A lot of effort has been devoted by researchers to unlock more natural forms of communication without requiring contact between the user and the device. Voice commands are a prominent example that has found their way into modern smartphones and virtual assistants, letting us interact and control devices through speech.
Hand gestures constitute another important mode of human communication that could be adopted for human-computer interactions. Recent progress in camera systems, image analysis and machine learning have made optical-based gesture recognition a more attractive option in most contexts than approaches relying on wearable sensors or data gloves.
To tackle these issues, a team led by Zhiyi Yu of Sun Yat-sen University, China, recently developed a new hand gesture recognition algorithm that strikes a good balance between complexity, accuracy, and applicability. As detailed in their paper, which was published in the Journal of Electronic Imaging, the team adopted innovative strategies to overcome key challenges and realise an algorithm that can be easily applied to consumer-level devices.
One of the main features of the algorithm is adaptability to different hand types. The algorithm first tries to classify the hand type of the user as either slim, normal, or broad-based on three measurements accounting for relationships between palm width, palm length, and finger length. If this classification is successful, subsequent steps in the hand gesture recognition process only compare the input gesture with stored samples of the same hand type.
Traditional simple algorithms tend to suffer from low recognition rates because they cannot cope with different hand types. By first classifying the input gesture by hand type and then using sample libraries that match this type, we can improve the overall recognition rate with almost negligible resource consumption.
– Zhiyi Yu, Lead Author
Another key aspect of the team’s method is the use of a “shortcut feature” to perform a prerecognition step. While the recognition algorithm is capable of identifying an input gesture out of nine possible gestures, comparing all the features of the input gesture with those of the stored samples for all possible gestures would be very time-consuming. To solve this problem, the prerecognition step calculates a ratio of the area of the hand to select the three most likely gestures of the possible nine.
This simple feature is enough to narrow down the number of candidate gestures to three, out of which the final gesture is decided using a much more complex and high-precision feature extraction based on Hu invariant moments. The gesture prerecognition step not only reduces the number of calculations and hardware resources required but also improves recognition speed without compromising accuracy.
The team tested their algorithm both in a commercial PC processor and an FPGA platform using a USB camera. They had 40 volunteers make the nine hand gestures multiple times to build up the sample library, and another 40 volunteers to determine the accuracy of the system. Overall, the results showed that the proposed approach could recognise hand gestures in real-time with an accuracy exceeding 93%, even if the input gesture images were rotated, translated, or scaled. According to the researchers, future work will focus on improving the performance of the algorithm under poor lighting conditions and increasing the number of possible gestures. Gesture recognition has many promising fields of application and could pave the way to new ways of controlling electronic devices.
As reported by OpenGov Asia, China has made great achievements in scientific and technological innovation during the 13th Five-Year Plan period. As China embarks on a new journey to build a modern socialist country in all respects, sci-tech innovation will play a vital role in promoting the country’s overall development.
The government has launched a project that is expected to speed up the delivery of several citizen services using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). The project, the Digital Government Mission, will break down silos and make government systems more intelligent, according to an official. The system will help citizens discover schemes that they are eligible for, and government benefits they can receive. The idea is that the benefits should be offered to citizens without them having to apply for them.
For instance, a student who qualifies for a government-funded scholarship scheme will get an automatic alert from the concerned department instead of the student enquiring and applying for the same. The official claimed that this is the next phase of e-governance. Citizens will also have easier access to subsidised food grains through ration cards under the project, which is currently in the advanced stages of discussion within the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). A proposal is likely to be drawn up soon, the official added. As per data from The Economic Times, the Ministry is creating a strategy note on digital government, which is in line with the Prime Minister’s vision of accelerating the digitalisation of governance.
An industry expert said that the overarching concept of trying to receive services without asking for them is necessary, and with AI and ML, the predictive part becomes easier. People should be able to get automatic renewals every time their driving licence or passports expire since all the data is already available with the government. At best, a message that seeks permission before someone’s passport is renewed or asks if changes need to be made, should be sent, while the rest of the process should be automatic. With the ability to interlink data, through AI and ML, governance can become far easier. It can offer services in an integrated manner across services and departments, which will tremendously benefit citizens.
The government launched the national e-governance mission over 15 years ago when it digitised scores of government services like passports, land records, certificates and income tax in mission mode. Over several years, almost all government services have been digitised. Officials say that the government is looking at the platformisation of the current projects. For instance, the health mission follows a platform approach where there is going to be one interface for all the major initiatives. Similar is the case for education, agriculture, and transport, where the centre wants to transform them into one domain. Currently, there are many applications, which have to be made seamless and features such as a single sign-in have to be introduced.
