Taiwan startup Yallvend is ready to promote its newly developed vending upgrade kits (VUK) designed to make vending machines smart and able to perform mobile payment functions, according to company CEO CY Huang.Huang said that traditional vending machines usually cannot work well for about one tenth of the time, due to mechanical failure, stock running out, or no sufficient cash available to make change. This, coupled with poor inventory and replenishment management amid the absence of network connections, and fraudulent coin insertion by consumers, makes it necessary for automatic vending machines to go smart.Huang indicated that though Yallvend's VUK module comprises only three devices - modem, antenna and QR code - it can help upgrade existing vending machines to IoT level and address the abovementioned problems.Yallvend, founded in January 2019, also offers backend information management system to help operators harness the latest operation conditions of their vending machines and boost overall operating efficiency. The system can issue warnings twice, one at 50% of inventory left for each product item on sales and the other at 25%, to allow operators to better time their replenishment and reduce related cost, according to Huang.Through the QR Code on each vending machine, Huang continued, consumers can easily use mobile payment platforms to shop at vending machines.Huang commented that connecting vending machines is a simple technology, but it is a great challenge for such machines to handle mobile payment. In this regard, he stressed that Yallvend has developed a friendly common solution to equip coin-operated washing machines and automatic car washing machines with mobile payment capability.Besides the Taiwan market, Huang revealed, Yallvend has zeroed in on Southeast Asia and Japan as next target markets for its UVK solutions.
The escalating US-China trade war is sending IT firms moving their manufacturing operations from China to avoid the tariffs imposed on Chinese products. But plant relocation is much easier said than done, as it is a complicated process involving the entire supply chain from the upstream to the downstream apart from the necessary expenses. Today's reports offer insights into the difficulties for relocation and some latest developments at Wistron and Catcher. Trade war to impose 3 major challenges for production relocation: The US-China trade war is disrupting IT supply chains and presenting three major challenges to makers trying to move production lines from China - difficulty in building complete logistics systems, a lack of assembly line and management personnel, and increase in operating cost.Wistron looking to set up pilot line in US; Catcher eyeing Southeast Asia or Taiwan for new plant: Wistron chairman has disclosed that the ODM is looking to set up a pilot line in the US as a backup to its manufacturing facilities in Mexico. Meanwhile chassis maker Catcher is planning to establish a new plant either in Taiwan or Southeast Asia.
Foxconn has introduced a new committee for collective management for the "post-Terry Gou era," as the chairman is stepping down soon to facilitate his bid for Taiwan's presidency. The company has also disclosed it has not seen clients asking it to move production our of China despite the rising trade war, but its global production capacity is enough to support its clients' needs.
The US trade ban may have halted Huawei's expansions overseas, but has prompted China to accelerate the pace of 5G deplopyments domestically. Huawei reportedly is redesigning its base stations to accomodate lower-spec components for local deployments, and is relying more on Taiwan suppliers, with a new ecosystem possibly taking shape to serve mainly Chinese IT firms.
Because of the US-China trade tensions and Intel's ongoing CPU shortages, worldwide all-in-one (AIO) PC shipments are expected to shrink 5% on year to arrive at only 12.8 million units in 2019, a weaker performance than expected previously, according to Digitimes Research's figures.AIO PCs will account for 12.6% of overall desktop shipments in 2019, Digitimes Research's numbers showed.Of the top-4 AIO PC brands, the top-2 brands - Apple and Lenovo - will see sharper shipment declines than others in 2019, while third-place Hewlett-Packard (HP) and foruth-place Dell will both see stead performances.AIO PC ODM Quanta Computer will be hit quite hard as a result of both Apple and HP cutting orders. Lenovo has also reduced its AIO PC orders for its ODM partners Wistron and Compal Electronics for 2019.
