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Day: March 7, 2018

NEXT Future Transportation Incorporates Sensors and Other Tech from Digital Barriers

Posted on by Staff Writer

NEXT Future Transportation, a prominent developer of self-driving technology, and Digital Barriers, a provider of the most effective tools in security services, formed a partnership that will enable the development of a new user experience in mobility. Facial recognition will now be the secure access to a number of connected services and in-vehicle preferences with driverless vehicles.

NEXT and Digital Barriers

The aim is to help NEXT give its customers with an enhanced and more secure user experience. It will also provide an understanding of the status of each vehicle to improve fleet security and provide tailored services customized for the individual user.

Digital Barriers, which has achieved an expertise in facial recognition and wireless video streaming, will integrate its SmartVis live facial recognition technology and EdgeVis live video streaming in the patented autonomous mass transportation vehicle of NEXT. Digital Barriers live video streaming technology will enhance the security and safety systems of the autonomous mass transportation.

NEXT Future Transportation has developed a system of artificial intelligence and next generation smart transportation that works on swarms of modular autonomous vehicles. Each module has the ability to attach or detach from other modules on the roads.


NEXT is pushing technological innovations to dramatically change the way in which people communicate and interact in everything that they do. There is now the technology push and the corresponding consumer pull for advanced transportation technology products and applications, such as facial recognition technology and live video streaming.

The company’s partnership with Digital Barriers will give them better insights in providing safer, cleaner, and more courteous public transportation that will motivate commuters to use their services. The partnership will be the ideal platform for the development of new ways for the autonomous transport industry to answer the evolving needs of the consumers on the global scale.

Diverse Technologies

Today’s driverless vehicles use a diverse range of sensors and technologies in lieu of IoT technology which allows for vehicle-to-vehicle communication. So far, only a few luxury vehicles have V2V capability.

There is a race for autonomous vehicles. The main selling point of self-driving cars is the security and safety of passengers. In addition, driverless cars can run on the road with less clearance between vehicles. NEXT’s driverless cars feature swarming capabilities which allow them to couple together, while being independently powered and driven. If one segment needs to go in another direction, go to a ramp, for instance, then it dislodges itself and goes on its way alone. The rest of the NEXT vehicles couple after the other cabs are a safe distance away.

Most driverless technologies today, including next generation trailer trucks make use of video cameras to read the road, and the driving environment. Rules and regulation require the presence of side- and rear-view mirrors. Video cameras have replaced rear-view and side-view mirrors. Along with other sensors, the video cameras serve as monitoring tools for the vehicle to read the current environment. The cameras also stream their videos to the driver console monitors. The analysis of live video feeds results in more data for analysis. These include distances to other vehicles, road markers, road signs and other static driving aids.

Fisker Motors EV Car has 400 Mile Range and Fast Charging Times

Posted on by Staff Writer

Henrik Fisker has come back into the limelight with the Emotion. It’s a five-seater sporty sedan electric vehicle with a single charge at a 400 mile range and 161 mph top speed. It will be released in the market in 2019. The car’s specifications are still being finalized, mainly due to design and technology issues.

The Emotion’s designer is Henrik Fisker, also the CEO of the company. He reportedly made significant changes to the car’s power storage system in 2017. Additionally, the initial release will have a car with a 400 mile range, pending new solid-state batteries. These will boost the range to 700 miles. It is not yet clear whether the nine-minute charging claim is for the current lithium ion batteries or the next generation solid state batteries. Initial reports said the vehicles will be delivered in 2023, then the timeline was shortened to 2020, and now current target is 2019 or late 2018. For Fisker, the most challenging part will be the mass production of the butterfly doors. These are a different breed of gullwing doors which have never been used in any other car before.

Henrik Fisker’s History

Henrik Fisker became famous as a designer for luxury car brands BMW and Aston Martin. He designed the iconic Z8, which was released in 2000. It is one of the few cars of the era where the selling price has appreciated during the close to two decades of existence.

Fisker’s first venture as a car manufacturer was the Fisker Karma. Fisker founded Fisker Automotive in 2007 and built the “Karma” – a plugin hybrid vehicle which was priced at $110,000. The company raised more than $1.2 billion in private equity, plus an additional $193 million from the U.S. government. It supposedly sold more than 1,500 plug-in electric hybrid vehicles from September 2011 to September 2012. Due to fire risks, there were replacement packs installed in hundreds of cars. The company was later sold to a Chinese firm, and resumed production in 2016 with an improved energy storage system.

Bold Innovations

Fisker’s next bold move was creating a car called “Emotion”. It is a state of the art vehicle, with a LIDAR system hidden under the hood, enabling up to Level 4 autonomous driving capability. As an EV, it has an all-electric powertrain and screens for consoles. The company plans to extend the railings for the front passenger seat enabling the rear passenger to have more leg room. The rear bucket seats can be replaced by a three-seater bench turning the car into a five-seater. It also has options for a 27-inch TV for the rear seat passengers.

