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.

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