Month: July 2021

Shutterstock.AI to enable AWS customers to train ML models for ecommerce and autonomous vehicles

Shutterstock, Inc., a global creative platform offering full-service solutions, high-quality content, and tools for brands, businesses and media companies, has announced the availability of its data (images, 3D, video and associated metadata) on AWS Data Exchange.

This is a service that makes it easy to find, subscribe to, and use third-party data in the cloud. The announcement follows the launch of Shutterstock.AI, a newly formed subsidiary with insights and data at the heart of its mission.

The availability of Shutterstock.AI’s data on AWS Data Exchange will allow customers, from tech start-ups to industrial giants, to train computer vision models at scale with precision, advancing their computer vision technology.

“Customers need broad content sets and quality metadata to train computer vision models with confidence and efficiency,” says, Chris Casey, worldwide head of business development, AWS Data Exchange, Amazon Web Services, Inc. “Shutterstock.AI has one of the large libraries of assets available in this space with notable variety and metadata. We’re excited that AWS customers at every level of machine learning maturity can now innovate using Shutterstock.AI’s data on AWS Data Exchange.”

Chris Casey

Shutterstock.AI will initially offer a series of training datasets to AWS customers on AWS Data Exchange. The datasets include collections of images and 3D models from Shutterstock.AI’s library of 400 million visual assets, along with metadata backed by rigorous human and AI review. The datasets span multiple industry categories, and have been curated to align with some of the most common computer vision applications in ecommerce, travel and tourism, self-driving cars, and consumer electronics.

“Computer vision is a powerful new technology with huge growth potential,” says, Stan Pavlovsky, CEO at Shutterstock. “We are excited to partner with AWS to develop products that support companies creating solutions for autonomous vehicles, real-time content moderation, and more, while leveraging AWS’s data delivery capabilities to significantly expand the market for this content.”

In addition to offering products on AWS Data Exchange, Shutterstock.AI content will be used to power Amazon’s own computer vision projects, including Amazon Recognition, a solution that simplifies adding image and video analysis to applications using proven, highly scalable, deep learning technology that requires no prior machine learning expertise.

Shutterstock.AI will work with AWS to provide this data to new customers, as well as enabling existing Shutterstock.AI clients to use AWS Data Exchange for streamlining their existing data delivery, ingestion, and billing.

Over time, Shutterstock.AI and AWS will continually expand the selection of datasets offered on AWS Data Exchange in response to customer feedback and demand. Shutterstock.AI will also work to deliver additional value to the computer vision community, producing thought leadership for practitioners, conducting research, and developing products for expanded computer vision applications.

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Lumen launches new on-net subsea fibre route between U.S. and France

In the wake of COVID-19, almost 70% of organisations using cloud services say they plan to increase their cloud spending. This is creating a spike in the demand for cloud connectivity services and data worldwide. The need for international bandwidth is already more than doubling every two years, with internet growth increasing rapidly on all

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Infineon introduces USB PD 3.1 high-voltage microcontroller with higher wattage support

Infineon Technologies AG introduced the industry’s high-voltage microcontroller (MCU) with USB Power Delivery (USB PD) 3.1 support. The EZ-PD PMG1 (Power Delivery Microcontroller Gen1) is Infineon’s generation of USB PD MCUs targeting any embedded system that provides or consumes power with high-voltage up to 28 V (140 W).

The device supports higher power capabilities defined in the USB PD 3.1 specification and leverages the MCU to provide additional control capability. The new products are ideal for consumer, industrial and communications markets for applications such as smart speakers, routers, power and garden tools.

The PMG1 family integrates a market-proven USB PD stack to enable reliable performance and interoperability. It features an Arm Cortex-M0/M0+ processor with up to 256 KB Flash memory and 32 KB SRAM, USB full-speed device, programmable general purpose input/output (GPIO) pins, gate drivers, low drop out (LDO) regulators and high-voltage protection circuits. The PMG1 MCU also provides hardware and firmware protection, including over-voltage and over-current protection, short circuit and reverse current protection, secure firmware boot and signed firmware update.

