Items filtered by date: Tuesday, 02 December 2014

7 Nov 2017  -  MyBitcoinSaver, the New Zealand micro-savings platform for Bitcoin, has today announced the closing of $400,000 in seed round funding.  The platform, launched by Aucklander Sam Blackmore in November last year, makes it easy for New Zealanders to invest small ongoing amounts in the world’s most popular cryptocurrency, which has grown in value by almost ten times since January.  The startup plans to use the funding to continue driving growth in New Zealand while also expanding into the UK market.

Investors in the seed round included Brian Cartmell, investor in the billion-dollar US Bitcoin exchange Coinbase; David Smith, director of Caci Clinic; and Techemy: the parent company of Bitcoin analysis and news company Brave New Coin.

"Bitcoin is one of the most exciting things to happen to the financial world in decades," Blackmore says.

"But until recently, the cryptocurrency world has been an exclusive little club of early adopters. Unless you were very smart or willing to spend hours hunting for them, buying Bitcoins in New Zealand hasn’t been easy. We want to help all New Zealanders tap into the exciting opportunities Bitcoin presents."

Once registering to MyBitcoinSaver, users can set up automatic bank payments of between $10 and $200 on a weekly, fortnightly, or monthly basis.

The startup then bulk buys Bitcoin from an overseas exchange and distributes it to users’ wallets that same week.

MyBitcoinSaver has grown by more than 4000% in its first year with 1460 New Zealanders signed up to the service so far.

Blackmore has been investing in Bitcoin since 2013 and initially built the early prototype of MyBitcoinSaver - with a few lines of code - for himself, friends and family.

With a limit of $200 per week per user, MyBitcoinSaver aims to be a responsible and safe platform for buying Bitcoin, encouraging its users to use a Dollar Cost Average savings approach.

"Public interest in Bitcoin has exploded and people see buying it as a sensible addition to their savings plan," Blackmore says.

"We take the stress and complication out of buying Bitcoin and help anyone - from millennials to grandparents - take part in this revolutionary financial technology."

MyBitcoinSaver will be soft-launching in the UK within the next two months with plans to roll out the service publicly after three months in Beta testing.

The startup decided to extend its operations there because London is the financial capital of the world and there’s an appetite for a safe and reliable way to buy Bitcoin with Pounds Sterling.

The $400,000 seed money will be used to hire development staff and fund marketing here and in the UK.

| A BitcoinSaver release  ||  November 7,  2017   |||

Nov 7, 2017  - Fiji  - A local manufacturing company hopes to harness the growth in the construction sector with their recent venture into standardised steel production for local and soon export supply.  Gurbachan Singh's Steel Mills Ltd, a steel manufacturing company, has made a lucrative investment in constructing its new major production plant at Lakena in Nausori.  The new facility will see the production of thermo-mechanically-treated steel bars or in short TMT bars among many other steel products for construction use.

According to the company's managing director, Jagjeet Singh, fondly known as Jack, the concept behind the new production facility is to produce quality construction rods out of scrap steel metal.

"We will be processing scrap steel to be processed into construction rods. And these are not just any construction rods but TMT deformed steel bars which have high yield strength," Mr Singh said in an interview with this newspaper.

These bars will be made varying in size from 6mm to 25mm.

"We will also make plain rods, angles and strips from this new plant to be recycled from old scrap steel that we will buy locally."

Mr Singh, however, highlighted should the scrap metal not be sufficient in supply, the company will be complementing with billets, which are ready-made steel blocks that are purchased overseas.

But the process of producing such high quality steel bars requires sophisticated technology and equipment.

Mr Singh said the investment included the purchase of equipment and machinery required for steel production from overseas.

This brings the total investment to about $5 million, he said.

"We will cut the scrap steel into pieces which will be put into an induction furnace.

"This will then be heated up to 1200 degrees Celsius which will make it molten," Mr Singh said.

"This will then be poured and made as moulds to make billets or slabs. It is then again re-heated in the furnace to make it hot again which is later rolled as steel bars."

While the company has eyed supplying the local commercial market, particularly the construction sector, it also has ambitious plan to commence exporting to highly competitive international markets.

"The construction of the steel factory has been completed and we are currently in the processing of trial testing the new machinery and equipment," Mr Singh said.

"The reason why we are doing trial tests is to ensure that we meet standards and qualities that is met overseas."

