A sophisticated electric walking cane for the blind is ready for mass production by this summer, the National Science Council (NSC) said yesterday, stressing the need for increased development and training for open source software (OSS) technologies.
The cane uses five supersonic sensors and advanced OSS that can drastically improve quality of life for the visually impaired, the council said.
“Though this is not the first electric cane on the market, it is the most sophisticated,” said developer Wang Wen-fong (王文楓), a National Yunlin University of Science and Technology computer science and information engineering professor.
PHOTO: LIN CHIA-CHI, TAIPEI TIMES
Wang said that guide dogs are difficult and expensive to train and hoped the invention could be a viable alternative.
“The cane’s supersonic sensors can detect road conditions up to 4m ahead of the user, distinguish between a dry road and one with puddles and even sense whether a tree branch is low enough to hit the user’s head,” he said.
The cane is part of the NSC’s OSS and embedded OSS development program, said Kuo Yau-hwang (郭耀煌), a National Cheng-kung University computer science and information engineering professor and leader of the program.
“Though Taiwan’s information and communication technology industry is a world leader in terms of hardware development, a gap exists in OSS development,” Kuo said.
As such, the NSC plans to allocate NT$100 million (US$3 million) in grants to sponsor tertiary institutional research projects for OSS training and development, he said.
OSS, as opposed to closed-source software, is software whose source code is open or at least partially open to the public, meaning users are free to use, modify or redistribute it without having to ask for permission.
“The popularity of Linux-based personal notebooks [such as Asus’ Eee PC] and cellphones — which use OSS, unlike Microsoft’s Windows — has in recent years allowed the development of OSS to blossom,” Kuo said.
As OSS is becoming the future of software, Kuo said that the country urgently needs to invest in it, adding that he felt the engine to drive domestic OSS development was the nation’s university students.
“In the past year, the NSC sponsored 99 OSS research teams in schools. Together, we have developed about 50 OSS programs, involving 407 doctorate and masters students,” he said.
Progress has also been made on the walking cane and other projects such as WiMax research, Kuo said.
“We plan to develop more OSS in intelligent terminals, broadband communications, telematics and multiple-core systems, so that our hardware has an increased competitive edge in the global market,” he said.
CAUTION: Based on intelligence from the nation’s security agencies, MOFA has cautioned Taiwanese travelers about heightened safety risks in China-friendly countries The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday urged Taiwanese to be aware of their safety when traveling abroad, especially in countries that are friendly to China. China in June last year issued 22 guidelines that allow its courts to try in absentia and sentence to death so-called “diehard” Taiwanese independence activists, even though Chinese courts have no jurisdiction in Taiwan. Late last month, a senior Chinese official gave closed-door instructions to state security units to implement the guidelines in countries friendly to China, a government memo and a senior Taiwan security official said, based on information gathered by Taiwan’s intelligence agency. The
The National Immigration Agency (NIA) said yesterday that it will revoke the dependent-based residence permit of a Chinese social media influencer who reportedly “openly advocated for [China’s] unification through military force” with Taiwan. The Chinese national, identified by her surname Liu (劉), will have her residence permit revoked in accordance with Article 14 of the “Measures for the permission of family- based residence, long-term residence and settlement of people from the Mainland Area in the Taiwan Area,” the NIA said in a news release. The agency explained it received reports that Liu made “unifying Taiwan through military force” statements on her online
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, said yesterday that it is looking to hire 8,000 people this year, at a time when the tech giant is expanding production capacity to maintain its lead over competitors. To attract talent, TSMC would launch a large-scale recruitment campaign on campuses across Taiwan, where a newly recruited engineer with a master’s degree could expect to receive an average salary of NT$2.2 million (US$60,912), which is much higher than the 2023 national average of NT$709,000 for those in the same category, according to government statistics. TSMC, which accounted for more than 60 percent
Tung Tzu-hsien (童子賢), a Taiwanese businessman and deputy convener of the nation’s National Climate Change Committee, said yesterday that “electrical power is national power” and nuclear energy is “very important to Taiwan.” Tung made the remarks, suggesting that his views do not align with the country’s current official policy of phasing out nuclear energy, at a forum organized by the Taiwan People’s Party titled “Challenges and Prospects of Taiwan’s AI Industry and Energy Policy.” “Taiwan is currently pursuing industries with high added- value and is developing vigorously, and this all requires electricity,” said the chairman
RSS