IoT and Agriculture: A natural combination
Solid examples of IoT applicability are sometimes hard to articulate. But agriculture provides a use case that is quite concrete, even if in rural environments.
We all know that the Internet of Things (IoT) represents game-changing transformation in the industrial application of technology...or at least we think we do. Perhaps more accurately, we sense that denying IoT's significance would be foolishly contrarian. And while we might have an innate sense of why IoT is so important, we also might come up short when pressed to describe specific applications of IoT technology.
That's why I love learning about real use cases, especially ones that veer off the path of domains like preventive maintenance, which are almost cliché. Recently, I had the chance to learn of one such IoT application. It's rich, complex and it satisfyingly broadened how I think about IoT. Specifically, I spoke with the Daniel Koppel, Co-Founder and CEO of Israeli company Prospera, which focuses on the application of IoT in agriculture.
The use case
Prospera, a company founded about 2 years ago by a team of computer scientists and agronomists, has built some very interesting technology that centers around monitoring crop growth, in order to optimize it. While farmers have long had some data -- like weather readings and low-resolution satellite images -- available to them, it turns out not to be enough. And even if it were, weather data from a government weather station -- which might be 30km away from the actual growing area -- doesn't deliver the "hyper-local" climate data that is crucial.
When you grow in volume, though, the geographic dispersal of your farmland makes it difficult to go around and collect that data manually -- and the rural settings for that farmland make the electrical and network connectivity, that had been necessary to collect that data, hard to come by.
It's different now
But now low-cost sensors can obtain temperature and humidity data; and low-cost cameras can measure light/radiation and gather valuable images. The devices can communicate over WiFi or 3G mobile data technology and can often run on solar power. This approach has been making technology with great efficacy in indoor agriculture, increasingly applicable in outdoor settings too.
A Prospera sensor, in the field
(Source: Propsera)
Prospera does not view itself as a sensor company though, but rather as a data company. And not just one that helps customers collect data and act on it, but one that builds data intelligence and thus domain expertise.
In other words, there is an element of crowd-sourcing here: although granular data is kept private, all data (which, in aggregate, amounts to hundreds of thousands of readings per day) benefits the construction, testing and accuracy of predictive models. These models help track the correlation between specific values in the collected data, crop growth and output. Understanding those correlations, and making predictions based upon them, is where Prospera hits its value proposition sweet spot.
The vision thing
Beyond predictive applications, there are prescriptive applications too. Computer vision/imaging has serious applicability in this domain, as the capture of images combined with pattern recognition technology can help detect crop disease and, on an automated basis, dispatch personnel to address it. It can also help alert farmers to where they need to prune and harvest. So not only is the data collection made more economical, but the methodical analysis of the collected data, and the dispatch of responsive action, is made more feasible and economical as well.
Time to harvest
(Source: Prospera)
While expense was once an issue, Prospera's Koppel says that "sensors are commodities" now. In fact, the company says that three conditions in the market have combined to make its technology so effective and efficacious: the neural network technology behind the machine learning has become much better; the sensor hardware has become much cheaper and, because of greater mainstream appreciation for Big Data and machine learning, market readiness has crossed the chasm too.
Why Israel?
Israel is a high-tech country, well-populated with venture-funded tech startups. Top-notch technical universities like Technion and Hebrew University (Koppel's alma mater), as well as byproducts of, and veterans from, tech research in the country's defense forces, provide much of the raw material for such commercial, entrepreneurial activity.
Israel also has a history as an agricultural society, centered around Kibbutzim and Moshavs, both of which are collective agricultural settlements, the former sometimes likened to communes. Further, because much of Israel is desert, irrigation techniques and other technological optimizations have been part of its agricultural approach since the country's founding.
Put all of this together and you have a place that, industrially and culturally, is predisposed to growing its crops in a scientifically-influenced fashion.
How far beyond?
While kibbutzim and moshavs in Israel have served as test labs for Prospera's technology, the company has customers who have deployed the technology in Europe and Mexico. The US is next -- and for some customers there, Prospera expects to collect data not just from stationary sensors over terrestrial wireless data connections, but via drone and over Satellite data links as well.
Some current customers implement Prospera's technology in parts of their farms, to compare data-driven farming with those of more traditional methods, and results have been good. Prospera says that customers have used the company's technology to discover problems in irrigation, ward off disease and reduce yield volatility.
Prospera's technology has even allowed farmers to make course corrections in their growing techniques, in order to maximize output in the current growing cycle, and not just apply lessons learned to the next cycle.
All roads lead to analytics
As fascinating and as far-flung as Prospera's IoT use case may seem to some of us, it ultimately comes back to the mainstream of BI and Big Data: collecting data and analyzing it. In fact, Prospera's software delivers rather familiar-looking dashboards on computers and mobile devices, just like the technology with which we may be more familiar.