It has approximately the same rear leg room as the BMW 7 series sedans. The car is an all-wheel drive, with a total 775 horsepower from its electric motors. It can easily reach its 400-mile range due to its 140 kWh battery pack.

There is no other secret to the car. What it has is a large battery pack and all-wheel drive from synched motors on all wheels. There was a conscious effort to make the car lighter. The lithium ion battery is from LG Chem, which also supplies the batteries for the Bolt EV from Chevrolet.

For some industry analysts, the Emotion may be not be able to contend when it is finally released, as all of its features are already on the design specs of European EV cars expected to come out in 2019. By the time it comes out, the niche would have been populated by popular car manufacturers who have extended networks for sales, support and maintenance. The only saving grace would be the solid state battery and the fast charging when this is finally installed in the car.

 

AI In Radiology: Artificial Intelligence Is Testing the Waters In Radiology!

Posted on by Staff Writer

Society is receptive to artificial intelligence (AI), especially to the fact that it has been disrupting different industries over the years—the field of healthcare included. Technology-powered machines provide not only beneficial help but also valuable insight on how to make better the condition of people suffering from various ailments. Now, AI has once again proven its capabilities as it is venturing into radiology, which is one of the most vital specializations in medicine. On the presence of AI in radiology: The experimentation done by the researchers from Boston University’s Department of Bioengineering and Bioinformatics and Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York could create a bold impact to the future endeavors of the medical sector.

AI In Radiology

In the study, the team was able to create a machine learning technology that has deciphered a total number of 96,303 reports from the radiologists, and 91 percent of its interpretation was said to be accurate.

The researchers worked with the newly-developed machine to perfect the interpretation of the following medical procedures:

  • Computed Tomography (CT) Scans
  • X-rays
  • Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)

They were also successful in teaching the AI words like ‘colonoscopy’, ‘heartburn’, and ‘phospholipid’.


According to the first author, John Zech, who is also a medical student at Icahn: “The ultimate goal is to create algorithms that help doctors accurately diagnose patients. Deep learning has many potential applications in radiology—triaging to identify studies that require immediate evaluation, flagging abnormal parts of cross-sectional imaging for further review, characterizing masses concerning for malignancy—and those applications will require many labeled training examples.”

a photo of an aerial view of a computerized sketch of a brain in blue and pink amid the presence of AI in radiology
AI is now learning words like ‘colonoscopy’, ‘heartburn’, and ‘phospholipid’

Companies That Have Actually Introduced AI In Radiology

On the advancements in relation to AI in radiology: Companies, such as Nuance Communications Incorporated—the No. 1 supplier of natural language and voice recognition processing solutions—and Royal Philips—a leading healthcare technology company—have already worked together in order to present AI-based reporting capabilities and image interpretation to radiologists.

Both companies already have AI-powered systems before they joined forces. Nuance Communications Incorporated has its very own PowerScribe 360. The system is a well-developed radiology reporting and communications platform. On the other hand, Royal Philips has been innovating the work of radiologists through its Illumeo system. Illumeo is an informatics and imaging technology that uses adaptive intelligence in order to enhance and redefine medical images. They have indeed significant knowledge about AI in radiology!

Yair Briman, a business leader from Healthcare Informatics at Royal Philips, shares, “Through this collaboration, Philips and Nuance demonstrate our commitment to deliver AI-based technology to help improve radiologists’ daily workflow and bring focus back to the patient.” He adds, “Pressured by time constraints and increased volume of studies in modern practice, radiologists will have access to AI-driven solutions and practical applications, including the integration of the American College of Radiology (ACR) guidelines, to help save time and effort while improving report quality.”

Other Companies that Continue to Innovate Radiology

  • Zebra Medical Vision – The startup company has a medical imaging research platform. Its machine-learning technology has the ability to let researchers and scientists create algorithms and imaging knowledge with huge datasets. Elad Benjamin is the co-founder and CEO of Zebra Medical Vision. And the company has an estimated revenue of $1.3 million.
  • Butterfly Network Incorporated – It was established in 2011, and Jonathan Rothberg is the Chairman and CEO of the company. The startup has a projected revenue of $5 million. The Connecticut-based company transforms noninvasive surgery and medical imaging using learning, semiconductors and cloud computing technologies.
  • Radlogics – The startup company headed by Moshe Becker is one of the leading providers when it comes to machine learning solutions and medical imaging analysis. It has an estimated revenue of $5 million.

Without a doubt, the machine learning technology that was able to interpret reports from radiologists still needs a lot of improvement. However, its creation is also a major step forward for the future of the medical industry, and even more so, AI in radiology. On a final note, because of the continuous effort made by the researchers, there is no doubt that one day AI systems will become commonplace.

Could a System be the Secret Behind Creating a Thriving Start-up Ecosystem?

