Qisda-BenQ Group has been actively developing medical care business in Taiwan and China and will extend its efforts to Southeast Asia, according to Harry Yang, vice president for Qisda's Medical Devices Products Group.Qisda was established in 1984 and spun off its brand BenQ into a subsidiary to become an ODM/OEM in 2007.The development of medical care business consists of four areas, Yang told Digitimes in a recent interview: Medical care services, medical cosmetic products, smart medical solutions, and medical equipment and materials.The group set up a hospital in Nanjing, China, in 2007 and another in Suzhou, also in China in 2013. It has also set a subsidiary engaged in marketing hearing aids.BenQ Materials, a polarizer subsidiary, produces Miacare contact lenses, DermaAngel skin care gel and AnsCare wound care and hemostatic products.BenQ has developed MiBot, a smart robot to convey medical devices and materials, and FitHRight, a monitoring system based on smart wearable devices and cloud computing management for use in group fitness activities.BenQ produces medical displays; BenQ Dialysis Technology has begun production of hemodialyzers; BenQ Medical Technology develops iQOR, a smart solution for use in operating rooms; AB DentCare (joint venture with Israel-based AB Dental Devices) produces dental implants; Lily Medical produces diagnostic ultrasound scanners.Qisda has set up a production line with annual capacity of 2.2 million hemodialyzers. Viewing that there are about 80,000 hemodialysis patients in Taiwan, the group acquired K2 International Medical in 2018 for marketing of hemodialyzers.In particular, iQOR integrates surgical tables, lamps and other surgical equipment and allows members of a surgical team to know real-time information on patients including images transferred via PACS (picture archiving and communication system). More than 100 sets of iQOR have been adopted by hospitals in China.The group aims at revenues of NT$30 billion (US$971 million) for medical care business in 2020, four times the level in 2018, through keeping acquiring startup businesses, Yang noted. In 2019, the group plans to acquire 3-5 startups, Yang said.Targets of acquisition are startups that have brought prototypes into volume production and such acquisitions will allow Qisda to quickly increase output. This is because certification for medical devices takes 2-3 years and the group prefers to invest more in start-up businesses with feasible products and business models rather than wait for obtaining certification, Yang explained. Start-up businesses, before certification process or volume production, had better have their products in trail use through cooperation with hospitals or makers to test market response, Yang indicated.Harry Yang, vice president for Qisda's Medical Devices Products GroupPhoto: Mark Tsai, Digitimes, November 2018

Da-Yeh University in central Taiwan has developed a smart control technology that can automatically adjust 3D printing parameters in accordance with temperature changes in external environment, and adjust printing speed.The technology is among 70 R&D achievements accomplished under an academia-industry collaboration project supported by Taiwan's Ministry of Science and Technology.YW Chen, dean of Da-Yeh's College of Engineering, said that as temperature and speed are the two crucial parameters affecting 3D printing quality, his R&D team has joined forces with the Plastics Industry Development Center (PIDC) to work out the smart control system to improve 3D printing performance.Chen said that sensors are utilized to detect temperature and humidity changes in external environments and then the detection results are incorporated into the printing command language to automatically adjust the speed ratio, enabling control of printing speed changes.

Asus Life, a subsidiary of Asustek Computer, willl cooperate with Taipei's city-run hospitals to offer a smart medical care solution to jointly take care of old people suffering dementia.The city government has designated seven of its hospitals as sites where enterprises or organizations can experiment their smart medical care solutions on a cooperative basis. Asus Life will work with one of the hospitals according to Jerry Hsu, general manager of the company's Medical IoT Product Business.Asus Life's smart medical care solution mainly consists of OmniCare, PhenoFinder, Zenbo and AiNurse, Hsu said.OmniCare is a medical IoT platform to collect biometric data from various instruments and smart wearable devices for shared use in remote medical or health care services, medical research projects or development of precision medicine.PhenoFinder is a platform to integrate patients' medical records at all hospitals for inquiry and big data analysis.Zenbo is a smart robot equipped with facial recognition function, and AiNurse is a virtual care-giving robot able to communicate with patients via voice or text.Asus Life has cooperated with Advantech, QNAP Systems, Galaxy Software Services and Full Enterprise to develop the smart medical care solution since June 2018.Jerry Hsu, general manager of Asus Life's Medical IoT Prodcut BusinessPhoto: Mark Tsai, Digitimes, November 2018