Since British technology pioneer Kevin Ashton coined the term "Internet of Things" in 1999, IoT development has undergone several stages including "terminal connection" and "platform analysis" before being integrated with artificial intelligence (AI) into the current AIoT, achieving multiple applications in diverse domains such as smart home, the Internet of Vehicles (IoV), and smart manufacturing. In future combination with 5G, AIoT will penetrate into more vertical markets faster to generate immense business opportunities by leveraging 5G's broad bandwidth, low latency and huge connectivity.At the IoT Innovative Developments Forum organized by Digitimes during Computex 2019, speakers from many leading firms - from diverse sectors, including cloud service, industrial PC, e-paper, testing and validation service, and semiconductor - provided insights into IoT development.IoT applications cannot be materialized without the combined support of bottom-layer sensors, middle-layer gateways and upper-layer cloud platforms, with every node requiring semiconductor technology to serve as the development basis.Sahil Bansal, senior director of product management at Qualcomm, noted that the firm's Vision Intelligence Platform integrates such elements as image signal processor (ISP), high-speed AI engine, machine learning and computer vision software development kit (SDK), generating more space for imagination about the applications of robots, industrial cameras, wearable cameras and VR cameras.Robert Chang, associate director for IoT market development at Avnet Asia, stressed that hardware devices alone are not sufficient to support whole IoT application scenarios, and therefore his company has been aggressively developing cloud data, AI and IoT PaaS platforms, seeking to build one-stop service niches and help clients accelerate design, development, volume production and sales deployment of IoT products.KiPhone Lin, associate vice president of IPC maker Advantech, opined that the forces of ecosystem partners count greatly in bringing AIoT applications into full play.Kyle Lee, deputy director of IoT PM division at E Ink Holdings, also noted that electronic paper, featuring low power consumption, visibility under the sun, super-wide viewing angle and flexibility, can serve as best displays in many IoT application environments.David Feng, intelligent cloud & edge lead at Microsoft, emphasized that IoT projects are usually very complicated, and comprehensive smart cross-cloud and edge-to-device architectures are badly needed to simplify the complexity.Arvin Ho, vice general manager at TUV Rheinland Taiwan, reminded that IoT device developers must select proper networking technologies or their devices may need to undergo renewed testing and validation processes.In analyzing the evolution of global IoT ecosystems in 2019, Jim Haiso, an analyst at Digitimes Research, pointed out that the ever-expanding cellular networks, LPWA (low power wide area) networks, IEC 62443-4-2 safety standards and IoT platform ecosystems will be a trend deserving great attention.IoT Innovative Developments Forum organized by Digitimes during Computex 2019Photo: Michael Lee, Digitimes, May 2019
Leukemia is one of the most common cancers. Initial diagnosis and follow-ups are based on the interpretation of flow cytometry results - a gold standard in clinical evaluation of the presence of residual cancer cells - performed by doctors laboriously checking and correlating many combinations of the biomarkers detected on the surface of cell samples taken from a patient, taking up precious time that could be spent on more critical clinical tasks and patient care.Machine learning provides a framework to efficiently identify features - for example, biomarker expression on cell surface - or combination thereof to enable the interpretation of flow cytometry results. AHEAD's "flow" model leverages historical clinical data to dramatically reduce the time required by physician to perform an evaluation of test results - from 20 minutes to seven seconds at 90% concordance rate with physician - providing immediate feedback, leveraging the experience and knowledge of many physicians, which take years to acquire. Through cloud computing, this service can be provided to hospitals and clinics which do not have the expertise in interpreting flow cytometry results.Deep learning models are also being developed, combining both treatment history and past clinical examination data, to provide more accurate prognosis prediction which will guide the course of treatment with greater confidence. This is a substantially more complex problem which must examine and take into account different types of clinical data simultaneously - a task difficult to visualize by human.Founded in 2017, AHEAD is led by key opinion leaders in hematology and experts in artificial intelligence and data science in Taiwan. The AI team is led by Chi-Chun Lee, associate professor at the Department of Electrical Engineering of National Tsing Hua University (NTHU). The data science team is led by Andrea Wang at National Taiwan University (NTU). NTU and NTHU are both top research universities in Taiwan.Ming Yao and Bor-Sheng Ko at the Division of Hematology and Oncology of National Taiwan University Hospital (NTUH), led by Jih-Luh Tang at the Tai Cheng Stem Cell Therapy Center of National Taiwan University (NTU), form the medical team providing clinical hematology expert guidance.NTUH, founded in 1895, is a world-renowned medical center and leader in Taiwan's health care industry. With nearly 40 years of experience in practicing bone marrow transplant, it has accumulated considerable amount of clinical treatment experience and data on leukemia. AHEAD was born out of this environment.Taiwan's healthcare industry is renowned for its comprehensive population coverage, high quality healthcare and was ranked 9th in the Bloomberg Healthcare Efficiency Index in 2018. Moreover, high quality AI talent pools and AI research performance in Taiwan are also highly recognized among multiple tech giants such as Microsoft, Google and Amazon.Taiwan is also in a particularly privileged position, given its tradition in medical research and public health, to play a leading role in bringing smart medicine to the world. AHEAD, drawing its strength from a multidisciplinary team, is actively participating in the vibrant AI healthcare startup scene, further contributing and supporting Taiwan to become the global leader in the smart medicine industry.
