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Friday, May 17, 2013

#MARKETS: "Taiwan brain drain in remission"

For decades a "brain drain" has plagued Taiwan as its most talented engineers stayed in the U.S. after being awarded their doctorates, but the trend appears to be reversing as their best-and-brightest are returning to nix the manufacturing advantage on the mainland by opening innovation labs in Taiwan: R. Colin Johnson @NextGenLog


Making playlists was never easier--thanks to a Taiwanese innovation. Just draw a line in the two-dimention space from "calm to excited" (arousal) and "harsh to pleasant" (valence) and a list of songs that match that "mood" are automatically compiled.
Further Reading

Thursday, May 16, 2013

#ALGORITHMS: "Taiwanese Smartphone/Tablet Apps Excel"

Everybody who has used a smartphone of a tablet knows the routine--yes its fun to use, but frustrating when it does not do what you expect. In Taiwan think tanks they are changing all that by designing apps and add-on hardware that do all the things you wanted you smartphone or tablet to do, but it wouldn't: R. Colin Johnson @NextGenLog


Magnetic field detector add-on for iPad allows near-field sensing of styluses and tokens without interference from the users hands.
Further Reading

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

#MARKETS: "Taiwan Moving from Manufacturing to Innovation"

Taiwan already manufactures most of the world's laptops, flat-panel monitors and datacenter servers, but only for other company's designs. In a reversal of trends, however, Taiwanese smarts is being applied to creating their own innovations in hopes of vitalizing its homeland: R. Colin Johnson @NextGenLog


Taiwan's university campuses and government-funded research facilities take up more than one percent of the island nation's land area.
Further Reading

Monday, May 13, 2013

#CHIPS: "3-D Harnessed by TSMC in Super-Chips"

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) leads the semiconductor foundry world, but now it is aiming to leapfrog ahead with home-grown super-chips that combine SoCs, memory, sensors and all the other chips you need to make a system into a single "super-chip": R. Colin Johnson @NextGenLog

Vice president of R&D and cheif technology officer (CTO) Jack Sun reveals Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company's (TSMC's) master plan to conquer the semiconductor world with super-chips.
Further Reading

Tuesday, May 07, 2013

#ALGORITHMS: "Microsoft's Big Data Taming Energy Waste"

Instead of spending $60 billion to rip-and-replace the scourge of incompatible heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems on its sprawling campus, Microsoft decided to practice-what-it-preaches by using Big Data running on its Windows Servers to cut energy wastes: R. Colin Johnson @NextGenLog

Microsoft's  campus in Redmond, Washington uses Big Data to cut energy waste from its diverse set of heat ventilation air conditioning (HVAC) systems from different vendors.
Further Reading

Wednesday, May 01, 2013

#ALGORITHM: "Nanoscience Transforms into Nanotech "

The National Nanotechnology Initiative has spend billions of dollars over the last decade preparing the scientific basis for the move to molecular-sized electronics. Now the National Science Foundation and the Semiconductor Research Corp. have entered the final phase--creating libraries of nano-scale electronic devices for use with standard SPICE simulators. Once done, manufacturing nanoscale electronics will become as easy as drag-and-drop: R. Colin Johnson @NextGenLog


NSF and SRC will enable electronics designers to choose nanoscale devices like this Band-to-Band-Tunneling transistor that is only eight nanometers thick.
Further Reading