The 2000sqm steel production plant, which sits on three acre land, was fully boosted last week as electricity supply has finally been installed at the site.

This, Mr Singh said, had been a delaying factor to the project which initially commenced in early 2015.

The new venture will also see more than 100 new and existing staff members being employed including specialists who will be coming in from India and Phillipines to operate the steel plant.

"We are expected to run trials on the November 15 and start full production by mid of December," Mr Singh said.

While the company has set its target of 15,000 tonnes of steel for its annual production capacity, Mr Singh added that this would gradually rise as business advances.

"Our Prime Minister has been emphasising a lot on the environment and the importance of recycling. We see a lot of scrap steel like bulky derelict ships that are lying on the harbour," Mr Singh said.

"With this, we are now ready to buy scrap metal and we will pay them according to the quantity. We intend to buy old ships, fresh cans, car bodies, car chassis and industrial scrap."

The production plant is also expected to officially open in January next year given that trial production and tests run smoothly.

Mr Singh, a businessman from Labasa, has been mainly involved in the manufacturing industry for a number of years with his company specialising in several areas and products.

Apart from his recent steel venture, Gurbachan Singh's Steel Mills Ltd, the company also manufactures PVC pipes, trading tyres, garden hose, water tanks among many others.

|  A FijiTimesOnline release ||  November 7,  2017   |||

7 Nov  -  Dr Lynn Wilcox is the chief technology officer at Fuji Xerox’s Palo Alto Laboratory (FXPAL) in California and an expert in the Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI).  Recently, Wilcox and her team at FXPAL have been working on projects in the ambient intelligence space – that is, the real world, practical application of IoT and AI.

From a smart teleconferencing system that will notify individuals interrupting the meeting to tracking the location of patients in a hospital, as Ambient Intelligence develops - the impact it could have across all industries is exciting.

But what exactly is Ambient Intelligence and why should we care about it?

In anticipation of her upcoming visit to New Zealand, Wilcox breaks down why we should be excited about Ambient Intelligence, what’s going on at FXPAL at the moment and what happens when the use of IoT technologies becomes unethical.

What is Ambient Intelligence, and why should enterprises be excited about it?

Ambient Intelligence refers to electronic environments that are sensitive and responsive to people.

It utilises IoT to collect data about people and the environment from various types of sensors. It then analyses and makes inferences from this sensor data using AI to provide personalised and contextual actions.

Ambient Intelligence has the power to make work more efficient - for example, by automatically knowing when you walk into a conference room that you would like to display the agenda and other information about the meeting that has been scheduled for this time, and order preferred beverages for the people scheduled to attend the meeting.

How does FXPAL work, do you develop technology solely for Fuji Xerox, or do you do work with other partners?

FXPAL is a research lab wholly funded by Fuji Xerox.

We develop prototypes to demonstrate technology and if there is interest we deploy the technology outside the lab to test real use cases. Our primary goal is to provide successful technology to Fuji Xerox for commercialisation.

In certain cases where FX is not interested in using the technology for their business, we license it to third parties. We also generate a good amount of Intellectual Property in the form of patents, which Fuji Xerox commercialises.

FXPAL is developing some very exciting AI and IoT technology with the capability to track the location of people in factories and hospitals, could you tell me about what has gone into developing these technologies?

The work began as a project to help locate co-workers in and out of the office and used a variety of technology such as GPS, device monitoring and cameras. To achieve more precise indoor localization, we began experimenting with BLE beacons.

FX Australia got interested in the technology and asked us to help develop a solution for office space management that could track which offices and meeting rooms were in use and how frequently various types of space was used. After that, the business development team at FXPAL found an application for patient management at a health care facility and we helped them deploy our technology there.

Last year Fuji Xerox Manufacturing executives visited FXPAL and saw a demonstration of our localisation technology and invited us to do a trial at the FX Suzuka factory.

We did the initial deployment this summer and are working with the factory to maximise the utility of the technology.

How often would you scrap a project?

Do you ever get right to the final stages of development before you decide the technology won’t work?

The typical research cycle is to first describe the concept, usually in an Invention Proposal, then demonstrate the concept to others, then build a prototype to test outside the lab.

There are checks at each of these stages. For example, we review Invention Proposals and if the idea is not sound or has already been described by someone else, research is stopped.

