ENTERTAINMENT
HTC, Bandai Namco team up
HTC Corp (宏達電) is working with Japanese video game publisher Bandai Namco Entertainment Inc to promote its first virtual-reality (VR) headset, the HTC Vive, in Tokyo. HTC said it has set up five VR zones in Tokyo featuring large arcades that give visitors the opportunity to experience the fun of Vive by trying experiences such as skiing, operating a train and fighting zombies in an abandoned hospital. The collaboration with Bandai Namco comes as HTC is seeking to take Vive to large shopping malls in Japan in an effort to attract more consumers.
ENTERTAINMENT
Chou unveils Totalmotion
Futuretown Inc honorary chairman Peter Chou (周永明) yesterday unveiled the company’s 5D Totalmotion platform for VR games at the company’s booth at the Tokyo Game Show in Japan. That was Chou’s first public appearance after he resigned as CEO of HTC in March last year. Futuretown is a Taoyuan-based start-up that focuses on VR games and devices. The company’s 5D Totalmotion is a cylindrical motion feedback machine that allows users to simulate various types of scenarios while playing VR games, Futuretown said in a statement.
SOLAR POWER
Sino-American debuts plant
Solar cell manufacturer Sino-American Silicon Products Inc (中美矽晶) yesterday launched a new solar cell plant in Germany with an annual capacity of 100 megawatts (MW). The new plant, operated by the company’s German subsidiary, Aleo Solar GmbH, is to produce 30MW of poly-crystalline and mono-crystalline solar cells this year, the company said. The facility’s capacity can be expanded to 200MW, it said.
BATTERIES
Formosa Mitsui starts output
Formosa Mitsui Advanced Chemicals Co, a joint venture of Japan-based Mitsui Chemicals Inc and Taiwan’s Formosa Plastics Corp (台塑), yesterday announced the launch of its lithium-ion battery-use electrolyte solution production facilities at a Formosa Plastics industrial complex in Ningbo, China. The companies said in a joint statement that demand for lithium-ion batteries has expanded in line with growth of the laptop, smartphone and tablet markets. In the future, greater market growth is forecast for the mobility market due to a surge in demand for environmentally-friendly hybrid and electric vehicles, especially in China, it said.
AIRLINES
Vanilla launches new route
Japanese low-cost carrier Vanilla Air Inc yesterday launched a new route between Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport and Ho Chi Minh City, one day before it was scheduled to begin a service between Taoyuan and Okinawa, Japan. “The Taiwanese market is very, very important to us,” Vanilla Air president Katsuya Goto said, adding that the carrier hopes to make Taiwan its “second base” and plans to add more flights between Taiwan and destinations outside of Japan.
? INVESTMENT
MassMutual revives Barings
Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co announced that it has completed the integration of four subsidiaries and that its services would be provided as a unified company under the 254-year-old Barings name. The investment needs of clients in Taiwan would benefit from expanded coverage across asset classes including global fixed income, equity, real estate and alternative asset markets from the firm’s integrated footprint, Barings 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],”
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