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【2020 Application Example】 Wending x Woodcut Thinking creates an AI calligraphy assistant, and the cultural heritage of the traditional calligraphy industry is now dawning

The only remaining calligraphy shop in Taiwan, cultural heritage exposed to crisis

A certain traditional type casting shop in China is the only one "still operating" in Taiwan. It has a sense of mission and hopes to pass on Taiwan's long-standing beautiful letterpress technology. But even if you want to continue to cast characters, the existing molds have been repeatedly cast for more than 40 years, and the "copper molds" used to cast lead characters have been damaged. The tall lettered walls in the store are facing the predicament of being eroded by time.

Each "copper mold" can be used to produce 10,000 typefaces, so it is called the "mother of typefaces." If the handwriting on the copper mold is blurry, the cast lead characters will also be blurry. After printing, there will be incomplete radicals and uneven strokes.

In Taiwan from the 1950s to the 1970s , the

▲In Taiwan from the 1950s to the 1970s, the "block regular script" copper molds used to cast characters played an important role in spreading civilization.

Because of the serious collapse of the copper molds, the owner of the calligraphy shop launched the "Character Bronze Mold Restoration Project" in 2008. Together with a group of enthusiastic volunteers, they first repaired the "Blockcase" copper mold fonts. In the past three years, various discussions and workshops have been in full swing, with non-stop discussions every week, and it seems that the day of replicating the copper mold is just around the corner. However, this optimistic prospect encountered an unexpected crisis and was eventually forced to pause because the characters restored by each person had very different personalities. Although they were beautiful, they did not look like the same set of fonts...

Bronze mold font restorer's

▲It is not easy to develop the "common characteristics" of copper mold font restorers

The long-running "Font Bronze Mold Restoration Project"

After the failure in 2008, it was a huge blow to the type foundry. Because they could not use these fonts, they felt that they were unworthy of the enthusiastic efforts of the volunteers and the most important copper molds continued to be damaged, especially the most important ones in the store. The valuable "block script" copper mold was damaged a little more every time a character was cast, which made Rixing anxious!

The copper mold is damaged from

▲The damage to the copper mold starts from the "missing corner", gradually breaks into pieces, and finally collapses

In order to at least preserve the "appearance" of the font before the copper mold was completely destroyed, the calligraphy shop restarted the restoration project in 2016! With the assistance of several important volunteers and the Justfont font team, the most severely damaged "block script" type 1 and some "Song Script" type 1 and 2 were scanned and saved. When resources are available, they can be "Scan the image file" to convert the "font file", and then use the computer to refine it. After that, the 60-year-old boss slowly repaired more than 120,000 Japanese fonts at a rate of 5 characters a day.

In view of the fact that the pace of manual repair is far less than the rate of wear and tear of the copper molds, the type foundry has used more rigorous testing and selection to gather 3 to 4 talents who are willing to assist in long-term restoration. In addition to re-carrying out font education and training, we also added "calligraphy" course training. Most importantly, in order to develop a unified standard for calligraphy repair, these restorers must repair calligraphy simultaneously for months or years, and review the repair results every day in order to reduce errors and achieve consistency. It is expected that three restorers will work together to perform long-term restoration of 5 characters a day; with pre-training, it is expected to reconstruct a complete 4,500-character "block script" initial size font for traditional Chinese characters in 2 to 5 years...

Look at a repairman Calligraphy master, how many days will it take to complete all the calligraphy?

▲How many days does it take for a calligraphy master to finish all the calligraphy?

Wending Technology assists, creating AI word-making assistant

Wending uses the world's leading Chinese character creation technology and tools to assist calligraphy industries, and also promotes the AI ​​value-added transformation plan of information service providers through the Industry Bureau's AI smart application service development environment promotion plan, and AI The award-winning new manufacturer Mukesi cooperated with R&D to integrate AI technology to improve character creation productivity, thereby shortening development time and reducing costs.

In the early days, Wending required font designers to create each character from scratch, stroke by stroke. It has evolved to the point where it can use existing character roots to compose characters and pre-assemble complete characters. However, this preliminary pre-assembled character may have overlapping strokes and poor space and thickness. It will also require the designer to spend a lot of time adjusting before producing a usable font product. Through the AI ​​value-added module, the system can learn some of the font styles that have been modified by the designer, and automatically adjust the structure, stroke thickness, etc. of the remaining characters. Finally, the designer can spend less time confirming the quality and With minor modifications, a usable font product can be completed, significantly reducing the time cost of creating characters.

