An autonomous drone landed on Phuket Island, successfully completed the mission of delivering goods for its customer; but the engineer who was managing the drone was 3,000 kilometers away in Tainan. The cost of a single trip of delivery was less than NT$40 (about US$1.5)! This is the solution provided by Avilon Intelligence, a Taiwan-based startup that won third place in Qualcomm Taiwan Innovation Challenge in 2021.

Global tech companies are expected to concentrate on the development of augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) technologies in 2022, in the hope of using them to launch metaverse projects in the future, according to industry observers.

The completion of the human genome sequencing project has opened up new opportunities for drug development. Some diseases that were once difficult to cure can now be treated with targeted drugs. However, targeted drugs are only suitable for patients with specific genes. Furthermore, there are still no suitable drug treatment options available for patients with cancer or other special diseases. This has made cellular medicine a popular global research focus. Despite the fact that many companies are investing in cellular drug development and that cell drug clinical trial designs are largely identical to traditional clinical drugs, the lack of accurate and rapid pre-clinical cellular pharmacokinetic validation had made it impossible to confirm the safety, efficacy, and traceability of developed cell drugs, thus greatly slowing down the development of this new generation of therapeutic methods.

Israel-based 3D electrode startup Addionics raised US$27 million in its Series A funding. According to Venture Beat, the fundraising was led by tech investment firms Deep Insight, Catalyst Fund, and Delek Motors.

Gorilla Technology Group, a Taiwan-based edge AI company, has revealed plans to invite leading technology application brand companies from Taiwan and Japan to form a "Smart City Diverse Industry Alliance" ecosystem, with the goal of jointly expanding the global markets for edge AI analytics solutions and services.

Augmented reality and virtual reality are poised to radically change the lives of billions of people, and a few tech giants will make huge profits as it happens.

IoT devices, on one side, offer extended features and functionality; on the other side, they are well-known with weaknesses and vulnerabilities. With its solution, Tokyo-based CollaboGate helps companies to build trust in IoT devices.

Vision impairment and blindness caused by diseases such as glaucoma and age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a concern and potential threat to the economy for Asia, as the population is rapidly aging. eSight, a Canadian startup providing wearable devices to help restore or enhance the vision of people with low vision, is planning to expand to Asia by leveraging Taiwan as a platform for R&D and manufacturing for the region.

The range and charging time of batteries are the major concerns of electric vehicle users and a critical bottleneck for the EV industry. The Israel-based startup, Addionics, is developing a 3D-structured battery that could solve all pains.

Aimed to facilitate transparency and traceability across global supply chains to enable a shift to a circular economy, Dutch startup Circularise was established in 2016 to provide solutions based on blockchain technology to bridge the information gap.

A new joint venture (JV) Electrum was formed between the partnership of two Indonesia-based companies, decacorn Gojek and energy firm TBS Energi Utama, with an ultimate goal of accelerating the electric vehicles (EVs) adoption across the country.

Electrum Charging Solutions is a Canadian startup that provides end-to-end electrical infrastructure solutions to corporations, governments, utilities, developers, and OEM manufacturers first as an infrastructure installer and now by being a system integrator. It is participating in the 2035 E-Mobility Taiwan exhibition in Taipei. The company's CEO Broderick (Brodie) Gunning talked to DIGITIMES about the company's vision as a total solution provider to the EV ecosystem in North America and Asia.

Improving medical technology and better quality of life have led to longer average life expectancies around the world. According to a UN estimate, the average life expectancy of the global population in 2019 was 72.3 years, but may soon grow to 74.3 years in 2030. This positive trend however is an increasing strain to the healthcare systems of many countries. To maximize the utilization of progressively limited medical resources, development towards smart and precision medicine is inevitable, subsequently driving up demands for surgical navigation systems. Furthermore, even though minimally invasive surgeries are safer, require smaller incisions, and allow patients to recover in shorter period of time, its usage is limited to just some cases in neurosurgery, craniofacial surgery or ENT surgery, because the areas to operate are not accessible to the naked eye. In these cases, doctors still have to rely on traditional surgeries which require larger incisions. With the latest technology, nonetheless, it is now possible to perform minimally invasive surgeries using surgical navigation systems, which allow the surgeons to see 3D radiology images in real-time while their surgical instruments are guided by the system into the surgical site.

To explore the vast unknown of outer space has always been a dream for humans everywhere. And we have never been as close to fulfilling that dream as when the Inspiration 4 rocket was launched on September 15, 2021, as a part of SpaceX's space tourism project. The mission marks the first time in history that an all-civilian crew has managed to reach orbit and serves as a hallmark for humanity's space exploration efforts. Another space exploration milestone was set just a few months back on April 20, 2021, when NASA's unmanned mars helicopter completed its virgin flight and subsequent landing on Mars.

Geopolitical tension and the net-zero carbon emission policy deadlines of governments worldwide are driving up demands for rare earth metals. However, trying to secure local supplies only by investing huge capital to build domestic production in the US or the EU alone is mission impossible. To achieve their carbon neutrality plan, innovation for rare earth demand reduction is also needed.