CrowdOptic: A first mover in HPE’ Edgeline Appliance Program is aiming to create solutions in “the IoT and the Intelligence Edge”

"This is why I loved technology: if you used it right, it could give you power and privacy,” said by Cory Doctorow is true only when you know how to use technology without misstep. But is that a reality or just a fantasy. CrowdOptic, a company headquartered in California uses real-time sensor data from electronic devices and its own patented CrowdOptic algorithms to identify and track where devices are aimed (focus) and to identify groups of people with the same focus (clusters). Thus, devices, gadgets, science and technology can be used to help citizens in improving their lives.

Uses in different sector explained below;

First Responders

Ruggedized servers are installed in police, fire and rescue vehicles to run CrowdOptic Intersect™ from the field. Live video layered with line of sight data is streamed to the cloud to give command centers the ability to contribute real-time support and forensic analysis.

Sports and Fitness

World-class coaches and trainers use CrowdOptic Intersect™ and CrowdOptic Eye™ devices for training athletes remotely, combining live interactive streaming with in-session analysis of device sensor and biometric data to create a real-time, science-based fitness regime.

Medical Procedures

CrowdOptic Intersect™ is a cost-effective means to connect live procedures to remote colleagues and students. Video and IoT data from multiple devices across multiple locations converge onto a single web page, eliminating the need for costly integrated systems.

CrowdOptic, a company involved in innovation and working in a sector that allows it to collaborate with science has few technologies under its wings to name

Wearable Application Management

This class of software is designed to manage application software running on wearable devices, such as Google Glass. Features and capabilities are easily controlled through a secure web interface. 

Wearable Device Management

This class of software is designed to track, control, and upgrade wearable device software remotely, providing flexibility to set global preferences and manage the lifecycle of each device individually.

Authentication and Access

CrowdOptic utilizes an easy to use role-based access control (RBAC) model that enables partners to manage user privileges and access to hardware and software in the system. 

Patented Analytics

CrowdOptic unlocks capabilities by analyzing data within the live streaming ecosystem. Through understanding device sensors, users can connect and interact with each other in real-time based on where their devices are aimed, and by examining device streaming and connection performance the best video from multiple feeds can be determined on the fly.

A take on Jon Fisher’s journey in creating CrowdOptic a brand in global market:

After selling his fraud-detection startup Bharosa to Oracle nearly a decade ago, the serial entrepreneur Jon Fisher found inspiration for his next venture by gazing at boats from his deck in Tiburon, CA. “I wanted to be able to aim my phone at moving boats on the water to get more information about them—such as their location,” he recounts. Fisher determined that he needed to develop custom triangulation algorithms for the task. He then began to work a handful of collaborators to develop those algorithms and sensed that the technology has vast applications. It can, for instance, track the interest of smartphone-toting audiences at crowded events, and to stitch together data points from such devices to provide a god-like perspective. It could also push, say, the best-quality video streams to a stadium TV screen or the internet. In 2011, he decided to cofound the company CrowdOptic to commercialize their work. More recently, however, he’s seeing that the technology can do a lot more. For one thing, the startup is interconnecting video feeds with IoT sensor and biometric data. Thanks in part to a partnership with HPE; Fisher says the volume of use cases for the technology is exploding—and that there is a steady uptick of applications where it can prevent injuries or fatalities. 

The company is also working with first responders to rig their vehicles with eight separate video cameras pointed in different directions. An in-vehicle HPE Edgeline computer with CrowdOptic algorithms analyze the video streams and spot anomalies in the environment, making it possible for first responders to respond more quickly to emergencies. 

The technology makes a lot of sense in police cars, Fisher says. The technology gives police officers an omni-directional view of their surroundings while capturing video that can also serve as evidence.

The same principle applies to other types of vehicles as well—like snow plows. The medical device giant Medtronic uses the technology to broadcast the surgeon’s point-of-view to sales personnel worldwide. “This highly sensitive transmission is often kept off the cloud for HIPAA compliance hence the need for a local server,” Fisher notes.

CrowdOptic is even working to deploy the technology at zoos. “We can even use the technology to examine the real-time behavior of animals to increase their lifespans,” Fisher adds. “Dozens of CrowdOptic cameras monitor the wolf exhibit at the San Francisco Zoo in real time to help the zoo monitor animal behavior. 

Ultimately Fisher anticipates the technology to find growing use in cities “Imagine the cameras and system wired into school buses transporting our children. You could understand the bus trajectory and performance in real time to create actionable alerts ranging from protecting the children against a distracted bus driver to protecting the bus driver against a chaotic event around the corner.” That’s just one example of how this technology could work.

Greeting to the Key Executive

Jon Fisher is CrowdOptic Co-founder and CEO. Prior to CrowdOptic, Jon was co-founder and CEO of Bharosa (Oracle NASDAQ: ORCL), an enterprise software security company that developed the product known today as Oracle’s Adaptive Access Manager. Jon is a recipient of the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year Award (Emerging Category, 2007), and is a prolific inventor, named on 59 patents globally. 

“The future vision for CrowdOptic is to see it deployed by entire smart cities thereby connecting cameras in new, contextually-relevant—even life-saving—ways.”