Prospera dashboards, across form factors
(Source: Propsera)
Ultimately, that may be the most valuable lesson of all. The stuff we already know -- the OLAP cubes, the MapReduce jobs, the streaming data processing and the D3 visualizations -- can be thought of and implemented in very specific and very impressive industrial use cases. The technologies needn't be relegated to isolated discussions of their own rigors. In fact, when we think of the technology in applied capacities, we provide a lot more value, and we help Big Data and IoT move past their hype cycle quasi-paralysis.
We need more companies like Prospera, that combine tech with domain expertise, cultural idiosyncrasies and a lot of imagination. That's how this field will get to the next level. The value of vision goes beyond data captured from image sensors.
Harman/Kardon readies a Cortana-powered speaker
Microsoft is making available to its partners, like audio specialist Harman/Kardon, a new software development kit to help them build Cortana-capable devices.
Microsoft hasn't fielded -- at least so far -- a device that's similar to an Amazon Echo or Google Home speaker. But at least one of its OEM partners is working on such a device for release some time next year.
Harman/Kardon is planning to release a new audio device that will allow voice interaction with Cortana, Microsoft officials said on December 13.
Microsoft is making available to hardware partners a Cortana Devices software development kit (SDK) which will allow them to build devices on a variety of platforms that will work with Cortana. Microsoft officials said the devices SDK will work with devices running Windows IoT, Linux, Android "and more."
Last week, Microsoft officials told OEMs that devices running Windows 10 IoT would need to have screens in order to work with Cortana. I'm assuming that means Harman Kardon's coming speaker is not running Windows 10 IoT. I've asked Microsoft and have yet to hear back.
Update (December 15): A Microsoft spokesperson declined to comment on which operating system or firmware will be inside the Harman Cortana-powered speaker. The only statement that the company is providing is this:
"The Cortana Devices SDK enables OEMs/ODMs to build smart devices powered by Cortana that are equipped with a microphone, speaker and/or displays. It's delivered as a collection of open source libraries and protocols that can be used by OEMs / ODMs to embed Cortana on platforms of their choice including popular Linux variants and embedded OSes."
So my guess remains that the Harman speaker will not be running Windows 10 IoT Core, as that operating system will only support Cortana if there is a display, as Microsoft announced at WinHEC. There seems to be no display requirement for Cortana but only when it's used on a Linux, Android or other non-Windows-10-IoT-Core operating system.
Microsoft is touting Cortana's two-way audio communications with Skype, email, calendar, and list integration as its competitive advantages. Microsoft's blog post says the company also is working to enable Cortana integration in the connected-car space.
While some have dubbed Harman/Kardon's speaker as Microsoft's Echo competitor, that's not technically true. This is not a device from Microsoft, even though Microsoft did post a video tease for the coming device:
At last year's Consumer Electronics Show, Microsoft and Harman announced they were working together on bringing Office 365 dashboards to Harman's in-car infotainment systems.
Microsoft also plans to make available in February 2017 in preview form a Cortana Skills Kit. The kit will allow developers to take advantage of bots created with the Microsoft Bot Framework and publish them to Cortana as a new skill or repurpose code from an Alexa skill to create a Cortana skill.
Those interested in getting access to the Skills Kit preview can sign up on Microsoft's developer site.
Perth-based Quantify takes on IoT and the ASX
Quantify Technology will be taking its Internet of Things technology to the Australian Securities Exchange early next year.
Perth's Quantify Technology is developing technology to create intelligent buildings, with the same technology aiming to provide a foundation to enable the creation of secure Internet of Things (IoT) devices.
Although Quantify is in the business of power points and light switches, founder and managing director Mark Lapins said there is more to his company than just that.
"IoT is big and confusing and we're trying to simplify it down," Lapins told ZDNet.
"I see a massive challenge when you've got hundreds of vendors taking their own implementations out into the world and today's drive in the market is to rush your product to market as quick as possible and so security always takes a second place."
With analyst firm Gartner predicting that by the end of 2016, around 6.4 billion "things" -- devices from toasters and kettles to cars and hospital equipment -- will be connected to the internet, Lapins believes the challenge of creating a standard in IoT development is getting more unachievable every day.
It was found by the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner in September that 71 percent of IoT devices and services used by Australians failed to adequately explain how personal information was collected, used, and disclosed, often leaving customers in the dark when it comes to the privacy risks involved.
Lapins concedes it may just be the nature of the IoT game.
"I don't think there is a fix to it, I think what we're doing is great for a platform for those that adopt it, but the technology is a runaway train," he said.
"You're always going to have people throwing out widgets as quick as they can, and going, 'Ah we'll get to security later', and it's not so much the IoT is broken, rather it is just so simple to build technology that fits into the IoT definition."
To Lapins, the best thing about his platform is that it has both "limitless" applications and "limitless" scalability, with major network players through to guys with great ideas in their sheds able to leverage the technology.
"It's the keys to kingdom," he said. "You can plug that into any washing machine, any fridge, anything, and you've now implemented our security model and secure communications.
"This is what grows us into fields we're not even playing in now."
Lapins touted energy management as a massive industry, and said Quantify can policy manage power the same way you can an IP network.
"So what we can do is go into a building and lay a ubiquitous IP fabric everywhere," he explained.