Import Wending bonus AI Character Creation System Process-1 of 2 (Introducing AI Engineering Technology)

▲Importing Wending’s value-added AI character creation system process-1 of 2 (importing AI engineering technology)

With global font and cross-platform font technical services as its core, Wending Technology provides various font solutions to major manufacturers, system vendors, and government units around the world. Taking the development of new fonts in the past as an example, we have completed a set of It takes a whole year to create a 10,000-word font. The Industrial Bureau of the Ministry of Economic Affairs guided Wending Technology to cooperate with the AI ​​startup Mukesi to learn the font style through AI. It only needs to complete 5,000 words to automatically generate the other 5,000. The fonts are not yet created, and then the quality is confirmed and adjusted, allowing the designer to complete the entire set of fonts in less time, greatly increasing work efficiency by 50%! In the future, we will continue to optimize the character creation module, allowing AI to complete more than 90% of font design, accelerating the production of new fonts.

Import Wending bonus AI Character creation system process-2 of 2 (importing Wending character creation platform)

▲Importing Wending’s value-added AI character creation system process-2 of 2 (importing Wending’s character creation platform)

Wending Technology’s font innovation has been adopted by all walks of life. For example, the 30th Golden Melody Awards used fonts for stage visual design, and Tsai Ing-wen’s presidential campaign team also used platform fonts for presidential election propaganda. In 2019, it was added through AI Value-added transformation of the operating model resulted in revenue of NT$15 million in the first year and is expected to increase revenue to over NT$180 million within 5 years.

Smart font design service platform

Using AI-assisted character creation to lower the threshold of font design, it can be transformed into a "smart font design service platform" in the future, providing designers with self-created fonts, and also serving corporate font design, helping designers achieve what is otherwise impossible. The complete set of font development completed by an individual can also achieve the division of labor between design and development in the professional field of character creation, and become the first step to the success of font OEM, which will have a significant impact on the design and application of fonts.

The iFontCloud font library with AI added value has changed the original operating model, from being limited to font design by Wending Technology’s internal designers to breaking through the limitations of the original customer base and cooperating with external designers. Establish and activate the ecosystem within the word-making industry circle.

AI value-added word creation process output Font products: Wending cloud platform font management tool

▲Font products produced by AI value-added character creation process: Wending cloud platform font management tool

General Manager Wu Fusheng of Wending Technology said: The Industrial Bureau has guided and participated in the AI ​​value-added plan to demonstrate the empirical results. It has continued to invest 6 million every year since 2019, and has invested a total of 30 million in AI technology research and development by 2023. Wending plans The next stage will be transformed into a "smart font design service platform" and the iFontCloud font library will be opened to all people who love words. Everyone can create personal style fonts through the platform and can be applied in various fields. It is expected that will create greater business opportunities.

iFontCloud-AI value-added word creation process The font products produced are sold on the Wending cloud platform

▲The font products produced by the iFontCloud-AI value-added character creation process are sold on the Wending cloud platform

「Translated content is generated by ChatGPT and is for reference only. Translation date:2024-05-19」

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【解決方案】佐翼科技無人機導入高爾夫球場域 可節省一半人力
Droxo Tech Applies Drones in Golf Courses to Reduce Manpower by Half

