Taiwan is poised to become a key developer of consumer robots that perform household chores thanks to its expertise in producing technology products and computer chips, experts said earlier this week.
"We are currently looking at establishing partnerships in Taiwan to produce home appliances," Philippe Millieret, a spokesman for French technology developer Wany Robotics said in a telephone interview last weekend. "Taiwan has the technological know-how in personal computers and peripheral products that has applications in robotics."
Taiwan is also a stepping stone to Asia's largest market.
"Taiwan is the main point of access to China," Millieret said. "One specific thing about Asia is its hunger for technology. Asia is more advanced in this respect than countries in Europe and North America."
One product many and potential Taiwanese partners could work on is a robotic camera that can roam freely round the home looking for naughty children that are not doing their homework, Millieret explained.
Using infrared sensors the camera avoids obstacles, and artificial intelligence software allows it to locate and recognize specific individuals. If the kids are playing hooky, the camera sends a message to the parent or guardian via e-mail, short messaging service (SMS) to a mobile phone, or a pre-recorded audio message. Mom or pop can then call home and tell the kids to hit the books.
The robotic smart camera could also be used for home security.
Homes could soon be populated by other bionic maids. Wany is launching a smart vacuum cleaner that also recharges itself when its batteries are low at the beginning of next year, and chip designer VIA Technologies Inc (
"Robots are becoming very useful in many applications, not just defense and disaster recovery," VIA's chief executive officer and president Chen Wen-chi (陳文琦) said at the VIA Technology Forum in Taipei on Wednesday. "In the future if you want coffee, you ask your robot instead of asking your spouse who might resent your demand. The good thing about a robot is that it never complains."
VIA designs chips that use very little power and do not get hot when performing complicated artificial intelligence calculations, VIA's robotics spokesman Timothy Brown said in an interview last week.
The robotic vacuum cleaner is already on the market. For US$250 you can buy the Roomba from iRobot, a spin-off company of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Artificial Intelligence Lab and part-owned by Acer Inc. Since its launch last year, 200,000 Roomba's have been snapped up, CEO and founder Colin Angle said yesterday.
"The exciting thing about the Roomba is that the technology is very acceptable to everyone," Angle said. "If you care about a clean home, you're a potential customer for the Roomba."
But to reach the US$250 price tag, Taiwan lost the Roomba to manufacturers in China -- even for the computer chips.
"Something iRobot is proud of is getting performance at a low price using Chinese microprocessors and manufacturing," Angle said.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
Clambering hand-over-hand, sweat dripping into his eyes, a durian laborer expertly slices a cumbersome fruit from a tree before tossing it down to land with a soft thump in his colleague’s waiting arms about 15m below. Among Thailand’s most famous and lucrative exports, the pungent “king of fruits” is as distinctive in its smell as its spiky green-brown carapace, and has been farmed in the kingdom for hundreds of years. However, a vicious heat wave engulfing Southeast Asia has resulted in smaller yields and spiraling costs, with growers and sellers increasingly panicked as global warming damages the industry. “This year is a crisis,”
HIGH-TECH: As leading-edge process technologies become more complicated, only a handful of players are able to provide design services, the company’s CEO said Artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯) yesterday said that revenue would grow significantly again in 2026 after adding a major AI chip customer, reversing moderation amid a product transition next year. The Taipei-based application-specific IC (ASIC) designer reiterated its strong revenue growth forecast for this year and 2026 after its stock plummeted about 23 percent to NT$3,145 from a peak of NT$4,085 on March 6 amid growing competition. Alchip said it has built strong partnerships with cloud service providers (CSP), denying that it had lost orders to smaller competitors such as Faraday Technology Corp (智原). Faraday said it has secured