The government plans to raise spending on technology development next year by raising its budget for the sector by nearly 20 percent, a Chinese-language newspaper reported yesterday, citing Premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷).
The budget for the Ministry of Economic Affairs to boost the nation's technology sector next year will be increased to NT$84.3 billion, up from NT$70.4 billion this year, the report said, citing Hsieh, who made the remarks after a Cabinet budget meeting on Monday.
The move is to push technology research and development spending to account for 3 percent of the GDP as President Chen Shui-bian (
The government's total budget for 2006 will be cut by 0.8 percent to about NT$1.6 trillion in an effort to narrow the nation's widening deficit, which is estimated to increase to NT$337.3 billion this year, from an estimated NT$304 billion last year, the report said.
The final budget bill needs to be reviewed and approved by the legislature by the end of the year.
Minister of Economic Affairs Ho Mei-yueh (
The budget in technology development proposed by the ministry was cut by NT$4 billion by the legislature this year and has affected the ministry's progress in attracting foreign investors, Ho said. With the budget, Ho said the ministry can provide incentives for companies and create more investment, about triple of the spending, in Taiwan, the report 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