Nov 30, 2017  -  Would you like to listen to what amount to verbal tweets while you are driving: short 42 second messages from friends, musicians, news reporters, thought leaders, comedians and others?  Well, technology from ASX-listed Israeli company HearMeOut will interest you. The company has developed a platform and smartphone apps to do just that, and has now made its service accessible while driving.

HearMeOut says its platform “enables users to share and listen to 42‐second audio posts through the platform’s native feeder on other social networks, such as Twitter or Facebook,” and that through its app, “people can express their authentic voice and put their unique signature on social media interactions.”

The company has now announced it has developed a working prototype of a device, which it calls Hoop, that will enable drivers to have full access to all the features of the HearMeOut platform direct from the steering wheel of their car, without linking to any other platform.

It says Hoop is compatible with any car steering wheel, and will let drivers safely use the HearMeOut platform with both hands on the wheel. It is being developed in conjunction with DSP Group, a global provider of wireless chipsets for converged communications.

HearMeOut describes Hoop as a natural extension of its existing connected car strategy. It has a distribution agreement with Ford for the implementation of its technology with Ford’s Applink Sync platform in the US, UK and Ireland.

The company has joined Spotify and Waze in a program overseen by the SmartDeviceLink consortium that includes a number of car manufacturers and brands including Toyota, Lexus, Lincoln, Mazda, Subaru, Suzuki, Peugeot, Citroen and Daihatsu.

SmartDeviceLink is a system to standardise the connection between in-vehicle infotainment systems and smartphone applications

While having short messages being whispered into their ear while they drive might not excite many drivers. HearMeOut CTO and co- founder, Lior Menashe, claims the development of Hoop to be “globally significant,” because “for the first time ever a user can seamlessly engage with the HearMeOut platform regardless of the technology in the car.”

Hoop’s development, he says, “positions HearMeOut as a global leader in the ‘connected car’ space.”

HearMeOut has a market valuation of $11.8 million and in Q3 2017 was rated sixth in the social platform category on Apple’s US App Store, below Facebook and WhatsApp.

The company claims its popularity is being driven by the increasing use of voice for interaction with online systems. It cites figures estimating that 20 percent of mobile queries are now voice searches, and says this number is expected to reach 40 percent by 2018. Also, the company says 40 percent of millennials use voice activated intelligent assistants.

On some estimates, quoted by Microsoft at a presentation in Sydney, within a few years people will spend more time talking to machines than talking to their spouse.

Against this background HearMeOut says it has a vision to become the leading social network. The means to achieve this, it says, will be to establish sustainable growth by expanding its assets in three main areas: automotive, entertainment and technology.

In the field of entertainment the company plans to work with media companies, broadcasters and celebrities to gain content and reach. It also plans to recruit influencers from various categories.

On the technology front the company says its application programming interface (API) is in constant development to fit various wearable devices and voice assistance hardware.

It has also foreshadowed Hoop 2 “an upgraded device that features an entire closed ecosystem based on HearMeOut’s services and platform.”

The company is also doing OEM development for car companies to enables one-to-one, one-to-group and one-to-many communication via third parties and social networks.

