The Future Tech exposition next month is to showcase 88 cutting-edge technologies, including 11 inventions, Minister of Science and Technology Chen Liang-gee (陳良基) said yesterday, forecasting that the four-day show would attract up to 100,000 visitors.
Scheduled to take place from Dec. 5 to Dec. 8 at the Taipei World Trade Center, the third annual exhibition is to present technologies developed by academics that show a spirit of “disruptive innovation,” Chen told a news conference in Taipei.
The 88 technologies — selected out of more than 500 applications — relate to artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things, electronics and optoelectronics, smart machinery and new materials, biotechnology and new medicine, medical materials, smart disaster prevention, semiconductor applications, sports training and space technology, he said.
Photo: CNA
A team named iTech has developed the first commercialized radio frequency front-end module for wireless positioning under the leadership of National Taiwan University’s Graduate Institute of Communication Engineering professor Mao Shau-gang (毛紹綱), who secured a US$5 million order for the module at the Viva Technology show in Paris in May.
Using the module, the team’s three products — iShield, iPosition and iFollow — can detect uncrewed aerial vehicles, identify the position of moving objects and track driverless machines, Mao said.
The team has reached out to companies involved in robotics, healthcare and automobiles in Taiwan, the US and Europe, and plans to start a firm next year, he said.
National Chiao Tung University electrical and computer engineering professor Chiou Jin-chern (邱俊誠) led another team in a nine-year effort to develop contact lenses with sensing circuits that can measure eye moisture, temperature and drug efficacy.
Featuring gold-made circuits, the lenses are made of hydrogels and embedded with a Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) chip measuring 1.2mm2, he said.
While Google had failed in its attempt to produce similar contact lenses for monitoring blood sugar levels, the team has succeeded in producing smart contacts, which are to undergo clinical testing soon, he added.
Taipei Computer Association chairman Tung Tzu-hsien (童子賢) was upbeat about the outlook for small and medium-sized AI products, especially those used in healthcare, saying academic achievements do not have to be kept in an ivory tower.
Future Tech helps to shape an atmosphere that encourages students to get involved in technological innovations, so the nation’s advancement is not merely driven by top-down policy, Tung added.
INCURSION: After 13 PLA aircraft flew into Taiwan’s ADIZ, the US Department of State said that China should rather ‘engage in meaningful dialogue’ with Taiwan US President Joe Biden’s administration on Saturday urged China to stop placing military pressure on Taiwan, while calling on both sides of the Taiwan Strait to engage in peaceful dialogue. The statement by the US Department of State was issued after 13 Chinese military aircraft flew into Taiwan’s southwest air defense identification zone (ADIZ) on Saturday, the highest number observed in a single day this year, the Ministry of National Defense said. The air force scrambled fighter jets to monitor the Chinese aircraft, issuing radio warnings and mobilizing air defense assets until the planes left the ADIZ. The US “notes
‘INCREASED VIGILANCE’: A source of infection has not yet been found for the latest two cases in a hospital cluster, which should serve as a warning, Chen Shih-chung said A total of 2,991 people associated with a COVID-19 cluster infection at Taoyuan General Hospital have been put under home isolation, after an emergency expanded isolation order was issued on Sunday evening, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday. Fifteen people have so far tested positive in the cluster infection. The first case in the cluster (case No. 838) was reported on Jan. 12 — a doctor who treated an infected patient who had returned from the US. Contact tracing for the first 13 cases found connections to case No. 838, said Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who
CHANGE OF GUARD: Hsiao Bi-khim’s attendance at Joe Biden’s inauguration will come as a boost to those in Taiwan who feared that the new US administration would be less friendly than that of Donald Trump to the nation Representative to the US Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) is to attend US President Joe Biden’s swearing-in ceremony at the US Capitol after she was invited by the US Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies, a news release issued by the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO) in the US said last night. The news came as a surprise as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had been reticent about the matter, while Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) members had accused the Democratic Progressive Party administration of hedging its bets on the Republican Party. Asked about when Hsiao received the invitation, the ministry did not
FAMILY UNIT: The CECC warned that the eldest sister of the latest case, who also has COVID-19, visited Taoyuan’s Chungping evening market on Tuesday and Wednesday The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday reported a domestic case of COVID-19, associated with a recent cluster infection at Taoyuan General Hospital, and two imported cases. Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, said that the latest case (No. 885) is a woman in her 50s, who is the third daughter of case No. 881, a man in his 90s. The woman is the main caregiver of her elderly father, who had been hospitalized earlier this month and was treated by a nurse (case No. 852) from Monday to Thursday last week, he said, adding that