創新發現誌

As we enter the second decade of the 21^st century

A Million Internet Users Join Forces to Create a Record of the Future

By HU, Hsiu-Chu

Keeping pace with the latest international trends, iDEAS magazine has been using the integration of the virtual and the real to create new talking points, and has been seeking to benefit from the collective intelligence of Internet users to identify the iDEAS Five Major Technology Developments of 2011. iDEAs’ constant innovation in terms of the way its content is delivered has written a new page in the history of the publishing industry in Taiwan .

E-Magazines were attracting a great deal of attention in the second half of 2010; i-Pad versions of magazines were seen as the potential “savior” of traditional media. However, actual sales performance was disappointing. Sales of e-magazines in the U.S. rapidly fell off, causing print media companies to re-think their strategy. iDEAS brought together online communities and leading figures in the media to work together on the creation, discussion and presentation of Web 3.0 style issues, creating an experimental new media format that uses the integration of the virtual and the real to create brand-new content through collective brainstorming, identifying for iDEAS readers the iDEAS Five Major Technology Developments of 2011.

“Innovation 30” – Taking the Meeting of People’s Needs as the Starting Point

By HU, Hsiu-Chu and LEE, Luo

“Collective intelligence” is one of the k­ey features of Web 2.0. The basic concept behind collective intelligence is the use of the Internet to pool the knowledge and wisdom of a large number of individuals and direct it towards the creation of something new. Ideas magazine had the bold idea of holding its editorial meeting at the 2010 ideas Talk conference, making this the biggest editorial meeting cum brainstorming session ever. In all, more than 100 people (including both speakers and audience), all of them leading figures in their respective fields, took part in what was almost certainly the largest editorial meeting in the history of the Taiwanese publishing industry.

The theme for the 2010 ideas Talk conference was “Transforming the city in a joyous hundredth anniversary.” Two days of brainstorming sessions produced 30 ideas for innovative application services (some of which have already been proposed, but not yet put into practice). During the discussion, Professor Lin Chin-Teng (Dean of Academic Affairs at National Chiao Tung University) pointed out that “the value of technology does not necessarily lie in how advanced it is, but rather in how it can be integrated and applied”; this is surely a valuable reminder to many people who are involved in the development of new technologies. Professor Liu Pei-Ling, Director of National Taiwan University’s INSIGHT Center, noted that, whereas in the past people tended to focus on how to apply technology when considering the development of new products, practical experience has shown that it is actually “service” that has the most important role to play in the new product development process.

Reflecting these concepts, the overall level of the technology embodied in the 30 innovative application services brought together by the ideas editorial team is not especially high; they are all services that can be implemented using existing technology. The challenge is to create a solution in which the traces of complex information and communications technology (ICT) will not even be visible to consumers using the service. Achieving this is both an art form and an exacting discipline.

Human-centric development will underpin the society of the future

New, inter-disciplinary factors will provide the outline for urban planning roadmaps

By HU, Hsiu-Chu

The “smart city” constitutes the ideal laboratory for testing innovative services. How should Taiwan approach the challenge of identifying citizens’ basic needs and then building a living environment that reflects local characteristics while giving full weight to the importance of living aesthetics? Ideas invited a group of experts (including: Liu P’ei-Ling, Director of the Center of Innovation and Synergy for Intelligent Home Technology, National Taiwan University; Lin Chin-Teng, Dean of Academic Affairs, National Chiao Tung University; Cheng T’ai-Sheng, Associate Professors, Department of Architecture, National Cheng Kung University; Ts’ai Ch’i-Yen, CTO, Sinyi Group; Liao Chih-Chien of J.J. Pan and Partners, Architects and Planners) to take part in an in-depth discussion of this issue, to map out a vision for future lifestyles in Taiwan, and to brainstorm innovative new service concepts. 

Lin Chin-Teng: There are two main changes that we will see in people’s lifestyles over the next 10 years. Firstly, there is the impact that the aging society will have on healthcare provision and on parent-child relationships; secondly, there will be a rise in the average intellectual level, which will lead to citizens taking more interest in the cultural and creative industries and in new, hi-tech products.

iPad – The Future?

Devices that can be folded, bent, and stretched; devices with sound, taste, and feel

 By CH’IN Chen-Chia

iPad fever is sweeping the world, and has prompted many suggestions as to how devices like the iPad could be improved. However, what consumers should really be thinking about is how this type of device will develop in the future; what kinds of new information and communications technology (ICT) can be integrated into these products to support the development of innovative new applications that meet people’s needs. The Streaming Innovation Group (SIG) established by Ideas magazine has undertaken intensive brainstorming regarding these new types of ICT, and has come up with several innovative concepts and usage scenarios for the iPads and tablet PCs of 2020:

Pre-school age children: Three-year-old David has finally got the interactive learning game e-book that he has been looking forward to for a long time. David sticks the book-sized e-paper on the wall of his playroom, and touches the bunny on the e-paper; this action activates a video camera lens and speakers. With background music playing, the bunny tells David that it wants to play with him. By pointing at the bunny in the e-book, David can make it start to dance; David happily begins to jig around with it.