To increase ease-of-use for designers, the new devices include programmable analog and digital blocks to easily customise and integrate intelligent analog sensors into the application. The PMG1 MCU is also field programmable to allow signed firmware updates for improved efficiency. Programming is supported by the ModusToolbox integrated development environment with the PMG1 software development kit along with prototyping kits and quick start guide. They make the firmware development and testing simple and easy to further reduce the overall development time and time-to-market.

“As a provider of power semiconductors, we are excited to bring the new PMG1 family to market. It will enable OEMs to further differentiate their consumer, industrial and commercial applications,” says, Ajay Srikrishna, senior vice president of the wired connectivity solutions product line at Infineon. “Following our mission, this MCU is enabling our customers to bring new products to market that will help making consumers’ everyday lives easier, safer and greener.”

Availability

The USB PD microcontroller family PMG 1 can be ordered now.

For More information click here:

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Europe’s car owners can cut ownership cost as LexisNexis and Mercedes-Benz team up

LexisNexis Risk Solutions, a data, analytics and technology provider for the insurance and automotive (OEM) industries, is working with Mercedes-Benz Connectivity Services GmbH to help the car maker’s customers across Europe benefit from personalised insurance products and programmes based on their vehicle’s advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS).

The aim of the agreement is to enable Mercedes-Benz customers to maximise the investment car owners have made in their vehicle’s ADAS, when they shop for insurance, by allowing the insurance sector to understand exactly how a vehicle is equipped, at the point of quote.

To this end, when a customer requests a quote for insurance and agrees to the processing of equipment-related information, LexisNexis Risk Solutions will check for the presence of ADAS features related to that specific vehicle via an API provided by Mercedes-Benz Connectivity Services GmbH so that this insight can be fed into the insurance market’s quoting systems.

As data protection is always given the highest priority by Mercedes-Benz Connectivity Services and by LexisNexis Risk Solutions, the organisations have implemented the appropriate mechanisms and processes to protect the customer’s privacy when processing the vehicle’s features’ information.

LexisNexis Risk Solutions, headquartered in metro Atlanta, Georgia, will normalise and provide the outcome from the OEM data to insurance providers in a secure and compliant manner, delivered through its LexisNexis Vehicle Build solution.

“The ADAS features included in new cars have been linked to reducing accidents, and those ADAS options are more frequently purchased,” says Howard Abbey, autonomous car specialist at SBD Automotive. “However, wide differences in ADAS naming has made it difficult for consumers and the industry to correctly equate systems from different OEMs. This makes it difficult for insurance providers to give the correct risk reduction savings to owners of vehicles with ADAS.”

LexisNexis Vehicle Build harnesses the company’s proprietary ADAS Classification System, which simplifies the myriad names and capabilities of ADAS from all car makers. The company aggregates and normalises the data, offering more specific ADAS data than available by VIN alone. Vehicle Build confirms the availability of ADAS at a VIN level and has been tested by insurers across Europe over several millions of vehicles and claims.

The new agreement underlines the power of advancing vehicle safety features in delivering more personalised insurance services to consumers based on vehicle-centric data. According to SBD Automotive, across Europe, the average number of ADAS features offered on a given new model increased from 4.2 in 2017 to 7.1 in 2020. LexisNexis internal research shows that beyond number of features, the type and combination of ADAS features can provide greater precision in managing insurance risk.

Sherezad Rehmann, senior director of European connected car, LexisNexis Risk Solutions, says, “Mercedes-Benz Connectivity Services GmbH understands the huge potential vehicle-centric data holds for more personalised insurance cover, safer driving and to incentivise investment in ADAS.

We know ADAS can reduce claims frequency and, as we gather more claims data from the insurance market, that insight can help with pricing and driving further investment in ADAS development. Mercedes-Benz Connectivity Services GmbH is a leader in understanding how these insights can benefit its vehicle owners and is working with us during this pivotal moment in the evolution of motor insurance using connected car and vehicle build data.”

