Taiwan startup iStaging, a developer of AR and VR technologies, is devoted to developing VR content generation software, utilizing AI to turn 2D patterns into 3D ones and upgrade image auto stitching process, so as to help lower the threshold for the user-generated VR content, according to the firm's chief operating officer YW Fang.Fang said that her company is promoting sales of the software to enterprise users, especially real estate brokerage houses, helping them break the barrier of communications with clients on space issues through VR technologies.Fang said that users can use smartphones, fisheye lenses and gyroscope to upload images to the cloud, and VR video content will be automatically generated in the cloud, significantly lowering the entry threshold for content generation and reducing related costs.Fang continued that the VR content generated with the assistance of AI-based software can reach a high accuracy rate of 98%, which can meet the requirement by most businesses excluding medical care application.Fang said her company chooses not to focus on content production but on developing software technologies for accelerating content generation, mainly to step up the application and popularity of VR technologies to industries.

IP surveillance solution provider PiXORD has used fish-eye network cameras in combination with correction ICs and AI-based image recognition technology to monitor traffic flows in Hsinchu City, northern Taiwan, according to the company.While vehicle detectors and CCTVs are unable to monitor and count vehicles turning at intersections of roads, fish-eye network cameras are capable of 360-degree monitoring of traffic, PiXORD said. Correction IC developed by affiliated Avision Technology decodes video recorded by fish-eye network cameras to reduce burden of computing on PCs, allowing a control center to simultaneously monitor video of traffic flows recorded by hundreds of fish-eye network cameras, PiXORD noted. Through AI-based image recognition, sizes, models, license plates, running directions of cars can be recognized, PiXORD indicated. PiXORD has installed fish-eye network cameras at about 400 road intersections in the city.Data collected by fish-eye cameras can be used to identify road intersections where traffic jams are easy to happen, analyze the causes, and then traffic lights are adjusted to reduce traffic congestion, PiXORD said.Such data can be combined with data collected from CCTVs, vehicle detectors and eTag as well as handset signaling to build traffic flow parameters, PiXORD noted. Then, intersections of roads are graded in terms of traffic importance based on these parameters and traffic lights are comprehensively regulated based on AI to reach the most smooth traffic flows and minimize traffic congestion, PiXORD indicated.In addition, PiXORD has cooperated with Leotek, a LED street lighting business group under EMS provider Lite-On Technology, to install fish-eye network cameras at street lamps in the city for security surveillance and monitoring of pedestrian and vehicular flows.360-degree monotoring of traffic flows by a fish-eye network camera at an intersection Photo: PiXORD

IoT startups must first manage to enter good ecosystems to find partners that can best help them with fast growth, no matter what directions they will follow in developing innovations, according to CY Huang, director of National Chiao Tung University (NCTU)'s Center of Industry Accelerator and Patent Strategy.Huang said that after finding good partners, IoT startups have to demonstrate their core competitiveness, which can be visible or invisible resources. They should then develop innovative products based on feasible business models, and identify potential customer groups that can support market expandability for their products. Finally, startup creators have to set up strong teams with visions and capabilities for international deployments.Huang cited a report from Harvard Business School as indicating that about 75% of venture-backed startups have failed in the US. But this is not a difficult issue to address, depending on whether startup developers can locate their weakness (for example, Taiwan teams usually are not good at boosting value chains) and do something to strengthen it, Huang continued.Statistics show that global venture capital investments amounted to a 10-year high of US$155 billion in 2017, but the investment funds were highly concentrated in the US and China.Apparently, Huang said, Taiwan is not among target investment destinations for global venture capitalists, but chances still exist for startups in the country to win investments from worldwide venture capital firms if they can utilize Taiwan's existing industry advantages and find niche points from the current market trends.Along with the emergence of edge computing and fog computing, global demand for information technology products has again returned to IT hardware, requiring the support of strong terminal production capability. With robust prowess in both wafer foundry and IC design services, Huang commented, Taiwan will have a chance of playing a crucial role in the new era.But he reminded startup teams to consider product designs from the market side instead of the technology side, or they will fail to build long-term competitiveness.CY Huang, director of NCTU's Center of Industry Accelerator and Patent StrategyPhoto: NCTU

IBM is ready for the advent of the Bank 4.0 era by providing banks with system integration and solutions to help them further accelerate banking automation to better offer mobile banking services, according to Hong Wu, associate partner of Global Business Services at IBM Taiwan.Brett King introduced the new banking idea in his book, "Bank 4.0: Banking Everywhere, Never at a Bank."In elaborating on banking evolutions, Wu said that the Internet helped Bank 1.0 advance to 2.0, which has progressed further to 3.0 through the popularity of smartphones, with people getting used to handling financial operations through handsets.Now Bank 3.0 is advancing to 4.0, not driven by the emergence of new inventions but by many mature and advanced new techs including VR (virtual reality), AI (artificial intelligence) and voice recognition that can be combined to create many embedded mobile banking service solutions, according to Wu.In the Bank 4.0 era, time is the key, Wu commented, adding that banks must change their past thinking modes and first focus more on "client experiences" by offering services from the perspectives of clients. Then, future banking values will be co-created by banks and clients, and finally banks have to cooperate with tech firms to bring new operating methods. Banks will be increasingly like tech firms and require the assistance of tech firms to accelerate their business transformation, Wu continued.Wu revealed that IBM has entered cooperation with banks to accelerate their business upgrades and transformation. DBS Bank, for instance, has integrated robotic processing automation (RPA) service and AI under the assistance of IBM, significantly reducing manual operations and accelerating service flow to satisfy client demand for instant services. In addition, IBM has also assisted the bank in fighting financial crimes with backend monitoring automation while also helping cut 25,000 hours of labor force at the bank per year.Moreover, IBM has also helped Westpac Banking in Australia carry out the "Journey to Cloud" program, relocating more than 100 application systems to the hybrid cloud platform and drastically boosting the bank's system development pace by 10-fold, according to Wu.

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