Taiwan highlights powerful AI and cloud products with the Taiwan Excellence Awards

In the internet age, reliable connectivity and networks are paramount. There’s a great deal that goes into keeping the back-end of a network running, and then more on top of that necessary to provide quality services to thousands or millions of users connecting to it every day. Recently, AI and cloud applications have been on the rise to meet these needs. And in the past year, a few particular products stood out from the pack as offering more innovation and life-changing impacts than the rest, earning them the Taiwan Excellence Award for 2023. 

Over the last 30 years, Taiwan has highlighted its domestic products with the Taiwan Excellence Awards, which go to products offering technical innovation and real, life-changing impact. It is this focus on innovative value that the International Trade Administration (TITA) and Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) seek to highlight across the world. 

Each year, Taiwan Excellence Awards selects only a handful of innovative products that have met rigorous criteria for R&D, design, quality, and marketing. The selected products receive the Taiwan Excellence Award mark, which serves as a distinction and testament to their high standards. 

These products, designed and made in Taiwan embody a combination of innovation and excellence reflecting the following aspects:

  • Innovative: Products that prioritize customer satisfaction through advanced and thoughtful design.
  • Excellence: Companies that are passionate about common goals, foster team spirit, enthusiasm, and knowledge-sharing.
  • Value: Practical products that truly enhance everyday life
  • Dependable: Reliable products with quality and performance you can count on.

The highlights in AI and cloud computing in this year’s Taiwan Excellence Awards are the PCIe 4.0 Enterprise SSD Controller IC from Phison Electronics, the LoRa AIoT Network Solution from Planet Technology, and SysTalk.Chat from TPIsoftware.

Phison’s PCIe 4.0 Enterprise SSD Controller IC — PS5020-E20 (X1 Solution) 

Phison’s X1 PCIe 4.0 Enterprise SSD Controller IC

(Image credit: Phison Electronics Corp)

Phison PS5020-E20 is a next-generation high-performance enterprise class SSD controller and solution that will help reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO) in enterprise use case scenarios with increased storage density, low power consumption, and high performance. The advanced solution enables smarter storage infrastructure in wide-ranging enterprise storage applications such as hyperscale data centers, high-performance computing (HPC), and artificial intelligence (AI). 

With our cutting-edge ASIC designs and engineering know-hows combined with strong synergy with our partners, Phison looks to answer to demanding enterprise SSD market needs while working toward leading positions with state-of-the-art enterprise-grade NAND flash memory controller IC solutions. PS5020-E20-powered NAND storage solutions are fine-tuned for specific workloads and applications like AI, cloud storage, and 5G edge computing to give enterprise customers the biggest bang for their buck.

Planet Technology’s LoRa AIoT Network Solution

Planet Technology’s LoRa AIoT Network Solution

(Image credit: PLANET Technology Corporation)

PLANET LoRa AIoT Network Solution is specially designed for the efficient management of long-range IoT network infrastructure. It is flexible to be used in a variety of vertical applications such as factories, smart cities, energy facilities, and transportation. It is a cost-effective and reliable method for ISPs and enterprises to integrate the existing AIoT network deployment with new network devices and multiple communication protocols. 

The system can integrate using LoRa LPWAN, Wi-Fi 6 and optical fiber connections, making it exceedingly versatile, and it’s compatible with industrial-grade VPNs (IPSec/PPTP/L2TP over IPSec) and cybersecurity functions. The units offer a rugged industrial design, support MQTT and Modbus TCP, and come pre-configured for EU868/US915/AS923 MHz Sub 1G frequency bands. Serving as a comprehensive solution for networks, it offers an intelligent central management platform with a user-friendly web UI, a secure communication transmission gateway, and data conversion equipment. 

SysTalk.Chat

SysTalk.Chat

(Image credit: TPIsoftware Corporation)

TPIsoftware's SysTalk.Chat is the most powerful conversational AI service delivering smart customer service. It has been awarded Taiwan Excellence Awards 2023, CX Asia Excellence Awards 2021 in Singapore and many more. TPIsoftware has also been selected as a Cool Vendor in Conversational AI in APAC 2018 by Gartner. With a high market penetration, SysTalk.Chat has freed up employees’ time for higher-value work, saved 40% of labor cost for enterprises, helped enterprises expand omnichannel strategy, and increased customer satisfaction.

SysTalk.Chat has been widely adopted across industries, serving millions of monthly users in Taiwan with a robust customer experience. Built with the exclusive dual brain NLU + FAQ and voice recognition, SysTalk.Chat can provide human-like dialogue and activate voice recognition with minimal corpus data. What’s more, SysTalk.Chat is also a visual chatbot that stands out for its visual recognition capability that can interpret all kinds of documents with built-in AI-OCR technology. 

SysTalk.Chat can further integrate with TPIsoftware's DigiFusion, an iPaaS middle platform featuring API management to connect other existing services, which allows services such as bank transactions to be done simply through chatbot conversations, making customer service and the conversational service blueprint more comprehensive.  