Similarly with demos, if they are not convincing the project is stopped. Finally, if the prototype fails or if no business case can be found we stop the work.

Many of our research projects are never used in products or solutions, sometimes because the technology is just too early for the market.

Could you discuss the FXPAL’s development of a secure document viewer that only allows viewing of an electronic document in secure locations?

Where are you at in the development of this technology and what would define, or who would define, a secure location?

We are at the demo stage of this technology.

We can demonstrate how a secure viewer would work by using our indoor location technology to determine whether you are inside the secure location or not. To secure a specified location, for example an executive office space, we simply deploy beacons around the office.

So far, we have not developed a location aware document viewer that would be needed for a prototype system.

One of the projects that FXPAL is working on that’s really intriguing is the creation of a smart teleconferencing systems that will monitor participants, notifying them if they are interrupting the conversation, or speaking too much.

Could you tell me more about it?

How does it make decisions such as what’s interrupting and what’s considered a contribution?

The system analyses the audio and video content of the video stream during the teleconference. It knows when each of the speakers is talking, and so can detect when a speaker begins talking while another person is talking - that’s an interruption.

It keeps statistics on how long each person is speaking during the meeting and visualises this by smaller or larger circles depending on how much each speaker is talking, so it is easy to see how your circle compares to others.

When can the use of IoT and smart technologies by enterprises, or any users, cross the line and become unethical?

How can this be monitored and prevented, and is there a danger in the power these technologies could give certain users?

That’s a good question - the same problems already arise with our online activities. There we encrypt information before sending it over open networks.

The same could and should be done for IoT devices. I think the general rule is that if a technology provides sufficient value to us we overlook the loss of privacy.

A good example is surveillance cameras.

At first we rejected them but now seeing their value in preventing crime and terrorism, everyone accepts them.

What excites you about the future of IoT? What area would you like to see IoT, AI and AR move into?

I’m particularly excited about AR, which uses IoT for localisation and AI for vision.

I’d like to see AR used for providing more information about things and places in the real world. In the digital world, I can learn more about something by doing a search.

With AR, I’d be able to look at something, for example building, and see information about its history or how it was constructed.

This would be possible with an AR wearable device that could sense my location, then recognise the building, search for related information and project it on a wearable display.

| An ITBrief release  ||  November 7,  2017   |||

7 Nov  -  Back from New York, patisserie chef Hilary Wroe recently shared her experience of working at top-end Manhattan restaurants with trainee chefs at EIT.  Hilary, who grew up in Waipukurau, was happily embracing Hawke’s Bay’s more relaxed vibe after her hectic year in the Big Apple.

For six months she worked at The Musket Room, a restaurant owned by New Zealander Matt Lambert. Her second six-month stint was at Le Coucou, a French fine dining establishment catering for around 200 guests a night.After just a fortnight back in the country, Hilary was weighing up offers for jobs in New Zealand and overseas. That, she said, was a measure of the demand for well-qualified patisserie chefs. It also reflected the experience she had gained in working for leading restaurants in the USA.

“There will always be a job for me at Le Coucou working for Daniel Skurnick. I’ve also been offered positions in two restaurants in Paris.”  After leaving Central Hawke’s Bay College, Hilary completed EIT’s Diploma in Professional Culinary Practice in 2013. That year, she was among the top achievers recognised at the Greenmeadows Rotary and EIT Hawke’s Bay Apprentice Awards.

Patisserie was part of her EIT programme, but because the institution didn’t offer a qualification then that specifically focused on developing those skills, she undertook further studies in Auckland.Now, up-and-coming chefs wanting to specialise in patisserie can study EIT’s advanced diploma programme.

Hilary is enthusiastic about her time at EIT and keeps in touch with her former tutors through Facebook.  “If it weren’t for EIT I wouldn’t be where I am today. EIT is great, it’s a good foundation for getting a job.“I’ve enjoyed progressing to patisserie because it calls for a wide range of skills. There are so many facets. You can do bread-making, desserts, candy, chocolates and plated desserts in restaurants.” With the expiry of her one-year visa to the States, Hilary is now considering her next move.

“Ideally, I would probably want to work in a particular Auckland restaurant,” she said. “Otherwise I might go to England and do a stint. There are lots of options. But right now I’m taking a well-deserved break – until I get bored and want a job.”