Sherezad Rehmann

“We have purposefully and mindfully created a bridge between car makers and the insurance market, building on our 30-year history in managing consumer data. Thanks to expertise and direct links with the insurance sector, consumers will soon be able to shop for insurance in a whole new and empowering way.”

LexisNexis Risk Solutions harnesses the power of data and advanced analytics to provide insights that help businesses and governmental entities reduce risk and improve decisions to benefit people around the globe. We provide data and technology solutions for a wide range of industries including insurance, financial services, healthcare and government.

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neXat navigates new route to maritime prosperity for connectivity providers

neXat the satellite industry’s connectivity capacity aggregator is now available to the maritime sector, opening the door for maritime connectivity services providers to new markets and the monetiSation of payment and management services.

neXat is a cloud-based, virtual OSS/BSS that also operates as a satellite aggregation platform, acting as a connectivity broker connecting teleports with regional services providers that operate in the maritime sector.

The new services from SatADSL‘s flagship platform will serve both the commercial shipping industry as well as the leisure boating sector. The commercial shipping industry can now connect to the neXat platform to access satellite capacity in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, the Black Sea, the coasts of Africa, and most parts of Asia. This means that connectivity providers to the maritime sector can operate and attract new customers in new geographical markets.

“Our neXat platform has already made waves in the broader satellite connectivity industry, disrupting a traditional and conservative landscape. With the continual expansion of our coverage areas and development of new services in our platform, it’s time for neXat to mark its territory in the mobility sector as a unique and emergent route to untapped markets and monetiSed services in the growing maritime connectivity market”, saysSVP of business development Guillermo Bosch at SatADSL.

The neXat platform provides unrivalled satellite connectivity, offering multi-beam services to vendor-agnostic maritime VSAT antennas ensuring round the clock connectivity and the highest service availability. This high-performance multi-beam service architecture is made available thanks to new interface protocols that ensure seamless handoff between satellites.

For the private and leisure boating industry, SatADSL now offers in EMEA unique pre-paid voucher services via neXat as an affordable connectivity option for boats of any size featuring antennas as small as 60cm in diameter.

The prepaid vouchers sold to boat or yacht users by local services providers and systems integrators that are specialised in the maritime sector gives seafarers satellite-based internet capacity that includes full automatisation of electronic payment. It allows private boat owners the opportunity to add internet capacity for the boating season, for example, giving them the ability to fit their data use to their needs.

“Internet access is vital across today’s mobility markets, with customers expecting decent coverage no matter their location. Out at sea, there’s a market for connectivity for passenger welfare and on-board entertainment neXat’s coverage and services enable maritime connectivity service providers to meet the needs of their customers, providing affordable and easily accessible internet services,” added Mr. Bosch.

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Bundled know-how for IIoT applications: cooperation between Moxa Europe and Robotron

Moxa Europe GmbH and Robotron Datenbank-Software GmbH announce their collaboration in the configuration and provision of IIoT platforms. The two partners are focusing on the “Industrial Internet of Things” applications in demanding industries such as process technology, oil & gas and energy technology. The first joint IIoT projects have already been realised for customers in the energy sector.

Most industrial companies have the use of IIoT solutions on their agenda. Some face the challenge of needing to see the first results quickly and with as few resources of their own as possible in order to determine whether the creation of an IIoT infrastructure is even worthwhile. Others have already invested time and money and have initial results but no scalable platform to be able to efficiently undertake the next roll-outs and further projects.

Moxa Europe GmbH and Robotron Datenbank-Software GmbH are addressing precisely these challenges. They have combined their activities in the field of Industrial IoT and, effective immediately, are preparing complete solutions that lead to quickly installed, easy-to-operate and broadly scalable IIoT platforms.

Moxa contributes the reliable industrial hardware with which the sensors, machines and other components are integrated. At the heart of this IIoT infrastructure are industrial-grade IIoT gateways and edge computers. For these components, Moxa also makes an operating system available with Moxa Industrial Linux.