For most golf courses, the operations and management is a headache "Golf courses are selling turf and need to be properly taken care of," a golf course manager bluntly pointed out Facing the market pain points of labor shortage, aging population and high cost, the use of AI drones for pesticide spraying and pest control will reduce labor costs by more than half and greatly improve the overall operational efficiency At noon in early summer, an AI drone is slowly taking off at the Taipei Golf Club in Taoyuan Its main task is to test AI drone fertilizing and pesticide spraying on the golf course In fact, drones of Droxo Tech, the company performing this task, are widely used for fertilization, pesticide spraying, and pest and disease control for rice, bananas, and tea trees For golf courses with turfs that often cover tens to hundreds of hectares, AI drones are needed to assist in turf maintenance Data collection, development of pesticide spraying AI models, and multispectral image analysis and testing will be carried out in the current stage In the future, large-scale technology implementation and verification will be carried out to set an example for applying drones to golf courses Using AI drones to fertilize and spray pesticides can reduce the manpower required by half The traditional way of maintaining the turf in golf courses is to carry spray buckets or drive spraying vehicles to spray areas one by one "Domestic golf courses began to plant ultra-dwarf Bermuda grass in 2001 This grass species prefers a cool climate and is not suitable for Taiwan's hot and humid weather" Droxo Techrsquos CEO further pointed out that to prevent turf from pests and diseases, pesticide spraying is necessary For an 18-hole golf course, it is equivalent to spraying pesticides once a week, and the T-ground and fairways are sprayed every two months For golf courses, spraying pesticides is time-consuming and labor-intensive It is important to note that large-scale spraying will increase the risk of personnel poisoning and increase the amount of pesticide used Benefits of applying agricultural drones to golf courses According to Droxo Techrsquos research, golf course pests include Spodoptera litura, which comes out at night to look for food, so pesticide spraying must be carried out in the evening According to the traditional method, pesticide spraying requires two vehicles and three personnel for a total of 45 hours If AI drones are used for fertilizing and pesticide spraying, it only takes one operator to spray 08 hectares of land in 20 minutes, saving about two-thirds of the manpower and reducing operating costs by about 30 Using AI drones to fertilize and spray pesticides on golf courses can reduce the manpower required by half In addition to the significant benefits of using agricultural drones for golf course turf maintenance, Droxo Tech also specially introduced AI multispectral image recognition for NDVI Normalized Difference Vegetation Index analysis "The so-called multispectral is to direct light with different wavelengths on the turf, and the reflected images are collected for analysis" Droxo Tech CEO Liu continued to explain that each plant absorbs light with different wavelengths, so multispectral imaging can determine the growth status of grass species At the same time, combined with AI image recognition, the distribution of pests and diseases can be accurately detected, and the amount of pesticide used is determined on this basis Cross-domain collaboration to build a multi-source turf image databasenbsp Using AI multispectral image recognition technology, Droxo Tech will collect visible light, multispectral, thermal images, and hyperspectral images to establish a multi-source turf image database to fully understand the growth cycle of Bermuda grass Droxo Tech has accumulated rich experience in agricultural AI drone pesticide spraying , but there are still many problems that need to be overcome to implement AI solutions in golf courses For example, it is necessary to establish a new pesticide spraying model and test flight methods, especially the application of multispectral image recognition PoC is not difficult, but actual implementation requires more test evidence, repeated inferences, and collaboration with plant experts This part must rely on the cross-domain integration of legal entities such as the Institute for Information Technology III, gathering more fields for verification, and creating a paradigm before it can be more widely adopted by golf courses There are not many international cases on the application of AI drones in golf courses During the verification process, it is not yet known whether it can be quickly copied to the next golf course However, Droxo Tech CEO Liu believes that through cross-domain collaboration, clearly defining the problems and listing them one by one, supply and demand parties can reach a consensus, propose solutions to each problem, and seek cooperation with internal and external resources Only then will we be able to gradually achieve the goal of making golf courses smarter and smoothly assist the industry with transformation Zuoyi Technology's CEO, Liu Junlin 「Translated content is generated by ChatGPT and is for reference only Translation date:2024-05-19」

這是一張圖片。 This is a picture.
AI Assists the Red Cross for Smarter Emergency Response

