To the Edge and Beyond: Recent Episodes
The Intel Internet of Things Group
Powerful innovation for real-world industry applications. Presented by Intel's Internet of Things Group.
Smart displays in malls and retail stores offer a variety of information to guide consumer decision-making and behavior. But are today’s brick & mortar retail establishments taking full advantage of all the technological capabilities smart displays offer? meldCX’s Luke Foad and Intel IoT Group’s Stevan Dragas offer some insights and smart display trends retailers need to pay attention to if they want to be leaders in their space.
"From Intel's side, we've been focused on providing platforms, technologies, products, and solution services to an ecosystem developing solutions to the end customers across a broad range of industries," says Dragas. "So, our platforms are always maintaining three things: security, connectivity, and manageability. And we have the ecosystem that scales and utilizes those platforms, those services, that Intel helps develop for them to provide exact solutions to end-users."
meldCX is one of those solutions providers that Intel partners with to make today's advanced Smart Displays a reality. "From the consumer's perspective, we want to craft store experiences where all the content we're seeing is relevant," says Foad. "Whereas from a retail perspective, we want to maximize the opportunity in store." Any information retailers can learn about shopping behavior through the smart display process can help focus efforts on better retention and increased basket sales.
With all the camera and smart display technology available in retail environments, can too much technology be bad? Are consumers and retailers concerned with privacy? Dragas said privacy is top of mind when Intel develops its solutions. "Whenever we talk about screens and intelligent screens, there is a clear determination between detection, detecting the audience, detecting the age group, detecting the environment, versus recognizing. There is no recognition without consumers, without people opting in."
A customer could opt-in through a brand’s loyalty program. Once opted in, smart display technology solutions deployed in self-check-in terminals can utilize advertising on the screen. These displays can also connect to one-to-one advertising that the brand or retailer drives through the app on a smartphone device.
Ultimately, smart display technology’s driving mantra is better customer experience. The more accurate the demographic targeting is, the better the results for customers and retailers alike. Dragas notes retail customers meldCX work with see an uptick in purchasing and customer satisfaction using such technology solutions.
Learn more about retail and hospitality technology solutions by connecting with Luke Foad and Steven Dragas on LinkedIn or visit:
Intel Retail Solutions
meldCX
Subscribe to this channel on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts to hear more from the Intel Internet of Things Group.
Today’s consumers want new and easier ways to shop and travel. The challenges are therefore building innovative technology platforms that can help retailers and OEMs develop solutions to make user experiences easier. Inefi Technologies’ Leonard Gilbert-Wines and Intel IoT Group’s Stevan Dragas share how they’re helping lead the charge with technology that is cutting wait times for the retail and hospitality industries and improving customer experiences.
Gilbert-Wines says it’s all about reducing friction and expanding choices, “Whether you’re going to a traditional point-of-sale cash register or using self-checkout, or even applications on your own devices to transact, we are heavily invested in bringing new products to market for our partners and solution providers.”
The pandemic’s challenges include labor shortages and bringing skilled personnel back into hospitality. This means technology must play an essential role through self-service and order points.
Another issue compounding wait times is software & hardware related. Dragas notes the varying speeds at which markets move, “Some software companies with the operating systems are pretty much end of life support for some of the equipment in retail…what’s needed is technologies that provide safe, manageable use of those assets over a longer period. Inefi is a perfect example where some of those services on Intel’s platform are being used.”
Gilbert-Wines agrees, “You don’t just refresh the hardware; it’s software, certification, and protocols. There’s a lot that needs to be covered. When you have that in place from a retailer, you want that in place for as long as possible to maximize the investment. So, we as an organization ensure that we put forward processes and architecture that can deliver on that promise.”
Inefi utilizes Intel IoT platforms which provide a lifecycle up to ten years or longer.
So, what’s the driving force behind the need for such rapid technological advancements? It all comes down to changing habits of consumers. In a post-pandemic world, what people want most is frictionless experiences. With retail shrinkage rising before the pandemic and growing more over the past few years, even a tiny percentage equals billions of dollars. Every small fraction that frictionless service offerings can recapture is a win.
