Acer Inc (宏碁) plans to unveil its first virtual reality (VR) product for consumers in the first half of this year, chief executive officer Jason Chen (陳俊聖) said yesterday.
“Acer has been conducting research and development [R&D] of VR technologies for a while... We are planning to introduce some new technologies to surprise everyone,” Chen told reporters.
While continuing with its R&D of VR technologies, the company is thinking about potential business models that it can develop in the field, Chen said.
Photo: CNA
The VR industry is new and requires a wide range of applications and the establishment of a supporting ecosystem, Chen said.
“We are thinking of how to expand Acer’s reach in the field and turn our VR technologies into a business. And that is an important element in the process of Acer’s corporate transformation,” he said.
Commenting on Acer’s core business, Chen said that the company’s notebook business in western Europe is “not bad” despite global economic uncertainties.
“Acer is doing quite well in matured west European markets, especially in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, as the economies there are more stable than in other countries,” he said.
Notebook demand in countries heavily reliant on the export of natural resources — such as Brazil and Russia — was affected by the continued fall in global crude oil prices, Chen said.
He said that Acer has been careful in monitoring profitability in those markets, but the firm is not considering suspending shipments to avoid risks.
“Acer must maintain a certain degree of market presence in those markets,” Chen said.
Acer founder and former chairman Stan Shih (施振榮) said that the company is evaluating the possibility of spinning off its cloud-computing business into automobile electronics, smart medical devices and smart homes to accelerate the firm’s years-long corporate transformation.
Separating the cloud-computing business units from the parent company might give those new businesses more flexibility and resources, he said.
Acer will discuss the spin-off plan during its board meeting at the end of next mont, he said.
Acer’s sales fell 30.09 percent year-on-year and 29.74 percent month-on-month to NT$15.87 billion (US$474.85 million) last month, it said in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
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