Public officials yesterday recommended consumers use mercury thermometers as a SARS early-warning device, as the low-priced instruments are more accurate than expensive electronic ones.
"To precisely measure a fever, consumers should use mercury thermometers, which have the lowest margin of error," Hung Chuan-hui (
To prevent the spread of SARS, most government offices and companies began late last month to require all staff and visitors pass temperature checks before entering buildings. People with a fever -- a temperature over 37? or 38?C -- are refused entry.
Hung pointed out that among various thermometers on the market, the bureau recommends the mercury ones -- not electronic devices -- because there is no worldwide standard for the electronic ones.
Cheng Jen-hung (程仁宏), secretary general of the Consumers' Foundation (消基會) also urged people to use mercury thermometers rather than trust the electronic ones.
Using mercury thermometers is time-consuming, however, and so may not meet the needs of door-side checks, considering the number of people passing in and out of the average building daily.
Some businesses, desperate to purchase any thermometer they can get their hands on, are even employing devices not designed for use on humans.
"The model commonly being used in office buildings here in Taiwan is the Radiant TN105, which was used on me at the McDonalds on Nanking East Road and is being used in my building," businesswoman and long-time Taipei resident Lee-anne Simpson said yesterday.
"On Monday morning, I was checked by such a device when entering a parking lot as [being] 21.8?C. I told the parking attendant that I'd be dead by that fig-ure," she said.
Simpson complained that the small pen-lite sized gadget repeatedly proved itself inaccurate.
"The guard then rechecked and the reading was 25.6?. A third check was 26.8?, which is a variance of five degrees over approximately two minutes," she said. "If you're not going to go it properly [measure temperatures], you shouldn't do it at all."
An official at Radiant Innovation Inc (
The firm has been sold more than 10,000 of the devices locally, according to its business manager Winston Wu (吳孝彬).
The thermometers are designed for measuring room temperatures and the temperature of liquids such as baby formula.
Department of Health spokes-woman Chi Hsueh-yun (紀雪雲) acknowledged that the various electronic thermometers are not accurate, but said the daily temperature checks should continue.
"Although the government has not spelled out quality standards for electronic thermometers, I believe products from brand-name manufacturers would not cross the line too far for the sake of their own reputations," Chi said.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to