Intel Corp, Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) and Asia Pacific Telecom Co (APT, 亞太電信) yesterday jointly unveiled a multi-access edge computing (MEC) platform and facial recognition technology, the result their collaborative efforts in 5G technology solutions.
“The technologies are applicable to a wide range of scenarios, such as a smarter shopping experience in department stores, smart security for home and companies, smart medical services and more,” Hon Hai business group president and APT chairman Lu Fang-ming (呂芳銘) told a news conference in Taipei.
The MEC platform represents Hon Hai and Intel’s first collaborative work on 5G technology that went public since the two companies inked a memorandum of understanding (MOU) in June last year for the development of network infrastructure on the foundation of 5G connectivity.
Hon Hai participated in the platform’s development with Intel and is in charge of sensor manufacturing for facial recognition technology, while APT provides network connectivity, the companies said.
The MEC is a cloud-based network architecture at the edge of the core network, which brings real-time, high-bandwidth and low-latency access to the network, largely reducing network congestion, Lu said.
The MEC is a solution to data deluge in the 5G environment, because it shares the workload of the core network to process data closer to the users, Lu said.
For example, the platform can prevent network congestion at a stadium during concerts or sports events, he said.
The platform is part of the foundation to build a high-speed 5G connectivity environment, Intel visual cloud division general manager Lynn Comp said.
Facial recognition is one of the applications that can be used on the platform, Lu said, adding that Hon Hai has been using facial recognition with door access control at two of its plants in New Taipei City for one-and-a-half years.
Instead of clocking in and out, more than 200,000 employees at the two plants use facial recognition to report for work and enter the plants, he said.
Facial recognition on the platform can also be used in department stores, Lu said. “For example, facial recognition can instantly provide the customer’s purchase history at the store or alert the sales personnel that the incoming person is a VIP customer.”
APT is in talks with domestic retailers to adopt the platform with facial recognition technology, Lu said.
“We expect to see progress with retailers in the next three to six months,” he said.
DAMAGE REPORT: Global central banks are assessing war-driven inflation risks as the law of unintended consequences careens around the world, spiking oil prices Central banks from Washington to London and from Jakarta to Taipei are about to make their first assessments of economic damage after more than two weeks of conflict between the US and Iran. Decisions this week encompassing every member of the G7 and eight of the world’s 10 most-traded currency jurisdictions are likely to confirm to investors that the specter of a new inflation shock is already worrying enough to prompt heightened caution. The US Federal Reserve is widely expected to do exactly what everyone anticipated weeks ahead of its March 17-18 policy gathering: hold rates steady. The narrative surrounding that
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) share of the global foundry market rose to almost 70 percent last year amid booming demand for artificial intelligence (AI), market information advisory firm TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said on Thursday. The contract chipmaker posted US$122.54 billion in revenue, up 36.1 percent from a year earlier, accounting for 69.9 percent of the global market, TrendForce said. Its share was up from 64.4 percent in 2024, it said. TSMC’s closest rival, Samsung Electronics, was a distant second, posting US$12.63 billion in sales, down 3.9 percent from a year earlier, for a 7.2 percent share of the global market. In the
At a massive shipyard in North Vancouver, Canadian workers grind metal beams for a powerful new icebreaker crucial to cementing the country’s presence in the increasingly contested arctic. Icebreakers are specialized, expensive vessels able to navigate in the frozen far north. And “this is the crown jewel,” said Eddie Schehr, vice president of production at the Seaspan shipyard. For Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who heads to Norway next Friday to observe arctic defense drills involving troops from 14 NATO states, Canada’s extreme north has emerged as a strategic priority. “Canada is and forever will be an Arctic nation,” he said ahead of
Chinese entrepreneur Frank Gao used to spend long hours running his social media accounts but now outsources the chore to artificial intelligence (AI) agent tool OpenClaw, which is taking China by storm despite official warnings over cybersecurity. OpenClaw, created in November by an Austrian coder, differs from bots such as ChatGPT because it can execute real-life tasks such as sending e-mails, organizing files or even booking flight tickets. “Since January, I’ve spent hours on the lobster every day,” Gao said in an interview, referring to OpenClaw’s red crustacean mascot. “We’re family.” After downloading OpenClaw, users connect it to artificial intelligence models of their