An academia-industry collaboration project backed by major research bodies in Taiwan and promoted by the country's Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) has borne significant fruits, having helped academic talent set up 13 tech startups in addition to 70 R&D achievements in various fields, according to MOST.CH Chiou, director of the Department of Academia-Industry Collaboration and Science Park Affairs, said at a recent demonstration event that the R&D achievements cover a wide variety of fields including ICT, smart machinery, biomedicine, biomedical supplies, green energy, digital finance and commercial management, and are jointly scored by academic and industrial sectors. Nine domestic research bodies including the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), Institute for Information Industry, Metal Industries Research & Development Center, Taiwan Textile Institute and National Applied Research Laboratories (NARLabs), wee involved.Chiou said that the research bodies can help bridge the gap between academic research and actual industrial demand, so as to let more innovative technologies be easily applied to industrial production and commercialization.He stressed that while industrial upgrades and transformations are actively under way, the R&D achievements developed under the academia-industry collaboration project will inject new innovation momentum into enterprises and help them further boost competitiveness.Besides ICT and other related sectors, Chiou revealed, the project will focus more on the development of green energy and AI in the future.

Global major tech firms including Microsoft, Google, Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent are all aggressively proceeding with IoT deployments, accelerating the popularity of IoT applications and further expanding IoT market scales. But many misperceptions emerging in the process of the IoT development may restrain healthy growth of the IoT industry, according to Digitimes president Colley Hwang.Hwang made the comments when speaking at the Advantech IoT Co-Creation Summit held in Suzhou, China in early November.Hwang said that there are more than 500 IoT platforms operating in the market, which, however, has fallen into a chaos because no on is in charge. Businesses are keen to engage in IoT applications, but the herd mentality may result in an overheated market.IoT advantages have been exaggerated while the difficulties in IoT development have been underestimated, which have prevented some enterprises from successfully developing IoT businesses, he said.Despite the misconceptions, IoT has actually brought remarkable advantages. For the moment, IoT has been gradually applied to wearable devices, smart living, smart city and smart manufacturing fields, and is expected to play a more crucial role in healthcare, education and logistics sectors, accelerating the technological upgrades at related industries, according to Hwang.He said that new incomes and better customer services provided by IoT will help simplify operations and reduce operating costs in the sectors of electronics healthcare, industrial production, smart grid, smart home living and smart city applications.Hwang said that forming alliances will become a key to the success in the IoT era, a direction highlighted by the co-creation concept of Advantech's IoT summit.Advantech has set it an IoT development goal for 2021 to have over 1,000 member users of its IoT-dedicated WISE-PaaS platform, more than 60 SRP (solution ready package) co-creation partners, and at least 80 domain focus system integrators (DFSI).Digitimes president Colley HwangPhoto: Digitimes, November 2018

The Southern Taiwan Science Park (STSP) has held recently a Maker community event under the theme of "Maker Builds the Future" to demonstrate the do-it-yourself (DIY) efforts developed at its AI-Robot workshop.The AI-Robot DIY workshop, established since November 2017, was aimed at promoting the establishment of DIY communities to develop AI/AR/VR, IoT/big data, autonomous driving and smart long-term healthcare applications.Over 50 Maker community events have been held at the workshop over the past year with over 2,000 people participating in these events, according to Chen-kang Su, deputy director general of STSP Bureau.At the park's latest Maker event, Huang Jen-tse, a high school student, showcased his CV3 desktop CNC (computer numerical control) lathe, which he developed under the MVP (minimum viable product) project initiated by the AI-Robot workshop.Huang also showcased its CNC lathe at Maker Faire Tokyo 2018 from August 4-5, Su noted.Meanwhile, Lee Kuan-yu, a software engineer from ScinoPharm Taiwan, demonstrated a fish and vegetable symbiosis system enabled by Arduino monitoring system that senses the temperature and level of the water of fishing pool and also to control automatic feeding system.The AI-Robot DIY workshop is also cooperating with a number of hi-tech companies operating in the STSP, including Castek International, Marketech International, and Information Technology Total Services, Su noted.STSP promoting Maker community activitiesPhoto: Rebecca Kuo, Digitimes, November 2018