An example of an application that Quantify could be used for, Lapins explained, would be in a casino gaming floor to monitor the flow of people traffic to maximise the exposure of tables.
"Those that have got that solution need to have a box and that box needs to have a power supply, as well as the sensor. In our case -- well every table's got a powerpoint -- we just integrate their sensor into this and replace the power outlet," he said. "No one can turn it off, no one can take it away, it's all built in."
Lapins and his IoT "game changer" has the backing of some pretty large technology heavyweights. Cisco Systems Australia founder Aidan Montague is currently Quantify's chair and former Microsoft Australia chief Gary Jackson is on the company's share register.
Quantify will find itself listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) early next year, after it finalises the reverse takeover (RTO) of WHL Energy.
The IoT firm will find itself in the company of more than 100 technology companies that have debuted on the exchange in the past two years, mainly appearing via RTO, but it isn't necessarily the company Lapin wants Quantify associated with.
"A lot of them [RTOs] have been a real disaster," he said. "The problem is they're not ready."
Lapins explained that often startups perform a backdoor listing to access funds as soon as possible, as they haven't been able to get the money they needed beforehand.
"In Australia, for a tech startup, there is no support," he said. "VC money is not as easy to get as everyone says unless you're willing to give your company away."
"Some of the other IoT startups out there have made massive promises before they've actually got a tangible product in their hand -- they've done it all to get the funding to go and do it -- but the shareholders don't understand that.
"That is why I think some tech reverse takeovers are a bit on the nose."
Is this the age of the smart wallet, or are they more trouble than they're worth?
If your smart wallet is lost or stolen, you can locate or track it with a smartphone. That's a cool idea, and it has attracted several crowd-funded projects such as Cashew, Ekster, SmartWallet, Walli, Wallor and Woolet. However, small, standalone trackers like TrackR's may do the job cheaper, and they're less risky purchases.
Ekster's smart wallet. Photo: Ekster
Wallets and their contents - cash, cards, tickets, receipts etc - will eventually be replaced by smartphones that work with electronic payments system. But while those have been available for years in some countries, most men still carry traditional wallets. That being the case, there should be a market for "smart wallets" that connect to smartphones, so you can find your wallet if you lose it, and track it if it's stolen.
The latest example is Wallor, which is the first in the world with Bluetooth, GPS, and full RFID protection, according to company CEO, Viorel Cretu. It also has an anti-theft alarm. The Wallor wallet is currently on Kickstarter, and at $20,994, has already passed its modest $15,000 funding target.
Smart wallets usually use Bluetooth 4 to connect to an Apple or Android smartphone. You get an alarm if the wallet is more than a certain distance away, which may mean you've left it somewhere. If you've got the wallet but can't find your smartphone, you can use the wallet to make it ring, to help you find it.
When a smart wallet includes GPS - usually the crowd-sourced type - you can track its movements. This is useful if someone has stolen it.
Of course, Wallor isn't the first company to announce a smart wallet. Rivals include Cashew, Ekster, SmartWallet, Walli, and Woolet. It's also far from being the first to use Kickstarter. In fact, in 2014, Kickstarter published a long article that wondered Why are there so many wallets on Kickstarter? There were 17 at the time, though they weren't smart wallets.
Yancey Strickler, Kickstarter's co-founder, told Bloomberg: "As we started looking into it, we realized that this was kind of the training-wheels product for a product designer. It's basically a learning tool."
SmartWallet was one of the earliest smart wallets and was able to grab the most obvious name. SmartWallet included both Bluetooth and GPS tracking, and - unusually - a 1000mAh battery for charging a smartphone. The project raised $36,237 from 315 backers on Kickstarter and $11,964 on Indiegogo. Its estimated delivery date was February 2015.
The bad news is that, according to Entrepreneur: "Either through incompetence, poor planning or something more insidious, no one who ordered one of these wallets 16 months ago has ever received one. And what happened to the crowdfunding cash raised remains unclear."
The Walli smart wallet was far more successful in raising $217,363 on Kickstarter and $521,962 on Indiegogo. It even shipped some wallets, as you can tell by @mywalli's Twitter feed. However, many of its responses are "please email support@mywalli.com" to people who are asking about shipment dates or unable to get something to work.
The Walli's party trick is monitoring "the pocket you use the most. With our patent pending technology, Walli pockets are smart and send signal to your phone when your credit card/ID is missing for too long," the website says.
Revol Inc's Cashew is a smart wallet with Bluetooth and crowd-based GPS, and its party trick is fingerprint recognition. "In case someone tries to tamper with the latch, a notification is sent immediately to your phone," says its Kickstarter page. Cashew raised $47,054 from 382 backers, and $14,461 on Indiegogo, with estimated delivery dates of October 2016 and February 2017 respectively. The company also had a "Thanksgiving sale" on Twitter, offering wallets at $119.
The company's home site lists half a dozen staff and an office in San Jose, and its Cashew wallet featured on Android Authority. SF Gate, Trusted Reviews and half a dozen other sites. How Revol can afford to develop and manufacture a smart wallet, plus phone apps, is the (roughly) $64,000 question. I hope the staff have other sources of income.
