Star Place is the name of a new Taiwanese department store designed by Dutch architects UNStudio. The exterior of the building features a beautiful curved facade that glows in a star-like moire pattern. The coolest part of the building, however, is in the inside.

Inside the 10-storey atrium, the designers have constructed a spiral stair made by rotating escalators over a central axis. Pretty cool. Have a look at some pictures.

ASUS may not be the first bamboo-ensconced laptop in the world, but they are certainly trying to be the best. The laptop will feature a 12-inch screen and will go on sale at Taiwan’s IT Month exhibition this Saturday. They’ll run NT$59,900, or just over $1,800.

The company offers no word as to what configuration that’ll get you though. ASUS says even the base config is fairly capable, however.

ASUS is releasing their 15.6-inch touchscreen EEE Top computer tomorrow in Taipei. ASUS will release the unit at a formal press conference. The unit has a 15.6-inch touchscreen LCD, a 160GB hard disk, 802.11.n WiFi, some 4-watt speakers, and a 1.3 megapixel webcam. The Top runs on a 1.6GHz Atom N270 processor. It also sports an ATI HD3450 graphics card. ASUS has yet to release pricing and when the unit will be available in other countries than Taiwan. Sources speculate it will cost around $499.

The Chinese-language Commercial Times is reporting that Taiwan-based Wintek has gained touch screen panel orders from Apple for its second-generation iPhone. It also states that this 2nd gen iPhone will begin shipping in September with prices ranging from US$249-299. The paper added that Apple recently visited Wintek to deliver instructions on manufacturing and the company has begun test production in small volumes.

However, this is rumor and you know how that goes. Another version says that Apple will not release a low-end Nano version of the iPhone at this time, though it would come later.

But on July 11th, Wintek was identified as the supplier of panels for future touch-screen iPods set to launch in August. The touch panel used for new iPod will be less complicated than that for Apple current iPhone.

Apple iPod rumor mills say the next generation iPods will have a sporty touch screen. Sources in Taiwan say that is exactly what is coming by the end of August.