| An IOTHub release   ||  November 30, 2017   |||

Nov 29, 2017  -  Some overseas reports say petrol cars may be obsolete by 2026 but either way the massive switch to electric vehicles will be the biggest disruptive change to people’s lives in more than 100 years, NZTech chief executive Graeme Muller says. As New Zealand’s 15,000 motor mechanics get ready for the exciting electric vehicle (EV) era, petrol cars will soon begin to phase out in the biggest change to transport in the modern era, Muller says. “A couple of weeks ago, I was at a conference on digital transformation and a presenter showed a photo of Times Square in New York from 1900, complete with horses and carriages. “Then we were shown the same view, in 1920 and not a horse to be seen. Something like 20 million horses were unemployed within 20 years. Last week, Stanford economist Tony Seba told APEC delegates in Wellington that this process has already started for cars. “He believes the tipping point is here and no petrol vehicles will be built after 2025. Tony also believes that the number of cars will have decreased by 80 percent by 2030, with most of us opting to ride in an Uber style self-driving vehicle. “I dropped my daughter off at school the other day and I was almost run over by a Tesla. We stepped out between two parked cars, heading towards the school gates, when this lovely looking car glided past. “It didn’t make a sound. Instant car envy. It got me thinking about technology change. Before my daughter finishes school, I will no longer have to do the school run. Maybe one of those purring Tesla’s will collect her.” According to Tony Seba, on current trends it will be cheaper to build a mid-range EV costing US$33,000 than a conventional car by 2019, and they would be cheaper than the average equivalent conventional small car by 2022. The next step is embeddeing the technology into roads. This is being piloted in several countries including UK, Israel and Sweden. The technology, similar to that developed by Kiwi company PowerbyProxi which was recently purchased by Apple, allows wireless charging from the road to the car. This charge-as-you-drive system would overcome battery limitations. “EVs will also play a crucial role in supporting the environmental sustainability of future transport. Helping to rid the environment of harmful fossil fuels, cutting down on air pollution emissions and providing not just a more convenient future, but a healthier one too,” Muller says. “So consider the horse and car example, by 2037 if you look along Highway 1 in New Zealand the number of human driven petrol vehicles will have probably dropped substantially to about 1 in every 10 vehicles. “The cost of insurance and enviro taxes making them too expensive for most people to run. It will be likely that many roadways in New Zealand will have embedded inductive charging systems allowing EV’s to travel and charge at low costs, and the majority of the population won’t own a car, instead choosing to “request” a vehicle when they need it. “There will be more ride sharing, lower cost of transport, reduced environmental impact, more space on roads and easier parking.”

| A NZTech release  ||  November 29, 2017   |||

Nov 28, 2017  -  If your organisation is struggling to clear backlogs of integration projects, increase time to value and overcome resource and skills constraints, you’re not alone Eric Thoo, research director at Gartner (Computerworld) writes. The need to connect applications, systems, endpoints and users in complex, multi-organisation ecosystems is growing. This is forcing integration to become pervasive, which is a critical but complex competency that’s now foundational to enabling digital business transformation. Application leaders responsible for integration are having to empower almost every member of their organisation to make this new reality happen.

If your organisation is struggling to clear backlogs of integration projects, increase time to value and overcome resource and skills constraints, you’re not alone. Making pervasive integration capabilities adaptable, at scale and extensive, compels integration teams to seek new ways of accomplishing more with less. As the number of integration technologies continues to expand, making independently designed applications and data structures work together remains a complex challenge for enterprises.

If you’re seeking simpler ways to integrate applications into the enterprise, consider introducing integration platforms armed with artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities.

|  AI-enabled integrationSeveral integration technology providers have already AI-enabled their platforms to simplify the development of integration flows, shorten the learning curve, lower skills requirements and assist in the execution of integration processes.

Some targeted, early business benefits of using AI in integration include:

• Lowering time and cost of integration by reducing usage complexity, and empowering less-technical roles to solve integration problems. For example, equipping business users to carry out integration tasks without or with minimal support from professional developers or integration specialists.
• Assisted access to a range of pre-packaged and configurable AI-infused integration artefacts for optimal alignment, as well as the deployment of application and data integration tasks through intuitive, guided designs.
• Conversational user experiences expedite efficiencies by assisting the creation of integration process or querying the operational state of the integration platform. This enables line-of-business leaders to connect systems and use independently designed applications and data structures as integrated solutions.

At this early stage, AI in integration platforms is beginning to bring together diverse, commonly required integration functionality. Some iPaaS providers – such as Dell Boomi's Boomi Suggest, Informatica's CLAIRE, SnapLogic's Iris Artificial Intelligence and Workato's Workbot – take advantage of their "integration eye in the sky" on cloud-native platforms and offer AI-enabled recommendations for integration development approaches based on collective patterns.

|  Build recommendation enginesA prominent use of AI at present is to enable business roles to perform integration. This is provided through metadata sharing and analysis to build recommendation engines that automate the integration process.