More Preparation Less Loss The Taiwan Food Bank Association, a non-profit organization, collects donations daily from wholesalers, retailers, manufacturers, and even kind-hearted individuals across Taiwan They also rescue consumable materials that are about to be discarded, properly allocate and deliver to households in need, aiding local underprivileged populations When natural disasters such as earthquakes, landslides, mudslides, typhoons, floods, and droughts occur in Taiwan, the food bank's resources can be immediately deployed for disaster relief This field verification unit is the Nantou County Red Cross AssociationOne of the food bank locations, hereinafter referred to as the Nantou Red CrossIs responsible for tasks like pre-disaster supplies preparation and disaster relief material distribution, helping the government bear the responsibility of disaster relief and aid In Taiwan, various natural disasters have characteristics of different duration and spatial coverage, wide or narrow With the normalization of extreme weather, the scale and number of disasters are gradually increasing and becoming harder to predict The required amount and type of materials differ by disaster, and they must address the lifestyles of the affected areas, rescue needs, traffic conditions, geographical restrictions, and other factors for varied material allocation, facing numerous challenges Typhoon Kanu severely damaged transportation in Nantou mountain areas Nantou County Red Cross planned the mountainous route Puli gt Fazhi Elementary School gt Qin'ai Village gt Aowanda to deliver supplies Disasters happen repeatedly We need to be prepared at all times Effective disaster preparedness can mitigate the impact, including swift response to material needs in affected areas, aid distribution, and even psychological support, providing added security for life and property of those in disaster zones Lack of Timeliness in Disaster Information To improve the living conditions and address the lack of supplies in remote areas, the Taiwan Food Bank Association has partnered with the Nantou Red Cross and has successively established food bank points in Nantou City, Puli, and Ren'aiLixing, Ruiyan, XinyiWangmei, Tongfu, Shuili, Lugu and Caotun among others9establish food bank locations, providing supplies worth a certain amount per household every month6001000in New Taiwan Dollars However, many challenges still need to be overcome during natural disasters For example, when typhoons, earthquakes, and landslides occur, the information source for disaster relief dispatch systems relies on post-disaster reports The time lag between reporting, response, and execution prevents timely adjustment and distribution of 'disaster relief' supplies based on the needs of affected areas, affecting rescue efficiency due to lack of timely information The 'preparedness' supplies of the Nantou Red Crosssuch as dry food, water, instant noodles, etc,are recorded manually in terms of stock, expiration dates, and distribution,When a disaster occurs, there is a chance that 'preparedness' supplies have expired and cannot become 'disaster relief' supplies It’s also possible that both conditions mentioned above occur simultaneously, leading to a need for more time to reassign 'preparedness' supplies into usable 'disaster relief' materials On the other hand, upon receiving information about shortages in disaster areas, the supplies donated by the public often grossly differ from the actual needs of the disaster zone, leading to an excess of supplies The Process of Material Operations Before and After a Natural Disaster AIAnticipating Natural Disasters Reinforcing the Accuracy of Preparedness Material Dispatch Application API Technology connects to compute the state of the climate, the intensity of disaster rescues, prioritizing the main tasks of the Nantou Red Cross and the needed areas of search and rescue Coordinated with the existing heavy rain and typhoon simulation disaster training of the Nantou Red Cross, a 'Natural Disaster Emergency Preparedness Material Dispatch and Supplement Decision System' is establishedreferred to as the Emergency Preparedness Material System。 In material management, inventory data along with immediate supply data are entered into the Emergency Preparedness Material System for comparison and analysis, helping the Nantou Red Cross quickly recognize materials like cookiesdry food, beverages, frozen food, toilet paper, etc, and determining whether they should be 'preparedness' materials or regularly distributed materials Adding to this, information forecasting understands the potential disaster conditions in remote areas, facilitating food delivery, addressing both front-end food wastage and backend practical needs When a natural disaster occurs, it enables faster response and decision-making, completing material deployment, hence increasing the speed of material operation transition20。 AI Emergency Preparedness Material System Helps Rapidly Adapt Material Distribution Through the field verification of the Nantou Red CrossAIthe system, material management, and related applications are promoted to more emergency response organizations in different areas, while continuously improving the alert functions within the Emergency Preparedness Material System, strengthening the technological foundation for alerts, enhancing prediction accuracySystem immediacy, and optimizing the data collection and analysis process Simultaneously, it can collaborate with government agencies, meteorological departments, or other rescue teams to discuss integrating more data sources, establishing a mechanism to share resources and data promptly, sharing information in real-time, helping more emergency response organizations enhance their disaster response abilities, seizing the golden rescue time 「Translated content is generated by ChatGPT and is for reference only Translation date:2024-12-12」

這是一張圖片。 This is a picture.
Realizing the dream of unmanned stores, Magpie Life is building the future of the smartphone industry