Learn more about retail and hospitality technology solutions by connecting with Steven Dragas and Leonard Gilbert-Wines on LinkedIn or visit:
Intel Retail Solutions
Intel Hospitality Solutions
Inefi
Subscribe to this channel on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts to hear more from the Intel Internet of Things Group.
Industrial segments such as manufacturing, energy, oil and gas, supply chain, and logistics – and the facilities that support these markets – are undergoing a technological evolution. To support such rapid advancements, connectivity is the central nervous system enabling timely information flow. Chris Lucero and Mukund Shenoy, two subject matter experts in the Intel Internet of Things Group Industrial Solutions Division , spoke to Michelle Dawn Mooney about exciting happenings around industrial connectivity.
Given the complexities of the industrial setting, it’s critical to provide state-of-the-art connectivity solutions. According to Lucero, trends in industrial connectivity include exponential data growth, increases in mobile devices, scalability through software-defined networks, cloud adoption, and greater needs for cybersecurity.
Lucero says of data growth, “Everyone is turning to their operational data to improve yield, reduce defects, and optimize productivity,” he explains.
With compute and communications needs becoming increasingly intertwined in industrial settings, there is a need for smarter, autonomously functioning machines and devices to enable the Factory of the Future. Shenoy explains that, as workloads get more complex, new compute models are evolving, and Edge Compute is one of them that supports the distributed computing model. In other words, software system components are shared across multiple computers but run as one system to improve performance and efficiency. “An agile factory needs flexibility in process and equipment layout, and this calls for wireless connectivity,” says Shenoy. “So, the advancement of both compute and connectivity, together, are enabling new ways by which we can reimagine how a factory can work in the future."
So, how is Intel defining and refining its role in the industrial connectivity space? By driving end-to-end connectivity from IoT devices up to the cloud. “We’re creating wireless modules for Wi-Fi 6 and beyond, ethernet controllers for wired modalities, and edge servers and networks to receive the mix of wired, cellular, and Wi-Fi signals,” Lucero explains. “We’re also working with critical infrastructure software to make connectivity, data, analytics, and controls easy to deploy and support.”
One thing is sure: if there is an industrial connectivity problem a customer needs to solve, Intel is ready to work on a solution.
Learn more about industrial connectivity at the edge by connecting with Chris Lucero and Mukund Shenoy on LinkedIn or by visiting www.intel.com/industrial and www.intel.com/connectivity.
Subscribe to this channel on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts to hear more from the Intel Internet of Things Group.
The face of retail banking is changing rapidly as the industry works to facilitate customer engagement while reducing the costs associated with building and operating traditional bank branches. One approach is the micro-branch – a fully functional bank branch that has been dramatically reduced in size. Micro-branches are cost-effective and enable banks to adapt to the evolving needs and expectations of their customers. In this episode, To the Edge and Beyond spoke with Devakumar Rajagopalan, Banking Segment Marketing Manager for The Intel Internet of Things Group, and Srikrishna “Kris” Sharma, Financial Services Industry Leader with Canonical, about the innovative technologies and deployment strategies that are making micro-branches a reality.
“Retail banking faces a more complex environment than perhaps ever before,” Sharma said. “Driven by COVID, the social and economic landscape has been radically reshaped while customer needs and expectations continue to dynamically evolve. Banks need to ask themselves the fundamental question about their physical outlets. Are they points of sale or service centers?”
Devakumar agrees, noting that micro-branches require a specific kind of infrastructure – what he calls “technology building blocks” – in order to succeed. Two of those building blocks are edge computing and the use of micro-clouds. “Although banking institutions have a long history of edge computing, the ability to reduce the costs associated with operating edge sites (micro-branches) will be key to developing holistic solutions,” says Sharma. “What’re needed are micro-clouds – small clusters of compute notes with local storage that allow branches to create repeated deployments at the edge.”