New Taipei City is a city bursting with creative talents and innovative energy. At present, New Taipei City has promoted a number of youth startup policies, and established bases including InnoSquare, New Taipei Social Enterprise and E-commerce Base, and New Taipei City E-sports Base.Moreover, New Taipei City government worked with Amazon AWS to establish NTPC-AWS Joint Innovation Center, providing various resources such as venue space, mentor counseling, professional courses, industries connection, capital placement, and international links, to help emerging enterprises and startups grow and upgrade.In the future, New Taipei City will continue to create a more friendly environment on a sound foundation and build a one-stop solution to assist the startup teams with development, creating a comprehensive ecosystem of innovation and entrepreneurship.New Taipei City sets up the New Taipei Pavilion for the first time at InnoVEX this year. With the theme of smart city, the exhibition will use the activities such as displays, forums, and exchanges to help the startup teams win the favors of the venture capitals, accelerators, and enterprises at home and abroad.The results of this New Taipei City exhibition include Muro Box of TEVOFY Technology, GO+ earphone of FuelStation, the home soap-making machine of LESSDO, the car service platform of IGCAR, the e-commerce data decision making platform of ORDERLY, the AI marketing platform of MemePR, the smart home appliances of Cloudmii, the financing placement platform of GateWeb Information, the augmented reality game of Toii, the AI security camera image analysis platform of Beseye, the IoT B2B overall solution of SoftChef, and the smart healthcare platform of Asia-Pacific Intelligent.Moreover, to link up to international startup resources, New Taipei City will conduct exchange and cooperation with startup and incubation institutions such as the acceleration program Startup GO! GO! from Fukuoka, Japan, and QBO Innovation Hub from the Philippines during the InnoVEX exhibition. Soft landing solutions will be provided to each other, allowing the New Taipei startup teams to create more opportunities for international collaboration. At InnoVEX 2019, New Taipei City's Smart City Pavilion is located at Booth A0505a, Hall 1 of Taipei World Trade Center from May 29 to 31, 2019.
TMYTEK has solved two critical issues in 5G development - lack of R&D tool and expensive OTA testing in the production line - with their mmWave beamformer product, BBox.The flexibility of BBox makes it an excellent R&D tool for antenna designer and protocol researchers. Leading institutes and universities have already used BBox to demonstrate promising technologies such as beam tracking algorithm optimization.BBox can also be a cost-effective 5G OTA testing solution. As an RF probe, beam steering can be easily achieved in BBox to characterize the beam profile and the steering angle of the DUTs."We have talent rarely found in Taiwan startup team. By solving the above issues, TMYTEK believes we can contribute to the world with the technology we're proud of. In addition to mmWave experts, brilliant embedded software and firmware engineers are also in our team. That's the reason we can build our mmWave beamforming technology for 5G communication," Ethan Lin, vice president of TMYTEK, said.TMYTEK, founded in 2014, has been focusing on mmWave active/passive components and system development. Phase array, mmWave circuits, beam control logic, beam shaping & tracking algorithm, and even baseband chipset integration are all in TMYTEK's scope.Last year, TMYTEK won the first prize of CIAT accelerator program with BBox and received recognition from 13 venture capitals.
France's data protection authority CNIL issued an announcement in January 2019 imposing a fine equivalent to NT$1.76 billion on Google for violating the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) enforced by the EU. Besides traditional information risks facing individual industries, the ordinary people must also be aware of the data safety listed below and associated with innovative industry chains in the emerging digital economy era, namely web services, social networking and encrypted tokens.Web servicesBased on the traffic monetization business model seen in popular web services, many innovation startups have launched a variety of web content for access by netizens and attract them to stay, so that they can utilize personal data of consumers and multiple data accumulated from diverse online behavior to make profits from conducting ads push notification in cooperation with other firms. In the web service access process, the lack of transparency in handling personal data and notification of content that is either too simple or too complicated will lead to major legal disputes and huge potential damages.Social networkingIn various future digital scenarios, the mainstream applications will be ones that allow consumers to do shopping, conduct financial wealth management, enjoy entertainment and arrange transportation through social network platforms. It is expected that both the reliance of global netizens on social network platforms and the boost to peripheral digital applications will intensify. Of course, various digital footprints resulting from such a lifestyle will incur high economic values, which will surely be highly coveted by cyber hackers and should be strongly protected.Encrypted tokenIn line with various forms of digital tokenization trend, startups have recently been keen to engage in related R&D projects. As long as they are in the electronic form, any type of token, whether payment token, function token or securities token, will be exposed to the risk of cyber attacks in the issuance, exchange and storage processes of the token ecosystem. Amid drastic price falls for virtual currencies, the number of cyber attacks through the planting of malware will decline sharply. Nevertheless, extortions using asymmetric encryption algorithms to hijack or affect digital token operations are expected to increase steeply.The Internet era where data was valued more than privacy has gone, and various countries in the world will now establish new global digital economy norms based on diverse data processing, information security and privacy protection regulations. Google still received a huge fine from CNIL ticket though it did not leak any piece of personal data. This clearly motivates startups eager to develop emerging technologies to give more efforts to protect the consumers' rights to know how their personal data is utilized in the future development of digital technologies, in addition to handling basic data security issues such as firewall and encryption algorithms. This is the true lesson to be learnt from the Google fine.(Jason Hsieh is executive vice president and leader of Cryptoassets and Token Economy Taskforce of KPMG in Taiwan)
