A team of researchers at National Tsing Hua University (NTHU) yesterday unveiled artificial intelligence (AI) tools for making audio and visual materials for advertisements, saying it could help businesses save time and costs.
Online ads have become a part of daily life, but producing creative promotions are time-consuming, associate professor of computer science Wu Shan-hung (吳尚鴻) told a news conference in Taipei.
Through a government-funded program, the team spent two years developing AI tools that use deep-learning models and social media analysis to produce images with designated objects and context, he said.
The researchers helped AppFinca’s concentration training app Flora reach top ranking on the list of free apps in Taiwan on Apple’s App Store, outperforming Gmail and Google Drive, he said.
Liu Yi-wen (劉奕汶), an associate professor of electrical engineering, also develops tools for mimicking human voices to sing songs.
However, their tools still cannot create original melodies, and they need further research to avoid producing materials that might raise copyright issues, Liu said.
The tools are intended to improve the work efficiency of copywriters, but would not replace human writers who would still have to sign off on an ad, Wu said.
Although many start-ups have good products, they do not know how to market them, he said, adding that he first noticed this after teaching entrepreneurship classes.
The AI toots, he said, could help small and medium-sized businesses save money on ad development.
The team is in discussion with Asustek Computer, United Microelectronics and KKBOX, as well as startups, about technical cooperation.
A decision to describe a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement on Singapore’s Taiwan policy as “erroneous” was made because the city-state has its own “one China policy” and has not followed Beijing’s “one China principle,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光) said yesterday. It has been a longstanding practice for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to speak on other countries’ behalf concerning Taiwan, Tien said. The latest example was a statement issued by the PRC after a meeting between Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on the sidelines of the APEC summit
The Taipei Zoo on Saturday said it would pursue legal action against a man who was filmed climbing over a railing to tease and feed spotted hyenas in their enclosure earlier that day. In videos uploaded to social media on Saturday, a man can be seen climbing over a protective railing and approaching a ledge above the zoo’s spotted hyena enclosure, before dropping unidentified objects down to two of the animals. The Taipei Zoo in a statement said the man’s actions were “extremely inappropriate and even illegal.” In addition to monitoring the hyenas’ health, the zoo would collect evidence provided by the public
A road safety advocacy group yesterday called for reforms to the driver licensing and retraining system after a pedestrian was killed and 15 other people were injured in a two-bus collision in Taipei. “Taiwan’s driver’s licenses are among the easiest to obtain in the world, and there is no mandatory retraining system for drivers,” Taiwan Vision Zero Alliance, a group pushing to reduce pedestrian fatalities, said in a news release. Under the regulations, people who have held a standard car driver’s license for two years and have completed a driver training course are eligible to take a test
Taiwan’s passport ranked 34th in the world, with access to 141 visa-free destinations, according to the latest update to the Henley Passport Index released today. The index put together by Henley & Partners ranks 199 passports globally based on the number of destinations holders can access without a visa out of 227, and is updated monthly. The 141 visa-free destinations for Taiwanese passport holders are a slight decrease from last year, when holders had access to 145 destinations. Botswana and Columbia are among the countries that have recently ended visa-free status for Taiwanese after “bowing to pressure from the Chinese government,” the Ministry
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