Intel and Canonical have been collaborating on a variety of smart technologies designed to not only deliver all of the functionality customers have come to expect from a full-sized bank, but the personal interaction they desire as well. “Micro-branches merge digital and physical experiences,” Devakumar said. “They offer contactless, anytime banking along with highly immersive interactions with avatars on dynamic screens. These screens collect and transform data into actionable items, making banking both practical and engaging.”
To learn more about banking security solutions, connect with Srikrishna Sharma and Devakumar Rajagopalan on LinkedIn.
You can also visit the financial services pages offered by Intel and Canonical listed below.
Intel: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/financial-services-it/financial-services-overview.html
Canonical: https://canonical.com/
Subscribe to this channel on on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Google Podcasts from the Intel Internet of Things Group.
Rapid and ongoing advances in digital technologies have made agile adaptation the norm in industrial manufacturing. However, disruptions caused by the pandemic have forced leaders to look at infrastructure issues to plan for future disruptions. In this episode of “To the Edge and Beyond,” host James Kent talks with Irene Petrick, Senior Director of Industrial Innovation, and Faith McCreary, Senior Principal Engineer and Senior Researcher and Strategist for Industrial Innovation, both at Intel, about the challenges leaders face and what it will take to survive and thrive in the “new normal.”
“COVID has been an amplifier for pre-existing issues such as access to digital data, worker safety, poor information quality, and unexpected data variances,” says McCreary. “Fortunately, industry leaders are starting to see that infrastructure is an important enabler that can help them deal with those issues.”
Petrick agrees, adding “The lesson they’ve learned is that they need to be better prepared. There are no quick fixes. Disruptions can come from anywhere and will continue.”
Petrick and McCreary expect remote work, resource fragility, worker safety, and global supply chain issues to make the need for changes to infrastructure very clear. “Our work suggests that the infrastructure piece is a critical problem,” says Petrick. “Machines give off an incredible amount of data. But not all of it is relevant. We have to figure out what data matters, how often to collect it, and how to process it at the edge so that we’re only capturing the most important aspects.”
Labor shortages further increase infrastructure problems. “Employers used to feel that automation would replace workers. But the concern now is they don't have enough workers so they must automate,” Petrick says. “Companies are having to scramble to attract, keep, and figure out how to equip workers with AI and automation solutions that augment their ability to do their jobs,”
“There are just not enough digitally savvy workers to go around,” adds McCreary, “and that’s not going to change anytime soon. What makes it more complicated is that it’s not enough for a worker to have digital skills. They also need an understanding of manufacturing. Leaders need what we call ‘double-deep’ workers with both manufacturing and technology skills.”
According to Petrick and McCreary, the solution lies in creating an ecosystem of collaborators. “It’s like making a patchwork quilt,” says McCreary, “and everyone is looking to Intel to bring the pieces together – to play the role of matchmaker. We’re spending a lot of time developing standards to help the ecosystem partners play well together in the sandbox.”
“It’s a great time for technology companies,” says Petrick, “because it gives us problems that digital technologies can solve very well.”
Connect with Irene Petrick and Faith McCreary on LinkedIn.
To learn more about the latest in Industrial IoT and digital transformation visit: www.intel.com/industrial
Subscribe to the “To the Edge and Beyond” Channel on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Google Podcasts from the Intel Internet of Things Group.
Fueled by increases in ecommerce and the number of devices that require electricity, the demand for reliable, renewable, and sustainable sources of electricity is increasing worldwide. In this episode of “To the Edge and Beyond,” Intel’s Adam Berniger and Prithpal Khajuria join Justin Honore to discuss the challenges facing energy producers and how Intel, working with public and private partners, is creating an ecosystem of solutions to meet those challenges.
“Current energy grids are static,” says Khajuria. “In order to make use of renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, and water, they must become dynamic - meaning flexible and responsive to fluctuations in demand. The way to accomplish this is by injecting intelligent, data-driven technologies into the system.”
Adman Berniger, whose job involves blending innovation and analytics to develop effective solutions for Intel customers, agrees. “The need to modernize is pressing. By making use of technologies that enable us to store, predict, and shift energy to where it is needed at any given time, we can take advantage of the variable resources that are coming on board,” says Berniger.