Made in Taiwan: An environment that fosters innovation

The companies showcased here have forged everyday excellence into the DNA of their products. The Taiwan Excellence Awards showcase Taiwan's belief that innovative, cutting-edge technology can lead the way to a better future. The winners of the 2023 Taiwan Excellence Awards also demonstrate how Taiwan's work to build an innovative economic landscape is bearing fruit.

For more information, visit Taiwan Excellence and see the best made in Taiwan. 

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We speak to four winners of Apple’s 2021 App Awards

With iOS 15.2 and macOS 12.1 Monterey available to all, users can download the updates to their devices, alongside updating any existing apps to take advantage of what these updates bring.

Apple’s App Store Awards are the company’s way of highlighting developers who created apps that stood out in their category compared to other apps, in a theme of what Apple calls, connections. Whether that’s in video editing, streaming or games, they take advantage of recent features brought out by Apple and its software in an innovative way.

The company announced the year’s winners this month, with Carrot Weather, LumaFusion, DAZN, and League of Legends each winning in their categories for certain devices.

We spoke to the developers behind these apps to find out the challenges in designing the apps and their plans for the future.

Reflecting on their past

Every developer received an award that mirrors the App Store logo and its icon made from 100% recycled aluminum. During a video announcing the winners, Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO said, “From self-taught indie coders to inspiring leaders building global businesses, these standout developers innovated with Apple technology, with many helping to foster the profound sense of togetherness we needed this year.”

First up, LumaFusion is a video editing app on the iPad and iPhone for $ 19.99 / £19.99 / AU$ 19.99, that allows you to edit multiple videos at once with transitions and features that make it easy to turn a video into an engaging narrative. Its improvements this year made it the winner of the iPad app of the year award.

LumaFusion’s developers, Terri Morgan and Chris Demiris try to approach every release, whether that’s hardware or software, in how its users can benefit from their improvements in the app. “We couldn’t imagine where the iPad would go after ten years. Now, with Thunderbolt support and the M1 chip, we always see how we can adapt these updates into LumaFusion. Some of these features are easy to implement, such as ProRes and external storage support, but we're always looking to see which features would benefit users most.”

Morgan explains. “We’re inspired by how so many have used the app to help follow their passion, especially during lockdown, and it does help drive us to make the app even better, and more widely available to other users on Apple devices.”

LumaFusion on iPad Pro

(Image credit: Lumafusion)

League of Legends: Wild Rift was the winner of the iPhone gaming app of the year. Made by Riot Games, it's one of few franchises that's successfully made the jump from a console game to mobile with no compromises.

Michael Chow, executive producer on the game, reflected on developing the game since the start. “Usually when a game makes the move to mobile, there's a lot of negativity from their communities, so we wanted to make sure we avoided it with Wild Rift.”

With our positive impressions of running Rift on an iPhone 12 Pro earlier this year, we wanted to know how Chow and the team felt about releasing the game after a very long beta-test period.

“We’ve spent the past year rolling out the game across the world, and the results are pretty stellar,” Chow exclaims. “It’s not been an easy journey, as we weren’t sure if it was physically possible to bring League of Legends to mobile, but the results speak for themselves.”

“We quit our day jobs to start the company, and with Apple’s relentless efforts to make the iPhone better, it couldn’t make us more proud to receive this award from the company.”

League of Legends: Wild Rift on an iPhone 12 Pro

(Image credit: Future)

DAZN is a streaming app for sports, and while it’s additionally available on iPhone and iPad, it’s available for AppleTV for which DAZN won the app award for. It allows subscribed users to watch sports such as MotoGP, UFC, UEFA, NFL and more for $ 19.99 / £19.99 / AU$ 19.99 a month.

Ben King, Director of DAZN at DAZN Group, explained to us that the aim of the app was to make it accessible, flexible and affordable to those who just wanted to easily access their sports for a price that didn’t lock them into two-year contracts.

“We’re absolutely honoured to receive this award from Apple, but it doesn’t mean we want to stop with how we can offer content to our users in way of features and more kinds of sports.”

The app uses push notifications for the latest updates in other matches, such as red cards and goals, while you’re using another app. You can also watch three consecutive sports or games at once, mirroring a scene in Back to the Future Part II when Marty Jr would watches 16 channels at once.

DAZN on Apple TV, Mac and iPad.

(Image credit: DAZN)

Brian Mueller, is the developer of Carrot Weather, and won the 2021 App Award for the Apple Watch. Its complications to allow certain weather forecasts on watch faces, alongside its push notifications for upcoming weather changes, has allowed Mueller to bring the app, and its sass to the watch with no compromise.

“When the app launched in 2015, it was purely an entertainment app, with its achievements and Carrot’s personality,“ Mueller explained. “It wasn’t until the Apple Watch arrived that forced me to focus on making a really great weather app, instead of relying on Carrot’s jokes and the bizarre imagery.”

As the app grew since watchOS 2, Mueller realised that he could add more complications to the watch faces. “I found out a workaround in early versions that could allow me to add more than the one complication per watch face that the operating system allowed.” Mueller reveals. “ After this, users were asking me for certain weather sources to add to the watch faces, and I still love that, that fans of the app are giving me feedback to make the watch app better.”

