Taipei City bus riders may have noticed something different in their daily commutes. Now, instead of staring blankly out the window, they can stare blankly at commercials playing on color LCD monitors being installed on city buses.
The project is a partnership between the Taipei City Government, four transportation companies contracted to operate buses for the city and Acer Corporation, which manufactures the monitors and hardware used to run them. A pair of 17-inch flat-panel displays have already been installed in around 1,300 buses and plans call for an additional 2,400 buses to be outfitted.
So far, the programming has been limited to a handful of advertisements that replay again and again -- "ads infinitum," you might call it. But a spokesperson for the city government said that future programming will include public service announcements and information on upcoming cultural events.
"The city government encouraged the partnership between its contracted bus operators and Acer Corporation as a way to improve commuting for Taipei City residents," the spokesperson said.
Any plans for karaoke?
"Not at this time," she said.
While the project is costing millions of NT dollars, bus operators are expecting a windfall of advertising revenue. What's more, the cost of the hardware has been offset by the fact that Acer has provided the screens and computer hardware at a substantial discount and, in turn, gets to run ads of their own, including one for their TravelMate C100 computer.
The 60-second spot won last year's London International Advertising Award for best commercial. Filmed in an Aboriginal village near Alishan, the commercial silently tells a story of a Western traveler who meets a beautiful Aboriginal girl in the wilderness. Unable to speak the other's language, they communicate by drawing pictures using his trusty TravelMate. Yeh Jin-tien, who earned an Oscar for his work on Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon designed the costumes for the beautifully filmed ad. Another Acer ad showing on a different route is less well-done; it's a PowerPoint presentation on the company's corporate strategy and global market share.
How have Taipei City residents taken to their "improved commuting" experience?
One rider named Chen summed it up: "It'll be nice when there are more than four commercials. ? I've become very familiar with Acer."
On April 26, The Lancet published a letter from two doctors at Taichung-based China Medical University Hospital (CMUH) warning that “Taiwan’s Health Care System is on the Brink of Collapse.” The authors said that “Years of policy inaction and mismanagement of resources have led to the National Health Insurance system operating under unsustainable conditions.” The pushback was immediate. Errors in the paper were quickly identified and publicized, to discredit the authors (the hospital apologized). CNA reported that CMUH said the letter described Taiwan in 2021 as having 62 nurses per 10,000 people, when the correct number was 78 nurses per 10,000
As we live longer, our risk of cognitive impairment is increasing. How can we delay the onset of symptoms? Do we have to give up every indulgence or can small changes make a difference? We asked neurologists for tips on how to keep our brains healthy for life. TAKE CARE OF YOUR HEALTH “All of the sensible things that apply to bodily health apply to brain health,” says Suzanne O’Sullivan, a consultant in neurology at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in London, and the author of The Age of Diagnosis. “When you’re 20, you can get away with absolute
May 5 to May 11 What started out as friction between Taiwanese students at Taichung First High School and a Japanese head cook escalated dramatically over the first two weeks of May 1927. It began on April 30 when the cook’s wife knew that lotus starch used in that night’s dinner had rat feces in it, but failed to inform staff until the meal was already prepared. The students believed that her silence was intentional, and filed a complaint. The school’s Japanese administrators sided with the cook’s family, dismissing the students as troublemakers and clamping down on their freedoms — with
As Donald Trump’s executive order in March led to the shuttering of Voice of America (VOA) — the global broadcaster whose roots date back to the fight against Nazi propaganda — he quickly attracted support from figures not used to aligning themselves with any US administration. Trump had ordered the US Agency for Global Media, the federal agency that funds VOA and other groups promoting independent journalism overseas, to be “eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law.” The decision suddenly halted programming in 49 languages to more than 425 million people. In Moscow, Margarita Simonyan, the hardline editor-in-chief of the
RSS