Taiwan startup Popup Tech has developed a hotel property management system, dubbed Fullinn PMS, mainly designed to help small- and medium-size hotels with fewer than 50 guest rooms boost their operating efficiency, according to company founder YC Chiu.Chiu said that Fullinn PMS, through cooperation with Australia hotel channel manager Myallocator, has built connections with the world's major OTA (online travel agency) platforms including Booking.com and Agoda.Chiu continued that many operators of smaller hotels cannot easily access complicated management platforms, and Fullinn PMS provides a convenient user interface allowing the operators to show all their room data on the same interface to facilitate their transition to online hotel management.Chiu said that through Fullinn PMS, hotel operators can immediately update the number of rooms available for booking at major OTA platforms, as long as they provide room data and accounts registered at the platforms.He said that Fullinn PMS can help hotel operators boost revenues by 20-30% within three months. Chiu said Popup Tech will soon have its Fullinn PMS connected to other service outlets including food stores, restaurants and retailers at scenic spots, so as to enable hotel operators to provide consumers with more service values.

Taiwan-based Ideabus Technology has developed a smart leisure-time physical activity (LTPA) training solutions for seniors, with three products already available to support long-term care for the elderly, including SODA Lohas cognitive machine, BrainRich brain training machine and SPOZ exercise assisting system, according to the firm's chief operating officer Gary Fu.When showcasing the solutions at the just-concluded Meet Taipei Startup Festival 2018, Fu said that the LTPA training solutions are co-developed with occupational therapists and connected to the cloud for recording, tracing and analyzing the training progress and efficiency of elders.Fu said Ideabus has shipped some 100 sets of SODA cognition training machines so far in 2018. It is a portable amusing and healing hand pressing system designed on brain plasticity theory to train responsiveness, attention, coordination of elderly users.The company's BrainRich is developed as a product for elders with dementia risk by training their reaction, concentration, logics and memory. So far the firm has sold 30 sets of the brain training machine.The SPOZ exercise assisting system is designed to help people do exercise regularly. The company has shipped around 200 sets of this system since it was launched in January 2017, and Fu sees great sales potential for the product in Japan as the company is in talks with Japan's retail channel Bic Camera to sell it there.

German automaker Audi has recently teamed up with Taiwan startups to simulate daily smart mobility experiences for 2025, including fast charging service for electrical vehicles, driving safety, route planning, and financial service for car buyers, among others.At the just-concluded Meet Taipei Startup Festival 2018, five Taiwan startups winning the Audi Innovation Award hosted during the year's Computex Taipei held in early June joined forces to present simulative daily smart mobility scenarios in 2025.Among them, startup NiveUP's eXtreme fast charging-ready battery can complete up to 93% charging capacity within six minutes, boosting charging speed by 10-fold and increasing battery duration by three-fold.Startup creDa's ezOracle can issue advance warnings against possible situations on the driving routes that may occur within seconds, such as cars that may overtake from behind, by utilizing AI algorithms, cameras surrounding vehicles and image recognition technology.Meanwhile, DR42's BerryNet technology can be used to deploy AI application on the edge network, and with vehicle to infrastructure (V2I) applications, cars can communicate with the AI boxes installed at the back of monitoring devices at road intersections, helping drivers work out the most convenient driving routes.Adenovo creates a brand-new FinTech model by utilizing AI to help financial service firms assess credit risks, thus saving labor cost on such assessment.

Thingnario has developed Photon, an AI-enabled PV monitoring solution that can determine the best time for cleaning modules of power stations and rooftop systems.Operators of PV power stations and rooftop systems usually rely on labor-based inspection of PV modules and clean them twice a year, the startup firm said, adding such inspection takes much time and cannot be used to determine the best time for cleaning.Photon works on a predicative model built using operating data collected from many existing PV power stations and rooftop PV systems, according to Thingnario. Photon monitors a target PV power station or rooftop PV system by collecting power generation and weather data to predict operating conditions via AI-based deep learning. If actual operations deviate from the prediction, Photon will tell the operator it is time to clean PV modules.A 487KWp PV power station or rooftop PV system enabled by Photon can bring in electricity sales of over NT$1 million (US$32,400) half-yearly, Thingnario said. But manually-inspected systems of the same capacity can generate sales of only NT$880,000 half-yearly, Thingnario noted. In addition, Photon can recommend separate time to be taken in cleaning PV modules in different zones of a PV power-generating station to reach the most efficient cleaning on the whole, Thingnario indicated.Photon's smart monitoring can detect abnormal operating conditions for timely repair or early maintenance, Thingnario said.

