A 3D printing development program is scheduled to start next month to tap the fast-growing field, according to a report released by the Ministry of Science and Technology on Thursday.
Under the ministry’s three-year program, it plans to spend about NT$70 million (US$2.33 million) annually to support local 3D printing technology development.
According to Wohlers Associates Inc, a consulting firm, the size of the global 3D printing market is expected to grow to US$10.8 billion by 2021 from US$2.3 billion last year, representing a compound annual growth rate of 22 percent.
The ministry said 3D additive manufacturing technology developers currently face such problems as poor production efficiency and unsatisfactory quality of finished products.
For the first year, the ministry said it is set to push for efforts to cultivate talent in academic and industrial environments, to bridge the gap between local development and international progress in the industry.
The ministry said the program would focus on research and development to facilitate the local industry, and would assign part of its budget to develop metal-molding devices and other technologies for dentistry.
The three-year program also aims to encourage academia and industry to work together in 3D printing development, the ministry said.
The ministry said that as the nation has taken the lead over many of its global peers in the information and communications technology business, this program is expected to lead the local high-tech sector to combine cloud technology with 3D printing development to further improve innovation of the local industry.
A total lunar eclipse coinciding with the Lantern Festival on March 3 would be Taiwan’s most notable celestial event this year, the Taipei Astronomical Museum said, urging skywatchers not to miss it. There would be four eclipses worldwide this year — two solar eclipses and two lunar eclipses — the museum’s Web site says. Taiwan would be able to observe one of the lunar eclipses in its entirety on March 3. The eclipse would be visible as the moon rises at 5:50pm, already partly shaded by the Earth’s shadow, the museum said. It would peak at about 7:30pm, when the moon would
Taiwan’s Li Yu-hsiang performs in the men’s singles figure skating short program at the Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, on Tuesday. Li finished 24th with a score of 72.41 to advance to Saturday’s free skate portion of the event. He is the first Taiwanese to qualify for the free skate of men’s singles figure skating at the Olympics since David Liu in 1992.
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Two siblings in their 70s were injured yesterday when they opened a parcel and it exploded, police in Yilan said, adding the brother and sister were both in stable condition. The two siblings, surnamed Hung (洪), had received the parcel two days earlier but did not open it until yesterday, the first day of the Lunar New Year holiday in Taiwan, police said. Chen Chin-cheng (陳金城), head of the Yilan County Government Police Bureau, said the package bore no postmark or names and was labeled only with the siblings’ address. Citing the findings of a
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