Finnish Start-ups: IOT Gadgets

 

Finland might be a pretty chilled place to live, but right now is on fire. At least its home grown tech startups are.

A pocket size desktop that aims to change computing – Solu

The Finnish startup Solu is in the process of creating the world's smallest computer, an ecosystem of apps and its own operating system. The unit is a small square-shaped touch screen computer that can be used anywhere. The build-in screen also lets you use Solu as a touch based input device when it's connected to a bigger display  With it's wood-based chassis, the device is light, attractive and environmental friendly.


//read more on Yle.Fi 





Digital wearables at your finger - Oura from Oulu and Moodmetric from Helsinki

"Oura Ring helps you to recover from your mental and physical load so that you can optimise your performance. Recovery happens mostly when you are sleeping, so sleep monitoring and sleep quality improvement are the main features of the ring," says Kari Kivelä, co-founder, CTO and Head of Design for Oura.

"Emotional intelligence is thought to be even more important than IQ. Becoming aware of your emotions and the emotions of others builds your emotional intelligence. You will perform better at work, at home," says Niina Venho, the CEO of Moodmetric. Medometric is a modern digital mood ring invented by PhD Henry Rimminen and designed by silversmith Vesa Nilsson.

//read more on Yle.Fi



Locating life (or tracking your treasures in real-time) - Yepzon from Tampere

According to Yepzon, Inc.’s CEO, their product can help people track what matters most to them via smartphone. Designed for belongings, this locator and correlating app can help find lost children with autism and elderly patients with dementia.

Smart Sensor and analytics-based optimization solutions - Enevo from Espoo

 

Enevo has a solution built on smart sensors and analytics that optimizes the logistics for waste management and recycling industry. The firm's latest innovation is Enevo ONe, which can yield up to 50% cost savings by substituting 'static routes' for waste collection trucks with 'smart' pick-up schedules. The solution uses the wireless sensors that gather fill-level data from waste containers and generates an'ideal' route for the fleet that is factoring in truck availability, traffic information, road restrictions, etc.

Wearables and Predictive agents. Towards better behaving, cognitive-offloaded humans

“A general “law of least effort” applies to cognitive […] exertion. The law asserts that if there are several ways of achieving the same goal, people will eventually gravitate to the least demanding course of action. In the economy of action, effort is a cost, and the acquisition of skill is driven by the balance of benefits and costs. Laziness is built deep into our nature.”
― Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow

Thanks to the work of Daniel Kahneman and others, we now understand our cognitive processes as being divided into two systems. System 1 produces the fast, intuitive reactions and instantaneous decisions that govern most of our lives. System 2 is the deliberate type of thinking involved in focus, deliberation, reasoning or analysis – such as calculating a complex math problem, exercising self-control, or performing a demanding physical task. [DK]

"People who are cognitively busy are also more likely to make selfish choices, use sexist language, and make superficial judgments in social situations. Memorizing and repeating digits loosens the hold of System 2 on behavior” [DK]

Developments in sensor-enabled wearable technologies bring about fundamental shifts in interactions paradigms and new capabilities for real-time, contextual-aware systems. In the near future new possibilities to create digital augmentation of reality will emerge. By having the input of sight, hearing and vital signals overlaid with mobile services, AI and machine learning, both in-situ and preemptive access to information can be provided. We will get cognitive assistance. It has the power to significantly change the way we live [and improve our behavior and self-control – theoretically at least]

Level 1: Helpful Guidance

Situational awareness and voice control lay the foundation for a “second brain” as users relay on devices to listen for their (sometimes unspoken) requests and offer suggestions triggered by real-time observations and user history.

Phase 1: Digital Experiences (mainstream)

In its digital form, solutions have been available for years and are today mass-market consumer experiences.

GPS Navigation Systems guide us step-by-step to the destination offering just-in-time voice guidance. A difficult cognitive task (navigating an unfamiliar territory) has been transformed into a trivial exercise of following directions. Cognitive effort is minimized and we would not choose in any normal circumstances the paper-map over the GPS navigation system.

DriveSafe.ly is one mobile application example of a system that offers in-situ helpful guidance. It reads text messages and emails aloud in real time and automatically responds without drivers touching their mobile phones

Phase 2: Physical-Digital Hybrid Experience (emerging)

The combination of sensor-enabled wearables with the cloud-computing services creates the possibility of building real-time, truly personal contextual experiences.

The GPS navigation system or the DriveSafe.ly would issue their recommendations and guidance purely based on specific, system internal triggers (i.e. a missed turn on the road, a new text message) and regardless if you are in the right personal context to receive the guidance.