Woolet is another smart wallet with Bluetooth and crowd-based GPS, and this one features "a self-charging battery". It raised $332,694 from 2,627 backers on Kickstarter, possibly because "Woolet is brought to you by the team behind the successful Sherlybox and Clime projects".
Woolet did actually ship its smart wallet, but some comments on Kickstarter describe it as a "seriously poor product," "far from what was promised" and "really bad quality for the price". One buyer commented: "My Woolet was stolen last on Sunday, in Paris. The Woolet app told me it was still in Ireland. What a piece of [expletive deleted] this really is. You had one job woolet, one job."
Another disgruntled backer said got an apologetic email from Woolet which said: "we've made huge improvements in both the product and the way we manage the business". It offered him a free second-generation model, adding: "if you like it, would you consider changing your review on our Facebook profile?"
Buyers' experiences with Ekster smart wallets - which raised €331,946 from 3,009 backers on Kickstarter and $965,000 on Indiegogo - are better. There are complaints but also some positive views, and at least it shipped in volume.
TrackR's Wallet module with keys
Photo: TrackRBy this point - sorry Mr Cretu - I'd lost interest in smart wallets, which don't seem as easy to pull off as their promoters think. Even if they work properly, they're expensive for what they do, and they're probably superfluous. At least, I've managed to survive several decades without losing a wallet, or having one stolen (touches wood).
There are also simpler solutions, like TrackR, which is a little widget you can attach to your key-ring or bag ... or pop in your current wallet. In fact, Ekster's smart wallet is based on TrackR and uses its smartphone apps, so this looks like the way to go.
TrackR says it has shipped more than 4.5 million devices, and you can get a TrackR Wallet for $29.95, or a promotional pack of eight for $99.95. This is cheaper than the average smart wallet, and you could tag your keys, suitcases and dogs as well.
If you've bought a smart wallet that's worth the money, please let me know in the comments below. If not, my next product hunt will be into trackers, so let me know if you've found something better than TrackR....
What else is coming in Windows 10 IoT Core with the Creators Update?
Cortana isn't the only new feature coming to Microsoft's Windows 10 for IoT variants with the Creators Update release. Here's what else is on the feature list.
Microsoft revealed last week that Cortana is coming to Windows 10 IoT core as part of the Creators Update release due in the Spring of 2017.
But there's more than just Cortana in that update, as officials told hardware makers last week at WinHEC 2016 in Shenzhen.
Here's a slide from a presentation titled "Windows 10 IoT: Build trusted, easy-to-manage and interoperable devices," which itemizes other features coming to that particular version of Windows 10 next year:
With the Creators Update, Microsoft is adding a number of features to the IoT version of Windows 10 that are similar, if not identical, to what's provided in some of its other Windows 10 variants.
Microsoft is adding a Device Guard security feature to Windows 10 IoT core, along with Microsoft Account log-in support; more device management and power-management capabilities; and Wi-Fi Direct support among other features.
During the WinHEC session, officials explained which types of "things" run which versions of Windows 10 IoT.
Windows 10 IoT Core is for smart devices. Windows 10 IoT Enterprise and Windows 10 IoT Mobile work on "industry devices." Sensors and other "things" that run firmware may work with Windows 10, but don't run it. There's also a version of Windows Server 2016 that's considered an IoT product and is for use in compute-intensive devices like digital surveillance and telco devices.
Windows 10 IoT Enterprise is the OEM version of Windows 10 Enterprise. It's for "purpose-built devices" that need a UI, such as industrial PCs, graphics-intensive digital signs and powerful edge gateways, officials said.
Windows 10 IoT Mobile is for ruggedized handheld devices that are typically used in warehouse backrooms, retail stores, etc. It includes the Windows 10 shell and can run Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps.
Windows 10 IoT Core runs on Intel or ARM-based devices that require a smaller OS footprint. Devices running Windows 10 IoT Core can be headless or headed but in order to work with Cortana, will require displays. Smart refrigerators, thermostats, and headless gateways are examples of devices that would run Windows 10 IoT Core.
Microsoft's Windows 10 Creators Update's ship target is believed to be March 2017. Microsoft will likely update the IoT versions to Creators Update a few months after it releases the PC/mobile version.
Brazilian government advances IoT plan
A comprehensive study on the state of the technology in the country will be carried out ahead of the launch of a national strategy next year.
The Brazilian government has signed a deal with the national development bank to carry out a study on opportunities around Internet of Things (IoT).
A consortium composed of consulting firm McKinsey & Company, law firm Pereira Neto/Macedo and research institute CPqD will be responsible for the execution and delivery of the study within a nine-month timeframe.
The material from the study will be then used as the foundation of a national IoT plan, which has a planned launch for the second half of 2017.
The study will cost R$17,4 million ($5,1 million), R$ 9,8 million ($2,8 million) of which will be funded by the Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES) and the remainder by the consortium responsible for the creation of the study.