Posted on by Staff Writer

What is the Holy Grail for economic development?  For most cities it is a thriving start-up ecosystem.  Cities everywhere want to become the next Silicon Valley.  States want their economic engines loaded with fuel.

Non-for-profit Synapse is trying to do just that in the state of Florida.

Doing so helps attract talent, entrepreneurs, investors, large corporations, educators and also creates a new blossoming small business community powered by technology.

Exposing the Entrepreneurial Start-Up Ecosystem

People often associate Florida with tropical weather, Disney World and nice beaches. Fewer realize that Florida now boasts the 3rd largest population compared to any state. Nor that the Tampa Bay region is the 18th largest Metropolitan Service Area (MSA) in the country. Put another way, if Tampa Bay were a state, with its population of 3.14 million, it would be the 30th largest in the country – larger than Nevada, Iowa, Arkansas or Mississippi.


There are major undertakings underway across the state including: the $3B Waterstreet Tampa urban redevelopment project, sky rises abound throughout St. Petersburg’s downtown, Orlando’s rank of 7th in job growth and Miami’s 11.3% start-up formation, ahead of cities such as Houston, New York City, San Diego or Chicago.

However, even with many brilliant minds and bold ideas present, Florida still faces many challenges. Building a successful start-up ecosystem requires specific financial actors to equally and mutually support each other: investors, entrepreneurs, large corporations, educators and the state and local government.

Synapse, led by a number of respected entrepreneurs, entrepreneurial service providers, and investors  from Tampa Bay, is building a virtual platform to address this gap. They want to connect Florida’s various innovation ecosystems to create one massive virtual community – the first of its kind in the area.

The Synapse platform does not stop there – they want to expand from Tampa Bay to the entirety of Florida, and eventually across the globe. Cofounders Marc Blumenthal and Brian Kornfeld recently sat down with Bold Business to discuss what the team envisions for the state and then nationwide.

Taking lessons from Cincinnati, Ohio’s start-up ecosystem, led by Cintrifuse, essentially, Synapse wants to connect what they refer to as eight “personas,” namely:

  • Investors
  • Entrepreneurs
  • Talents
  • Educational Institutions
  • Innovation Enablers
  • Entrepreneur Support Organizations
  • Corporations
  • Government

“To shrink our great state virtually and to allow you to be one or two degrees of separation away from the right investor, the right next employee, the right entrepreneurial support organization, and the right customer,” Blumenthal explained.

Easy Platform for Innovators from Florida and Beyond

Synapse Innovation on Start-up Ecosystem Infographics

Synapse - Florida's Innovation Ecosystems Connector Infographic

Through the Synapse platform, any of these key personas can log in and identify attributes or elements regarding their skills and experiences, as well as what they want to do or what they want to make into reality. The start-up ecosystem searches for these, as Blumenthal likened, “the same way that one would find a movie or a show on Netflix.” He then expounded how easy it is to do. “You don’t have to do an A-to-Z list of a million movies. You can find the seven or the 10 or the 20 that are most interesting to you, and then take action or even save them for later,” he said. Essentially, the platform helps these eight personas align and connect, regardless of their geographic differences.

Brian Kornfeld, another Synapse cofounder, explained to Bold Business how the platform works. “Click the check boxes and they’ll update right on the spot,” he said. “Whatever your thesis is, whatever you are, whatever builds into you and your persona and your journey and it’s going to provide what it is that you’re looking for and who it is that you’re looking for.”

Synapse product owner Rachel Fisher affirmed the excitement behind their bold innovation. “To be able to curate all the way down to that and find the people and companies, the mentors, the talent that you need, the funding that you need, that’s fantastic,” she told Bold Business.

Innovation Summit

Synapse Florida Inaugural Innovation Summit at Amalie Arena in Tampa this coming March 28 and 29. They will bring together over 1,500 attendees, with over 200 exhibitors, and the presence of over 50 speakers and more than 50 sessions – a truly exciting time for today’s brilliant minds. With this number of industry leaders serving as keynote speakers and panelists, Synapse’s Innovation Summit paves the way in discussing and enacting things for the future of innovation and start-up ecosystem in Florida and potentially everywhere.

“We have scheduled and are launching our inaugural event,” Blumenthal said. “…bringing together the best minds and our various resources and over 200 companies to exhibit.” He explained how their company is not just about the Sunshine state as well. “Synapse is really not only about Florida, right? It is born in Florida, it is focused on Florida, but what it is about is exposing the rich tapestry of the great companies, the entrepreneur is the innovators and the resources that are here, not just for people who are here doing business in Florida, but for really the whole world,” he affirmed.

Opportunity seekers everywhere are excited – Synapse is happening in the heart of Tampa Bay, the center of flourishing tech and innovation in the state. Through this bold event, individuals can connect with businesses to create ideas and grow whatever groundbreaking thoughts they have, turning them into reality.

Innovation Summit 2018

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