For example, if your baby cries loudly in the back seat when the message arrives and you can’t really interact by voice/audio – the voice interaction interface might not be useful even for “declining” to be read aloud the message, so would be suitable if the system will be able to detect the level of high noise you are hearing now and start a conversation with you only at the right moment (i.e. when you can actually hear the message)

Furthermore by knowing the condition of the driver through a variety of sensors (heart rate, for example), it’s easier for the car to understand the driver’s state. The vehicle could change a song to relax the driver, for example. Ford is already seeking to use the technologies to better monitor driver health.

Another evolution powered by the wearables relates to shifts in the user interaction paradigms toward more natural interactions – better experience of voice interactions with the hearables, better visualization opportunities with glasses, better gestures interface with wrist/ring wearables. Ultimately this can take the driving toward a hands-free, immersive experience.

Starting to take into use these opportunities, Mercedes Benz has developed the Glassware project, which is designed to work seamlessly with a car’s navigation system. Route directions are overlaid via glasses onto the road, allowing drivers to keep their eyes away from a GPS screen.

The automotive environment is just an example of how the integration of physical with digital can actually improve the experience and lift the cognitive effort in certain situations, and hence allowing us to focus better in what matters. 

Level 2: Predictive Assistance

Smart devices will increasingly function as smart assistants to users, anticipating what information they need based on past behaviors, current location, environmental conditions and detailed information about their physical (vital signs) and digital (calendar, contacts) state. Purveyors of these systems could market them with promises such as "minimizing cognitive lift and give you more time to focus"


Phase 1: Digital Experience (emerging)

Cortana and Google Now are intelligent personal assistants, augmented with predictive search capabilities. At the beginning they were able to guess what notifications and apps would be most useful for you. But their capabilities are increasing, powered by machine learning. The systems are designed to learn user’s behavior, find patterns in the activity, expand the insights from different other applications and input sources and continue to refine their capabilities in predictive recommendations.

Osito is a predictive intelligence application for smart phones that helps you get where you need to be by merging traffic information, weather, flight details and your calendar.

Phase 2: Physical-Digital Hybrid Experience (early phases)

Combine an intelligent personal assistant like Cortana or Google Now with a wearable, sensor-based system and the result can be quite powerful.

The cognition-assist presentation devices (in form of eyeglasses of hearables for example) can use own sensors, add the information from the other connected devices (e.g. the smartphones, car, wrist bands), apply analytics and predictive algorithms and alert us in real time with relevant information, taking in consideration our full sensory circumstances, digital presence and activity history.

Too much cognitive load, especially on long term, even if coming from small details & tasks - it gets us tiered and has implications on our well-being. “What do I need to buy from the grocery store, when do I have my son’s school appointment, do I have time to go to the bank between the other two meetings, what bus shall I take, what was the thing I had to ask from my daughter’s teacher, what was that substance I recently heard as being harmful and should check if it is in the margarine I buy, where did I see that face before, where do I need to turn” - they are all basically simple things, that we need to remember and "solve" constantly, and we need to have the correct information available easily, at the right time.
A cognitive-supporting system “knows” what my next question is and will give me the information ever before I am asking for it.

For example, a pedestrian-enabled navigation hearable could direct me more accurately on the route by knowing in which direction I am turning my head/in which direction I am looking.

Or, imagine this scenario: the eyeglasses I am wearing recognize the face of the person is approaching me as being the new CEO of a company that is our customer (I have meet him once, exchanged business cards, but I have lousy face recognition memory) The invisible earpiece whispers in my ear CEO’s name and reminds me that I have a meeting scheduled with his team next week. I get a hint to remember the hot topic and I can now quickly touch on the subject as we are together in the elevator. I just got memory assistance (face, meeting, and topic) the connection made with a future event and the guidance on how I shall act in order to get better results in a future situation. It significantly released my cognitive effort and improved my chances of success with the customer.


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References
http://electronicsmaker.com/automotive-intersecting-with-wearable-technology
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~satya/docdir/ha-mobisys2014.pdf
http://www.ibmbigdatahub.com/blog/cognitive-computing-wearable-prosthetic
http://bigthink.com/delancey-place/the-two-systems-of-cognitive-processes
Thinking Fast and Slow. Daniel Kahneman. Publisher: Farrar, Straus, and GirouxDate.

Will Wearable Technologies impact Human Behavior?

I’ll make it clear from the beginning – I am biased. I have been, since childhood, a big fan of sci-fi literature and movies.

This might have something to do with my current interest and belief in the future of wearable technologies, contextual computing, augmented reality and their convergence.

My question is not if/when wearable technologies will go mainstream and become an inherent part of our lives, but rather what is the correlation between these technologies and the human behavior change.

More precisely:

1. Can wearable technology go mainstream before/without a change in the human behavior? 
2. What are the steps and triggers in the human behavior change process? 
3. How would the new technology impact the human behavior, how will we act, learn, eat, live – in a world where wearable tech is as common as smartphones are today? 

The evolution in the sensor technology enabled the development of the first wearable tech consumer products – sensor powered bands, their main function being to track and measure our performance (function known as quantify self). These devices proved to be useful gadgets, helping us to improve our habits and reach our fitness goals – and even more they are driving a human behavior change, namely (self) competitiveness. When the change is accepted and becomes addictive, the market demand is consequently following.

The sensor powered bands are obviously the first successful story in the wearable tech market. A new product category has emerged, but they are still far from being a mass-market product.

We could assume that in order to reach mass-market, the cycle above needs more iterations, with hardware advancements, but more significantly with new functions/applications that would trigger desired human behavior changes.

The current limitations and developments needed in hardware are the clearer ones, with the most vital areas for improvements being about power optimization, miniaturization and flexibility of the components to enable truly fashionable designs, and of course increased processing capacity to enable more stand-alone complex functionalities (and all at the same time). While no perfect solutions exist today, the problem statements are well-defined.

The same cannot be said about the applications – where the question throughout the industry, analysts and consumers is not about what needs to be improved, but rather “what is it”? The right question, however, is not what new functionality the wearable technology could enable, but what is the human behavior change we aim to influence?

Product development has at its core the consumer need. Following Maslow’s pyramid of needs we shall look from the basic need of being healthy, to the needs of autonomy, belonging and socializing and finally the needs for knowledge and self-actualization. And never to be under-estimated, the addiction our brain has to convenience and immediacy [Thinking Fast and Slow]

For the sake of the game, we could paint some possible scenarios.

The need to be healthy.

Wearables become highly accurate and reliable in quality biometrics, plus convenient to use daily. Technology companies liaise with medical institutions and authorities, so that the devices are started to be promoted by the private and health sectors and insurance companies offer discounts when the gadgets are used for daily health-tracking.

The data is imported constantly to the health service(s) cloud and available in real-time for doctors. Not only would the doctors have significant information available at the time of the check-ups, but the need to check-up with doctors for less severe diseases would decrease. In fact, you are not expected to schedule an appointment anymore, but your doctor will call you to schedule a checkup based on the data received and analyzed. Furthermore, wearable in health sector could actually enable “DIY health”.

The consumers have, through sensor enabled wearable, the knowledge and hence the possibility to act for disease prevention, rather than only seek treatment when required – a desired change in the human behavior.

The need for emotional connections

Dr. John M. Gottman, internationally recognized authority in the area of human relationship, has advanced a model that identifies the basic components of emotional connection. According to Dr. Gottman, people frequently make what he calls “bids” for emotional connection. According to this model, the most harmful response that a person can receive for an “emotional bid” is not an angry response (turning against), but a non-response (ignoring, turning away). In many cases the bid is ignored because it has not been recognized, but the harm is done nevertheless.

Wearables become tangible connections between loved ones over any distance. We don’t miss the “emotional bids” sent to us anymore. Bracelets vibrate or light up when the significant other is thinking of us. The jacket our son is wearing allows us to send him a hug while we are at work. We get instant reminders when we feel down that we are loved. When we are happy, the feeling is going “out” to the dear friends.

Sharing love becomes a constant part of our day, it’s done effortlessly and instantly through our gadgets. Can it become addictive?

The need for autonomy and being in control

People have an instinctual need for safety, autonomy or being in control, yearning for a predictable, orderly world.

Wearable technologies and embedded sensors will passively be gathering information from their users and the environment, to create knowledge which is optimized and predictive to an individual’s current need, creating a safe world where we are always in the know. We will be getting the information that we need, at the right time and in the right place.

You get notified at the right time to leave so that you catch the bus that gets you home at your usual time.

Its Friday night and, as usually, you are out with your wife when you pass by a restaurant recommended by a friend and you are reminded just in time that you wanted to try it.

You missed the call from your mother while at work, you get reminded to call back when you arrive home (and not during you’re dinner with the suppliers).

It will rain in the afternoon, you get reminded to pick up the umbrella when you are at the door to leave for school.

You are having such an interesting conversation with your friends and what to share about the last book you’ve read but you can’t remember the title anymore. The gadget has been listening to your conversation and comes back with the right answer.

And, equally important, your wearable will never tell you “it’s time to go for a short walk” while you are in a meeting with your boss, even though you stayed on the same chair for 4 hours ….

This future is not science-fiction anymore. Luckily the sci-fi literature is still safe with the teleporting and time-travelling topics. At least for now


--
Originally published in Prescouter Journal, October 2014 

Smarter Devices or Smarter People?

In a world of “everything connected” we will have the possibility to do many things differently. It is the creativity in finding this difference that will lead to the breakthrough in the Internet of Things.

We are thinking today how to build smart devices. Nest, Google’s smart connected thermostat learns the environment and your habits and in about one week is able to personalize its features to you and dynamically adapt to the context.

How about devices that would help people to better adapt to the context, to react faster to a change in environment? What if the teacher in the classroom does not need to have doubts anymore – “Is this lecture proceeding well or are all my students bored to death”? What if the sensor data from the smart connected desks in the room can be collected to give to teacher an average of the “class engagement” so they can adapt the speed and tone of the lecture?

Today we have our smartphones, the best example of how smart and connected our devices became. When we are looking into buying our next smart phone – we are searching for one even smarter. More processing capacity, they “think faster”, have more memory, a better “vision” with higher and higher camera resolution, improved audio system with dual-sensor array microphones and more.

What we would really want is for us to become smarter. To have better memory. To see or hear better.

Would the smart connected wearables of the future help me to become (or at least appear) smarter, more knowledgeable, to have a better vision or hearing?

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Read more about "Internet of Things- A Challenge of Imagination"
@ http://www.prescouter.com/2015/01/internet-of-things-a-challenge-of-imagination/

2015 Trends for Wrist Wearables: From Niche Use Cases to Mainstream Business

Several forecasts issued in the last months (IDC, CCS Insight, 451 Research) are estimating significant increase of the wearable volumes in 2015 compared to 2014 and even stronger growth by 2019, with volumes estimated between 155 and 250 million units globally.

What appears evident from all the forecasts is that wearables are becoming a mainstream business.

The change might be fueled by couple of new business models – which are breaking the current limitations of the category perceived as solving only “niche consumer needs”.

Symbiosis with a mass-market industry: Smartwatches - Automotive integration accelerates

At IFA 2015 in Berlin, a new generation of smartwatches has been introduced. Top brands like Asus, Motorola, Samsung, Huawei and Alcatel each presented at least one smartwatch and several of them were stressing the devices' capabilities to integrate with some late-model connected automobiles and offer new levels of control and interaction.

Volkswagen partnered with Samsung. Car-Net e-Remote app for Gear S2 will interact with certain Volkswagen models and offer the capability to start, lock and unlock the car as well as enable access to climate control or locate the car.

BMW groups together its range of intelligent services under the BMW ConnectedDrive banner. At the IFA 2015 BMW showcased new solutions for the “connected car”, including a new Remote App for Samsung Gear S2.

Ford developed an advanced remote-control key app for Moto 360 – which allows users to check driving range and battery charge for plug-in hybrid or electric vehicles. It also allows them to track their vehicle.



Wearable technology seem to be the next wave of our digital world interweaving with our automotive lives. This newly born symbiosis between smartwatches and cars might become one of the best use cases and killer apps for the wearables.

Addressing the growing consumer segment: Smart bands for seniors

According to a new study the AARP agency conducted in conjunction with Georgia Tech and Pfizer, elderly users find fitness trackers handy but feel they lack the right features and functionality.

Toshiba has decided to enter into this (potentially large) untapped market and launched in August a pair of smart bands specifically targeted for seniors. The Silmee W20 and Silmee W21 are professional-level devices with the Silmee biometric sensors for health and fitness measurements. They can automatically measure the amount of conversation and detect the user’s meal time, able to track the UV level, the heart rate, the skin temperature, the sleep quality as well as measures related to the physical activity. Both feature an emergency button to call a preferred phone number in case of need. The Silmee W21 contains GPS for remote location tracking.

With Japan market being few steps ahead in terms of aging population (25% population is over the age of 65 compared to US and UK where the percentage is about 15%) it comes natural to have a Japanese firm leading the focus on this specific consumer segment. But the aging population trend is global, this consumer segment will continue to increase across the globe and we can expect more companies tapping into it.

Entering the Enterprise

451 Research, an information technology research and advisory company, has released this summer a report titled "Time for Work: Smart Watch App Development Turns to the Enterprise" which concludes that wearables - specifically smartwatches - are no longer a niche consumer products but are gaining traction within the enterprise.

Key findings in the report showed 39% of the US IT decision-makers at companies that use or plan to use wearable technologies will deploy solutions in the next six months with another 24 percent planning to do so in the next year. The vast majority favor smart watches.

“The release of Apple Watch has opened the flood gates governing wearables’ adoption,” said Ryan Martin, analyst, IoT and Wearable Technologies. “We expect wearable technology to deliver a key interface and input into the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). Wearables have the potential to become an interface – if not the interface – for IIoT access.”

The idea of wearables playing a larger role in the enterprise space is one shared by other players in the industry, including Intel’s Steve Holmes who said he expects wearables to become a major influence in the IT space