LBS & AI

Iridium Cloud Connect goes live

Iridium Communications Inc. has announced that Iridium CloudConnect, the first and only satellite cloud-based solution offering truly global coverage for Internet of Things (IoT) applications, is now actively serving customers. This new service combines Iridium® IoT capabilities with Amazon Web Services (AWS) IoT and cloud services extending customers’ IoT reach to the more than 80 percent of the Earth that lacks terrestrial coverage.

The service makes it easier to do business by translating between industry-standard cloud protocols and Iridium’s Short Burst Data® service. This allows virtually any IoT device connected through the Iridium network to speak natively with AWS IoT services as well as other value-added elements available in AWS Marketplace.

Iridium’s IoT services continue to experience strong subscriber growth. Commercial IoT data subscribers grew 25% from the third quarter of 2018 through the third quarter of 2019, to 767,000 customers. www.iridium.com

Indoor mapping platform selected for patient wayfinding

Inpixon has announced its indoor mapping solution has been selected by a leading mental healthcare facility in North America. Utilizing its indoor mapping platform, Jibestream, the solution is expected to allow patients to effectively search for and navigate to specific locations, such as reception areas, doctor and therapist offices, and testing areas and clinics, within the hospital’s multi-building complex.

The U.S. healthcare market loses approximately $150 billion per year from missed medical appointments, due in part to the difficulty some patients face navigating complex buildings. The indoor mapping and location platform is designed to empower users to create mapenabled solutions that enable patients to easily locate and navigate to destinations within the hospital complex, in turn, reducing missed or late appointments, as well as enhancing the patient experience. This user plans to implement the Inpixon mapping and location platform within its app-based solution in a manner that will, in addition to the benefits outlined above, also address regulations and requirements for those with disabilities by providing patients a filter to navigate a path that is handicap accessible. www.inpixon.com

Phiar launches AI-powered AR navigation app

Phiar, a Palo Alto-based startup that is using artificial intelligence and augmented reality to enhance vehicular navigation, is finally making its longawaited AR driving app available for the first time — albeit in a limited fashion. The company recently announced the start of a private beta program for iPhone users, and plans to expand the program to Android devices later in 2020.

Phiar notes that the app automatically picks visible AR overlays by looking at the road, lighting, weather, and objects present in the live video, drawing pathways using either lines or higher contrast patterns that will be more visible as you drive. It also uses AI for lane segmentation, semantic segmentation, and 3D localization, allowing the app to determine and draw a proper navigational route through multi-lane streets. The user can then just follow the suggested path, as well as seeing floating icons that indicate points of interest and traffic signals. One key to these tricks is on-device edge AI processing rather than reliance on cloud servers. https://venturebeat.com

RealityEngines.AI autonomous AI service

RealityEngines.AI, a San Franciscobased AI and machine learning research startup, is coming out of stealth and launching the world’s first completely autonomous cloud AI service to address common enterprise use-cases. The cloud AI service automatically creates, deploys and maintains deep learning systems in production. The engine handles setting up data pipelines, scheduled retraining of models from new data, provisioning high availability online model serving from raw data using a feature store service, and providing explanations for the model’s predictions. The service is the first of its kind and helps organizations with little to no machine learning expertise plug and play state-of-the-art AI into their existing applications and business processes effortlessly. http://realityengines.ai

Using artificial intelligence to enrich digital maps

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Qatar Computing Research Institute have developed an artificial intelligence model that uses satellite imagery to tag road features in digital maps.

The RoadTagger model combines a convolutional neural network (CNN) and a graph neural network (GNN) to automatically predict the number of lanes and road types hidden by obstructions.

The CNN digests raw satellite imagery while the GNN segments the road into 20-meter tiles or graph nodes linked by lines; the CNN extracts road features and shares that data with its immediate neighbors. http://news.mit.edu

HERE’s new HD GNSS enables submeter positioning for mass market

HERE Technologies has introduced its High Definition GNSS (HD GNSS) positioning, a cloud-based solution that enables mass-market devices to achieve sub-meter accuracy across the globe.

HD GNSS enables new user experiences with lane-level navigation, augmented and virtual reality. It combines precise point positioning (PPP) and real-time kinematic (RTK) positioning methods, allowing for fast convergence time, high availability and global coverage.

It also supports off-the-shelf mobile devices and internet of things (IoT) trackers equipped with dual frequency chipsets such as the Broadcom BCM47765 and BCM47755. More mass-market devices and vehicles are being equipped with dual-frequency GNSS receivers. With the HD GNSS service, the receivers enable high-precision positioning, HERE said, a capability that was cost and geographically prohibitive less than two years ago.

