Meta Platforms Inc yesterday launched Asia’s first physical hub for extended reality (XR) research in Taiwan, as Facebook’s parent company seeks to promote the immersive technologies.
At the “Meta XR Hub Taiwan” launch ceremony in Taipei, Meta head of agency for greater China Stephanie Chu (朱怡靜) described Taiwanese partners as an important cornerstone of technological development.
“Today marks another milestone of Meta’s establishment in Taiwan, and [the company] will work with Taiwanese partners to create the next generation of social technology,” Chu said.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
Taiwan is to play a huge part in the metaverse, Meta chief product officer Chris Cox said in a video presentation at the event.
Taiwan’s ability to build hardware and establish public infrastructure is unparalleled, and it has many outstanding creators, artists, researchers and developers engaged in the development of technologies and applications, he said.
As augmented reality and virtual reality flourish, Taiwan would not only become an important stronghold for the metaverse team, but also a key hub for driving global innovations, he added.
American Institute in Taiwan Director Sandra Oudkirk said that by establishing the XR Hub in Taipei, “Meta is demonstrating its belief that Taiwan will play a key role in the rapidly evolving metaverse industry.”
“Taiwan is a central node of the globe’s semiconductor ecosystem and a cutting-edge pioneer on emerging technologies like hardware-software integration, chipsets, processors, 5G and Wi-Fi 6,” Oudkirk said.
Taiwanese developers and artists have also won global awards for creating virtual reality content, she said, and “these are all essential elements in the metaverse.”
The XR hub in Taiwan is to collaborate with Taiwantrade to establish a platform in which people can digitally engage with each other, so that trade exhibitions would not be just limited to a physical or online event.
Taiwantrade is an interactive electronic business portal operated by the government-sponsored Taiwan External Trade Development Council.
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said at the ceremony that the government would work hard to build a better environment for the development of the digital economy and expressed hope that Meta can continue to expand its investments in Taiwan.
Tsai said that the metaverse taking root in Taiwan would help drive local communication technology development and innovative applications, and prompt more companies to accelerate their participation in the metaverse.
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
GAINING STEAM: The scheme initially failed to gather much attention, with only 188 cards issued in its first year, but gained popularity amid the COVID-19 pandemic Applications for the Employment Gold Card have increased in the past few years, with the card having been issued to a total of 13,191 people from 101 countries since its introduction in 2018, the National Development Council (NDC) said yesterday. Those who have received the card have included celebrities, such as former NBA star Dwight Howard and Australian-South Korean cheerleader Dahye Lee, the NDC said. The four-in-one Employment Gold Card combines a work permit, resident visa, Alien Resident Certificate (ARC) and re-entry permit. It was first introduced in February 2018 through the Act Governing Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals (外國專業人才延攬及雇用法),
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
RSS