■ Science
Cells grafted to chips
Rat cells grown onto microscopic silicon chips worked as tiny robots, perhaps a first step towards a self-assembling device, researchers working in the US reported on Sunday. They described a new method for attaching living cells to silicon chips. They then got the combined entities to move like tiny, primitive legs. Writing in the journal Nature Materials, Jianzhong Xi, Jacob Schmidt and Carlo Montemagno of the University of California Los Angeles said it is possible to make such devices, starting with a single cell "seeded" on a specially treated silicon chip. It may eventually be possible to grow self-assembling machines using the method, they said.
■ Electronics
Intel to launch new chipset
Intel Corp, the world's biggest computer-chip maker, will unveil a new chipset tomorrow, its biggest launch since Centrino in 2003, The Business reported, citing an unidentified person at Intel. Intel will reveal details of a new generation of personal computers and pocked-sized consumer devices from 50 manufacturers across the world, all strengthened by the new chipset, codenamed Sonoma, the newspaper said. The chips will provide much faster wireless Internet connection than the Centrino chips, the newspaper reported.
■ Retail
Tesco to try non-food store
Tesco, Britain's biggest supermarket chain, said on Sunday that it planned to trial a non-food store later this year. The retailer, which already sells non-food items including clothes, electrical goods, CDs, DVDs, books and children's toys at a number of its British outlets, said it was too early to confirm the trial shop's opening date or location. "We will trial a non-food store at some point this year," a Tesco spokeswoman said. "Our non-food ranges are really popular and this is just an example of us doing what customers want and trialling new things," she added.
■ Telecoms
Japan, India to cooperate
Japan and India plan to boost cooperation on developing next-generation telecom-munications networks, a Japanese government official said yesterday. The two countries will focus on networks using Internet technology and high-speed fourth-generation mobile phones, the communications ministry official said. Internal Affairs and Communications Minister Taro Aso has invited Indian Communications and IT Minister Dayanidhi Maran to Japan to discuss details of bilateral cooperation, he said. "We are preparing for the signing of a joint declaration by them," the official said. The ministers are scheduled to meet in Tokyo today.
■ Servers
HP to use Intel processors
Hewlett-Packard Co, the second-largest maker of servers, will sell new computers based on Intel Corp's Itanium processors in a push to replace machines made by IBM Corp and Sun Microsystems Inc. Chief Executive Officer Carly Fiorina will announce new versions of the Integrity series computers tomorrow that offer features from more expensive mainframe computers, said Rich Marcello, Hewlett-Packard's head of business server computers. Hewlett-Packard had 28 percent of the market for server computers in the third quarter, according to researcher Gartner Inc, trailing IBM's 32 percent.
NO RECIPROCITY: Taipei has called for cross-strait group travel to resume fully, but Beijing is only allowing people from its Fujian Province to travel to Matsu, the MAC said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday criticized an announcement by the Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism that it would lift a travel ban to Taiwan only for residents of China’s Fujian Province, saying that the policy does not meet the principles of reciprocity and openness. Chinese Deputy Minister of Culture and Tourism Rao Quan (饒權) yesterday morning told a delegation of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers in a meeting in Beijing that the ministry would first allow Fujian residents to visit Lienchiang County (Matsu), adding that they would be able to travel to Taiwan proper directly once express ferry
FAST RELEASE: The council lauded the developer for completing model testing in only four days and releasing a commercial version for use by academia and industry The National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) yesterday released the latest artificial intelligence (AI) language model in traditional Chinese embedded with Taiwanese cultural values. The council launched the Trustworthy AI Dialogue Engine (TAIDE) program in April last year to develop and train traditional Chinese-language models based on LLaMA, the open-source AI language model released by Meta. The program aims to tackle the information bias that is often present in international large-scale language models and take Taiwanese culture and values into consideration, it said. Llama 3-TAIDE-LX-8B-Chat-Alpha1, released yesterday, is the latest large language model in traditional Chinese. It was trained based on Meta’s Llama-3-8B
STUMPED: KMT and TPP lawmakers approved a resolution to suspend the rate hike, which the government said was unavoidable in view of rising global energy costs The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday said it has a mandate to raise electricity prices as planned after the legislature passed a non-binding resolution along partisan lines to freeze rates. Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers proposed the resolution to suspend the price hike, which passed by a 59-50 vote. The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) voted with the KMT. Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) of the KMT said the resolution is a mandate for the “immediate suspension of electricity price hikes” and for the Executive Yuan to review its energy policy and propose supplementary measures. A government-organized electricity price evaluation board in March
NOVEL METHODS: The PLA has adopted new approaches and recently conducted three combat readiness drills at night which included aircraft and ships, an official said Taiwan is monitoring China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) exercises for changes in their size or pattern as the nation prepares for president-elect William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20, National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) said yesterday. Tsai made the comment at a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, in response to Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Wang Ting-yu’s (王定宇) questions. China continues to employ a carrot-and-stick approach, in which it applies pressure with “gray zone” tactics, while attempting to entice Taiwanese with perks, Tsai said. These actions aim to help Beijing look like it has