Taiwan startup Eunomics, a provider of e-commerce solutions, is moving to grasp reading habits of users with a non-chat method and provide accurate personalized information services.Introducing the firm's solutions at the just-concluded Meet Taipei Startup Festival 2018, product manager Jesse Chen said that Eunomics can use its patented data transmission method to deliver data to social media and other channels, and can then adopt patented neural network algorithms to track and analyze personal or group reading behavior, so as to realize accurate audience delivery.Entering cooperation with news content providers one year after its inception in 2013, Eunomics has developed servers in-house for data collection and processing and managed to place ads catering to potential needs of users based on their reading behaviors, ages and interests, according to Chen.Chen continued that Eunomics now focuses on applying AI and neural network algorithms to reading tracking, characteristics analysis, correlation analysis, as well as information and ad placement, based on related lexical and grammatical features.Chen stressed that if consumers want to buy a certain product with the highest price/performance ratio, they can enter related key words on the firm's system, which will automatically recommend the exact product they need.

Environmental and occupational health instrument developer Scarlet Tech has scored points in promoting its smart heat stress detectors designed to protect workers from heat exhaustion working at mines, construction sites and other outdoor environments, according to company founder David Huang.The devices add the value of IoT (Internet of Things) to conventional instruments for niche-market applications, he said.The detectors are equipped with sensors to collect data on thermal radiation, temperature, humidity and wind speed, four environmental physical parameters, and intergate them with physiological parameters such as age and weight for algorithm-based analysis, Huang said.If the analysis indicates the environmental physical parameters exceed safety standards, the detectors will send on heat stress warnings. The safety standards can be customized based on clients' needs and local regulations on labor safety, Huang noted.Scarlet Tech adopts RF technology instead of LoRa, NB-IoT or LPWAN, wireless data communication technologies commonly used in IoT, for transferring data collected by the sensors to the cloud, Huang indicated, as RF meets the needs for long-distance, real-time and continued data transmission under ruggedized environment. The data uploaded to the cloud enable remote monitoring of operating conditions at working sites, Huang added.Scarlet Tech has also launched noise dosimeters to measure long-term noise exposure as well as wireless anemometers for use in cranes to detect whether wind speeds are within allowable levels.Scarlet Tech's development of smart heat stress detectors originated from Huang's participation in setting up a nationwide accident monitoring system in Abu Dhabi under a World Health Organization program. Huang saw many cases of heat exhaustion there.Emirates, Royal Dutch Shell, Australia-based BHP, South Korea-based Samsung Group and Hyundai Group are among Scarlet Tech's clients. While the Middle East accounts for 70% of Scarlet Tech's clients, the company has tapped markets in the US, Europe, Southeast Asia and Australia and plans to set up marketing bases in Dubai and the UK.A smart heat stress detector (right) and a wireless anemometerPhoto: Chloe Liao, Digitimes, November 2018Scarlet Tech founder David HuangPhoto: Chloe Liao, Digitimes, November 2018

Aeroponics developer Airtree has won an innovation award at Meet Accel, a selection of startup businesses held jointly by Taiwan's innovation social platform Meet Startup and New York-based accelerator Lair East Labs.Airtree will now go to Lair East Labs' accelerator in New York. It plans to set up a base in the US to grow vegetables for local supply.Airtree said it uses vertical aeroponic growers to cultivate vegetables. Seedlings of vegetables wrapped in sponge are separately put in holes of the aeroponic growers and tubes inside the growers spray nutrient solution to roots of vegetables, Airtree noted. Nutrient solution is formulated in terms of proportions of nitrogen, phosphor and potassium depending on variety of vegetables, Airtree indicated.While hydroponics entails high cost for controlling water temperatures, aeroponics requires only drafty air and is less affected by environmental temperatures, Airtree said. Since aeroponic vegetables are separately grown, it is easy to avoid spread of pests by removing only vegetables that suffer pests.A vertical aeroponic growerPhoto: Yihan Li, Digitimes, November 2018Tubes spray nutrient solution inside aeroponic growersPhoto: Yihan Li, Digitimes, November 2018

