The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday unveiled the world's first dual-network application services, hoping the innovative application would help Taiwan become a leader in mobile technology. The network also seeks to help communications equipment manufacturers become the nation's third trillion-dollar industry.
\n"Taiwan is changing its strategy from a follower in the past to a pioneer through integrating new technology and offering new solutions to stimulate new demands," Minister of Economic Affairs Ho Mei-yueh (何美玥) said at a press conference yesterday.
\nDual-network integration refers to technology that combines cellular networks with wireless local area networks (WLANs), which means that WLAN and General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) or the third-generation telecom technology can be integrated into one dual-network mobile phone, allowing users to enjoy online services through both mode which complement each other.
\nThe application can provide users with seamless communications through the combined advantages of both a cellular system's rapid switching, wide coverage and WLAN's fast transmission and lower cost.
\nCooperating with over 10 information technology and communication service providers, including Acer Inc, Taiwan Cellular Corp (台灣大哥大), and Microsoft Taiwan, the ministry built a model in Taipei City's Nankang Science Park (南港科學園區) to demonstrate the new technology.
\nThe service, for instance, provides workers in the park with various functions, including access to personal e-mails and instant messages or connection to any printer in the park through wireless transmission. Other services allow parents to view their children in the park's daycare center through a surveillance system. The launch of dual-network technology signals the inauguration of the M-Taiwan (mobile-Taiwan) scheme, Ho said, adding that the government plans to spend NT$7 billion to build seamless communication space across the nation in the next three to five years.
\nThe program is expected to boost wireless Internet users to 8 million people and help the nation enter the world's top five in competitiveness of mobile commercial applications, she said.
\nIt would also help propel the nation's communication equipment manufacturing sector to the trillion NT dollar mark by 2008, Ho said.
\nTaiwan's semiconductor and flat-panel display industries are already worth trillions of NT dollars a year. The nation's communication equipment makers generated production value of NT$463.9 billion last year, up from NT$311.4 billion in 2003, and are estimated to create NT$550 billion-worth of output this year, according to figures provided by the ministry's Industrial Development Bureau.
\nBetting on the potential of the dual-network technology, Taiwan Cellular is slated to roll out dual-network service packages with a variety of BenQ or Dopod-labeled mobile phones costing around NT$10,000 after the Lunar New Year holiday, said Lancelot Wang (
‘BIG LOSS’: This year might see the last generation of Huawei’s Kirin chips, as their production would stop next month because they are made using US technology Chinese tech giant Huawei Technologies Co (華為) is running out of processor chips to make smartphones due to US sanctions and would be forced to stop production of its own most advanced chips, a company executive has said, in a sign of growing damage to Huawei’s business from US pressure. Huawei, one of the biggest producers of smartphones and network equipment, is at the center of US-Chinese tension over technology and security. Washington last year cut off Huawei’s access to US components and technology, and those penalties were tightened in May, when the White House barred vendors worldwide from using US
CORPORATE SCANDAL: Cathay Life has invested NT$13.3 billion in Bank Mayapada since 2015, but the latest loss of NT$8.8 billion has completely written off its investment Cathay Life Insurance Co (國泰人壽) yesterday said it would recognize an investment loss of NT$8.8 billion (US$298.1 million) in Indonesia’s Bank Mayapada Internasional Tbk PT due to concerns about the lender’s operations amid a corporate scandal. The company said it would revise its earnings result for June, from a net profit of NT$6.52 billion to a net loss of NT$520 million, its first monthly loss over the past 17 months. After booking an investment loss of NT$5.2 billion in Bank Mayapada earlier this year, Cathay Life has so far recognized total investment losses of NT$14 billion in the lender, executive vice president
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reported that revenue last month expanded 25 percent annually, but fell 12.8 percent month-on-month to NT$105.96 billion (US$3.59 billion). In the first seven months of this year, the chipmaker’s revenue surged 33.6 percent to NT$727.26 billion, compared with NT$544.46 billion a year earlier. TSMC has said it aims to grow its revenue by more than 20 percent this year. The company has since May 15 stopped taking new orders from Huawei Technologies Co (華為), its second-biggest customer after Apple Inc, due to the US’ restrictions on exports containing US technologies. TSMC has no plans to
The US stock market has been on a tear, yet the country’s economy is in the dumps. So why do so many people believe — undoubtedly incorrectly — that the stock market has decoupled from reality? The economy many people experience, while bleak, is local, personal and, for the most part, either not publicly traded or plays only a small part in the stock market’s moves. To explain why these personal experiences have so little effect on equity markets, we must look more closely at the market role of the weakest industry sectors. The surprising conclusion: The most visible and economically vulnerable
RSS