According to a report by Accenture from earlier this year, Brazil ranks at the bottom of a list of several countries worldwide in terms of its ability to generate economic impact from technologies based on the IoT environment.
A more recent paper published by Qualcomm, there are many interesting IoT projects going on in Brazil, particularly in the security area within the public sector, but only 80 out of 300 municipalities that have started some kind of initiative in the area are implemented in some form.
But it appears that the federal government recognizes the potential of IoT and wants to take advantage of the opportunities presented by related technologies: according to an IDC study commissioned by the Brazilian Association of Software Companies, the segment should generate $4,1 billion in Brazil this year.
Last year, the government created an initial group focused on defining guidelines for IoT research and development activities as well as business-related initiatives and the connection of isolated projects that are currently going on across the country.
Public consultation will be carried out around the IoT study and contributions from citizens and input can be given online until January 16.
The scope for the debate is vast and covers research hurdles, the current state of the technology in Brazil, security and privacy, as well as 17 areas where IoT technologies can potentially bring improvements, including agriculture, health, infrastructure, retail smart cities, telecoms and logistics.
This startup is aiming to bring the cost of microsatellite data services down to earth
With more small satellites filling our skies, Italian startup Leaf Space thinks its network of ground stations can help introduce new, more economic services.
Images of our cities on services such as Google Maps are outstanding. But sometimes they aren't that current because it can take years to update them all. That's one of the reasons why Google spent $500m in 2014 to acquire SkyBox Imaging, a California-based private-sector satellite maker, to help it refresh its maps more frequently.
Unlike Google, most of the firms in the so-called earth-imaging sector don't have the financial muscle to solve problems just by buying another company. However, they can now count on an Italian startup whose ambition is to drastically reduce the price of sending information from space down to earth.
The company in question, Leaf Space wants to help firms that operate so-called microsatellites, that is, satellites weighing less than 100kg (220lb), which are becoming increasingly common in our skies, to communicate with them more often and at a fraction of current costs.
For that purpose the company, which was founded in 2014 by four engineering students from the Politecnico of Milan, is building a network of 20 ground stations around the globe, the first in the world of its type. The infrastructure, the founders think, will pave the way for a crop of new satellite-based services.
"With such a network in place, companies in the earth-imaging business could, for example, monitor an area that was hit by a natural disaster several times a day. In five to 10 years, we could also foresee real-time satellite mapping of specific locations," Jonata Puglia, CEO and co-founder of Leaf Space, tells ZDNet.
GPS radio occultation, a technique using the exchange of signal between a GPS and a low-earth orbit satellite to obtain a real-time measure of the state of the atmosphere, is another application that could get a boost from the startup's idea.
Leaf Space, which is based in Milan, is betting on a trend that is making the population of objects orbiting our planet more diverse.
Until relatively recently, the only satellites sent into space were behemoths the size of a car, weighing several tonnes. But in the past few years they've been joined by smaller machines that cost up to 100 times less.
According to SpaceWorks Enterprises, there are already around 250 micro- or nanosatellites in orbit, a figure that will increase to more than 2,000 in 2020. The size of the related market will grow to $2.52bn, from $889.8m in 2015, says MarketsAndMarkets.
As a result of this miniaturization process, a field traditionally dominated by big government-owned corporations has now made room for medium and relatively small enterprises.
These new firms are trying to make profits by operating the new generation of satellites on behalf of customers that range from companies interested in earth imaging to pharmaceuticals doing experiments in conditions of microgravity.
It is these new operators' still unfulfilled needs that Leaf Space wants to address.
"Although the micro- and nanosatellites market is booming, the offer of related services is still lagging behind. And that creates inefficiencies," Puglia says.
Right now, for instance, a microsatellite operator faces a few sub-optimal choices when it comes to staying in touch with its space systems. Typically, it can either build a low-performance antenna or it can loan a high-performance one from a traditional satellite operator.
"In both cases the costs are significant and the returns underwhelming as, depending on where on earth the antenna is placed and where the satellite is orbiting, the communication might be not so frequent," Puglia explains.
With Leaf Spaces' network in place, microsatellites operators will be able to offer their customers a more constant line of communication with the systems in space in both directions at a convenient price.
By next spring, when the first four ground stations of the network will have been deployed in Italy, Lithuania, Spain, and Ireland, the company says it will be able to guarantee its customers up to six download-upload cycles a day for up to four microsatellites.
The startup, which last summer received €1m ($1.06m) in venture capital funding, has a dual commercial offer in mind: a monthly subscription fee with a guaranteed numbers of daily downloads and uploads, and a model where the customer pays for the amount of data it actually uses.
Giovanni Pandolfi, co-founder of Leaf Space, says his firm expects to use an approach similar to the one used by mobile carriers.
"To make calls with your smartphone, you have to buy traffic from, or subscribe to, someone owning, or having access to, a cellular network," he says.
"That's how we think the microsatellites market should work. Right now, instead, it's just as if smartphone owners had to build their own ground station to talk to somebody."
