Microsoft Taiwan Corp announced yesterday that it would provide free online security diagnoses for users of its Windows operating system as a part of the software giant's efforts to improve its virus-vulnerable system.
"We hope to establish a safer network environment via the service, which is more than warding off virus attacks for our users," Eunice Chiu (
Individuals and corporate users can go to http://www.microsoft.com/taiwan/security/checklist, where they will be asked 25 questions that will form the basis of a diagnosis on the level of security of their systems, the company said.
After the online self-test diagnosis, those who need to enhance the security of their system can seek help from a team of 23 local IT companies, including Tatung Co (大同), Internet Security Solutions Co (鈺松國際), the Syscom Group (凌群電腦) and Symantec Corp, which provide a variety of solutions including intrusion detection, authentication, anti-virus software and server monitoring.
Microsoft's Windows operating system has been attacked by a number of viruses, most recently the "Sasser" worm, which paralyzed millions of computers worldwide. Variants of Sasser are still causing trouble more than a week after the original was identified.
Jason Chan (
"But we have made big progress in improving security," he said.
Citing a report released in March by Forrester Research, Chan said Microsoft is the only company that fixed all the flaws found in its platform, unlike Red Hat Inc, Debian Systems, Mandrakesoft and Suse, who are the major developers of the open-source Linux operating system.
Chan said the number of security alerts announced by Microsoft had decreased from 43 in 2002 to 38 last year, while Red Hat, Debian and others reported more alerts during the period.
"The problem is, users usually ignore the alerts and don't want to go through the hassle of applying the patches," Chan said. "We'll strengthen education of our users in this aspect."
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],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
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