Taiwan's monitor shipments grew 7.5% on year in the third quarter of 2018 and are expected to continue enjoying a similar level of on-year increase in the fourth quarter, according to Digitimes Research's latest report.The shipment share of 22- to -26-inch models had a higher-than-expected increase in the third quarter as TPV and Qisda both had significant shipment pick-ups in 23.x-inch products. Qisda's 27-inch and above product shipments also enjoyed significant growth, Digitimes Research's numbers show.Taiwan's monitor production value had a sequential growth smaller than that of shipments in the third quarter due to dropping panel prices, resulting in a decrease in monitors' ASP. As panel prices are expected to continue declining in the fourth quarter, the ASP is expected to slip further.As for Taiwan-based monitor makers, TPV achieved a dramatic increase in third-quarter shipments, allowing its share of Taiwan's overall shipments to rise. For the fourth quarter, all Taiwan-based makers are expected to see their shipments stay flat or slip slightly on quarter due to seasonality, with TPV and Qisda also expected to achieve on-year shipment growths.For 2018, worldwide and Taiwan makers' monitor shipments will both rise on year after having experienced several years of declines.

Taiwan-based Round-P Technology is developing agent control-type software platforms to enable remote-controlling the operations of drones, according to company CEO Hsu Jung-kuo.Using compression and decompression technologies for streaming images, the agent-control platform will enable users to steer the flight direction and other movements of drones through mobile phones without latency, Hsu said.The agent-control platform will lower the threshold for ordinary people to utilize drones for aerial photography or for promotion of travelling activities, as well as for surveillance in places including campus, forest and industrial zones.The platform developed by Round-P can also be used for the management of drones to prevent them from invading into confidential areas or restricted scenic spots, Hsu said.The number of active consumer drone players in Taiwan totals about 5,000 currently, Hsu noted, citing data compiled by crowdfunding platform FlyingV.Round-P demonstrating its drone control platformPhoto: Yihan Lee, Digitimes, November 2018

Taiwan startup iHome Smart Technology, a dedicated developer and provider of e-commerce solutions, has set up an online trading mart dubbed MoBro 178 while also issuing blockchain-based token dubbed MOT and consumer reward point coin dubbed MOC as double wallets to set up a shared growth mechanism for the mart and virtual currency, according to the firm's chairperson LJ Chen.Chen said that her company will have MOT listed on a Hongkong Bitcoin exchange house in December 2018. She said that the listing is not designed to raise funds, but to provide a more advanced and convenient trading model for MOT investors and MoBro mart members and secure stable growth of mart coin values.The firm's innovative operation manager YT Hung also noted that MoBro will provide consumers with MOC as reward points for their patronage, with the MOC to generate more values for the mart and made available for international trading.Hung said that MOC holders can complete exchanges between MOC and MOT through MoBro app, and then MOT holders or investors can directly exchange their MOT for other digital tokens after MOT is listed on the Hongkong Bitcoin exchange house in December.Consumers can use app to complete exchanges between MOT and MOCs they get in any MoBro point of sales in Taiwan and other countries, while merchandize providers can also rely on the MoBro trading platform to easily access international markets, according to Hung.Meanwhile, Chen stressed that her company will actualize the application of blockchain technologies to management of shopping malls to keep good records of product traceability, shipment conditions and cash flow.iHome Smart chairperson LJ ChenPhoto:Yihan Lee, Digitimes, November 2018

The world's top-3 memory IC vendors - Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and Micron Technology - saw their combined DRAM and flash memory revenues climb to a record high of US$37.3 billion in the third quarter of 2018.The combined revenues for third-quarter 2018 represented increases of 8% sequentially and 36% on year, thanks mainly to demand for servers and smartphones that come with higher density memory specs.DRAM chip sales accounted for as high as 71% of the combined memory chip revenues generated by the top-3 vendors in the third quarter of 2018, Digitimes Research indicated. The top-3 memory chip vendors saw their combined DRAM memory sales reach US$26.4 billion in the third quarter, up 10% sequentially.Seasonal factors, as well as device clients already kicking off inventory adjustments will weaken memory chip demand and prices in the fourth quarter of 2018 and first-quarter 2019, Digitimes Research estimates. The top-3 memory chip vendors are unlikely to see their revenues regain growth momentum until the second half of 2019.