Three variations of CARROT on an iPhone 12

(Image credit: TechRadar)

Where next for these apps?

While these developers are celebrating their success, they aren't stopping. We asked what’s coming up for their apps in the near future. 

“We have a long list of feature requests, and in the past there's been features such as CoreML and smart background removal. But we have to pick and choose each time to really focus on how they best fit for LumaFusion.” Morgan explains. “I can see us doing cooperative editing with SharePlay eventually, but in the immediate future, key-frame easing where you can bring in images to videos, alongside subtitling and speed ramping are all coming soon.”

We also wanted to know whether there were plans for LumaFusion coming to macOS natively. “While you can export a project to Final Cut, we’re aware that there’s a need for LumaFusion on macOS.” Demiris explains. “We are working on a more complete version for macOS to take advantage of what the Mac brings.”

A screenshot showing LumaFusion

(Image credit: Luma Touch LLC)

With League of Legends: Wild Rift, Chow was enthusiastic about how the on-screen controls work well on the iPhone. But we asked if keyboard support in games, a feature of iPadOS 15, would come to the game to help users control their character more easily on the bigger tablet.

“Control in Rift is something that we spent a lot of time on, so I don’t think we’ll implement keyboard support anytime soon,” Chow explains. “But gamepad support is something that could work, especially for the Apple TV, so who knows.”

With DAZN, SharePlay support is something that’s of interest to King and the rest of the team. ”We’re all about flexibility, and while you can already join with friends in watching a game, SharePlay does bring something to the table. If enough users give feedback to us that it’s a feature they want on their iPad or Apple TV, it’s something we’ll consider for a future update.”

Finally, with accessibility a big part of Apple’s focus in software interaction, we asked King if there’s upcoming features to help with those with certain impairments when using DAZN.

“We have some really interesting ideas for accessibility,“ King reveals. “We don’t have to give you one audio stream for instance, so there’s no reason for using sign language as an alternative commentary, but for the moment, subtitles and closed captions for pre-recorded content are something that we’re currently working on. But there’s far more options compared to cable content that we can provide to help cater to someone who is either visually or auditory impaired, and we want to help them.”

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How to watch 2020 Grammys: live stream the awards show from anywhere

It's been deemed 'Music's Biggest Night' and from what we know so far, the 62nd annual Grammy Awards is definitely looking like it will live up to that title. So if you're ready to see some unforgettable performances, keep reading to find out how you can get a 2020 Grammys live stream.

Alicia Keys will be returning to host the awards again, making her the first female artist to host the Grammys twice.

Both Lizzo and Billie Eilish will make their Grammy stage debut by performing at this year's award. Not only is Lizzo putting the 'sing in single', it turns out she's also 100% that Grammy nominee – Lizzo has picked up the most award nominations this year of anybody.

Other artists that have been nominated include Latin sensation Rosalía, pop-star Ariana Grande, queen bee Beyoncé, youngest artist to record 007's theme song Billie Eilish and many more. A star-studded event, this year has been filled with a wide diversity of nominees and attendees after the #GrammysSoMale controversy of 2018.

Make sure you don't miss this incredible event – keep reading to find out how to live stream the 2020 Grammy Awards from anywhere in the world. 

How to watch the 2020 Grammy Awards: live stream in the USA

  • Hulu with Live TV $ 54.99 per month – Hulu with Live TV includes CBS, Fox, NBCSN and ESPN.
  • FuboTV $ 54.99 per month – FuboTV gives you access to CBS, Fox, NBC as well as other channels.
  • YouTubeTV $ 49.99 per month – YouTubeTV gives you access to CBS, Fox, NBC and ESPN.
  • AT& TV NOW $ 65 or $ 80 per month – AT&TV Now includes CBS, Fox, CNBC, and ESPN.

How to watch a Grammys live stream from outside your country

If you've mismatched a holiday or are away for work when the 2020 Grammy Awards happen, don't panic – you can still catch the awards on your home TV channel and avoid the geo-blocking that broadcasters put in pcae when you watch from overseas.

By using a VPN, you can change your IP address to one back in your home country which will allow you to stream the event as if you were back at home.

How to get a Grammys live stream in the UK

Unfortunately for UK music fans, there will be no live broadcast of the Grammy Awards this year. However, you can still watch the highlights show on 4Music at 7.30pm GMT on Monday, January 27.

However, the good news is that if you’re just interested in seeing what your favorite artists are wearing and who they’re attending the awards with, channel E! will be showing live coverage from the red carpet between 11pm and 1am GMT on Sunday when the ceremony begins in Los Angeles.

2020 Grammy Awards – what else is happening

If you need more Grammy gossip, then you'll want to know that there was a pre-Grammys gala held on Saturday night where Sean "Diddy" Combs was recognized with the 2020 Grammy Salute to Industry Icons to honor his 25-year career in the music industry.

And the Friday before the Grammys, rock band Aerosmith were honored as the 2020 Person of the Year for MusiCares, the Recording Academy's charity for musicians in critical financial need. The band earned the title for their philanthropy and impact on music history.

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