創新發現誌

GozCafe Wins Plurkians’ Hearts

By Hu Xiuzhu 

  Established by 30 industry consultants and professors, GozCafe is a platform aimed at helping Taiwan’s farmers and fishermen with the branding of products, design of CISs, establishment of websites, opening of sales outlets and improvement of sales on the internet. It wants to market Taiwan’s produce to the world. 

 Having been in the franchise business for 20 years, Lin Yu-tang, the general manager of GozCafe, is in charge of operating its physical store. Xu Shengfeng, one of the two founders, is the key figure in marketing GozCafe on Plurk. Xu Zhehun, the other founder, is responsible the teaching of information and computing. 

Not computer-literate until 40, Xu Shengfeng said he was mainly into Twitter when he first started surfing the web. But he felt that the platform provided by Plurk that could be shared by multiple persons could become an important channel for the promotion of agricultural produce. Since it opened in July 2008, after much hype GozCafe has become a subject of conversation between Plurkians. 

  With as many as 576,000 hits in over one year from Internet searches done using Google, GozCafe has increased its membership to several tens of thousands. GozCafe has reason to be proud because it broke even at the end of its second month in business with each month’s sales exceeding NT$500,000. 

 “Marketing on Plurk generates stories that are remembered. Resources are shared among and by all. Each month there has to be a different theme. Through constant event marketing, we get customers addicted”, says Lin. 
 
 
 
 

I Live in the City of Dreams. How about you?

By Qin Zhenjia  

  According to statistics compiled by UN-HABITAT in 2008, the world’s urban population will grow from 2.3 billion in 2005 to as much as 5.3 billion in 2050, by which time Asia’s urban population is estimated to account for as many as 63% of its total population. Technology of all kinds will be used to develop the urban areas, with culture, art, safety and environmental protection taken into account, and intelligent communities or smart cities formed. 

  The ever-progressing next-generation urban developments have different names – intelligent communities, smart cities, future cities, digital cities etc. Though these names vary depending on the different meanings they try to convey, in essence, they want to emphasize the fact that technologies and networks are made good use of to provide urban dwellers with a better living environment with all aspects taken into consideration. 

  In 2002, Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) began evaluating cities and deciding which are smart cities. Its chairperson John Jung and cofounder Louis Zacharilla say that ICF recommends that the term “intelligent community” be used to describe a geographic area that is being developed with the future in mind, as it is a more comprehensive term than “smart city”. 

  An intelligent community as defined by ICF can be a city, town or village. These areas understand the challenges brought about by the Broadband Economy and the economic advantages all residents can derive from the low-cost, high-speed communication and IT infrastructure constructed, locally or regionally. 
 
 

Use Your Mouth, Not Your Hand

More Accurate Recognition Technology for Smartphones

By Situ Jie 

  With a next-generation iPhone, users may input simple instructions through its voice interface when the “make phone calls” or “play music” feature is enabled. If they want to call David on their contacts list, all they have to do is activate the voice capability and say “Call David”. The iPhone then calls David with the message “Dialing David’s mobile” appearing on the screen. With Kindle – a reading device – the text in a piece of writing may be converted into voice and read out loud to users. This feature also comes in handy when users’ eyes are tired or they have problems using their hands. 

  As a smart device, iPhone responds to users’ instructions, whereas Kindle reads for users. Just like the voice interface in the Knight Rider, future voice interfaces will combine the capabilities of iPhone and Kindle to create an interactive mode that transmits voice both ways. 

  As recognition technology advances, iPhone and the next-generation OS are getting better at recognizing voices and text. After inputting instructions (“Call Wang”, for example), the system provides adequate feedback and takes the proper action. The only drawback is that ordering computers to do things this way still feels unnatural. The next step would be to allow users to speak in a way they normally speak when telling these devices to do things. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Technology and Arts Together

Create a Better Future

By Xu Lijia 

  Technology and arts must interact with each other so that technology can stay on the course expected by the masses, and so that it can create more diversified values that meet human needs. A dialogue between Feng Mingzhu, vice president of the National Palace Museum, and Gong Renwen, the deputy executive officer of the Institute for the Information Industry, organized by Ideas, a newsletter published by the Institute best depicts the interaction between technology and arts. 

  Gong: Present-day people work, are disturbed and monitored all the time. They are merely suffering from their own actions. All the technologies introduced are meant to better our lives. But it seems we are so busy that our lives have become worse. We cannot allow technology to progress limitlessly. 

  Feng: Since the Palace Museum moved to Taipei in 1967, our predecessors have been continually processing and cataloguing documents. Their work includes photocopying, cataloguing, photographing and plate making. In 1996, the Museum began digitizing documents and has since processed over 400,000 documents from the Qing dynasty it has in its collection. The curator and colleagues decided to digitize the documents and purchased cameras (scanners were nonexistent at that time). One of the reasons we used cameras is that they use luminescence. Photocopiers available at that time often transpired heat, which could damage the documents, so we used digital cameras. So far we have digitized 300,000 documents and the databases have begun providing services. 

  Our paintings and articles have been digitized with the help of two Academia Sinica departments, while our books are digitized by a private firm. They have not been integrated yet. We view these three systems as an open gate, with their databases not yet integrated. 

  Gong: With an information system unable to effectively meet humans’ basic needs, Taiwan would be like an “isolated information island”. 

  Feng: It’s like people speaking three different languages to each other. We have spent some two years integrating and have come this far, but we still have a lot of integrating to do. Though our researchers complain, we cannot live without it even for one day. As soon as “blue and white porcelain” is entered, they get many hits. How can you do that without digitization technology?