In 2020, the government released a discussion paper on a policy called the National Open Digital Ecosystem (NODE). It aimed to replicate the success of Aadhaar, the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), and the Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN). It set out to build platforms that not only help the government improve public service delivery, but also enable private companies to build applications with these “digital rails”. Preliminary estimates suggest that by 2030, NODEs have the potential to unlock over US$500 billion in economic value together with tremendous societal and governance benefits.
The Penang Development Corp (PDC) and a top property developer in Malaysia recently signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for the development of an RM9.9 billion Medi-Tech City occupying a 230-acre land in Batu Kawan, Penang. This project is expected to complete in 10 years.
Medi-Tech City is earmarked to be an integrated, sustainable and hi-technology medical city and business hub in Penang which is already occupied by more than 300 multinational companies. It will be a development with compliance to the responsible business alliance and environmental, social and corporate governance.
Upon its completion, Medi-Tech City will serve as a medical hub providing eco-tourism and global business services with facilities including hospital, medical campus, medical supply hub, corporate suites, rehabilitation centre, retirement village, hotel, wellness centre, sports centre, electrical and electronics sectors, logistics and distribution hub.
The property developer also has a 20-acre built-to-suit development in Penang situated at Bayan Lepas close to Penang International Airport and Sultan Abdul Halim Muadzam Shah Bridge, providing value-added logistical support to the project which is aimed to capture the demand from various sectors in the vicinity of Bayan Lepas.
The Group Managing Director of the property developer stated that they are honoured to work with PDC and are proud to be entrusted to jointly develop this land. It is anticipated that this project, with its future international investors, will continue to support PDC’s vision to achieve international city status for Penang.
The CEO of the PDC stated that the signing of the MoU is in line with PDC’s role in working alongside private organisations in realising its vision to make Penang a conducive state for sustainable socio-economic developments as well as attracting more international investors to Penang.
It is expected that PDC’s venture with the property developer to develop Medi-Tech City with their experience in working with international investors and successful projects will ensure that this project will benefit Penang’s overall development.
A recent article noted that the Malaysian Science and Technology Information Centre’s (Mastic) National Survey of Research and Development found that the medical and healthcare sector forms about 9% (RM135 million) of the total gross domestic expenditure on research and development for Malaysia, which was estimated at RM1.5 billion in 2018.
However, despite growing demand and potential, the MedTech ecosystem in Malaysia’s “economics of MedTech innovation” is somewhat lacking. To remedy this, Malaysia recently launched the Malaysian Research Accelerator for Technology and Innovation (MRANTI) which will drive the three interlinked areas of speed, scalability and synergy — and when enabled, will help take society forward.
Research shows that Malaysia’s healthcare sector itself is expected to grow to RM127 billion (US$30 billion) by 2027, with potential in the areas of medical tourism, the manufacturing of medical devices, pharmaceuticals and clinical research.
Thus, conducting IP audits on the IPs filed within agencies under the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, and through a structured review process, evaluate how local innovations can be commercialised. Through MRANTI, continuous innovation and the streamlining of the MedTech ecosystem in Malaysia will be converged.
The ongoing pandemic has made it evident that medical technology has never been more urgent. Moreover, the industry is full of potential within Malaysia.
Growth in the digital economy remained robust in 2021 as the COVID-19 pandemic pushed digital adoption further. Indonesia welcomed 21 million new users of online services during the pandemic, according to the e-Conomy SEA 2021 report.
The report showed that Indonesia’s internet economy will stay to be the biggest digital economy among the six Southeast Asian countries assessed. However, scrutiny of the relatively young industry has been growing as reports of scams, cyberattacks and high platform fees make the rounds, jeopardizing users’ safety and therefore also their trust in digital services.
In terms of size, Indonesia’s digital economy has grown, but there is much to be done when it comes to advancing the quality of the digital economy ecosystem.
– Bhima Yudhistira, Director, Center of Economics and Law Studies
The online lending industry was in the spotlight this year as the Financial Services Authority (OJK) closed down 593 unlicensed P2P lenders in 2021. The task force has pulled the plug on more than 3,500 such platforms since 2018. While taking down illegal lenders addressed the criminal aspect of the issue, industry players needed to ramp up efforts to educate the public. Victims of illegal online lending are usually those with low digital and financial literacy, so lending platforms must increase education for the public.