The company plans to complete the whole network consisting of 20 ground stations by 2018. By then, Leaf Space's founders also hope to have started working on an even more ambitious project: a microsatellites' launcher.
The goal, they say, is in a few years to be able to be the first firm in the market to have the infrastructure to provide a complete package of microsatellite services: from launching the machine into orbit, to operating them at an affordable price.
Queensland AI startup TrademarkVision lands European Union as customer
The European Union Intellectual Property Office is the first customer to use TrademarkVision's new deep learning algorithm for image trademark search.
Queensland-based image-recognition startup TrademarkVision has landed the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) as the first customer of its new deep learning algorithm.
Following a successful beta trial, the EUIPO will now be integrating TrademarkVision's new deep learning algorithm into its eSearch platform to cut down the time it takes to search EU image trademarks.
Previously, trademark searches and monitoring required the use of descriptive -- and therefore subjective -- keywords and codes, making it a tedious process with no guarantee of generating accurate results.
"When you come across a logo, it's easy to compare it with your own, but when you want to compare it to millions, suddenly the task becomes very daunting," said TrademarkVision's founder and CEO Sandra Mau. "For anyone who has ever wanted to create a unique logo or ensure their IP is safe from possible infringement, they know this process can take hours, days, and sometimes weeks."
TrademarkVision exists to make this process easier with what amounts to machine-learning-powered reverse image search. Users simply drag and drop images into the system, and TrademarkVision will return with trademarks and logos that are identical or similar.
Entrepreneurs can use the technology to ensure their designs are unique, while existing brands can use it to monitor their IP.
"We've focused on machine learning techniques so the system can recognise objects in trademarks and logos much like humans do," said Mau. "Despite the wide variety of ways humans pictorially depict objects in logos, 'deep learning' has helped to solve this semantic challenge in a quick and robust way."
The startup claims its technology is already being used by attorneys and brands worldwide, and expects additional government bodies to become customers in the near future.
TrademarkVision was one of the original tech companies backed by Queensland University of Technology Creative Enterprise Australia's incubator.
"TrademarkVision's new technology being adopted by the EUIPO is a huge achievement for the company," said Anna Rooke, CEO of QUT Creative Enterprise Australia. "TrademarkVision has developed a creative-tech solution that will implement high-level change as to how brands worldwide will manage their IP in the future."
In August, New York competitive intelligence software company Digimind integrated image recognition into its social media monitoring software, Digimind Social, to allow brands to monitor the use of their logos across Twitter.
Wynn Las Vegas installing an Amazon Echo in every hotel room
Staying in a luxurious hotel room means enjoying special perks and amenities you may not have at home. In 2017, guests of the Wynn in Las Vegas will be able to control their room via voice control thanks to the Amazon Echo deployment.
The Amazon Echo has received rave reviews, including ZDNet's own 9/10 rating from October. We have seen significant improvements since its launch, with new functionality added through regular software updates.
Taking the Amazon Echo experience out of the home to the hotel room is a natural progression and should help improve the guest experience while also possibly convincing guests to buy their own Amazon Echo for home use. Amazon and Wynn Las Vegas announced plans to outfit all 4,748 of the hotel's rooms with the Echo, starting soon with the suites.
Steve Wynn, chairman and CEO of Wynn Resorts, stated:
As we have moved through the years, technology has always played an important part in our resorts. The thing that Amazon has done with Alexa is quite perfect. If I have ever seen anything in my 49 years of developing resorts that has made our job of delivering a perfect experience to our guests easier and help us get to another level, it is Alexa. The ability to talk to your room is effortlessly convenient. In partnership with Amazon, becoming the first resort in the world in which guests can verbally control every aspect of lighting, temperature and the audio-visual components of a hotel room is yet another example of our leadership in the world of technology for the benefit of all of our guests.
A video of Mr. Wynn shows him using Alexa to turn on the lights, adjust the temperature, open curtains, and play the news on the TV. It will be interesting to see the specific details of this rollout as it appears that some kind of Fire TV device is also being used in conjunction with the Echo.
Given the issues I had last year with multiple people trying to use one Amazon account, I'm curious to see how the Wynn Las Vegas will deal with guest setup of each Echo. I imagine someone will have to wipe the Echo after each guest checks out, but maybe there is an enterprise system to automate that process. I would also like to see the setup process for each new guest.
It needs to be a seamless experience for guests to find it useful, but then again maybe all of the devices are setup to a hotel account so you won't find a custom Amazon experience while in your hotel room. It's exciting to see some AI roll out on a large scale and it will be an interesting test of the Amazon technology.
10 best smartphones for the 2016 holiday season
There are some fantastic options in the $400 range this year, with three devices making their way onto Matthew Miller's top 10 list.
With the Google's October announcement of its Pixel smartphone and no major smartphone announcements expected for the next few months, it's time to consider which device is best for this upcoming holiday season.
There are some fantastic options in the $400 range this year with three of them making my top 10 list. I'm still partial to the expensive flagship devices, but any of these ten phones could easily satisfy just about anyone until the next new phones appear in 2017.
