Intel Corp, Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) and Asia Pacific Telecom Co (APT, 亞太電信) yesterday jointly unveiled a multi-access edge computing (MEC) platform and facial recognition technology, the result their collaborative efforts in 5G technology solutions.
“The technologies are applicable to a wide range of scenarios, such as a smarter shopping experience in department stores, smart security for home and companies, smart medical services and more,” Hon Hai business group president and APT chairman Lu Fang-ming (呂芳銘) told a news conference in Taipei.
The MEC platform represents Hon Hai and Intel’s first collaborative work on 5G technology that went public since the two companies inked a memorandum of understanding (MOU) in June last year for the development of network infrastructure on the foundation of 5G connectivity.
Hon Hai participated in the platform’s development with Intel and is in charge of sensor manufacturing for facial recognition technology, while APT provides network connectivity, the companies said.
The MEC is a cloud-based network architecture at the edge of the core network, which brings real-time, high-bandwidth and low-latency access to the network, largely reducing network congestion, Lu said.
The MEC is a solution to data deluge in the 5G environment, because it shares the workload of the core network to process data closer to the users, Lu said.
For example, the platform can prevent network congestion at a stadium during concerts or sports events, he said.
The platform is part of the foundation to build a high-speed 5G connectivity environment, Intel visual cloud division general manager Lynn Comp said.
Facial recognition is one of the applications that can be used on the platform, Lu said, adding that Hon Hai has been using facial recognition with door access control at two of its plants in New Taipei City for one-and-a-half years.
Instead of clocking in and out, more than 200,000 employees at the two plants use facial recognition to report for work and enter the plants, he said.
Facial recognition on the platform can also be used in department stores, Lu said. “For example, facial recognition can instantly provide the customer’s purchase history at the store or alert the sales personnel that the incoming person is a VIP customer.”
APT is in talks with domestic retailers to adopt the platform with facial recognition technology, Lu said.
“We expect to see progress with retailers in the next three to six months,” he said.
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
ADVERSARIES: The new list includes 11 entities in China and one in Taiwan, which is a local branch of Chinese cloud computing firm Inspur Group The US added dozens of entities to a trade blacklist on Tuesday, the US Department of Commerce said, in part to disrupt Beijing’s artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced computing capabilities. The action affects 80 entities from countries including China, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, with the commerce department citing their “activities contrary to US national security and foreign policy.” Those added to the “entity list” are restricted from obtaining US items and technologies without government authorization. “We will not allow adversaries to exploit American technology to bolster their own militaries and threaten American lives,” US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said. The entities
Minister of Finance Chuang Tsui-yun (莊翠雲) yesterday told lawmakers that she “would not speculate,” but a “response plan” has been prepared in case Taiwan is targeted by US President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, which are to be announced on Wednesday next week. The Trump administration, including US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, has said that much of the proposed reciprocal tariffs would focus on the 15 countries that have the highest trade surpluses with the US. Bessent has referred to those countries as the “dirty 15,” but has not named them. Last year, Taiwan’s US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US
Prices of gasoline and diesel products at domestic gas stations are to fall NT$0.2 and NT$0.1 per liter respectively this week, even though international crude oil prices rose last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said yesterday. International crude oil prices continued rising last week, as the US Energy Information Administration reported a larger-than-expected drop in US commercial crude oil inventories, CPC said in a statement. Based on the company’s floating oil price formula, the cost of crude oil rose 2.38 percent last week from a week earlier, it said. News that US President Donald Trump plans a “secondary
RSS