Major releases of this operating system will be provided with security updates over a period of ten years. This ensures a long service life and stability of the installed hardware including the ever-increasing cyber-security requirements.

As a specialist for the collection and evaluation of large quantities of data, Robotron offers various software solutions and platforms for high-performance IIoT applications. For the area of industrial production, focus is on current edge and cloud technologies as well as artificial intelligence for intelligent process control and optimisation. These solutions can be adapted over a broad spectrum to the individual and widely varying requirements of the industrial users.

Together, Moxa and Robotron are focusing their collaboration on four application cases:

  1. General IIoT platforms in demanding industries and applications, for which Moxa provides hardware components: Transportation (especially railway technology), oil & gas industry.
  2. IIoT solutions for the energy sector a particular strength of the partnership. The first projects have already been implemented here using affordable IIoT hardware and innovative data analysis and visualisation, insights into the distribution network can be generated that were previously only possible with considerably more expensive traditional solutions.
  3. Energy efficiency and management in industry. Here, the industrial experience of Moxa and the data analytics expertise from Robotron (based on, among other things, the robotron*IPEA platform) form an ideal combination.
  4. Real-time applications based on Robotron’s Realtime Computer Vision platform (RCV). Together with the hardware from Moxa’s appropriately certified edge-computing technology, this platform is also suitable for use in demanding industrial applications (e.g., in industries such as oil & gas, mining / extraction technology, rail technology, etc.).

With this well-prepared collaboration, both partners see great potential for offering their customers clear additional benefits as well as opportunities for opening new application fields. Hermann Berg, head of industrial IoT at Moxa Europe, “The collaboration with Robotron puts us in the position of also being able to very confidently offer complex IIoT projects with high requirements on software and cloud technology.”

Those responsible at Moxa are certain they have found the right software partner with just the right solution portfolio. Hermann Berg, “I am impressed how well developed and stable the Robotron platform is and with how much attention to detail the pre-processing of the data on the gateway has been implemented.”

From Robotron’s perspective, the combination of hardware and software expertise for IIoT applications creates the ideal condition for being even more successful together. Michael Baling, head of division industry at Robotron, With the broad industrial-grade and robust portfolio from Moxa, we have found a partner to whom we can simply leave discussions regarding topics such as environmental requirements, longevity, and hardware-based security.

In the area of logistics as well, Moxa together with the German distribution partner Sphinx Computer has relieved us of all complexity, allowing us to concentrate fully on our core competencies of software and data analysis.”

You can learn more about the application cases and joint solutions on a new website created together by Robotron and Moxa here.

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CANCOM UK&I acquired by Telefonica Tech for €398mn

The executive board of CANCOM SE has signed a definitive agreement regarding the sale of the subsidiary CANCOM Ltd. to Telefonica Tech. As a result, CANCOM is divesting its entire business activities in the United Kingdom and Ireland.

The transaction values CANCOM Ltd. at an Enterprise Value of close to €400 million, which corresponds to a transaction multiple of 15.8x (Enterprise Value/EBITDA 2020A). The deal, at a multiple of 13.5x EV/OIBDA (based on 2021E), will strengthen the capabilities of Telefonica Tech’s cloud and cybersecurity division in the UK and Ireland.

CANCOM UK&I has 600 professionals, who will be joining the Telefonica Tech team, and a broad and strong digital services portfolio, including professional services and managed services in advanced IT, cybersecurity and multi-cloud solutions. It will realise a book gain of around €225 million through the deal, which will be included in CANCOM Group’s net profit for 2021.

Upon completion of the transaction, CANCOM SE will receive cash proceeds of around €390 million. The transaction is expected to be completed within the third quarter of this year. CANCOM intends to reinvest the proceeds predominantly in the acquisition of companies in its core regions, Germany, Austria and Switzerland. As a result of the transaction, CANCOM Ltd. will be reclassified as discontinued operations in CANCOM Group’s financial reporting.

“I am really delighted that CANCOM UK&I is becoming part of the Telefonica Tech family. This is a fantastic next step in our company’s growth. Telefonica Tech is a global tech powerhouse and we’re excited about what we will be able to deliver to our customers as Telefonica Tech in the UK&I. This is great news for both our customers and our employees,” comments Martin Hess, managing director CANCOM UK&I.

CANCOM UK&I is a certified Microsoft Gold Partner for 9 competencies, including Azure Expert MSP, CSP Direct, LSP, Surface Silver Partner and FastTrack, and it also has other relevant partnerships with technology vendors. The company reached €155 million in revenues in 2020, of which managed and professional services represent more than 50% and are growing differentially.

Jose Cerdan

CANCOM UK&I will reach €190 million of revenues in 2021 with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 15.4% and revenues related to managed services and professional services revenues project differential growth rates of 20% and 26% CAGR18-21 respectively.

“Having the CANCOM UK&I talented team join Telefonica Tech will strengthen our cloud and cybersecurity capabilities in the UK and Ireland, with a strong focus on professional and managed services, and combined with our value proposition and global reach allows us to position ourselves as the strategic partner for our B2B customers in their digital transformation strategy,” comments Jose Cerdan, CEO of Telefonica Tech.

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Tablet market posts 5th quarter of growth but supply constraints limit progress, says Strategy Analytics

Hybrid work and more digitised classrooms continue to drive record tablet demand midway through 2021, as Apple, Samsung, Lenovo, and Amazon all posted strong results, according to a new report by Strategy Analytics.

However, supply constraints negatively affected some major vendors from meeting high demand slightly earlier than expected, raising questions about what the second half of the year will bring. As the COVID pandemic remains a key concern around the world, this tension between high demand and low component supply will test vendors and their channel partners as both Back to School and winter holiday shopping looms.

The full report from Strategy Analytics’ Connected Computing Devices (CCD) service, Preliminary Global Tablet Shipments and Market Share: Q2 2020 Results can be found  here.

Eric Smith, director Connected Computing says, “Tablet shipments were essentially flat in Q2 2021 at 45.2 million units compared to Q1 2021 as supply constraints started hitting the tablet market faster than anticipated. Hybrid working and virtual learning options continue to fuel high demand for mobile computing devices, but vendors are expected to face increasing supply shortages for the rest of 2021. If higher component and transportation costs make their way into tablet price tags as expected, the competitive environment for mobile computing devices will be intense.”

Chirag Upadhyay, industry analyst added, “The Android tablet market is undergoing big changes as vendors retool their portfolios for more productivity solutions for the hybrid work and digital learning era. Samsung leads the segment with its Galaxy Tab S7 including premium features like 5G connectivity, while Lenovo recently released its Tab P11 device at a lower price point than most detachables on the market. Even Amazon is addressing this massive need with its newest Fire HD 10 Productivity Bundle, which includes Office 365 access.”

Exhibit Double Digit Growth for Most Top Tablet Vendors in Q2 2021 All figures are rounded

 Apple iOS/iPadOS shipments (sell-in) grew 11% year-on-year to 15.8 million units in Q2 2021, with worldwide market share climbing 1.8 percentage points to 35%. Samsung is the leading Android vendor, shipping 8.2 million tablets in total and growing 19% year-on-year in Q2 2021 on a diverse portfolio of entertainment tablets and productivity detachables. Market share increased by 2.1 percentage points to 18% during the same period.

Lenovo tablet shipments once again showed the strongest year-on-year growth out of the top vendors at 67% to reach 4.7 million units as the vendor picks up market share from Huawei outside of China. Market share climbed 3.8 percentage points year-on-year to 10%.

Amazon had a strong quarter due to its multi-day Prime Day sale event in June, with tablet shipments growing 49% year-on-year in Q2 2021 to 4.2 million units. During this period, market share grew 2.7 percentage point to reach 9%.

Huawei tablet shipments fell year-on-year -57% to 2.1 million units in Q2 2021. Market share fell 6.7 percentage points to 5% compared to Q2 2020 as the US chipset ban is hampering Huawei’s ability to produce and sell high-quality tablets in the ultra-competitive Android market.

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