Legal P2P lenders have also come under scrutiny for steep administrative fees or interest rates, and some have resorted to intimidatory debt-collection practices. In response, the Indonesian Fintech Lenders Association (AFPI) has lowered the cap on interest rates by more than 50% to 0.4% per day. News of scams and data theft have also tarnished the banking sector, and with 88% of consumers in the Asia Pacific region having actively used digital banking services this year, the data protection bill has become the talk of the town.
Indonesia currently has no regulation that authorizes law enforcement authorities to bring criminal charges against perpetrators of data breaches, theft or misuse. However, that could be about to change as the long-awaited data protection bill has made its way to the priority list of the 2022 National Legislation Program (Prolegnas).
Not passing the bill next year would be counterproductive, as each ministry and government body would then try to pass diverging or even conflicting rules. This would create confusion and uncertainty, especially for the digital economy.
Recently, the Indonesian Fintech Association (Aftech) published an ethics code on how its members should handle and protect user data on their respective platforms. The code to some extent fills the regulatory void amid sluggish progress on the data protection bill.
While the country has not seen any high-profile data breaches among digital service companies this year, the National Cyber and Encryption Agency (BSSN) did note that Indonesia logged 888 million cyberattacks in the first eight months of 2021. That marks an alarming increase from 190 million attacks recorded over the same period in 2020.
As reported by OpenGov Asia, OJK) wants to encourage banks to improve information technology governance and risk management. This is in line with the banking industry’s migration from the old banking system to digital banking. Banking Supervision Deputy Commissioner, OJK as previously stated, banks must anticipate issues such as customer data protection and exchange, the risk of customer data leakage connected to fraud, probable incompatibility of technology investments with business strategy, and others.
“The risk of cyber-attacks is one of the main risks that banks need to watch out for and mitigate in the digital era, considering the development of banking digitalisation increases the emergence of cyber security risks for banks,” said the Commissioner.
Vietnam earlier set an ambitious target for the digital economy to account for 20% of the GDP by 2025. However, the Deputy Director of the Department of Enterprise Management, Nguyen Trong Duong, believes that with a breakthrough scenario, the Vietnamese digital economy could account for 26.2% of the GDP in the next three years.
The official from the department, which is under the Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC), said that under the normal development scenario, the Vietnamese digital economy will only reach 10.5% of GDP by 2025. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to maintain the average annual growth of the digital economy at about 20%, three times higher than the expected GDP growth at 6.5-7% per year, he stated. According to a report, based on the analysis and assessment of digital economy development, three scenarios have been proposed for the Vietnamese digital economy by 2025.
In the normal scenario, with only average efforts for digital transformation and digital economy development, the digital economy will account for about 10.5% of the GDP by 2025, of which ICT, telecommunications, and the Internet economy will account for about 7.9% of the GDP. In the quicker scenario in which digital transformation and development of the digital economy are strongly promoted, the digital economy will account for about 19.9% of the GDP, of which ICT, telecommunications, and the Internet economy will account for about 13.1%.
In the breakthrough scenario, digital transformation and digital economy development are strongly deployed, accompanied by measures to ensure a market balance between Vietnamese digital enterprises and foreign counterparts. At the same time, with policies to support Vietnamese technology start-ups, the digital economy will account for about 26.2% of the GDP by 2025, of which ICT, telecommunications, and the Internet economy will account for about 16%.
Duong explained that firstly, it is necessary to quickly develop and promulgate national strategies and programmes to support the digital economy. Secondly, the government must urgently review, amend, and supplement legal regulations to improve the legal framework, mechanisms, and policies to develop and further the digital society. Finally, it is crucial to accelerate the implementation of the national digital transformation programme, especially solutions for skills training, digital human resources development, and expanding the domestic digital market.
Earlier this month, OpenGov Asia reported that the country aims to have ten technology firms with annual revenue of over US$1 billion by 2025. It plans to have 100,000 digital technology firms by 2025 and have at least ten firms compete in global markets. It also wants to have 10 localities with revenues of over US$1 billion from ICT and 10-12 IT zones. Last year, the total revenue of Vietnam’s ICT segment was estimated at an all-time high of VND3,462 trillion (US$151 billion), growing 9% year on year. The ICT segment alone contributes over US$136 billion to the sum, increasing by some US$11.5 billion from last year, according to MIC data.
The Digital Economy Promotion Agency (Depa) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with a trade group for Austrian tech companies to ramp up technology exchange and drive smart city development. The MoU was signed as part of the launch of “Austrian Technology Days Southeast Asia 2022”, a three-day online event aimed to promote Austrian tech for the ASEAN market, which concluded on 20 January 2022.