You won't find a BlackBerry or Nokia phone on my list this year, but Motorola and HTC are still competing well with others. I tested all of these phones, except for the Google Pixel and ZTE Axon 7.
If there were no battery concerns or a full product recall, the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 would be number one on my list, but given the battery fiasco and the possibility that there may be issues with replacement devices I just couldn't include it at the top of my list as I would hate for someone to purchase one and then have to go through a recall or replacement process (or bodily injury).
1. Apple iPhone 7/7 Plus
While the Apple iPhone 7/7 Plus may visually appear to be a slight upgrade over the 6s/6s Plus, the improvements are enough to make the new iPhone an easy choice for millions. Water resistance, improved cameras, more RAM, a larger capacity battery, a faster processor, and stereo speakers are all compelling updates.
Apple has always done well with the larger phones in the battery life area and my 7 Plus is stunning. I can go for many hours without worrying about charging it up and only the Moto Z Force Droid has lasted me longer.
Water resistance is becoming one of my core requirements for smartphones, especially for phones I like to carry out running in the rain with me. The iPhone 7 and 7 Plus add IP67 water and dust resistance.
One controversial change is the removal of the headphone jack. I personally have had issues with a couple headsets, but Apple includes an adapter and a pair of Lightning earbuds so it's tough to complain.
The larger iPhone 7 Plus has an additional rear camera for telephoto and bokeh pictures, but the software to enable the portrait bokeh effect has not yet been released.
Check out the my full review of the iPhone 7 Plus (9.3 rating) and Jason's iPhone 7 review (9.0 rating). CNET also has reviews of the iPhone 7 Plus (8.8 rating) and iPhone 7 (8.7 rating).
2. Google's Pixel and Pixel XL
Google just announced the Pixel and Pixel XL and these are the only devices on my list that I have yet to test out. However, they are the newest phones from Google, built by HTC, and have already done well with some initial camera testing and hands-on experiences.
Google Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones
GoogleGoogle did something that no one else has with a large and small device -- it included the same exact specifications with the only differentiator being the size. I wish Apple would use this strategy, rather than always limiting the smaller form factor device. Due to availability, I actually ordered the smaller size Pixel for myself yesterday.
The Pixel has a 5 inch display while the Pixel XL has a 5.5 inch display. Both are the only devices launching with a Qualcomm 821 processor. Other key specs include 4GB of RAM, 32 or 128GB of internal storage, 12.3 megapixel camera and 8 megapixel front facing camera, and Android 7.1 Nougat.
The Android 7.1 Nougat operating system on the Pixel phones include Google Assistant and will have some unique features not found on other Android 7.1 devices.
The Google Pixel is priced at $649 and $749. The Google Pixel XL is priced at $769 and $869. It's interesting to see Google launch these phones at prices rivaling the iPhone and Galaxy devices and I'm looking forward to testing one out.
3. Samsung Galaxy S7/S7 Edge
While the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 may be the ultimate Samsung flagship, the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge are still fantastic smartphones that won't be upgraded for another six months or so. These smartphones have industry leading specifications, refined design, and capabilities that had me almost awarding it a perfect 10 in my review. The only con I could come up with for the S7 was that it is a fingerprint magnet and for the S7 Edge that the edge screen sometimes facilitated inadvertant screen presses. This is no longer an issue on the Note 7, thanks to the design of the sides.
The Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge have extremely fast cameras that take incredible photos and video, responsive fingerprint scanners and advanced Samsung Pay support, water resistance without the fuss of ports, elegant refined design with the use of metal and glass, and it also launched with sweet offers from US carriers and Samsung.
While wireless charging is just a convenience, Samsung has everything you could want in a phone in the S7 and S7 Edge to make using one a sheer joy.
CNET also awarded the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge an Editor's Choice award so there's little doubt that Samsung has one of the best smartphones available today.
4. Moto Z/Z Force Droid
It's been a while since I've been impressed by a Motorola phone, but the Moto Z and Moto Z Force Droid look great, feel great, and perform well. These phones incorporate a modular design that actually makes sense and works well.
The Moto Z is available as a GSM unlocked phone for $699 with the Moto Z Force Droid coming out as a Verizon exclusive, available for $720 (32GB) and $770 (64GB).
The Z Force Droid edition adds a shatterproof display, which is something we don't see often today. Both phones have high resolution displays, leading internal specifications, a water repellent nano-coating, and battery life that lasts longer than an iPhone 7 Plus.
The Moto Mods are priced from $19.99 (shell) to $299.99 (projector and camera), but they snap on and off easily and are very functional. Hopefully we will see more mods added to the collection.
Check out my full Moto Z Force Droid review and the one from CNET.
5. LG V20
LG doesn't get much respect in the mobile space. I label them the Rodney Dangerfield of smartphones, but thankfully the upcoming LG V20 takes the best of the LG G5 and LG V10 to offer a powerful enterprise smartphone with a removable battery, microSD expansion card slot, and IR transmitter in a phone with a metal back and integrated drop protection.