Social Networking – From Making Friends to Making Money

By LI Zhi-wei

What kind of sparks do you get if you combine the two most popular trends today: "social networking" and "digital reading"?

When the Apple App Store released the digital reading software, Flipboard, at the end of July 2010, it immediately caught the eye of international media and famous bloggers. Within just a few hours, through word of mouth, it had become the top-ranked download. Flipboard emphasizes that it is a "social magazine" offering unique, personalized content for every reader based on their social networking habits and content shared by their friends, such as holiday photos, news that they "liked", or videos reposted from Youtube.

The most innovative aspect of Flipboard is the fact that it does not generate any content itself per se. All of the magazine’s content comes from the user's own activities on the social networking media, or are sourced from popular blogs and news websites overseas. The software settings and filters built into Flipboard automatically organizes the user's social networking feeds and selects content that the user will be interested in based on their past activities on social networks. Content generation and distribution is completely personalized and since Flipboard can generate content tailored to a reader of any type and culture, it can help develop a more diversified audience. The mechanism that makes all this possible is the social filtering function that has now been under development for some time now.

60% of Green Components for Future EVs will come from Taiwan

 By Zhang Ru-xin, Hu Xiu-zhu

 With soaring oil prices, ever-growing awareness of the need for environmental protection and the rush to develop electric vehicles on a global scale, the balance in the automobile industry has shifted. The Green Industrial Revolution means a new race has begun. Since Taiwan has a relatively comprehensive electric vehicle components supply chain, if it is able to leverage its strengths and support the global electric vehicle market, a new Blue Ocean for this emerging industry will thus be born.

  “For identical types of automobiles, electric vehicles are 42% more energy-efficient and emit 32% less CO₂ than vehicles with gasoline engines.” Deputy General Director James Wang of ITRI’s Mechanical & Systems Research Laboratories (MSL) said that after the 2009 UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, awareness of the need for protection of the environment became heightened, which is key to the accelerated development of the electric vehicle industry.
There is a product that utilizes over 20 microprocessors and employs 10 operating systems and application programs to control all of its functions. The customer is able to connect to headquarters from anywhere and check the performance of the product. Recharging is possible as long as there is an electrical outlet. Would you say it is a piece of high-tech equipment or an automobile? This is where electric vehicles subvert traditions. When the gasoline engine, gearbox, fuel tank, radiator, exhaust pipes and catalytic converter are removed from an automobile and servo motors, batteries and a sophisticated electronic control system are installed as their replacement, it is no longer a car but a high-tech, innovative application.

A new world, fully connected

By Chin, Chen-Chia

The term Internet of Things involves providing inanimate objects with sensory or communicative functions in order to increase their ability to connect and respond with the world as humans do.

An ordinary human uses five senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. To create these human-like qualities in man-made objects, designs are developed with specific sensory capabilities, such as video monitoring and recording devices to capture sight, and temperature or humidity readers to recreate the sense of touch. When identification software and wireless Internet service are also incorporated, the acquired data can be transmitted online for recognition and analysis, after which time the corresponding response is transmitted back to the object and the command is executed. The object is essentially transplanted with one or more of the five human senses, making it able to produce responses that can correspond to human behavior and habits.

The "TSMC" of the Taiwanese orchid industry

Hsu Neng-Shun works to strengthen Taiwan's reputation as the " Orchid Kingdom"

By Chang Wei-Shan

Taiwan has been described as the "Orchid Kingdom"; Taiwan leads the world in the cultivation of Butterfly Orchid seedlings, and its growers are able to bring seedlings to maturity faster than those of any other country in the world. Currently, Taiwan ’s annual Butterfly Orchid exports total around NT$2.3 – 3 billion. Hsu Neng-Shun, CEO of Taiwan Orchid Professionals Co., Ltd., has developed a new value chain blueprint for the orchid industry, aiming to raise the industry’s annual production value at least 10-fold within three years, and to turn Taiwan Orchid Professionals into the "TSMC" (one of Taiwan's, and the world's, leading IC foundry service providers) of the Taiwanese orchid industry. Taiwan Orchid Professionals is scheduled to achieve OTC listing by the end of 2010, making it Taiwan's first publicly traded agricultural sector stock.

At the Chelsea Flower Show in the U.K. in May this year, the new Taiwan orchid variety Phal. Fortune Salzman was praised by Queen Elizabeth II . However, most agricultural producers in Taiwan export their products independently, making it difficult for them to secure really large orders from overseas. The current situation is that trading companies in other countries import seedlings from Taiwanese orchid growers at around US$7 per seedling; once the plants have grown to maturity, they are then re-sold for retail prices of up to US$39.9, so that most of the profits go to foreign vendors that know how to make effective use of branding. Despite all the hard work they have put into improving their orchid varieties and technology, the Taiwanese orchid farmers make only slim profits. Hsu Neng-Shun believes that the main problem is Taiwan ’s lack of strong brands.