The President and Chief Executive of Depa stated that the agency plays a critical role in promoting smart city development across seven dimensions: environment, economy, energy, mobility, living, people and governance. The agency was tasked with establishing guidelines and recommendations for Thai smart city roadmaps and blueprints as the secretariat of the National Steering Committee on Smart City Development.
In 2018, Urban Innovation Vienna, a think tank and smart city development agency, worked with Depa to organise a smart city framework development workshop to bring its best practices to Thailand. A commercial counsellor from the Austrian Embassy in Thailand said Austrian cities have been consistently recognised as among the world’s smartest and most liveable cities, particularly Vienna. Depa and the tech company trade group will work together to raise public awareness about the digital economy and its ecosystem as well as smart city development by forming a network of key stakeholders and interested parties.
Moreover, Depa plans to push ahead with joint pilot projects and a proof-of-concept project on improving the industrial competitiveness of both countries, he said. In the coming years, Depa is confident the collaboration will be effective and fruitful, the Depa President said. Depa also outlined its missions in 2022, including a list of digital services for government procurement, the dVenture programme aimed at accelerating the growth of start-ups through its public and private network, smart city ambassadors, a food delivery platform, as well as its d-Station sales agent for start-ups’ products.
The Thai economy is still expected to grow 3.5%-4.5% this year driven by fiscal policy, exports and investment, despite an outbreak of the Omicron coronavirus variant remaining a challenge, the nation’s Finance Minister said recently. Growth in 2021 is estimated to come in at only 1%, as the vital tourism sector has yet to recover significantly, but the resumption of Thailand’s quarantine waiver for foreign tourists from next month should help, the Finance Minister said.
At the beginning of 2020, the enforcement of social distancing, lockdowns, and other measures led consumers to change their behaviour to online shopping, social media use, internet telephony for teleconferencing, and streaming of videos and films due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
These trends resulted in spikes in online shopping businesses, especially in business-to-consumer (B2C) sales and business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce. The driving factors behind this growth are increased internet and mobile phone use, as well as improved logistics and e-payment systems, which heightened convenience and consumer confidence to shop online.
Thailand’s growing e-commerce market is focused on mobile applications, with an estimated mobile commerce market of $15.8 billion in 2020. The mobile commerce market is expecting a compound annual growth rate of 12% to $25 billion by 2023, driven by rising smartphone penetration (around 40%) and an established preference for mobile over desktop shopping.
The Thai government’s focus on its Thailand 4.0 policy includes allocating a budget for the specific purpose of constructing a broadband network for all villages across the country. This nationwide broadband network will help bridge the digital divide and promote modern economic development through eCommerce. The government also has a vision of creating the next generation of digital application platforms to accommodate and promote online activities, including e-marketplace, e-payments, and e-government. Eventually, the goal is for villagers to start doing eCommerce businesses for their local products and services.
Researchers have proposed tackling both urban traffic jams and economic inequality by using big data and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to tweak congestion pricing on toll roads. Some cities have used congestion pricing for years, but its widespread adoption could make commutes worse for low-income drivers who cannot afford to pay to use the faster roads. The researchers suggested refunding some of the money from highway tolls in a way that ensures equity; this way, lower-income drivers would get more money back than their more affluent counterparts.
A team of researchers, primarily at Stanford’s Autonomous Systems Laboratory, has proposed an approach that could improve economic equity while reducing congestion. The key idea: Refund tolls in a way that redistributes some of the money from rich to poor and ensures all drivers are as well off or better than they were before.
Lower-income drivers would get back more money than they payout. Wealthier drivers might get some money back, but much or most of their compensation would be in the form of time they don’t waste in traffic jams. That’s a potentially significant compensation because affluent people often pay more to save time.
We can achieve both the goals of equity and efficiency by enabling people to trade time for money, These advances have enabled us to design better autonomous vehicles by learning patterns in the behaviour of human drivers. These tools can play a similar role here in calibrating the pricing models to make our proposed schemes work.
– Devansh Jalota, doctoral candidate, Stanford University Autonomous Systems Laboratory
The idea has two objectives: making sure no one ends up paying more than before, after accounting for the financial benefits of saving time in traffic — and designing a system that improves equity outcomes for lower-income drivers. Those drivers, especially those who choose slower or less direct routes, would get back more than they have paid. The wealthier drivers would get lower refunds, and some would not get refunds at all.
The researchers explained that this approach will require a massive amount of data and computation; plus, each city would need its pricing scheme and specific traffic behavioural model. Moreover, travellers in different cities value money and time differently, so Jalota said the next step would require understanding city-specific driver behaviour and parameters for refunds and redistribution.
