Taiwan last week topped the medal table at a global invention competition, finishing with a total of 45, Taiwan’s Chinese Innovation and Invention Society said yesterday.
At the annual International Salon of Inventions and New Technologies on Monday last week, Taiwan won 31 gold medals, 11 silver and three bronze, with inventions ranging from sports applications to healthcare devices, the society said.
While Taiwan bagged fewer medals than last year’s 50, its gold medal count increased to 31, compared with last year’s 29, and the nation finished at the top of the table with 45 medals, it said.
Photo: CNA
One of Taiwan’s inventions that won gold was a healthcare device that Matthew Ma (馬惠明), vice superintendent of National Taiwan University Hospital’s Yunlin branch helped to develop, the society said.
Without contact, the detection device monitors a person’s heart rate and breathing via a camera, with sensors transmitting data to an artificial intelligence center that analyzes their condition, it said.
Another notable entry to the virtual contest in Crimea, Ukraine, was a sports training device invented by a university team that was led by retired Taiwanese basketball player Hsu Chih-chao (許智超), who was once the nation’s top midrange shooter in the Super Basketball League.
The device can be used for a range of sports, serving as a warm-up machine for competing athletes or a training device for weightlifters, for example, said Hsu, who now teaches at Hungkuo Delin University of Technology.
The contest typically draws contestants from across the globe and lasts several days, with the submissions displayed at exhibition centers, but, due to COVID-19, this year’s event was held virtually on one day in Sevastopol, the society said.
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comment last year on Tokyo’s potential reaction to a Taiwan-China conflict has forced Beijing to rewrite its invasion plans, a retired Japanese general said. Takaichi told the Diet on Nov. 7 last year that a Chinese naval blockade or military attack on Taiwan could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan, potentially allowing Tokyo to exercise its right to collective self-defense. Former Japan Ground Self-Defense Force general Kiyofumi Ogawa said in a recent speech that the remark has been interpreted as meaning Japan could intervene in the early stages of a Taiwan Strait conflict, undermining China’s previous assumptions
Taiwan Railways Corp (TRC) today announced that Shin Kong Mitsukoshi has been selected as the preferred bidder to operate the Taipei Railway Station shopping mall, replacing the current operator, Breeze Development Co Ltd. Among eight qualified firms that delivered presentations and were evaluated by a review committee, Shin Kong Mitsukoshi was ranked first, while Breeze was named the runner-up, the rail company said in a statement. Contract negotiations are to proceed in accordance with regulations, it said, adding that if negotiations with the top bidder fail, it could invite the second-ranked applicant to enter talks. Breeze in a statement today expressed doubts over
RSS