Epaper Industry Booms with the Government's Help

Being optimistic about the market, Taiwan government also plans to promote the e-book industry. The Executive Yuan (Cabinet) announced in mid-July to devise an e-book industry action through the co-effort of the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA), the Ministry of Education (MOE), and the Government Information Office (GIO).

Relevant businesses include setting up a large-scale digital publishing platform like Amazon, seeking funding from Taiwan's National Development Fund to help expand the e-book market, and prioritizing the digitalization of textbooks and library documents. Furthermore, the government also expects to publish 100 thousand e-books in Mandarin language within 5 years as well as to enhance the local supply rate of e-book readers to over 80%. These actions will be undertaken in hopes that the revenue of digital content publication will reach NTD 100 billion by 2013.

Many Taiwan's publishers are involved in the establishment of platforms and production of content. Cite Publishing Ltd. converts its illustration books into the e-book format to march into China's market, and is ready to launch 500 e-books by August. Yuan-Liou Publishing, on the other hand, has one-third of its 5,000 publication in e-book format and completed a platform "Koobe" to avoid plagiarism. Eslite Bookstore announced in July to cooperate with Far Eastone Telecommunications Co., intending to approach the integration of digital content platform.

In June 2009, Taiwan's Legislative Yuan passed the Renewable Energy Act and approved a project for new industrial development in solar energy and LED.The aim is to make Taiwan one of the world's top-three producers of solar energy batteries and the world's largest supplier of LED lights and modules. Taiwan will change all of its 700,000 traffic signals to LEDs and by 2011.

Echoing the government's plan to stimulate the growth both in PV and LED industry, the Southern Taiwan Science Park (STSP) administration wishes to provide the advantages such as spacious land, cheap rent for land, and stable water and electricity supply to create a significant photonics industry manufacturing base in the Southern Taiwan region.

"Revenue is not the first priority in recruiting new tenant enterprises” Director-general Chun Wei Chen of the STSP Administration continued, “on the other hand; we wish to encourage new emerging enterprises to join us and to develop new technologies with high potentials."

For example, when Motech was approved to have its operation in STSP ten years ago, no one would have expected it to become a top 10 solar cell manufacturers in the world; and the same applies to Epitech, which is now the leading LED manufacturer in Taiwan.

More and more filmmakers— including famous Hollywood directors James Cameron, Robert Zemeckis, and Steven Spielberg— are converting their films to the 3D Imax experience. It is estimated that within 3 years 45 3D movies will be in theaters, which bear out the fast growth of the 3D industry worldwide. The 3D Display Photonics International Forum was held during September 1st~2nd with experts from both hardware and software to share their thoughts on this hot topic.

Dr. Peter Shih, founder of Photonics Industry and Technology Development Association (PIDA), shared in the forum the 3D industry from a photonic perspective. According to Dr. Shih, since 1903 when the first 3D movie came out, 3D display technology has been developed for over one hundred years. However, 3D technology has been limited due to the small market and immature technological development. The various 3D technologies can be generally categorized into the stereoscopic technology and the autostereoscopic one. Both have their own strength and market.

"Business model is definitely the foremost part in the industry. Manufacturers from hardware, software and content must streamline the industry chain through cooperation. Panel makers need to advance 3D technology as well as display quality; software manufacturers must take into account the compatibility among various software; content producers is responsible for making contents interesting enough to attract end users. Vertical and horizontal integration is a must, and surely is a difficult task. However I am still optimistic about the 3D industry and looking forward to its future," said Dr. Shih.

FIG.1 Dr. Shih delievered his speech at 3D display photonics international forum

Courtesy: PIDA

For more information, please visit PIDA's website at http ://www.pida.org.tw