NEW YORK -- Life on a nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine, or SSBN, can be dreary.

"There's no Wi-Fi, no TV, no radio or anything like that. When I first joined, everybody got very excited when the Navy's movie service sent you a new box of videotapes or DVDs," former submariner Tom Shugart, who served on three vessels, including as commander of the nuclear-powered fast-attack sub USS Olympia, told Nikkei Asia.

But besides the

HONG KONG -- Andy Wang, an IT engineer at a Shanghai-based gaming company, occasionally felt a pang of guilt about his job.

Most of his hours were spent on a piece of surveillance software called DiSanZhiYan, or "Third Eye." The system was installed on the laptop of every colleague at his company to track their screens in real time, recording their chats, their browsing activity and every document edit they made.

Working from their floor in a downtown high-rise, the startup's hundreds

NEW YORK -- The U.S. Senate passed comprehensive legislation Tuesday that would appropriate $250 billion in R&D-related spending over five years, aiming to take on China as the two countries compete for technological leadership.

The United States Innovation and Competition Act, incorporating the earlier Endless Frontier Act, passed by a 68-32 vote. It includes $52 billion in emergency funding for the semiconductor sector as well as $81 billion for the National Science Foundation.

"When

TOKYO -- U.S. regulators' approval on Monday of aducanumab, an Alzheimer's treatment jointly developed by California-based Biogen and Tokyo-based Eisai, is potentially a life-changing moment for millions.

This is the first time that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved a drug designed to slow the progress of Alzheimer's in sufferers. Previous drugs targeting the disease have aimed only to alleviate symptoms.

It has raised hopes that dementia, a pressing challenge in countries with aging

TAIPEI (Reuters) -- Taiwan's exports rose for an 11th straight month in May, and far exceeded expectations, boosted by global demand for microchips and hi-tech gadgets in the work-from-home pandemic boom, but the island's own COVID-19 spike could cloud the outlook.

Exports rose 38.6% from a year earlier to $37.41 billion last month, the Ministry of Finance said on Tuesday, setting a new historical high in value

TOKYO - Japanese drugmaker Eisai is betting on Asia to boost sales of a newly approved therapeutic Alzheimer's disease drug co-developed with U.S.-based Biogen, as the aging region faces a rapid increase in dementia patients.

Eisai CEO Haruo Naito told Nikkei in an interview on Tuesday that the treatment would "become a substantial blockbuster," a drug with annual sales of over $1 billion, and expressed hope that it would generate significant revenue for the pharmaceutical company.

On June 7, the U.

NEW YORK -- Life on a nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine, or SSBN, can be dreary.

"There's no Wi-Fi, no TV, no radio or anything like that. When I first joined, everybody got very excited when the Navy's movie service sent you a new box of videotapes or DVDs," former submariner Tom Shugart, who served on three vessels, including as commander of the nuclear-powered fast-attack sub USS Olympia, told Nikkei Asia.

But besides the

TOKYO -- Japanese mobile carrier SoftBank Corp. has formed a tie-up with U.S. startup Skylo Technologies to provide satellite communication services for internet-connected commercial devices at a cost of only 10% of competing rates.

SoftBank struck its alliance with Skylo late last month, after parent company SoftBank Group led a $103 million funding round for the startup this January, aiming to launch an affordable network in Japan as early as next year. Boeing is also an investor in the American company.

BANGKOK -- Banpu, Thailand's largest coal company, has moved to acquire two solar farms in Australia as it seeks to boost capacity in this field of renewable energy roughly sixfold by 2025.

Banpu announced Tuesday the 97.5 million Australian dollar ($75.4 million) purchase of the power stations with a combined capacity of 166 megawatts from North Sydney-based New Energy Solar.

The move comes as coal, which accounts for 80% of Banpu's revenue