"The DNA of Magpie Life is not limited to vending machines We believe that vending machines combine technology, access, and humanities to bring us exciting results" This is a sentence on the official website of Magpie Life Let the vending machines bring To live a pleasant life and build a considerate, technological and sustainable future for the smartphone industry is also the original intention of Magpie Life Founded in 2018, Magpie Life launched Taiwan’s first private-brand mobile payment scan code sensor 4 months after its establishment, completing the consumption experience through screen touch The Magpie U1 smart vending machine manages the POS system and gathers data in the background, allowing consumers to synchronize with the world's new retail pace and experience a new retail consumption experience of purchasing convenience, checkout security, visual entertainment, and improved logistics replenishment efficiency Traditional vending machines lack information visibility and AI technology assists in information transparencyThis time, the Magpie smart vending machine is also equipped with AI technology to provide adjustable shelf space , a vending machine equipped with an industrial computer and a large-size touch display screen to achieve the purpose of a store-less store Magpie Life stated that the biggest problem with traditional vending machines is the lack of information visibility To check inventory, replenishment personnel must physically inspect each machine, which is time-consuming and costly When a machine breaks down, it will generally be unable to operate for a long time Most failures go unreported and are not discovered until the next restocking crew arrives to replenish supplies Then you have to wait for a service technician to be scheduled, which can take weeks Traditional vending machines lack real-time interactivity When consumers encounter problems after inserting coins, manufacturers cannot handle them immediately In addition, traditional vending machines are less flexible and cannot adapt to changes in consumer preferences Traditional vending machines have shortcomings such as limited change shopping, single payment tools, limited number of products, and few choices Affected by the COVID-19 epidemic, consumption habits have shifted to contactless methods, causing the unmanned store market to heat up Generally, vending machines can only place relatively simple products such as drinks, food, etc The properties available for sale are limited The patented vending machine developed by Magpie can adjust the shelf space and is equipped with a lifting cargo elevator, which is suitable for various types of goods In addition, the machine is equipped with an industrial computer and a large-size touch display screen, which can meet the needs of advertising support at the same time It is expected to move towards a storeless store According to Magpie Life Observation, the consumer market trend in the past two years is that consumers demand convenient life, food consumption patterns value dining experiencesimple and fast, and are equipped with mobile phone-connected ordering models, and hot drinks and Fresh food delivery is the focus of two major trends The location, items sold, consumption methods and multiple payment methods are the focus of market growth for smart vending machines In terms of convenience, Taiwanese consumers still prefer to purchase vending machine food near stations, airports, schools, and businesses in business districts Various payment methods are also gaining more support from consumers, indicating that in the future, automatic Vending machines can be developed in two directions diversified items and diversified payment methods AI sales forecast technology integrates back-end management to achieve precise marketing purposesDue to the wide variety of products, it is difficult to know the performance of products under different factors such as season, market conditions , promotional activities, etc, it is easy to cause out-of-stock or over-inventory situations Magpie Life has specially developed "AI sales forecasting technology" and integrated it into the back-end management system, hoping to lock in customer purchasing preferences and intentions through data analysis In order to achieve the purpose of precise marketing, make accurate business decisions and effectively allocate limited resources The introduction of AI systems can achieve the three major goals of precise marketing, inventory management and supply chain management This system is a replenishment decision-making aid designed specifically for supply chain managers It uses AI to predict future sales demand, helping companies effectively optimize production capacity, inventory and distribution strategies Its overall system architecture includes1 Data exploratory analysis function Provides automatic value filling, automatic coding and automatic feature screening functions for missing values in the data 2 Modeling function 1 Provides model training functions for two types of prediction problems regression Regression and time series Time Series Forecast nbsp2 Supports Auto ML automatic modeling, and the best model is recommended by the system Integrated models can also be established to improve model accuracy nbsp3 Supports multiple algorithm types Random Forest, XGBoost, GBM and other algorithms nbsp4 Supports a variety of time series models exponential smoothing, ARIMA, ARIMAX, intermittent demand, dynamic multiple regression and other models nbsp5 Supports a variety of model evaluation indicators R, MAE, MSE, RMSE, Deviance, AUC, Lift top 1, Misclassification and other indicators nbsp6 Supports automatic cutting of training data sets and Holdout verification data sets, and can manually adjust the ratio nbsp7 Supports automatic model ensemble learning Stacked Ensemble, balancing function learning Balancing Classes, and Early Stopping nbsp8 Supports the creation of multiple models at the same time The system will allocate resources according to modeling needs, so that modeling, prediction and other tasks have independent computing resources and do not affect each other In the overall server space With an upper limit, computing resources can be used efficiently nbsp9 It has in-memory computing function, which can use large-capacity and high-speed memory to perform calculations to avoid reading and writing a large number of files from the hard disk and improve computing performance 3 Data concatenation function Using API grafting and complete data concatenation automation, there is no need to manually import data, improving user experience 4 Chart analysis function Provides visual charts and basic statistical values for product sales AI data analysis solutions have two major advantages 1 Entrepreneurship machines can be rented and sold at low cost to open unmanned physical stores and cooperate with the chain retail industry Through smart machines, entrepreneurs can rent and sell them at a lower cost than the store rent Cost of running a retail business Two cooperation models, machine sales and leasing, are provided, and the choice is based on the evaluation of the industry 2 Various types of products are put on the shelves Products are sold anytime and anywhere 24 hours a day Up to 60 kinds of diversified products can be put on the shelves Large transparent windows enhance the visibility of products Regular replenishment and tracking of product sales status are available, and product types can be adjusted according to needs Recently, the line between the Internet and the physical world has blurred, the way customers interact has changed significantly, and consumer demand is changing and personalized The retail industry is facing unprecedented challenges and uncertainties, and mastering data has become key AI data analysis solutions can help the retail industry quickly activate large amounts of data, create seamless personalized experiences, optimize the operational value chain and improve efficiency, and strengthen the core competitiveness of enterprises 「Translated content is generated by ChatGPT and is for reference only Translation date:2024-05-19」