The LG V20 has a larger unique secondary front display similar to the V10, a second wide-angle rear camera, the ability to take standard and wide-angle selfies, a rear fingerprint scanner, and solid metal and glass construction. It's the first non-Google phone to launch with Android 7.0 Nougat so unlike Samsung you won't have to wait months to see the upgrade to the current version of Android.
LG continues to provide an IR transmitter in its phones so you can control your TV and other media right from the phone. The camera on the LG V20 still stands out above the crowd with manual video recording capability that gives you full control over the mics and other advanced recording settings.
There are not yet any LG V20 retail units out for full reviews, but you can check out my preview of an early pre-production device. Pricing has not yet been revealed, but the phone should be launching later this month.
6. OnePlus 3
OnePlus has made a few phones over the past couple of years, but each has disappointed me in some way. I purchased the OnePlus 3 in June and was completely satisfied. It is available for just $399 and for that price you aren't likely to find such a powerful smartphone.
It feels much like an HTC 10, but the customization, more RAM, and longer battery life make it compelling. It does have a 1080p display so the resolution is not as high as an HTC 10, but it is priced significantly lower.
OnePlus has shown it can update the phone regularly as well with a few updates already made since its release. It has some awesome customization options and is one of my favorite low price smartphones.
Sandra Vogel gave it a 9/10 rating in her ZDNet review. CNET awarded the OnePlus 3 an 8.9/10 in its review.
7. Honor 8
Huawei makes some amazing smartphones, but most Huawei-branded devices are not available in the US. Huawei recently launched its first Honor-branded device in the US with the Honor 8 and it's an incredible smaller Android smartphone.
The Honor 8 is powered by a Kirin 950 processor with 4GB of RAM. It has a 5.2 inch 1080p display, 32GB of internal storage, a microSD card slot, dual rear 12 megapixel cameras, and an IR port.
There are plenty of customizations in the software, including Knuckle Sense technology. The dual cameras help you capture some unique photos too.
The Honor 8 feels amazing in your hand and at just $400 it is tough to beat. I awarded the Honor 8 a 9.3/10 in my review and it continues to get better.
8. HTC 10
After testing the HTC 10, I purchased my own black model. It has since been passed to my wife since I'm not that enthusiastic about its camera performance or limitations on customization.
No other phone can match the audio experience of the HTC 10. If you use your phone for music or videos and like having a pocketable device that is built to withstand life's daily movement, this phone is for you.
HTC has come a long way with the cameras, introducing the first front-facing camera with OIS. The rear 12 megapixel UltraPixel 2 camera with OIS is its best yet, but there are still a few software tweaks to be made to beat out the Samsung Galaxy S7 and LG G5. My wife is perfectly happy with the camera, but I see too much light blow out in most photos.
The price continues to drop on the HTC 10, making it a more attractive option. It is currently priced at $549, which is $150 less than the retail price.
I awarded the HTC 10 a a 9.5/10 in my review, but I think that was a bit high after testing out the latest Samsung and Apple phones.
CNET review: HTC 10 brings the noise, but it's not a Galaxy killer
9: BlackBerry DTEK60
The BlackBerry Passport was my favorite BlackBerry device, but BB OS10 doesn't have much of a future. On a whim, I purchased a BlackBerry DTEK60 and think it's the best BlackBerry I've tested in a long time. After the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 was recalled and I had to remove it from my list, the DTEK60 quickly made the jump to at least number 9.
Enterprise users looking for a high quality, reliable Android device with timely monthly Android security updates and a fairly stock Android device without loads of bloatware, then the BlackBerry DTEK60 is a great choice.
The BlackBerry DTEK60 has some of the latest high end specifications in a sleek form factor. It's the first BlackBerry with a fingerprint scanner, on the rear, and great sounding dual front-facing stereo speakers.
Communications efficiency is a priority on the DTEK60 with the BlackBerry Hub serving as a functional, essential part of the software experience. The DTEK BlackBerry app is helpful for keeping the DTEK60 user informed of the security status while a number of other BlackBerry customizations help provide an enhanced security experience.
I awarded the BlackBerry DTEK60 an 8.8/10 in my review and with a better camera and some basic water resistance it could jump into the top five.
10. ZTE Axon 7
Reasonably priced Chinese smartphones are making their way to the US and ZTE offers up a compelling solution with its Axon 7 device. I haven't had the chance to try one so cannot share my own experiences with this large $400 smartphone.
The Axon 7 improves upon previous Axon devices and has many of the same specifications as the OnePlus 3 and HTC 10. It includes a 5.5 inch 1440p display, 20 megapixel camera, full metal unibody design, Snapdragon 820 processor, 4GB of RAM, microSD expansion card slot, and more.
The Axon 7 is focused on the media experience with hi-res audio support, dual front-facing stereo speakers, and good camera performance. It's not the best Android smartphone around, but it offers plenty in a $400 package.
CNET awarded the Axon 7 a 7.9/10 in its review.
While it's always fairly clear which devices are in the top five, the second five are a bit tougher and some devices get left off the list. What other devices would you recommend for this top ten list?
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