and the touch screen, this part here, costs about $31. the enclosure, the pcbs, printed kreshgt boar circuit boards, about $56. look at the total operation ends up costing us. -- get that going. the total cost here is $203 for a unit that costs $600 to buy without the contract. with a contract, subsidizing the cost of the unit to you. now, why does it make sense for ap to apple to make the product in china? when he they make it in china, assembly parts, costs $7.10 a unit. if they were to assemble this year in the united states, $165.67. here's the issue. when you sell something, you have a gross margin. a new report from the

the memory, which is this over here, it says toshiba on it, made in japan, costs about $38.lar radio, this is the cell, this is the wi-fi, those pieces cost about $29. the camera over here costs about $18. and this over here is the battery, it costs about $5. now, when you take the battery out, what you have underneath it is the processor. this is the brains of the operation. this part right here. and the associated parts. the processor alone costs about $26. now, here's the part that you get to enjoy mostly when you've got an ipad, and that is the display and the case. the display and the touch screen, this part here costs about $31. the enclosure, the pcbs, which are the printed circuit boards, the little electronic parts inside and supporting materials ends up costing about $56. so let's take a look at what the total operation ends up costing us. the total cost here is $203 for a unit that costs $600 if you buy it without a contract. if you buy it with a contract, sprint, verizon or at&t are actually subsidizing the cost of the unit to you. now, why does it make sense for

toshiba wants to secure clients such as walmart and toys "r" us. and in washington, senate republicans blocked -- only two crossovers. pryor went against and snowe i think went for. so it was 51-45. that didn't stop them from -- it has to filibuster. that's why they said republicans would block it. legislation would put a 30% minimum tax on mill millionaires. sorry, it was susan collins, one of those rinos in name. she voted for the tax hike and mark pryor, he voted against it. >> let's get to some global market headlines. spanish yields jumping at the auction that was held there earlier today. the country sold 3.2 bill gone euros of 12 and bills just above the target range of what they were expecting. yesterday spain's key ten year bond yield hit a five month high above 6% and yields higher than they had been a month ago for the 12 and 18 month bonds. more on that in a little bit. >> and japan says it will provide $60 billion in loans to the imf, the first noneuropean nation to commit money to boost the fund's financial fire power in an attempt to

. >> and toshiba came up with tablets. different shapes. a heart shape tablet. an oblong tablet.re was -- my favorite was the heart. the armoire. they're kind of cool. i might believe that this really is on the market. wouldn't you? >> well it does sort of look like a real piece of conceivably, a piece of equipment there with sort of the plugs in the middle and -- >> the heart-shaped one is my favorite. look. there's one in action. >> wow. >> deejay using the tablet there. and then we have one more april fools' joke which we really liked. was here in new york once again. improv everywhere is sort of this, i guess you call them gorilla improv group. they do things on the street. they had a no-pants subway ride. yesterday they actually had a quadruplets filling a park here in manhattan. and it was quite a scene there. those guys -- they look like zz top. the women sitting down there. and people are just figuring out what the heck is going on. >> where did all these quadruplets come from. am i seeing in f >>> this morning on "world news now" -- crowd control. police on the universit

just follow up on what ambassador grossman has said about toshiba that exist in afghanistan. i think we have been an afghans and i have been to this usage into the habit from the provincial level to the capital. want to make sure that the image that we get the media and many of the conference, but also but everything is damaging, the country is going to fail, i don't truly believe in that because i see the changes that happened from last january, the rights and justice, there are marvelous. we have been through the change and we don't want to show that afghanistan is a failed cause. it's not a failed cause. it needs more structure and systematic strategies to put in place. otherwise the achievement that we had has opened a great range of opportunities for the international engagement and connectivity of afghanistan to the world, plus to be further engage in our country. so thank you very much, ambassador grossman. i think of achievements also because i really wanted to wallow on the. i think, based on what we hear from media, that's totally a different picture we have in afgh

i think season any has a much more significant chance of getting that than a sharp or toe s toshiba orabsolute threat to sony. but it's not as if the ipad and iphone haven't been other things that have eaten in to where sony used to have dom mainance. >> it does seem like a story line in which an activist investor would emerge. is there a reason why nobody has played that role, is there a structural reason why that might not happen? >> two things. one is back. '04/05 period, there was a lot of scrutiny on the organization, a lot of people wanted him to spin off the content business, no one's evernd stood really what the finance arm, which is arlt part of sony that only exists in japan, it's primarily life insurance. it's actually a very profitable business for sony. has a great brand name in japan. so they spun off 40% of that business, raised significant amount of cash into sony and you have a separate equity value and i think that helped. at the moment, we're in the hearing as much structural pressure, but to your point in japan, activists investing is not really a strategy that work

. >> we are also watching ibm selling the point of sale terminal business to a toshiba unit in a dealmillion. walmart is among the clients of the business. a transaction would make that unit the biggest global seller of point of sale terminals with a 25% market share. >> now to key housing data out this morning. starts from march down 5.8%. the lowest since october. here with his take on that and the state of housing is oliver chang, head of u.s. housing strategy and research at morgan stanley. welcome back. >> good to be here. >> we all thought warmer weather was the answer to all things good in the world. >> it was a disappointing report. i would caution not to look too much into a single number. especially this one. there is a lot of difference between single family and multi family starts. when we look back a few data points for the trends that have been going on in starts, we see two very distinct trends between the single and multi family industries. if you look at where multi family starts are in the last quarter versus where they were at lows during the recession, they are up