Marco Pavone, a professor of aeronautics and astronautics and director of the Stanford Autonomous Systems Laboratory, said the result should not only reduce congestion but also put more of the toll revenue toward achieving any city’s equity goals.
As reported by OpenGov Asia, a new report showed that Artificial Intelligence (AI) has reached a critical turning point in its evolution. Substantial advances in language processing, computer vision and pattern recognition mean that AI is touching people’s lives daily—from helping people to choose a movie to aid in medical diagnoses.
With that success, however, comes a renewed urgency to understand and mitigate the risks and downsides of AI-driven systems, such as algorithmic discrimination or the use of AI for deliberate deception. Computer scientists must work with experts in the social sciences and law to assure that the pitfalls of AI are minimised.
The report – Gathering Strength, Gathering Storms: The One Hundred Year Study on Artificial Intelligence (AI100) 2021 Study Panel Report – aims to monitor the progress of AI and guide its future development. This new report, the second to be released by the AI100 project, assesses developments in AI between 2016 and 2021.
In terms of AI advances, the panel noted substantial progress across subfields of AI, including speech and language processing, computer vision and other areas. Much of this progress has been driven by advances in machine learning techniques, particularly deep learning systems, which have leapt in recent years from the academic setting to everyday applications.
Fifteen startups, under the support of the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA), joined the Taiwan contingent to showcase their innovative technologies. The 15 startup teams include 11 from technology research institutions and four startup companies, showcasing technology areas in semiconductor and communications, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and biotechnology.
MOEA is dedicated to the facilitation of industrial technology development. In 2021, the Department of Industrial Technology launched the Taiwan Research-Institute Entrepreneur Ecosystem Program to encourage startup ventures among the technology development teams. After a series of coaching and competitions, 15 teams are selected to put their technology innovation into commercialisation and to create higher industrial value and momentum for Taiwan.
Taiwan is the leading supplier of global semiconductor chips. To respond to the fast evolution of semiconductor chip manufacturing and its stringent clean environment requirement, technologies needed to support semiconductor manufacturing account for a significant portion of advanced technology research in Taiwan.
With its proprietary technologies, a startup company has developed a tool capable of accurately and efficiently detecting the most crucial size and population of the liquid-borne sub-20nm nanoparticles by using aerosol technology. The company’s extremely precise tool monitors impurities in liquid chemicals used in semiconductor chip fabrication to ensure high production yield. It has been proven to be highly effective in enhancing wafer yields and improving the quality of liquid chemicals.
Another startup team has developed a measuring tool that can measure multilayer GAA (Gate-All-Around) structure and monitor critical dimensions with atomic-level resolution in the 2nm semiconductor front-end process. According to the team, the tool will reduce measurement time by 90% compared with current tools on the market.
Taking its technology in measuring the thickness of steel sheets as the basis, a startup team has developed a dynamic laser detection module that measures the thickness of semiconductor wafers with micron meter (μm) accuracy. The high-precision detection ensures super high uniformity of wafers before being put into the process line. The highly stable module can even measure material in the production line in a high-speed roll-to-roll operation.
Aside from maintaining an excellent higher education system that echoes the talent needs of its industry, Taiwan is fanning out its research focus beyond the manufacturing sector. Software companies with innovative ideas, applications, or solutions easily find their soil to grow in Taiwan.
The crowd-sourcing platform has created a marketplace where enterprises can put their issues open and call for solutions after evaluation and topic design are done through artificial intelligence. The platform has accumulated 12,000 AI talents worldwide with 50 industry cases being publicly solved.
Another startup has developed smart glasses with hybrid computer vision, spatial intelligence and voice recognition technologies that can recognize a commodity and estimate its quantity. Besides having a wide range of industrial applications, the hands-free human-machine interactive smart inventory solution reduces the risk of human performance instability and increases inventory accuracy.
As reported by OpenGov Asia, MOST announced that 20 tech startup companies would showcase Taiwan’s Biotech capabilities to the world connect with the global ecosystem, resources and industries in the forum organised by Taiwan Tech Arena (TTA). There are 20 TTA startup teams are selected by industrial experts and focused on global bio-industrial market potential startups.
Taiwan has demonstrated how to democratically tackle the COVID-19 threatening and how to be a truly global partner by utilising technologies. Taiwan’s efforts and commitments have drawn international attention and the relationship between Taiwan and the U.S. has become stronger than ever before in the past year.
By working together, Taiwan can speed up the transition from scientific findings into practical technology applications and create a win-win situation and achieve future possible collaborations in the US. The companies presented disruptive biotech innovations such as vocal implant systems, AI Video-based telemedicine solutions and detection of respiratory function with ultrasound technology.