TomTom Traffic Index

TomTom has released the results of the TomTom Traffic Index, a report detailing the traffic situation in 416 cities in 57 countries. Bengaluru in India takes the top spot this year with drivers in the southern Indian city expecting to spend an average of 71% extra travel time stuck in traffic. Next in the global rankings are Philippine capital, Manila (71%); Bogota in Colombia (68%); last year’s most congested city, Mumbai (65%); and Pune (59%), also in India; making up the top five most congested cities in the world.

Greater Moscow1 takes the lead in Europe (59%) with Istanbul (55%) coming a close second. Kyiv (53%), Bucharest (52%), and Saint Petersburg (49%) make up the rest of the top five. Paris (39%), Rome (38%) and London (38%) ranked in at 14th, 15th and 17th respectively.

In the US, the top five most congested cities are Los Angeles (42%), New York (37%), San Francisco (36%), San Jose (33%) and Seattle (31%). www.tomtom.com

Telangana, India launches AI projects

The Telangana government, India has begun several initiatives on artificial intelligence (AI) and information technology (IT), including signing of memoranda of understanding with technology companies and launching pilot projects on AI.

The state government has also declared 2020 as the ‘Year of AI’. The state government now also aims to transform public service delivery and governance with the help of deep technology. The state has identified eight emerging technologies, including AI, blockchain, cloud, Internet of Things, and robotics, in its push for the use of technology. The Telangana government has also formulated policy frameworks for blockchain, drones, cybersecurity and e-waste, among other things.

However, experts had their misgivings. “The implementation of AI in policing and sharing data of AI development with the private sector is a concern as there is no data protection law. The state government needs to inform people if their data is being shared even between departments, as the fundamental right to privacy guarantees that no one can use my data without my permission,” said Srinivas Kodali, an independent reseacher based in Hyderabad who works on data and governance.

This concern was shared by some citizens. “It is definitely a matter of concern, because data on us can be used in a wrong manner, especially by private players. The state government needs to actually tell us before they do anything with the data they have collected." www.livemint.com

Hitachi Automotive Systems and TomTom collaboration

Hitachi Automotive Systems Americas, Inc. and TomTom, the location technology specialist, have announced that they are collaborating on a proof of concept for the development of a new real-time hazard service for navigation and Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS).

Through the collaboration, the companies will combine technological strengths to deliver real-time updates on the location of road hazards, detected by Hitachi Automotive Systems’ vehicle sensors, ECU (Engine Control Unit) and onboard DNN (Deep Neural Network), to navigation and ADAS applications running TomTom’s connected services.

Hitachi will use its in-car sensor and edge processor technology to detect potholes and road debris, process that information, and send it to its cloud. This information is transferred to TomTom’s cloudbased fusion engine – TomTom Traffic. TomTom would then deliver the hazard information to all navigation and ADAS applications running TomTom’s connected services in the same manner it delivers its traffic data, helping drivers make better decisions that save time, reduce stress and create safer roads. www.tomtom.com

First test of vehicle equipped with smart LiDAR sensor

RoboSense has announced the world’s first public road test of a vehicle equipped with a Smart LiDAR Sensor. The RSLiDAR- M1 Smart LiDAR is the world’s first MEMS Smart LiDAR Sensor to incorporate sensor hardware, AI perception algorithms, and IC chipsets, transforming conventional LiDAR sensors from an information collector to a complete data analysis and comprehension system, providing essential information for autonomous vehicle decision-making faster than ever before. www.robosense.ai

Trimble to acquire Kuebix

Trimble has announced acquisition of privately held Kuebix, a leading transportation management system (TMS) provider and creator of North America’s largest connected shipping community. This acquisition will enable Trimble to bring together its network of private fleet and commercial carrier customers, which collectively represent more than 1.3 million commercial trucks in North America, with Kuebix’s extensive community of more than 21,000 shipping companies, creating a powerful new platform for planning, execution and freight demand-capacity matching.

Patent for automated indoor map generation capabilities

InnerSpace, an IoT-based indoor location intelligence platform for Smart Buildings, has been awarded a patent by the US Patent Office for its approach to generating maps for indoor navigation. The patent (#10458798B2) titled “Method for Sensing Interior Spaces to Auto- Generate a Navigational Map” protects the company’s unique approach leveraging LiDAR to create maps of indoor spaces. It uses WiFi networks and/or its proprietary sensors to measure how people and things behave within an indoor space. The company makes it easy for clients in Food & Beverage Retail, Public Safety and Security, Workplace Experience, and Real Estate Operations to turn any building Smart. Innerspace.io