Stories by Ralph Jennings

Taiwan team designs new way to protect touchscreens

Researchers in Taiwan have obtained patents for a method of making diamond film to resist scratches and fingerprint smudges on the touchscreens of handheld devices such as smartphones, a university official in charge said.

Asustek tablet with Honeycomb goes on sale Friday in Taiwan

Asustek Computer said it would start selling<strong> </strong>its first tablet PCs with the speedy Android 3.0 operating system this week, spicing it up with USB ports and options for a detachable keyboard that doubles as a spare battery.

Experts see wide use of flash-hard disk hybrids by 2016

A quarter of new laptops and half of new desktop PCs will adopt an emerging data storage method by 2016, pairing flash memory with traditional hard disk drives (HDDs) for better overall performance, according to two storage experts.

Taiwan expects multiple impacts on tech from Japan quake

Taiwan's economic ministry expects semiconductor and display panel industries on the island to take a hit from the earthquake in Japan last week as supplies are suspended due to factory damage or transportation snarls, translating in some cases to higher manufacturing costs.

Analyst: Nearly half of all PCs to use graphics processors

Half the notebook computers and a growing number of desktops shipped in 2011 will run on graphics-enabled microprocessors as designers Intel and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) increase competition for the units that raise multimedia speeds without add-ons, market research firm IHS iSuppli said.

Taiwan professor releases one-touch disaster alert app

University researchers in Taiwan have released a mobile phone application that with one touch can transmit to any number of people the location of users trapped in earthquake rubble or under mudslides, the professor behind the project said on Wednesday.

Flat panel makers face shortages after Japanese quake

Major display panel manufacturers face a shortage of materials from Japan as the powerful earthquake on Friday has hit their suppliers, companies and analysts said on Tuesday, pointing toward price rises in PCs or mobile phones and a possible slowdown in production.

Taiwan to deploy first seabed quake sensor

Taiwan will soon install its first system to sense undersea seismic movements that may herald earthquakes or tsunamis, it said Monday. The island is vulnerable to the type of offshore earthquake that ravaged Japan on Friday.

Taiwan researchers seek to perfect LED backlights, MEMS

A government-funded research institute in Taiwan have kicked off a three-year effort to develop cheaper, longer-lasting LED backlights in mobile phones, notebook PCs and television sets, a project manager said on Friday.

Amazon extends remote computing to Japan

Amazon.com's remote computing arm has expanded into Japan after finding that developers in the tech-savvy Asian country want more local data storage and quicker data transfer times.

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