Bearing the theme of "Startup High 5ive," the Meet Taipei Startup Festival 2018 running November 15-17 at Taipei Expo Dome highlights close combination of Taiwan startup teams and further connections with international startup ecosystems to create Taiwan's new wave of startup development in the next five years.Through six major themed industrial exhibit areas and international startup exhibit zone, the event has gathered 200 domestic startup teams, 100 international startup firms from 23 countries and witnessed a series of forums and many other activities such as NeoStar Demo Show, DigiAsia 2018, and La French Touch, all designed to showcase Taiwan's solid prowess and momentum in tech innovations.Many iconic representatives from related sectors at home and abroad attended the opening session, including Audrey Tang, a Taiwan minister without portfolio, StarFab CEO Amanda Liu, Advantech investor representative WT Liu, KKDay founder MM Chen, and representatives from American Institute in Taiwan and Austrian Commercial Office in Taiwan.A National Development Council official said at the opening ceremony that the government is relaxing relevant regulations and offering incentives to solicit more tech talents and encourage investment in setting up tech startups in Taiwan.An official from the Ministry of Economic Affairs also noted that the ministry is implementing a Service Industry Innovation Research (SIIR) program to help startups in diverse fields with market researches, and that the Company Law has been revised to allow more flexibility for business operations by startups.Among industrial players at the event, Advantech greatly encourages startup teams to engage in innovations and the company hopes to co-create the next wave of IoT business opportunities with startup partners by providing related solutions through its WISE-PaaS IoT platform.Taiwan startups participate in 2018 Meet Taipei FestivalPhoto: Mark Tsai, Digitimes, November 2018

Coolso Technology has used its patented muscle bio signal technology to develop wearable gesture control device that can detect individual finger movement for precise gesture recognition, and the technology can also be applied to Industry 4.0 man-machine interfaces beyond medical and gaming applications, according to the firm's founder Jack Wu.Wu said if manufacturers can have their production employees wear muscle bio sensing modules, they can collect and analyze related data to help upgrade product quality and production efficiency in line with Industry 4.0 requirements.At the 2018 Meet Taipei Startup Festival running November 15-17, the company has released two new devices. One of them is fitted with muscle sensing module and inertial sensor, can conduct wireless data transmission through Bluetooth low energy (BLE) and Bluetooth 4.0 technology, and can be utilized with AR and multimedia for collaborative control. In addition, the device can be connected with rehabilitation robots for medical applications.The second device can transmit digital signals through optical sensors and Bluetooth 2.0 technology. It can be connected with HTC Vive Tracker to show VR gaming contents, allowing users to experience man-machine interface applications.Coolso has had talks with many potential Japan customers, and inked non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) with some of them, Wu disclosed, adding that the company will be able to ship 1,000 sets of muscle bio sensing modules for B2B gaming sectors and up to 10,000 sets for healthcare purposes.

Taiwan startup KitchBot, aiming to make cooking an interesting and convenient job with IoT hardware and software technologies, is moving to build a smart kitchenware platform integrating food ecosystem services including smart home, smart wine brewer, 3D modules, pour-over coffee, and smart bean roaster, according to company co-founder HY Zhu.Zhu said that his company has developed a remote-control smart socket dubbed Vulcan, at a cost of NT$3.5 million (US$113,409) raised from crowd-funding in early 2017. The socket can be connected with electric cookers, electric hot plates, roasters and electric spoons, and is available with two temperature control lines, with one able to measure temperatures from -10 to 110 degrees Celsius and the other from -10 to 230 degrees Celsius.Zhu disclosed that KitchBot has shipped over 2,000 Vulcan smart socket sets as of mid-November 2018, through the firm's own website and the iCook platform.He stressed that the data the company has collected so far show males aged 25-45 constitute the largest consumer group, most of them being doctors, product managers and government employees by profession.The company has released 60-70 culinary recipes on customized KitchBot apps, with 30 more recipes to be uploaded in the near future. It also plans to launch smart electric rice cookers fitted with chipsets developed in-house before rolling out other smart kitchenware products.Zhu is responsible for the cloud, software and app establishment and another co-founder SF Yang for electronics technologies.KitchBot co-founder HY ZhuPhoto: Mark Tsai, Digitimes, November 2018