Embedded in integration platforms, recommendation engines have the ability to use graph and cluster analyses on data usage characteristics. This is done by analysing things such as the frequency of data access by data type (how data is stored – via relational, object, document and other structures); the affinity of service components (which data is put together into query objects or mined to create query objects); and the identification of user credentials and job roles involved.

|  Emergence of digital integrator technologiesAI techniques applied to integration are emerging as digital integrator technologies — that is, innovations that set out to facilitate the resolution of complex integration problems, including challenges of a scale that would not be addressable by conventional approaches.

Some functional characteristics of digital integrator technologies, such as making recommendations to improve the performance of your integration flow execution, are visible to integration developers. While others, such as helping integration tooling optimise its platform operations, are invisible to developers. These evolving innovations have far-reaching implications in terms of achieving the key dimensions of pervasive integration.

With AI-guided recommendation engines that use machine learning and inference algorithms to deliver step-by-step guidance, building data pipelines and application flows will ideally become an increasingly intuitive effort. This guidance allows diverse personas to use the recommendations of the AI engine to automate highly repetitive integration tasks, which expedites the clearance of integration backlogs that currently worry integration teams.

As the need to use diverse endpoints, deployment models and various integration patterns increases, the integration pipelines inferred by AI engines with access to discovered metadata, tagging and inferred analysis, can provide lessons to streamline and suggest which options to use when integrating applications and data.

This use of AI inside integration software potentially shortens the learning curve of both specialist and less technical integrators to manage data and business flows. This enables an extensive range of roles to perform integration tasks to pervasively address needs.

The use of AI techniques to power integration platforms and complement human capability is on the rise. Plan now for investigating, developing or further extending your integration competencies and technologies to engage in connected infrastructures and systems by including AI as part of your integration strategies and infrastructure.

Eric Thoo is a research director at Gartner, advising clients on data integration practices and technologies. He will speak about data integration strategy at the Gartner Data & Analytics Summit in Sydney on 26-27 February 2018.

| A Gartner release  ||  November 28,  2017  ||  

Nov 28, 2017  -  The Science for Technological Innovation National Science Challenge Board has provided $2m in funding for a two-year interdisciplinary research programme to examine how next-generation robots can work with humans in a safe and flexible manner.

The Science for Technological Innovation National Science Challenge Board has provided $2m in funding for a two-year interdisciplinary research programme to examine how next-generation robots can work with humans in a safe and flexible manner.

Researchers will focus on developing robots to work in small-scale manufacturing and unforgiving outdoor environments. The board said such technology could become a global specialty of New Zealand robotics businesses, with great export opportunities and long-term solutions for the country’s economic needs.”

Robotics experts from Lincoln Agritech and Scion along with researchers and PhD students from the universities of Auckland, Canterbury, Massey, Otago, Victoria and Waikato will take part in the programme.

The project will be coordinated by Lincoln Agritech group manager in precision agriculture, Dr Armin Werner, Will Browne, associate professor at Victoria University of Wellington, and associate professor Johan Potgieter of Massey University. They will work with an industry advisory group that will include robot manufacturers, food and manufacturing industries, Māori businesses and government funding agencies.

The board said the programme would lay the groundwork for follow-up projects over the next few years that would focus on making New Zealand a competitive country for the production and use of robots in small-scale, flexible manufacturing businesses and challenging environments such as those found in agriculture and forestry.

Dr Werner said the programme would advance the science required for a new generation of industrial robotic solutions. "These robots can provide enormous benefits to the primary and manufacturing sectors,” he said.

“Both industries require fast adaptation to different products and markets, and constant responsiveness to changing outdoor environments. The robots can assist with complex tasks such as pruning tree or vine crops, safely felling trees on steep slopes or assembling small batches of appliances on demand."

