Flat masks that fit the faces of children and are claimed to be capable of preventing SARS have been produced by the non-profit China Textile Institute (紡拓會), government sources said yesterday.
The institute, sponsored by the Ministry of Economic Affairs, in cooperation with five Taiwanese facial-mask makers, has produced medical-standard facial masks for children, significantly contributing to efforts to ward off a SARS epidemic, said a senior ministry official.
The institute has also cooperated with its subsidiary mask makers to develop surgical masks that pass the strict fluid and splash-resistance standard of 80mm Hg, the official said.
The masks also have a bacterial filtration efficiency (BFE) and virus filtration efficiency (VFE) of 99 percent.
In addition, the group has also increased its overall production of facial masks of all varieties to some 77.5 million units from the beginning of the third quarter of last year, marking a 2.7 fold increase over that of March last year, the official noted.
With the production of high-quality SARS-preventive facial masks in large quantities, the country is now not only capable of meeting domestic demand in the event of a resurgence of SARS but is also capable of exporting the products, the official said.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained