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.
Office workers: Alan goes into the meeting room, places sheets of e-paper on the table, and sets up the glass wall as a dual-screen display. As the customers who are visiting his company come into the meeting room, Alan presses the e-paper, and a 3-D image of the electric car motor that his company’s engineering department has designed appears on the table. Alan uses his hand to move the image of the motor round, so that the customers can see the details of the design. When a customer touches part of the motor with a questioning look on their face, Alan activates the display wall videoconferencing function, which has been on standby, so that one of their colleagues in Germany can appear on screen and explain the aspect of the design that the customer is curious about. Later, Alan’s boss tells him that the customers were very impressed, and that it looks as though the deal will go ahead.
Inspiration for innovation can come from familiar scenes
Crepe wrappers inspire a major breakthrough in flexible displays
By HU Hsiu-Chu
The “FlexUPD” ultrathin flexible display technology developed by Lee Cheng-Chung (Section Chief, Display Technology Center, Industrial Technology Research Institute) and Lee Tzong-Ming (Section Chief, Material and Chemical Research Laboratories, Industrial Technology Research Institute) has beaten nearly 600 rival technologies and products to win a Gold Medal in the 2010 Wall Street Journal Technology Innovation Awards. This is the first time that Taiwan has won a Gold Medal in these Awards.
The Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) began to undertake R&D on flexible panel substrate back in 2006. Flexible panel needs to be able to be compressed, stretched, and rolled up; it also needs to conform to the ways in which people are used to reading. The actual process of manufacturing e-paper is not particularly difficult; the challenging part is the materials and processes needed for production of the substrate. In the past, e-paper substrate has been made using glass. This was expensive, and the resulting substrate was very hard, and did not bend easily. Lee Tzong-Ming was inspired by a memory of traditional crepes that he saw being sold at a stall next to the Ch’eng-Huang Temple in Hsinchu when he was a boy. When heated in a hot wok, the consistency of the crepes changes; sticky balls of flour are transformed into thin crepes that can be slid easily off the side of the wok. Lee Tzong-Ming acted on this inspiration immediately, setting to work to modify the materials and processes used to make e-paper substrate. Lee’s team decided to use polyimide (PI); this is coated onto the glass substrate before firing in an oven to create a plastic film, which is then attached to another layer of glass substrate. To make it easier to separate the plastic film from the glass substrate, macromolecular material is used to create a de-bonding layer, similar to the layer of cooking oil that separates crepe wrappers from the hot wok. Just as the team had anticipated, the completed flexible display can be easily removed in one piece just by starting to peel it off from one corner; “It’s just as easy as removing a crepe wrapper from the wok.”
After repeated testing, the team finally achieved success; when the flexible display had been completed and electric current was applied to it, “Bingo! It’s lit!” There was a chorus of applause!
Designing “ChiangsTalk” – Cultural and creative industry with a smile
Using humor to help Taiwan keep pace with international trends
By YIN Hao
The cultural and creative industries can be funny too! As “ChiangsTalk” founder Wu Sung-Chou sees it, design and culture are closely interrelated, but that doesn’t mean they have to solemn or serious; integrating the cultural and creative industries with tourism can help to create new value.
In 2008, when the dispute over the renaming of the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall in Taipei was at its height, A-Chou (Wu Sung-Chou) proposed “bringing Chiang Kai-Shek and Chiang Ching-Kuo back into the Memorial Hall”; he won the tender to operate a souvenir shop in the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall, which he named “ChiangsTalk.” A-Chou, who had previously only worked as a designer, now found himself running a souvenir retail outlet too. A-Chou threw all of his energy, and his life’s savings, into ChiangsTalk. However, the first year of the store’s operation coincided with the global financial crisis, and ChiangsTalk lost around NT$300,000 a month for 10 months in a row.
When he examined the consumer behavior of the people who visited ChiangsTalk, A-Chou noticed that many of them were looking for something “special.” A-Chou rethought the way products were displayed in the store, aiming to create an environment in which the store would actually be selling “memories.” The idea was that visitors to ChiangsTalk would be able to find products related to Chiang Kai-Shek and Chiang Ching-Kuo, distinctively Taiwanese products, and products that embodied outstanding design; the store would “cover Taiwan from end to end within an area of just 26.4m2.”
Stories of things that have happened at ChiangsTalk are posted on the store blog every day. One day, an elderly Japanese couple came to ChiangsTalk. They said that their son had visited the store the previous year, and that the store manager had slipped a postcard into his bag (as a free gift) without him noticing. Their son didn’t discover the card until he had arrived home in Japan; he was both pleased and slightly embarrassed. It was this that gave them the idea of visiting the store. “We are ‘selling out’ Taiwan,” says A-Chou with a laugh. “We sell beautiful memories to people, and hope that they will bring those memories back again in the future.” Over the last two years, thanks to the hard work of the ChiangsTalk team, the store has seen an improvement in its sales performance, and is now growing steadily.
Monte Jade Science and Technology Association Executive Secretary Herb Lin:
How to get the world to invest in Taiwan
By HU Hsiu-Chu
The years since 2000 have been a period of adjustment for Taiwan’s venture capital industry, with a significant fall in the number of new businesses receiving venture capital funding. Herb Lin (Lin Ho-Yuan), the Executive Secretary of the Monte Jade Science and Technology Association (and also President of the Industrial Technology Investment Corporation), is concerned about this situation. Lin points out that “Although the production value of the venture capital sector is small, the impact which this sector has is enormous, since it is the source of all start-up activity and innovation. If other people aren’t doing it, then we need to take the lead and do it ourselves.”
“When the global financial crisis struck, the whole world was swept by panic, and venture capital funding dried up. And this was at a time when firms really needed funding support, and when the cost of investment was relatively low.” During this period, ITIC chose to invest NT$100 million in Sentien Printing, the world’s second largest notebook PC casing transfer film company, with the potential for a 5- or 6-fold return on investment.
In the medical sector, over the next two years the scope of coverage of China’s national health insurance system will be expanded to cover an additional 200 million people. Demand for medical care is very high in other emerging economies, too, creating significant market opportunities for Taiwanese firms in the areas of optoelectronics, scanners, medical software etc. As a result of China’s One-child Policy, demand for the provision of medical care for the elderly is growing rapidly. The kinds of services that are needed are services that combine reasonable quality with low price, or “good enough” services; Taiwan is well-placed to help provide these types of services.
“Taiwan lacks human talent; it is not just money that has dried up, the supply of human talent has dried up as well.” Herb Lin notes that, in the past, the normal practice was to provide funding assistance for overseas start-ups, and then encourage them to invest in Taiwan and transfer technology to Taiwan, but that this strategy has clearly been ineffective in bringing about a significant increase in investment in Taiwan. The new strategy is to encourage investment in biomaterials and green energy funds. Once the money starts to flow in, the human talent will come with it. As Herb Lin sees it, the opportunities for Taiwan are enormous.
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