To develop the technology, researchers will investigate how sensors and artificial intelligence can allow robots to perceive and understand their surroundings, flexibly handle new situations through learning or training by humans or other robots, and work in challenging environments.

Werner said that, throughout the project the robots would work collaboratively with humans and behave safely around both people and animals.

"The robots will be adaptable and create new solutions for the often small-scale and highly flexible production environment in New Zealand and many other comparable regions in the world,” he said. “The targeted innovation represents a major shift from the notion of isolated robots solving single tasks."

The technology is expected to help New Zealand’s industries thrive globally and create an international hub for innovative robotics development.

| A Computerworld release  ||  November 28,  2017   |||

Nov 28, 2017  -Christchurch apps design company LWA Solutions is launching a world-first virtual reality pilot training app with the Ports of Auckland early next year. Maritime pilots people guide ships safely into harbours all around the world. As part of their job, they have to get on and off moving cargo ships by means of a rope ladder – a demanding and risky job. The LWA app uses virtual reality to safely simulate the experience maritime pilots go through when getting on and off ships. LWA chief executive Atta Elayyan showcased the virtual reality training solution at the recent New Zealand Maritime Pilot Association’s 30th anniversary annual conference in Christchurch and it received overwhelmingly positive feedback from pilots and trainers. “It’s a highly cost-effective training method, safely simulating highly variable conditions making it superior to current training methods,” Elayyan says. “We believe virtual reality training will become an industry standard in the very near future. It provides a risk-free way to prepare trainee pilots for the tasks they will need to undertake during their job and can also efficiently vet out those who may not be cut out for the role. “We understand there are no solutions like this anywhere in the world using virtual reality headsets. Our simulation is targeting the ‘embarkation training’, which is the physical process of safely maneuvering outside the pilot boat and climbing a nine metre ladder to board the ship, while both the pilot boat and ship are under way. “Some ports overseas use ship bridge simulators, which are very costly to set up or hire. We are using a highly cost-effective virtual reality training system which requires minimal physical space and is portable. We can see this disrupting bridge simulation in future.” LWA Solutions has also produced a special app for the Ports of Auckland which is significantly helping in the improve piloting of ships into the harbour. Their app is the first fully digital piloting application of its kind in Australasia. It has increased the efficiency and reduced potential human error by consolidating multiple processes into a single app highlighting ship schedules, tidal calculations and manouvre drawings. The Ports of Auckland has about 1500 shipping arrivals a year.

Ports of Auckland Senior Pilot John Barker says they we are always looking for ways to do more with less. “We use a crane and straddle simulator to train our crane and straddle drivers, a move which has improved our efficiency and saved $3 million dollars in training costs. “Our pilot app, developed with LWA Solutions, has made the master-pilot transfer safer and more efficient. Now we are introducing the virtual reality pilot training app, which aims to enhance safety by improving training for one of the most-risky manoeuvres in port operations. It is another step in our journey to becoming a world-class sustainable port.” Elayyan’s LWA team recently produced a cool app to help courier drivers in the Middle East, for multi-billion Dubai-based company Aramex. With 13,900 employees at 354 locations across 60 countries, Aramex is the largest logistics and transport services company in the Middle East. Last year, Aramex bought New Zealand courier firm Fastway, which has an annual turnover of $500 million. For further information contact LWA Solutions chief executive Atta Elayyan on 021 1453358 or Make Lemonade editor-in-chief Kip Brook on 0275 030188

| An LWA Solutions release with MakeLemonade  ||  November 28, 2017   |||

Nov 27, 2017 - Primary sector and manufacturing employees may find themselves with some interesting new colleagues in the next few years as researchers develop robots that can be trained to work alongside people in factories and the great outdoors.  A two-year, $2m project funded by the Science for Technological Innovation National Science Challenge Board is examining how next-generation robots can work with humans in a safe and flexible manner.  Researchers will focus on developing robots to work in small-scale manufacturing and unforgiving outdoor environments. Such technology could become a global specialty of New Zealand robotics businesses, with great export opportunities and long-term solutions for the country’s economic needs. The interdisciplinary research programme involves robotics experts from Lincoln Agritech and Scion, as well as researchers and PhD students from the universities of Auckland, Canterbury, Massey, Otago, Victoria and Waikato. The programme is laying the groundwork for follow-up projects over the next few years that will focus on making New Zealand a competitive country for the production and use of robots in small-scale, flexible manufacturing businesses and challenging environments such as those found in agriculture and forestry. “We will advance the science required for a new generation of industrial robotic solutions,” says Lincoln Agritech Group Manager in Precision Agriculture, Dr Armin Werner. “These robots can provide enormous benefits to the primary and manufacturing sectors. Both industries require fast adaptation to different products and markets, and constant responsiveness to changing outdoor environments. “The robots can assist with complex tasks such as pruning tree or vine crops, safely felling trees on steep slopes or assembling small batches of appliances on demand.” To develop the technology, researchers will investigate how sensors and artificial intelligence can allow robots to perceive and understand their surroundings, flexibly handle new situations through learning or training by humans or other robots, and work in challenging environments. All the while, the robots will work collaboratively with humans, behaving safely around both people and animals. “The robots will be adaptable and create new solutions for the often small-scale and highly flexible production environment in New Zealand and many other comparable regions in the world,” says Dr Werner. “The targeted innovation represents a major shift from the notion of isolated robots solving single tasks.” The technology is expected to help the country’s industries thrive globally and create an international hub for innovative robotics development. To ensure industry-informed science project coordinators Dr Werner, Associate Professor Will Browne of Victoria University of Wellington, and Associate Professor Johan Potgieter of Massey University will work closely with an industry advisory group that includes robot manufacturers, food and manufacturing industries, Māori businesses and Government funding agencies.

| A Lincoln University release  ||  November 27, 2017   |||

Nov 24, 2017  -  Artificial intelligence, machine learning and smart data are major themes at next year’s MobileTECH 2018. This is one of New Zealand’s largest agritech events and will see technology leaders from throughout the agricultural, horticultural and forestry sectors gather in Rotorua in late March.  The pace of change within the primary sector is continuing to be driven by advances in new digital technologies. While New Zealand has been a world leader in traditional farming systems, it is critical for the sector to maintain and grow productivity through the smart adoption of these new innovations.

“MobileTECH 2018 will continue to be a platform for change and showcase where the industry is headed,” said Ken Wilson, MobileTECH’s programme manager.

“The 2018 programme will feature over 35 speakers covering disruptive topics like the integration of machine learning in health and safety systems, blockchain for secure agricultural transactions and key learnings from the successful rollout of the Internet of Things (IoT) to farms throughout New Zealand.”

Thundermaps uses machine learning algorithms and big data to redefine health and safety in rural locations. OSPRI now use Thundermaps to protect their contractors working on farms. The system tracks millions of data points to ensure, via a mobile app, that the contractor receives relevant real-time hazard warnings no matter how remote the location. Both companies will be presenting at MobileTECH.

Blockchain is set to become the future for payment and supply-chain systems. Australian-based company, AgriDigital, will be on-hand to discuss what this means for the primary industry. AgriDigital delivered the world’s first live settlement of a physical commodity using blockchain technology. The pilot project saw the sale and successful delivery of 23 metric tonnes of wheat to a beef farm in NSW using the blockchain system.

The Internet of Things has moved from being an exciting upcoming technology to one that is delivering real benefits to early adopters throughout the industry. A number of speakers, including network provider Spark Ventures, agritech company ReGen and King Country farmer Lachlan Chapman, will focus on the real-world application of IoTs.

“The MobileTECH 2018 programme will open with the big technology trends and discuss how we can improve investment and collaboration within the agritech community,” said Mr Wilson. “Day two gets hands-on, highlighting practical case studies on the adoption and use of these innovations by primary sector businesses up and down the country.”

MobileTECH 2018 will be running on 27-28 March 2018 in Rotorua, New Zealand. Further details can be found on the event website, www.mobiletech.events..

| A MobileTECH release  ||  November 24,  2017   |||

Nov 23, 2017 -  Auckland based network monitoring technology provider Endace has appointed StarLink as its value-added distributor across Europe, Middle East and Africa to promote its network recording and packet capture tools writes Stuart Corner for Computerworld New Zealand. The move to boost is European presence follows Endace announcing in October 2016 a new feature dubbed Provenance, that it said would be needed to enable traders to comply with European Securities and Markets Authority’s (ESMA) upcoming Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II.

The directive requires traders to record all trade data and ensure trade events are accurately time-stamped to within microseconds of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) along with information about the reliability of the timing source.

StarLink, headquartered in Dubai, is growing rapidly in Europe through its UK based regional headquarters, according to Endace.

“The partnership will see Endace’s technology distributed by StarLink to help businesses mitigate risks from cyber-attacks and better manage the security of their critical network assets,” Endace said.

Endace CEO Stuart Wilson said network packet capture was essential to enable companies to quickly and accurately analyse security events.

“Network security is paramount in today’s connected world, especially given recent high-profile examples of costly hacks and breaches,” he said.

"Partnering with StarLink, with its deep channel relationships in this market, will enable us to extend our reach and continue to accelerate our growth in EMEA.”

Wilson said interest in Endace network recording solutions had increased dramatically as organisations grappled with how to handle breaches, highlighted by the recent Equifax breach, and in light of growing mandatory breach disclosure requirements.

Interest in Endace’s network recording solutions also increased dramatically last year when Wikileaks outed the company for its role in helping several national governments snoop on citizens' data.

Endace in July this year launched EndaceFabric, billed as a centrally managed, network-wide packet capture and recording fabric that, it said “gives network security and network operations teams the definitive, packet-level evidence they need to rapidly investigate, and respond with certainty, to cybersecurity threats and network or application performance issues.”

A year earlier, in July 2016, the company joined the Cisco Solution Partner Program, saying the move would enable it to quickly create and deploy solutions to enhance the capabilities, performance and management of the network to capture value in the ‘Internet of Everything’ (Cisco’s then preferred name for IoT).

| A ComputerWorld release ||  November 23,  2017   |||

Nov 22, 2017  - Kiwi tech companies urged to ‘eat more of their own dog food’ when it comes to selling – Kiwi technology needs to sell itself smarter to realise its full potential to become the country’s largest export industry, according to the latest Market Measures report.

“We don’t face the same environmental constraints of the other two major export sectors –agriculture and tourism – so the potential for tech is virtually limitless,” says Owen Scott, Managing Director of Concentrate Limited, who organise the study along with fellow tech marketing company Swaytech.

“Improving our ability to sell efficiently is one way of unlocking this potential, and ultimately becoming New Zealand’s primary export industry,” says Scott.

Now in its ninth year, Market Measures gathers information about sales and marketing from over 300 New Zealand technology companies, and compares the results to similar data from the USA.

“In the 2017 study we have found that Kiwi companies are over-reliant on company founders and high-value sales people to sell their products and services. More than 46% of companies said a founder was still closely involved in sales, and the average sales person in an export market was paid a base salary almost 50% higher than the typical equivalent US sales person.”

“It’s not a scalable approach to generating export sales – 40% of the surveyed companies reported that productivity was their main problem when it came to managing their sales teams,” says Scott.

Bob Pinchin, Managing Director of Swaytech, says the fact that US companies used on average three times the number of digital sales tools (e.g. email automation, contact intelligence and similar) than their New Zealand counterparts, was evidence they were more focussed on efficiency.

“In the tech industry we call this ‘eating your own dog food’, but our firms are turning their nose up at these tools at the moment.”

“We have talented tech sales people who convert leads at an incredibly high rate, but it’s the volume of sales that is the issue – this productivity challenge is one we have to solve to overtake the other two big export industries,” says Pinchin.

“Our tech sales people are really ‘artists’, talented and creative and able to craft sales, but what we need more of is scientists – people operating within a rigorous system able to produce repeatable, predictable sales results at a lower cost,” says Scott.

Scott says that more than ever before, New Zealand tech companies must be willing to invest in sales and marketing, which has been a constant trend of Market Measures since it began in 2008.

“It ranges from a stable 25% of annual revenue spent on sales and marketing (including salaries and costs) for established companies, through to an aggressive 86% for start-up tech businesses.”

“NZTE works with an increasing number of internationally successful tech companies but as the Market Measures study suggests, some of them – big and small – are forgetting to cover some of the basics that lead to export growth,” says Charles Haddrell, Customer Director at NZTE, the principal sponsor of Market Measures.

“Getting your sales and marketing strategies right isn’t just a nice to have – it’s a must have. We’ve worked with hundreds of companies and know from experience that implementing robust sales processes, developing sales and execution skills, hiring well, and being aware of the technologies to support the sales and marketing functions are vital to being successful overseas,” says Haddrell.

The full Market Measures 2017 report can be downloaded from www.marketmeasures.co.nz at a cost of $375.

| A Concentrate release  ||   November 22,  2017   |||

Nov 22, 2017 -  Auckland University’s Michelle Dickinson and Soul Machines business chief Greg Cross are among top key speakers at the biggest artificial intelligence (AI) event ever to be held in New Zealand next year.  New Zealand’s trail-blazing AI event will be held in Auckland on March 28 and will showcase the amazing strides AI has made and is making across the country, New Zealand AI Forum executive director Ben Reid says.  “AI is pervading across many walks of Kiwi life and this conference is the place to hear all about the latest in AI. Some New Zealand companies are providing cutting-edge world-first products. “We’re seeing incredible AI developments on a weekly basis and they are growing. Look at how cool Netsafe has developed the AI tool Re:scam, to stop $12 billion lost globally to phishing scams every year. The recent creation of an AI weapon against scammers is the latest example of New Zealand’s innovative culture at play “AI Forum founding member Chapman Tripp has launched a new AI service for legal due diligence. And then there’s Soul Machine’s Rachel, a digital human avatar who has been created by two-time Oscar winner Mark Sagar, now working for Soul Machines.

“New Zealand’s largest companies – including ANZ, Orion Health and Air New Zealand - are rapidly taking to AI, developing innovative new products and solutions using artificial intelligence to create new approaches to old problems. All the major players in AI around New Zealand will be at the March 28 AI Day conference.”

The conference is being organised by NewZealand.AI and the NZ AI Forum, which is part of the NZTech Alliance, bringing together 14 tech communities, over 500 organisations and more than 100,000 employees to help create a more prosperous New Zealand underpinned by technology. Reid says New Zealand is seeing so much AI appearing and changing lives and every day activities at a rate that many people cannot comprehend. “We’ll see traffic lights fitted with artificial intelligence which could spell the end of rush hour queues in our cities. The link between fashion retail and technology is growing with the rampant rise of online shopping and the use of AI technology, which is transforming the way people shop. “In Britain, national health service (NHS) patients will be assessed by robots under a controversial 111 scheme to use artificial intelligence to ease pressures on accident and emergency units. “More than one million people will be given access to a free app which means they can consult with a chatbot instead of a real person. “The speedy birth of AI in New Zealand is happening right across the country. Activity and capability in New Zealand is really gathering momentum on all fronts as the country begins to apply AI and machine learning to technology exports.” He says the future impacts on the economy and society will be significant, dramatic and disruptive.

| A New Zealand.ai release  ||  November 22,  2017   |||