Mobile data usage on 4G networks soared to a record high on New Year’s Eve in Taiwan, thanks to a high 4G penetration rate and the popularity of live streaming, the nation’s major telecoms said.
The volume of data transmission on 4G networks on New Year’s Eve nearly doubled from a year ago, with data usage peaking at midnight, statistics provided by telecoms showed.
It is becoming a trend for people to share New Year’s Eve celebrations via social media platforms such as Facebook or Line, as the data volume generated from those social media platforms on New Year’s Eve doubled from the previous year, Taiwan Mobile Corp (台灣大哥大) said in a statement on Sunday.
“Data usage spiked as a growing number of people opted for live streaming on social media platforms or live streaming apps, to send their New Year’s greetings to friends or family,” the statement said.
The number of 4G users in the nation had risen to 17.36 million as of November last year, accounting for 60 percent of all mobile subscribers, according to statistics released by the National Communications Commission.
Taiwan Mobile also said it had accumulated more than 1 million views of year-end parties held in Taipei, Tainan and Hualien broadcast live on its over-the-top (OTT) platform, myVideo, in a single day.
To cope with the spike in data usage, Taiwan Mobile said it deployed more than 350 base stations and free Wi-Fi hot spots at popular sites for New Year’s celebrations across the nation.
Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信), the nation’s biggest telecom operator, said that 400 new mobile 3G and 4G base stations were switched on in time for New Year’s Eve to boost capacity and ensure revelers could download and upload videos at normal speeds.
Data traffic over its 4G network surged 90 percent year-on-year over New Year’s Eve, Chunghwa Telecom said.
Taiwan Star Cellular Corp (台灣之星) said its 4G data transmission volume almost doubled this year from last year.
The firm attributed the growth to the popularity of live streaming and 20 percent annual growth in its number of mobile subscribers.
“Based on our observations, our subscribers have used 15 percent more live streaming over social media platforms during Christmas and New Year’s Eve. Data traffic at [outdoor] party venues soared six to seven-fold,” Taiwan Star spokesman Shing Chu (朱曉幸) 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