A mail delivery drone on Tuesday last week assisted in the delivery of a package containing coffee beans and tea leaves from Tainan’s Zuojhen District (左鎮) to National Development Council Minister Chen Mei-ling’s (陳美伶) office in Taipei.
As Zhujhen post office has only two staff members, mail it receives is delivered by the Sinhua Post Office in Sinhua District (新化).
The drone was loaded before traveling to Sinhua Post Office 3km away, where it was picked up by Chunghwa Post and dispatched to Chen’s office, the council said, adding that Chen was pleased to receive the package of marigold tea leaves and coffee beans.
The feat was significant in that it was symbolic of incorporating technology into an initiative being drafted by the council to “inject new life” into districts and townships by helping them reinvent business models.
The council said it plans to propose the initiative this year, with a focus on encouraging business owners to invest in their hometowns, incorporating technology and integrating the resources of Cabinet-level agencies, boosting public participation and establishing brands.
Zhojhen is an example of a common issue, with township populations dwindling and a lack of public infrastructure, the council said.
Technology can play a crucial role in compensating for a shortage of public infrastructure and help boost the productivity and value of local businesses, it said.
The nation has the technological capacity to use uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAV) to deliver mail, it said, adding that potential problems associated with the task can be resolved with the help of big-data technology and artificial intelligence, which can analyze weather conditions, determine the best route and steer UAVs away from birds.
The council said it hopes other initiatives, such as using sensors to monitor crop growth, would boost investment and motivate people to return to their hometowns to work.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching