Please tell us more about yourself?

I’m Philip Attfield, CEO of Sequitur Labs Inc. I have more than 25 years of experience in computing, networking, security and systems modeling at both large and small enterprises. I began my career at Nortel where I was a member of the scientific staff, developing software tools and in-house products for modeling, synthesis and verification of telecom and network equipment hardware. I later founded Signal 9 Solutions, which pioneered PC/desktop firewalls and created the Conseal brand of security products. At Boeing, I led the team responsible for the development of large-scale security policy and management framework. I’ve served in a number of high-profile roles in the field of digital forensics and am a frequent keynote speaker at international security conferences.

What is Sequitur Labs’ mission and what unique products/solutions do you provide?

Sequitur Labs is a software company developing and commercializing revolutionary technologies to improve embedded device and system security, manageability, and trustworthiness in the connected economy. Sequitur helps device OEMs reduce the cost and complexity of implementing security correctly by providing packaged software as a product. Sequitur’s software leverages advanced, on-chip hardware security technologies to deliver high-value strong security, economical and accessible security solutions.

Sequitur’s software solutions are critical security enablers for a large, worldwide market of device makers that need strong security but cannot afford the in-house expertise. Sequitur’s business approach includes demystifying and driving down the cost of security, simplifying deployment, and messaging the business value of security.

Could you give us a walkthrough of Sequitur’s products and what sets them apart?

The EmSPARK Security Suite was designed to address solutions in industries where embedded security is paramount such as industrial control, building automation, the smart home, machine vision, automotive communication, and medical devices. Built on three pillars of product security – design, build and sustain, EmSPARK provides device manufacturers with the firmware, tools and APIs needed to properly execute IoT protection. Our latest version of the EmSPARK Security Suite provides a robust security framework protecting embedded firmware, keys and security-critical assets through the entire device lifecycle. It enables silicon hardware security features, secure device provisioning, and API access to essential trust services such as secure storage, firmware updates and payload verification.

The EmSPARK Security Suite delivers a host of capabilities, including the integration of OpenSSL with functions secured by ARM TrustZone and preconfigured to use cryptographic functions available processors supporting this technology in hardware. The EmSPARK Security Suite also includes key management functions that form the basis of several secure processes such as trusted boot, storage and authentication with IoT clouds.

This allows developers to focus on building their application and/or device rather than spend time reading through data sheets to configure various hardware components. The result is that they can get their products to market faster.

Having an IoT security solution in place does not guarantee protection against an attack. How does your company offer greater assurance?

Devices secured by the EmSPARK Security Suite help customers reduce the risk and liability associated with IoT deployments. The Suite covers security requirements relevant at various stages of a product’s lifecycle.

We believe that a product must be secured from the time it is manufactured to the time it is decommissioned. This ensures that a company’s intellectual property (IP) is not stolen, the device operates without compromise at any point in its life, and that customer data is protected at all times. Additionally, it ensures that connections with remote systems, such as IoT cloud servers, are secure and tamper-proof.

For example, the EmSPARK Security Suite enables implementing a root of trust, which supports a variety of secure processes such as trusted boot. It creates a dual operating environment because a TrustZone-enabled processor can switch between secure and non-secure states. This allows isolating and separating critical material and data in a hardware secured area, dramatically improving device security. Developers can easily build applications that use secure resources without having to become experts in cryptography and complex hardware security technologies.

Analysts predict the global IoT security space will grow to USD $36.6 billion by 2025. Where do you see the future of IoT going?

With as many as 60 billion smart devices expected to be online in the near future, the likelihood that IoT products, applications and systems are going to be the main points of vulnerability from an organizational security standpoint seems fairly obvious. There are lots of lines of security built into corporate data centers to prevent break-ins and malicious attacks from cybercriminals but not nearly as much effort to secure the devices connecting to those data centers. The greatest obstacle to a future serviced by smart devices is security, including aggressive new variants that attack endpoints at the edge and threaten embedded computing systems.

IoT security is at an inflection point. In-house efforts to address device-level security are difficult and expensive, making it an unattractive option for many manufacturers. But I believe that the success of our industry will be achieved by helping developers build applications that use secure resources without having them having to become experts in cryptography and complex hardware security technologies. IoT will only be successful if device manufacturers and system operators can successfully and economically protect against threats. Working hand-in-hand with a comprehensive IoT security software solution will promote the growth of the industry beyond analysts’ predictions.

The post Improving IoT Security in the Connected Economy appeared first on Tech Trends.

Media and entertainment services are an integral part of our daily lives, yet they have typically not been included in IoT solutions, why?

By Robert Guest, VP Product Management at ACCESS

By 2021, global IoT spending is expected to total nearly $1.4 trillion. Advancements in technology mean that devices and appliances that are central to the home – from CCTV cameras through to smart TVs, heating and washing machines – can be controlled from a remote control, smartphone, tablet or smart speaker.

If smart homes are to provide a more efficient way of life, then IoT and multimedia services need to be unified to enable synergistic capabilities
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Consumers are embracing the day-to-day convenience IoT technologies can offer, which is exemplified by sales of popular devices such as Amazon’s Echo and Google Home. By 2016 both of these devices had become mainstream applications and are catalysts for the merging of the digital and physical worlds within the home.

By 2021, global IoT spending is expected to total nearly $1.4 trillion
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Yet, despite media and entertainment services being an integral part of our daily lives, they have typically not been included in IoT solutions. As a result, consumers typically have to use numerous applications in order to access and control their different IoT and multimedia devices and services. This is causing frustration for consumers, contradicts the idea of IoT being the epitome of ease, and ultimately will slow adoption.

Consumers are embracing the day-to-day convenience IoT technologies can offer, which is exemplified by sales of popular devices such as Amazon’s Echo and Google Home
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If smart homes are meant to provide a more efficient and convenient way of life, then IoT and multimedia services need to be unified to enable synergistic capabilities. By providing simplified and unified access to IoT and multimedia devices that can be controlled via a single application, futuristic smart home experiences can be brought to the here-and-now.

Breaking down the silos between IoT and multimedia services adds a new layer of ease and convenience within the home. This is what will truly drive the consumer acceptance beyond the few early adopters that venture beyond asking their smart speaker to play a radio station or set a timer.

Breaking down the silos between IoT and multimedia services adds a new layer of ease and convenience within the home
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Currently, a consumer with a smart doorbell can receive alerts on their smartphone, record a short video clip if motion is sensed, and play a short, personalised voice message when unavailable. This functionality is good, but it requires a specific app, which typically only works on a smartphone. If IoT and multimedia become truly integrated then they can provide services that consumers desire, For example, when the smart doorbell is activated, live footage from the front door can appear on any TV screen in the home.

Currently, a consumer with a smart doorbell can receive alerts on their smartphone, record a short video clip if motion is sensed, and play a short, personalised voice message when unavailable
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This is invaluable for when consumers are watching a film or TV programme or using the TV at a social gathering to play music, because a truly integrated system can pause the multimedia content when the doorbell rings, stream live footage from the front door and remove the need for users to be glued to their smartphones for notifications.

Control of the smart home also extends beyond the property by enabling consumers to manage devices and services remotely
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Our own ACCESS Twine Smart Home app does that by enabling users to access and control all of their multimedia and IoT devices via a single interface. Control of the smart home also extends beyond the property by enabling consumers to manage devices and services remotely.

In the middle of a film you will be able to tell Amazon Alexa that you want to make a snack, so that it would pause the TV screen and continue playing on your connected device in the kitchen to avoid missing the action
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Recently, we also partnered with home automation specialist OBLO Living to combine our strengths in merging the IoT and entertainment world, with remote management, home automation services and connected devices. With this partnership, consumers can create roles to manage their smart homes. For example, scheduling lights to turn on when you get home and playing relaxing music, or ensuring the coffee machine only turns on during weekday mornings before going to work and the upbeat rock radio station is playing to get you going.

Voice control will play a role in helping smart homes become more intuitive
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Voice control will play an instrumental role in helping smart homes become more intuitive, particularly as IoT and multimedia converge. For example, in the middle of a film or TV programme consumers will be able to tell Amazon Alexa that they are going to make a snack, the programme could automatically pause on the TV screen and continue playing on the viewers connected device in the kitchen to avoid missing any of the action.

In order to truly fulfil the potential of smart homes, the Internet of Things (IoT) and multimedia worlds need to be seamlessly integrated
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Ultimately, consumers are embracing IoT technologies but, there are frustrations and in some cases, confusion, about how to get the best from them. In order to truly fulfil the potential of smart homes, then the Internet of Things (IoT) and multimedia worlds need to be seamlessly integrated so that consumers see real benefits. It will open new doors to IoT-enabled multimedia and bring powerful, futuristic home experiences to the here-and-now via simple controls. For operators, now is the time to take a unified approach to IoT and multimedia and offer a smart home experience both in and out of the home.

Alice Bonasio is a VR and Digital Transformation Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

The post Expert View: Building a Future-Proof Smart Home appeared first on Tech Trends.

A new app could increase student engagement through innovative use of wearable tech.

An Imperial academic has found a new way to use undergraduate students’ physiological signals to better understand complex, maths-heavy subjects.

Prof Danilo Mandic, from Imperial’s Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, asked his students to record their own heart and breathing rates, and use that data to fill out usual mathematics coursework
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An app gives onscreen instructions on how and when to gather data, before displaying the measurements and using them in their equations
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Prof Danilo Mandic, from Imperial’s Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, asked his students to record their own heart and breathing rates, and use that data to fill out usual mathematics coursework. iAMP is a device that measures students’ heart and breathing rates via wrist electrodes. An accompanying computer app gives onscreen instructions on how and when to gather data, before displaying the measurements and using them in their equations.

“We hope to develop and apply the tech to other analytically and data -heavy subjects like computer science and medicine, or even business,” Professor Mandic says. “Exploring the multidisciplinary, ethical and societal aspects of our work will help students to challenge themselves, engage their curiosity, and have the confidence to be intellectually adventurous.”

Professor Mandic studied whether using this system would enrich student intellectual curiosity and engagement, and perhaps even performance, especially in maths-heavy modules
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At least 85 per cent of the students involved described increased intellectual satisfaction and engagement as a result of the idea. Professor Mandic hopes to apply the technology to other analytically and data -heavy subjects like computer science and medicine, or even business. He also hopes to inspire other educators to get creative with their teaching methods.

“Having a coursework which included real world signals like the ECG, voice and sound files made the course so much more tangible and enjoyable,” one student said.

Professor Mandic studied whether using this system would enrich student intellectual curiosity and engagement, and perhaps even performance, especially in maths-heavy modules. The approach could also help keep the curriculum current by synching it to technological and educational developments.

At least 85 per cent of the students involved described increased intellectual satisfaction and engagement as a result of the idea
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The body as a unique dataset

Professor Anthony Constantinides, who pioneered the Signal Processing discipline at Imperial’s Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, stated that the technique of engaging students in curiosity-driven learning helped to broaden students’ perspective on research and employment opportunities in next-generation health care.

Professor Mandic’s team will continue to enhance the technique with more data, for example on movement and neural signals. They also noted the need for ethical and privacy considerations in future studies, as well as developing a protocol when data indicates potential health issues in students.

Overall, the study could help to bring biopresence technology into the classroom more widely at both University and late secondary school level.  The approach is now being adopted in UC Berkeley, USA, and University of Lyon, France.

The study could help to bring biopresence technology into the classroom
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To find out how to leverage VR/AR/MR in your enterprise, Tech Trends offers bespoke Virtual Reality Consultancy support

Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio and @techtrends_tech on Twitter.

The post Using Vital Signs to Solve Complex Equations appeared first on Tech Trends.

Google wants you to have natural conversations with your virtual assistant.

Your Google Assistant is growing up!
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The Google Assistant team was at Cannes this week talking about their work with creative agencies and brands to extend experiences to the platform – which we recently took for a spin here on Tech Trends when reviewing the latest Google Mini. And while there, the team also announced that one of the features  Google had announced during this year’s I/O – Continued Conversation has just gone live.

“One of the most important things we learn as children is how to communicate with each other. We start with “goo goos and gaa gaas,” then on to baby sign language, a few simple words like “momma,” and our conversations get more complex from there.”

With Continued Conversation turned on, after you ask the Assistant a question, you can ask a follow-up without having to preface each command or question with 'Hey Google'
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You’ll still need to activate your Assistant devices with “Ok Google,” “Hey Google,” or with a physical trigger, but with this new optional setting turned on, the Assistant will stay active for long enough to respond to follow up questions so you don’t have to say “Hey Google” as often. You can say “thank you” or “stop” once you’re done, or just stay quiet and wait for the assistant to detect you’re no longer talking to it.

“For the Google Assistant to have a natural conversation, it should be able to understand when it’s being spoken to and should be capable of responding to several requests during an interaction. We’re taking another step forward in making your interactions with the Google Assistant more natural with Continued Conversation, available starting today on Google Home, Google Home Mini and Google Home Max.”

We’ve heard from a lot of people that adding 'Hey Google' before each follow-up question for the Assistant doesn’t feel as natural as they’d like
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With this update, your conversations with Google Assistant are more natural and intuitive than they’ve ever been
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This feature will initially only be available in English and in the US. To enable it, all users (new or existing) need to access the Assistant Settings for their devices:

Assistant Settings > Preferences > Continued Conversation

(this will apply to all speakers that the primary account user has set up)

The Assistant stays active for 8 seconds at most if it does not detect any speech. If it does detect speech it will remain active until it determines the user is done talking. While it is active the LEDs remain illuminated to let you know it’s listening, and if you’re unsure you can review all your interactions with your Assistant any time by looking at My Activity.

So next time you wake up and the skies are grey, just ask “Hey Google, what’s the weather today?”… “And what about tomorrow?”… “Can you add a rain jacket to my shopping list”… “And remind me to bring an umbrella tomorrow morning”…“Thank you!”

For companies looking to leverage Immersive technologies such as VR/AR/MR/XR Tech Trends offers a comprehensive range of Virtual Reality Consultancy Services.

Alice Bonasio is a VR and Digital Transformation Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

The post Mind How You Talk to Your AI appeared first on Tech Trends.

Live from Seattle, Tech Trends scoops up all the tastiest bites from the #MSBuild2018 developer’s conference.

“We need to ask ourselves not only what computers can do, but what they should do,” said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella in his opening keynote at Build.

The era of the intelligent cloud and intelligent edge is upon us
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Addressing an audience of over five thousand developers in Seattle’s Washington Convention Center, Nadella struck a soberly optimistic note; on the one hand insisting on the message he delivered last year about the great transformative power of technology, but also highlighting the monumental challenges that come with its rapid development.

“These advancements create incredible developer opportunity and also come with a responsibility to ensure the technology we build is trusted and benefits all.”

With customers in control, privacy is preserved
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It was clear that the Facebook scandal was top of mind here, even if (unsurprisingly) it wasn’t directly referenced as Nadella advocated for the need to put customers in control and safeguard privacy, or said that “GDPR is good, solid regulation and we’re working hard to build the compliance infrastructure.” He stressed, however, that it was just the beginning, as the work was never going to be done: “we’re going to continuously work to preserve privacy, this is just the starting point.”

As cloud based applications scale and power AI experiences, we have come to a place where you need data at planet scale and performance
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Ethical AI

By 2020, the average person will generate 1.5GB of data a day, a smart home 50GB and a smart city, a whopping 250 petabytes of data per day. This data – as the Cambridge Analytica debacle proved all too painfully – gives developers a tremendous amount of power, and responsibility.

The most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of our daily lives
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Microsoft sees the “intelligent cloud” as the backbone of this revolution. In the next 10 years, billions of everyday devices will become “smart” – being able to see, listen, reason, predict and more, without a 24/7 dependence on the cloud. This is what they call the “intelligent edge” – the interface between computers and the real world. Within that vision, Azure is being built as “the world’s computer,” a ubiquitous computing fabric that would allow Microsoft to meet the digital sovereignty and regulatory needs of their customers while delivering the benefits of innovation.

“Artificial intelligence has truly replaced Windows as Microsoft’s key platform for developers,” says Nick McQuire, VP of Enterprise Research at CCS Insight. “The majority of developer focus will shift from operating systems to artificial intelligence platforms as they increasingly look to intelligence services that span all devices including Internet of things. Its intelligent cloud and intelligent edge strategy is a much more compelling proposition for developers which will continue to define its corporate strategy for the next several years.”

McQuire points to the fact that this follows similar moves made by Amazon Web Services over the past 12 months, and sees it as a clear statement of intent at gaining developer mindshare against Google ahead of its own developer event, Google I/O which also happens this week.

It’s all about putting people – rather than devices – at the centre
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Kinect gets a Second Life

The Kinect was the first commercial device to integrated speech, gaze and vision, and since its launch a broad range of industrial applications – from security to manufacturing and healthcare – have been developed for it, and the technology has also been incorporated in devices such as the HoloLens.

Microsoft want to enable developers to reach customers in a multi-sense, multi-device way
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Sensor technology has come a long way since then, however, and Microsoft now wants to combine those capabilities with Azure AI services such as Machine Learning, Cognitive Services, and IoT Edge. Project Kinect for Azure will be a package of sensors – with extra wide field of view – capable of inputting fully articulated hand tracking and high-fidelity special mapping. It will include a next-generation depth camera, with onboard compute designed for AI on the Edge, what Microsoft calls “ambient intelligence,” meaning the device’s ability to scan and make sense of its surroundings by contextualizing cloud and spatially scanned datain real-time. Which is all incredibly exciting, but as a Mixed Reality fan, they frankly had me at “Extra wide Field of View”.

Microsoft had me at ‘extra wide FOV’
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Lorraine Bardeen, GM Studio Manager, also introduced two new Mixed Reality Products during the keynote: Microsoft Remote Assist – which allows customers to better collaborate remotely with heads-up, hands-free video calling, image sharing, and mixed-reality annotations – and Microsoft Layout, which lets you import 3-D models to create room layouts in real-world scale, experience designs as high-quality holograms in physical space or in virtual reality. With a potential market of 2 billion first-line workers, this is a huge opportunity, Bardeen told developers.

Alexa+Cortana = BFFs

Microsoft was keen to show how it’s been fostering collaborations across the board in an effort to make its platform play nicely with pretty much anyone. It announced that the open-sourcing the Azure IoT Edge to allow developers to develop more easily for it, and then went on to treat us to a very well-choreographed demo introduced by Nadella, who said they’d been working with “their friends across the lake” to bring Alexa and Cortana together.

The whole world is becoming a computer
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Tom Taylor – SVP of Amazon Alexa, then came on stage together with his Microsoft counterpart to show how Cortana and Alexa could be “intelligent friends,” helping their users with different sorts of tasks and collaborating seamlessly with each other as well as their humans. As always you have to wonder how consistently and smoothly these things would work day-to-day, but it did make the audience giggle and in a divided world, all this talk of friendship and collaboration gives you a warm fuzzy feeling…

We’re ready and comfortable for the #msbuild2018 keynote from @satyanadella pic.twitter.com/x7fVQi2Hoo

— TechTrends (@techtrends_tech) May 7, 2018

Main #Build2018 announcements

• Following last year’s announcement of AI for Earth – a program to apply artificial intelligence towards unlocking solutions to climate, water, agriculture, and biodiversity issues facing the planet – Microsoft is now expanding that model with a new $25 million 5-year program called AI for Accessibility, aimed at accelerating development of accessible and intelligent AI solutions to benefit over one billion people around the world who live with disabilities.
• The world’s biggest drone company, DJI announced a commercial partnership with Microsoft to co-develop solutions leveraging Azure IoT Edge and Microsoft’s AI services across new scenarios such as agriculture, construction and public safety. They will create a new SDK for Windows 10 PCs to bring full flight control and real-time data transfer capabilities to nearly 700M Windows 10 connected devices globally.
• A joint effort with Qualcomm to create a vision AI developer kit running Azure IoT Edge which makes available the key hardware and software required to develop camera-based IoT solutions. The camera can also power advanced Azure services, such as machine learning, stream analytics and cognitive services that can be downloaded from the cloud to run locally on the edge.
• Speech Devices SDK delivering audio processing from multichannel sources for more accurate speech recognition, including noise cancellation and far-field voice. With this, developers can build a variety of voice-enabled scenarios like drive-thru ordering systems, in-car or in-home assistants, smart speakers, and other digital assistants.
• A preview of Project Brainwave – an architecture for deep neural net processing – is now available on Azure and on the edge, and makes it the fastest cloud to run real-time AI.
• Azure Cognitive Services updates include a unified Speech service with improved speech recognition and text-to-speech, which support customized voice models and translation.
• New updates to Bot Framework and Cognitive Services will power the next generation of conversational bots enabling richer dialogs, and full personality and voice customization to match the company’s brand identity.
• Azure Search with Cognitive Services integration – combining AI with indexing technologies so it’s possible to quickly find information via text or images.
• Partnership with GitHub that brings the power of Azure DevOps services to GitHub customers, including integration with Visual Studio App Center.
• The Microsoft Azure Blockchain Workbench makes it easier to develop blockchain applications by stitching together an Azure-supported blockchain network with cloud services.
• Power BI Visualizations makes it possible for developers to extend the custom visuals created for Power BI to Excel.

• A new way to connect your phone to your PC with Windows 10 that enables instant access to text messages, photos and notifications – imagine being able to quickly drag and drop your phone’s photos into a document on your PC in one swift movement — without having to take your phone out of your pocket.
• Microsoft 365 currently has 135M commercial monthly active users and nearly 700M Windows 10 connected devices. The suite of new features announced at Build are aimed at better blending between web and application environments for end users and developers and enabling developers to create experiences

Technology can be a force multiplier is unlocking solutions for some of the biggest challenges facing society
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Remember you can find out more about Build and watch the live keynotes here and play the Microsoft Build announcements bingo with the card below!

The world is a computer, filled with an incredible amount of data
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For companies looking to get into Immersive technologies such as VR/AR/MR/XR our Virtual Reality Consultancy services offer guidance and support on how best to incorporate these into your brand strategy.

Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

The post Power and Responsibility: Highlights from Microsoft Build appeared first on Tech Trends.

Cloud technology is booming and it will play a pivotal role in powering other trends such as a the mass-market adoption of VR. A recent report dissects some of the current trends in the cloud computing market and digests them in the handy infographic below.

Cloud technology is booming as more businesses rush to adopt it
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Some key findings include:

• SMEs are currently more likely to implement cloud solutions than larger ones, and this trend is set to continue for the next 3 years

• Companies from Asia and Europe expected to invest more heavily in cloud solutions

• Tech and finance companies have higher projected rates of cloud adoption, ranging from 72% to 83%

• Businesses believe cloud technology adoption translates into greater efficiency, cost savings and improved organisation performance as well as increased team collaboration.

• Companies still view the lack of physical control as a barrier to cloud adoption, in addition to factors such as regulatory compliance

The cloud will play a crucial role in the mass-adoption of VR
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The State of Cloud Technology 2017 Report fromSaasGenius

To find out how to leverage VR/AR/MR in your enterprise, Tech Trends offers bespoke Virtual Reality Consultancy support

Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio and @techtrends_tech on Twitter.

The post Infographic: Cloud Technology Trends appeared first on Tech Trends.

Location-based technology paves the way to contextual personalised information and content for passengers.

Gatwick airport just announced that it installed 2000 indoor navigation beacons to enable Augmented Reality wayfinding, the first airport in the world to do so. The lack of satellite signals makes road-based navigation systems – such as Google or Apple maps – unreliable indoors, so Gatwick has deployed a beacon based positioning system to enable reliable ‘blue dot’ on indoor maps, which in time can be used within a range of mobile airport, airline or third party apps.

A network of 2000 beacons was installed at Gatwick airport
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The system – which is designed to make it easier for passengers to find their way around the airport and avoid missing flights – is part of a £2.5 billion transformation programme for the UK’s second largest airport, which flies around 44 million passengers per year to over 228 destinations in 74 countries contributing £5.3 billion to the nation’s GDP.

Beacon technology will integrate with airport, airline and retailer apps
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The network of battery-powered beacons was deployed in just three weeks (followed by two months of testing and calibration), and now provides a comprehensive system that is not only more reliable than GPS for indoor navigation, but also enables augmented reality wayfinding applications for passengers. What this means in practice is that information can be overlaid onto a user’s mobile camera view in real-time, making it much easier to find check-in desks, departure gates, baggage belts, etc.

“We are proud to be the first airport to deploy augmented reality technology and we hope that this influences other airports and transport providers so that it eventually becomes the norm,” says Gatwick’s Head of IT Commercial & Innovation Abhi Chacko.

The new navigation technology is now being integrated into some of Gatwick’s apps, but the airport is also in discussion with airlines to feature the service on their applications.

AR will make it easier for people to find their way around the airport
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The end-to-end “indoor blue dot” service is managed by PointrLabs, which had previously been involved in various airport projects in the US and Asia. Their CMO Axel Katalan clarifies that the tech stack comes with an indoor map which shows up to date content, positioning with +/-3m accuracy, and navigation technology that is dynamic and recognises, for example, areas currently under construction, or multi floor navigation including when taking lifts, proximity to retailers etc. Developers can easily enable those features on their own apps by using the beacon registry or PointrLabs SDK, he says:

 “Our SDK enables battery-optimised, multiplatform and high performance positioning and other features such as 3D wayfinding through AR and on-screen translation, all of which are now available to be used by Gatwick and their partners as simple as drag & drop.”

All this sets the scene for the next logical application of this technology – advertising. Because although Gatwick emphasizes that it will not be collecting data beyond generic information on ‘people densities’ in various beacon zones to help improve operations and reduce congestion, it allows that airlines could go further and obtain consent from passengers to push personalized directions and reminders to individual passengers.

This paves the way for contextual personalised advertising for passengers
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It is then not much of a leap at all to imagine how such tech would integrate into targeted ads. Shops would not only know where their potential customers were, but also how much time they had on their hands before a flight, and even what their shopping preferences and habits were based on things like social media profiles (just think of the data permissions you grant every time you sign onto the airport Wi-Fi with your Facebook or Twitter account). In fact, the release states that “Retailers and other third parties may also use the beacon system to detect proximity and send relevant offers or promotional messages, if the passenger has chosen to receive them.”

“By providing the infrastructure we’re opening the door for a wide range of tech savvy airport providers, including our airlines and retailers, to launch new real-time services that can help passengers find their way around the airport, avoid missing flights or receive timely offers that might save them money,” adds Chacko.

Although some people might feel uncomfortable with the prospect of so much information being known about them (and opt-outs should be available for those that are) airports are already a place where we routinely have to subject ourselves to enhanced security and monitoring, so it feels less of a leap somehow. And the flipside of that coin is that a lot of people might well think that sharing data is a price worth paying for a smoother experience and relevant offers sent their way. It’s certainly the general trend we’re seeing as location-based, Mixed Reality, Artificial Intelligence and Big Data technologies increasingly converge, and it will be interesting to see how such test cases pan out.

For companies looking to gain a competitive edge through technology, Tech Trends offers strategic Virtual Reality and Digital Transformation Consultancy services tailored to your brand.

Alice Bonasio is a VR and Digital Transformation Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

The post Thousands of Augmented Reality Beacons Installed at Gatwick Airport appeared first on Tech Trends.

We have countless pictures on our phones and social media, yet there’s nothing like holding a printed photo in your hand.

And what I’m also holding on the palm of my hand is the tiny and sleek-looking HP Sprocket which was given to a few journalists to try at Cannes (HP is a long-standing partner of the film festival).

My first thought is that this is very much a photo printer for the millennial generation. The white version I got should appeal to the iPhone crowd, but it also comes in a more traditional black for the more conservative folk who still think all printers should be that colour.

This is the photo printer for the Millennial generation
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The “Live it. Love it. Print it” HP slogan pretty much sums up the proposition here. This is just the gadget for all those youngsters looking to print their latest selfies with their besties, and it really couldn’t be simpler to use.

It took me literally less than 3 minutes to set it up. A simple matter of downloading the app – available on iOS and Android of course – loading the paper (it comes with 10 sheets of paper to get you started) turning it on – the old IT Crowd trick – and pairing the device with my phone’s Bluetooth.

The user-friendly Sprocket takes less than 3 minutes to get printing
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You can then go ahead and choose any photo from your galleries or social media (you can connect your Facebook, Instagram, and Google accounts to access those photos directly), play around with it a bit (the app lets you add stickers, text, etc.) and soon the little guy is whirring away and producing a perfectly formed, business-card sized photo for you to share with your admiring friends.

The technical low-down: For a full colour printer it really is tiny at 75 x 116 x 23mm and 170gms and packs a powerful punch for the $129.99 price. Running via a micro USB rechargeable battery and turning out full colour prints at above 300dpi resolution the Sprocket it accomplished as well as small. The prints are a very usable size at 5 x 7.6cms (2 x 3inches) and the only slight con I noticed was that while the detail of the prints was good the colours were a bit washed out, apart from this the Sprocket produces good results in seconds, keeping pace with the somewhat short attention span of its target audience.

Technical accomplishments aside, playing around with the Sprocket app is genuinely a lot of fun. As a jaded tech reviewer, generally immune to the frivolities of gadgets targeted at the young but even I found myself chuckling as I applied borders, text, emojis, clown bow ties to photos of my friends and relatives. In the wake of the Chinese photo enhancement app Meitu the options here are a little limited but definitely less disturbing. No huge-eyed, baby-faced, manga-esque faces here, but certainly enough to keep you entertained. There’s a good range of creative filters finishes off the editing possibilities as well as the usual crop, rotate functions.

The paper is a bit pricey, but it does not require ink refills
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Now, those old enough – sadly, like myself – to remember Polaroid might be shouting at the screen (also something older folk are prone to do) that this idea of instant printing is nothing new. But that is exactly the beauty of it: The Sprocket pairs up our very modern way of taking photos with the nostalgia of wanting to see them in print.

This could be a welcome excuse to look at your photos in a different way
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And HP is, after all, a technology company very much focused on printing, so it makes sense for them to come out with such a product. I, for one really enjoyed it, and it also passed the “grandma test” where it proved to be a bit hit with people (even) older than myself – i.e. my parents, who had a great time messing around with stickers and printing out their photos.

The HP Sprocket is a modern gadget that appeals to our nostalgia
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And speaking of stickers, the pièce de résistance here is the fact that the prints are sticky backed, so you can easily decorate your room, office, car or forehead with your creations. And what grumpy old sod doesn’t like stickers?

At around $129.99 it’s not exactly cheap, but it’s a very solid, low-maintenance gadget that does not require ink. The Sprocket doesn’t need ink cartridges as the paper works on HP Zink proprietary photo paper based on a system where heat applied to the treated paper produces colours. This means the process is really clean and tidy, but of course also corners you into buying the paper at around $10 for a pack of 20 sheets.

However, the fact that you’re probably going to be thinking twice before hitting the print button is actually the point. We’re all so quick to take hundreds – nay, thousands – of pictures every day, that this can be a nice excuse to take some time to actually look at them in a different way, and to make them count. Like this one. Definitely worth it.

Tom Atkinson is a Digital Producer & Photographer at R3Digital and Reviews & Dept. Editor at Tech Trends. Connect on LinkedIn and follow him on Twitter @R3Digital

The post Product Review: HP Sprocket Portable Bluetooth Smartphone Printer appeared first on Tech Trends.

School children are using Internet of Things technology to tackle mental health challenges.

The Longitude Explorer Prize, run by innovation foundation Nesta and supported IBM, aims to inspire students to tackle a modern challenge through innovative use of technology, and this year 60 per cent of the finalists have chosen to focus on combating mental health issues.

This fits in with a broader trend which has seen the importance of mental healthcare provision highlighted by high-profile advocates such as Princes William and Harry and the Duchess of Cambridge.

Mental Health is a cause championed by Prince William
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“Our team chose to look at mental health issues because this topic is becoming more and more important due to the rise of mental health in young people. Mental health is quite often brushed over and with school becoming more stressful for students, we feel our product would be in high demand and would help thousands of people,” said a representative from the Bright Day team at Ursuline Academy, Ilford.

Their idea – the “Breathe Watch” – is a wristband that monitors the symptoms of a panic attack and provides calming down techniques via a mobile phone or tablet. The app will also monitor where you have panic attacks to establish patterns. A person of the wearer’s choice can also be alerted about the panic attack.

“Many people do not understand what having a panic attack is like for the person and therefore find it difficult to notice and help. A friend of ours explained how she would be at the peak of her panic attack (generally 10 minutes into it) before anyone noticed. In a school a teacher has on average 30 pupils to handle and may not be able to detect that something is wrong with one of them.Our idea helps by notifying others when someone needs help.”

The finalist teams worked with IBM specialists to turn their ideas into reality
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Constance Agyeman, who leads the prize in Nesta’s Challenge Prize Centre says, “The challenge prize structure aims to inspire the next generation of inventors. It also gives school students the opportunity to work together creatively to try and solve the issues that really matter to them. Interestingly, this year half of our finalists chose to focus on mental health. School children are increasingly using technology on a daily basis, we want them to realise that they don’t just have to be consumers, they can take an active role in imagining how technology can be used to tackle societal problems.”

The 2017 Longitude Explorer Prize winner was announced in July
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“We think it is important to not only raise awareness about mental health issues but also to tackle them. And we believe technology is the solution. With the endless capabilities of the Internet of Things (IoT), we want to create an effective device that could help an individual to combat their ongoing issues. As the use of the IoT is becoming increasingly popular we feel it is important enhance our knowledge in this area,” a representative from Bright Day concluded.

These are the 10 finalist teams of 11-16 year olds who will now begin working with IBM specialist staff to turn their ideas into reality. The teams will be trained in the use of cutting edge cognitive computing tools, intelligent platforms that are able to think, understand and learn. Their prototypes will then be presented to a judging panel on July 13^th when the overall winner of the prize will be announced.

School: Ursuline Academy, Ilford

Team: Bright Day

Their idea: Breath Watch–a wristband that monitors the symptoms of a panic attack and provides calming down techniques via a mobile phone or tablet.

School: Warwick School, Warwick

Team: We Fidget

Their idea: Stress Cube —  a stress ball with sensors allowing people to establish patterns of when and where they tend to feel more stressed.

School: Southlands School, Lymington

Team: Octoptix

Their idea: ASDE motion Badge for autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The badge changes colour depending on the emotions of its wearer, making communicating emotions easier, especially for those with autism.

School: Churston Ferrers Grammar School, Devon

Team:Team Spaghetti

Their idea: The Home Sensor — sensors around the homes of older people to track their daily routine. If someone is acting out of the ordinary a chosen person can be informed. The product aims to support people with dementia.

School: Harris Academy Bermondsey, London

Team: H’n’B

Their idea: Honest — a water bottle that monitors water intake and will remind you if you need to drink more.

School: Littleover Community School, Derby

Team: Shelly

Their idea: Shelly’s Planner– an app for young people and their families with recipes and exercises that can be done during cooking.

School: Ursuline Academy, Ilford

Team: PolluTech

Their idea: SeeO2 — a device connected to your phone that measures air quality. If it’s poor, it will suggest an alternative healthier/cleaner route for you. It also encourages physical activity.

School: Warwick School, Warwick

Team: Lemontime

Their idea: Lemontime — an app which gives users rewards in mobile games for doing fitness and health based activities.

School: Bodmin College, Cornwall

Team: G.L.A.T.

Their idea: Panic Attack Wrist Band — a band or a t-shirt that measures your body temperature and heart rate to detect panic attacks. It will then connect to devices at home to calm the wearer down eg. the stereo will begin playing soothing music.

School: Thomas Deacon Academy, Peterborough

Team: AuxiCras

Their idea: Panic+– a button carried by students with a mental disorder. When clicked it sends a direct signal to a teacher’s wristband, telling him/her that you have to get out of the lesson or have a problem, giving them a notice discreetly and allowing them to help you.

Mark Wakefield, IBM UK’s corporate citizenship manager, commented, “We are partnering with Nesta on the Longitude Explorer challenge prize because it pushes participants to address the need for both technical knowledge and skills in emerging technologies such as cognitive and cloud, as well as helping them improve their employability skills. It is the combination of both of these that employers such as IBM really value. We congratulate all of the 10 teams of finalists and are very excited to be helping them further develop their ideas – there is some true innovation and creativity there.”

For companies looking to gain a competitive edge through technology, Tech Trends offers strategic Virtual Reality and Digital Transformation Consultancy services tailored to your brand.

Alice Bonasio is a VR and Digital Transformation Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

The post Using IoT to Tackle Mental Health Issues appeared first on Tech Trends.

Designing and making customized objects for your home has traditionally been an expensive and rather exclusive process, but 3-D printing technology is set to change all that.

Designing bespoke furniture has previously been a very expensive and exclusive process
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In this article for The Next Web I find out how a company wants to democratize design by giving any designer the tools to realize their vision through 3-D printing. And it is much faster, cheaper, and better looking than you might think.

Rhonda Huber fell in love with the shape and color of the beautiful palm leaves she saw at her Long Beach home.

Being an interior designer, she enlisted the help of her daughter – an illustrator – to draw out her idea, turning that inspiration from nature into a beautifully organic-looking piece of furniture, which she called the Sunday Chair.

To actually make her chair, however, she first had to work with an industrial designer to render it into a 3D file.

To make her chair Rhonda first had to work with an industrial designer to render it into a 3D file
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That’s because Huber was among a small group of designers invited by a company called Print the Future to have custom pieces of furniture 3D Printed in a temporary shop setup in New York this past March.

The idea behind it, explains its CEO Neil Patel, was to make people realize how far 3D printing has come in recent years, and that this is now a technology that can be used to create beautiful, useful – and increasingly affordable objects.

3D printing is now a technology that can be used to create beautiful, useful – and increasingly affordable objects
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Anna Maria Mannarino’s cocktail table was also among the items that materialized in the Manhattan pop-up store next to Times Square last month. Her draped design was printed upside down in horizontal layers, a process that took around 90 hours due to its size and complexity.

It had previously never occurred to her that it would be possible to print such large items, as most things she read about or saw were much smaller. “The idea that it is something that could be so customized and delivered quickly is key,” she says.

“3D printing allows a designer to print one item at a time and since the investment is low, they can use simple a social media strategy to market,” adds Lori Dennis, a well-known designer who’s also a Print the Future board member. She’s planning on launching her own line of 3D printed furnishings on the platform, and is excited about the democratization that the technology enables.

“Currently the gatekeepers are large companies with manufacturing capabilities and big budgets for ad campaigns to push product, and because the cost of manufacturing is so expensive, and the risk high, only select designers are granted the ability to participate in this process. But now any designer with an idea, a computer and a social media account can compete with the largest furniture brands in the industry.”

“The ability to create one-off designs or prototypes of potentially mass marketed designs is vastly simpler through 3D printing,” agrees Travis Neely, who calls it a revolutionary step in the world of design, enabling things that would have simply been impossible through traditional methods of fabrication.

Alterations can be more easily accomplished in a computer program than on a fully realized item from an artisan
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“I find the possibilities incredibly exciting,” continues Neely, who estimates that he tried out about 30 different ideas before arriving at the intricate side table design which was printed in Sweden in about 40 hours by one of Print the Future’s partners.

It’s a prime example of the kind of waste that would be created with a traditional subtractive manufacturing, but generates no waste product at all with this process.

Allan DallaTorre is another designer who agrees that 3D printing freed him up to do things that simply wouldn’t have been possible before, both in terms of logistics and expense: “My diamond design table would have cost three times as much and have taken weeks to fabricate by multiple trades people,” he says.

Designers often already use 3D software tools such as AutoCAD, and Revit for space planning, presentation drawings, construction documents and renderings, so it isn’t much of a leap in conceptualization and skill set to produce the 3D models necessary for printing, as Neely explains:

“This is not altogether different than a designer communicating with an artisan to create a specific piece. The individual either needs to be able to draw their dream within the software, or he/she needs be able to accurately communicate the design to a 3D designer who can then create it in the software for them. The major benefit is that alterations can more easily and more cost effectively be accomplished in a computer program than on a fully realized item from an artisan.”

Yet Patel is keen to remove any technical hurdles by having a team of industrial designers on hand to help anyone, regardless of their technical ability, to create and print their designs.

The market set to reach $30 Billion in the next five years as 3D Printing technology continues to advance
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The idea is to eventually allow anybody to conceptualize – and then materialize – pretty much any idea they have
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His business will therefore initially focus on supporting and growing that designer community through subscription fees, but eventually the platform will also rollout a consumer print-and-pay model to further bring that democratization and accessibility of design to end users everywhere, regardless of their technical or creative skill level.

This is where Dennis and Patel reckon they can become the category killer in a market set to reach $30 Billion in the next five years as 3D Printing technology continues to advance. The idea is to eventually allow anybody to conceptualize – and then materialize – pretty much any idea they have.

All the items of furniture printed in the New York shop – which would retail at around $500 to $1500 each according to Patel – were later given to visitors via social media giveaways. And while the New York shop is now gone, Print the Future is planning to open new ones in cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, Austin and Chicago in the coming months, as well as looking at permanent locations and partnerships with major retailers as they finalize their current round of funding.

“Customization like this opens the opportunity for a wider variety of consumers to have custom products rather than just the people that can afford an expensive artisan or crafts person,” believes Oklahoma-based designer Stacey Cole. “At our office we do a lot of custom work but it normally comes at a high price with certain restraints of the material and crafts person. Now the possibilities are faster, wider and less expensive.

Will 3D-printing democratize interior design? https://t.co/4qcQ8zJFBw via @thenextweb

— Alice Bonasio (@alicebonasio) May 12, 2017

For companies looking to gain a competitive edge through technology, Tech Trends offers strategic Virtual Reality and Digital Transformation Consultancy services tailored to your brand.

Alice Bonasio is a VR and Digital Transformation Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

The post #BuildTheFuture > Making Great Design Affordable Through 3-D Printing appeared first on Tech Trends.