Garment and fabrics manufacturer Everest Textile Co (宏遠興業) yesterday unveiled two smartwatch models in Taipei as part of its efforts to expand its reach into the smart wearables market.
Using the latest sensor technologies and cloud-based storage solutions, the devices can track vital signs, including heartbeat and blood pressure, Everest Textile said.
“We also have smart pajamas in the research and development stage,” president Roger Yeh (葉清來) said at a conference in Taipei on functional fabric.
Photo: Chen Jou-chen, Taipei Times
The Tainan-based company also unveiled a capacity expansion plan.
To meet increasing customer demand, Everest Textile’s new plant in the US is to start operations in the third quarter, with an expected monthly capacity of nearly 2 million meters, Yeh said.
Everest counts major global brands such as Nike Inc, North Face Inc and Columbia Sportswear among its top clients, company data showed.
Everest’s local peers, Makalot Industrial Co (聚陽實業) and Tex-ray Industrial Co Ltd (南緯實業), are also aiming to grab opportunities in the rapidly expanding smart clothing market.
Makalot is manufacturing smart clothing products for European customers this quarter, a company investor relations official said.
“These collections might not contribute a significant amount of revenue in the near term, but we are confident about the long-term potential in the sector,” he said, citing higher added value.
Tex-ray, which makes apparel for global fashion brands, has been selling smartwear products under its self-owned brand AiQ on e-commerce platforms since the fourth quarter of last year.
The company this year secured a NT$1.4 billion (US$46.4 million) syndicated loan from nine domestic banks to improve its working capital to develop smart clothing.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six