Golden Moon has succeeded in attracting the interest of venture capital providers, and is widely praised as an example of successful cultural and creative industry development

Integrating lapis lazuli with luxury homes and achieving "national treasure" status

By Lin Li-Ch’i

In the space of just eight years, Golden Moon founder and CEO Ch'en Cheng-Hung has succeeded in leading the Golden Moon lapis lazuli brand from an initial focus on "lifestyle" lapis lazuli towards the development of an amazingly wide range of lapis lazuli products. Today, Golden Moon has been chosen by Taipei City Government as one of the brands to receive recognition under the "Branding Taipei" scheme, and has also produced a spectacular lapis lazuli and jadeite cabbage for the National Palace Museum , which has been acclaimed as a national treasure, confirming Golden Moon's reputation for outstanding quality. As Ch'en Cheng-Hung's family is heavily involved in the construction industry, he has been able to integrate lapis lazuli with construction projects, including collaboration with several construction firms (including CEC) on lapis lazuli installation art. Ch'en has thus become the first ethnic Chinese to integrate lapis lazuli artifacts into luxury homes.

Having succeeded in securing venture capital funding, this year Golden Moon is planning to raise its capitalization to NT$70 million. Ch'en Cheng-Hung intends to exploit this increased funding to achieve even closer integration of lapis lazuli and luxury homes, two concepts which are well-placed to create synergy with one another. Ch'en is working actively to develop new projects in north, central and south China , and is even planning to expand his distribution channels to include Dubai and other parts of the Middle East where large numbers of luxury residences are being built.

Wing K. Lee, CEO of Malaysia' s YTL Communications, is investing heavily to deploy a 4G network and create the world ' s first global WiMAX wireless Internet network

Interview by Lilian Kim an d Lin Li-Ch'i; article by Lin Li-Ch' i

Wing K. Lee, who was appointed CEO of YTL Communications in September 2009, says bluntly that 4G (Fourth Generation Mobile Communications) development in Malaysia cannot follow the same pattern as 3G , where telecommunications operators all went their own separate ways; developing 4G will require close collaboration with content providers if it is to be successful. In the broadband era, the only way to attract subscribers to a new transmission medium is to offer a wide range of content and applications.

Wing K. Lee made a special visit to Taiwan in mid-April, during which he described to Taiwanese wireless communications equipment developers and content developers the mYprize competition, for which YTL Communications provided US$1 million worth of prizes at the beginning of this year. Lee pointed out that Taiwan has large numbers of outstanding software and hardware engineers, and said that, by offering attractive financial rewards, YTL Communications hopes to attract first-class wireless communications equipment developers and content providers to participate in the development of terminal devices and application programs for YTL ’ s WiMAX network. Lee noted that YTL Communications ’ WiMAX wireless network would have its soft launch in the third quarter of 2010, and would be rolled out nationwide in the fourth quarter.

Unlike other WiMAX operators who only provide service within major cities, in the future YTL Communications will be setting up base stations throughout Malaysia , in both urban and rural areas. Wing K. Lee said confidently that YTL Communications ’ WiMAX subscribers will be able to enjoy the world ’ s first WiMAX wireless network that has no dead zones.

Chinese Gamer International Corp’s Outstanding In-house R&D Capability has Enabled the Company to Establish a Dominant Position in the Online Gaming Market

By Lin An-Ni

Shortly after the bursting of the dot-com bubble, a group of four young people who had achieved impressive results in game design competitions – Ch’en Chia-P’ing, Lu Hsueh-Sen, Liu Yu-Min and Wu Tsung-Chou – and who were overflowing with the confidence of youth, got together to establish the Taichi Workshop

“You should think very carefully about this; making it big in the game industry isn’t as easy as you think.” When Soft-World International Chairman Wang Chun-Po heard that they were planning to set up a game design workshop to develop new games, he warned them that they should be very cautious about making this decision. At that time, very few  computer science graduates went into the gaming industry; people who had studied computer science at university usually found jobs with companies in the Hsinchu Science Park. In the end, however, Wang Chun-Po took the bold decision to provide the four young people with seed capital, enabling them to establish the business that later became Chinese Gamer International Corp.

By 1999, Chinese Gamer International had launched its first online game – “Three Kingdoms Online,” the company’s first foray into the Chinese-language game market. However, “Three Kingdoms Online” was not a success; no sooner had it been launched than it succumbed to fierce competition from the South Korean online game “Lineage.” Nevertheless, the Chinese Gamer International team had gained valuable experience. They took steps to improve the stability and security of their servers, and in 2002 they finally succeeded in launching a game that was both a critical and financial success: “Legend.”