Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶) yesterday said that it is to invest NT$60 million (US$1.95 million) in biotech start-up Hipposcreen (宏智).
“We will be responsible for technology support and manufacturing; we hope to inject more dynamism into Taiwan’s medical industry through this cooperation,” Compal president Martin Wong (翁宗斌) told a news conference in Taipei.
“We hope to soon develop a system that can better detect major depressive disorder [MDD] brain waves, and market it before the end of this year or the start of next year,” Wong said.
Hipposcreen, founded in partnership with National Taipei University of Technology (NTUT), is led by the school’s vice dean of research and development, Liu Yi-Hung (劉益宏).
Liu’s team is targeting depression by developing an algorithm that employs artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, with the aim of creating a detection system that would allow doctors to diagnose MDD and evaluate patients with the disorder more efficiently.
More than 300 million people around the world suffer from depression. The WHO has said that it is the fourth-leading contributor to the global burden of disease.
Ministry of Health and Welfare statistics published last year showed that as of 2017, more than 1.27 million people in Taiwan had taken antidepressants and that 43 percent more women took the drugs than men.
Compal is hoping to apply the AI detection system to other disorders that generate abnormal brainwaves, such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and Alzheimer’s, Wong said.
In partnership with a French firm, the company is also testing brainwave detectors on people with insomnia, Wong said, but he did not name the firm.
Insomnia is potentially a big market, and by identifying different sleep patterns, Hipposcreen hopes to be able to help reduce the need for people to take medication to be able to sleep, he said.
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
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last