When Khajuria and Berniger talk about intelligent, data-driven power grids, they are referring to three things:
Bringing compute power to the edge so that data can be collected, analyzed, and used to make informed decisions about when and where energy is used;
Creating more multi-functional devices capable of virtualization; and
Connecting unconnected devices and data sets so that information and energy can be shared.
“The good news is that most of the technologies required for modernization have been around on the IT side for several decades,” says Berniger. “Intel is collaborating with both the public and private sectors to take advantage of proven technologies and establish best practices.”
Creating this ecosystem of partners is enabling energy producers to modernize their own infrastructures and resulting in innovative solution sets that might not otherwise have emerged. “Intel brought the whole ecosystem together,” Khajuria adds. “We’ve worked with hardware manufacturers to build rugged servers, software developers to build programs for those servers, and OEMs to bring their appliances to the edge.”
“This is really an exciting time to be working in the power industry,” says Berniger. “Industrial edge compute is finally coming of age.”
Connect with Adam Berniger and Prithpal Khujaria on LinkedIn.
To learn more about Intel’s Smart Energy IoT solutions visit: Intel.com/Energy
Subscribe to this channel on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts to hear more from the Intel Internet of Things Group.
Industry 4.0 – What is it, and how can manufacturers make it a reality in their operations? In this episode of To the Edge and Beyond, host Daniel Litwin talks with Hector Martinez, an industrial automation expert at Intel, about manufacturing challenges fueling the push towards Industry 4.0 and the technologies that are making Industry 4.0 possible.
The need for Industry 4.0 solutions is a result of many factors including supply chain disruptions, labor shortages, and rapidly changing customer demands. Adopting 4.0 solutions involves combining new technologies with legacy applications and allocating more power to edge computing, which can lower costs, improve resilience, and increase productivity. “Slowly but surely,” says Martinez, “manufacturers are realizing that incorporating the latest automation technologies will allow them to capitalize on all the data that gets generated during operations. Having this data will increase ease of use, reduce risk, and allow them to create more capable interfaces, algorithms, and models.”
The switch to Industry 4.0 raises challenging questions. How do manufacturers:
- Maximize return on investments in legacy systems?
- Collect and use data effectively at the edge?
- Increase processing power and connectivity speeds?
- Address the demands of extreme industrial environments? According to Martinez, successful implementation of Industry 4.0 solutions depends on evaluating each manufacturer’s needs and selecting a high-performing processor designed to excel at the edge. “The differentiator for this technology will be how flexible and easy it is to adopt and whether or not manufacturers can make efficient use of legacy applications and devices by incorporating edge solutions such as AI, digital twins, and robots,” says Martinez.
“When you’re in manufacturing, continuous improvement is part of the job, but the good news is that Industry 4.0 is within reach for most manufacturers.”
To continue the conversation with Hector Martinez, connect with him on LinkedIn.
Learn more about Intel’s industrial automation solutions, visit:
www.intel.com/iot
www.intel.com/industrial
www.intel.com/processors
Subscribe to this channel on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Google Podcasts to hear more from the Intel Internet of Things Group.
The banking industry is facing challenges on two major fronts – the increased demand for self-service banking options that eliminate in-person transactions and the need for ATMs and self-service kiosks that can connect to and interact with remote mobile devices. Both challenges have accelerated the development of customized ATM interfaces – designed to increase engagement and build customer loyalty - and focused the attention of Intel and its partners on finding new and better ways to manage, repair, and make ATMs accessible and secure. According to Pandey and Sahoo, there are several issues with current approaches to remote device management that Intel has been working to address.
First, there is no centralized management tool. Administrators have been forced to use a wide range of content management tools (CMTs) to accomplish a variety of tasks. As a result, they spend most of their time managing the tools that manage the different devices. This is expensive, cumbersome, and leads to compatibility issues.
Second, there is no way to provide dynamic support – no way to troubleshoot issues remotely on the fly in realreal-time time and no way to remotely schedule when devices power on and off.
Third, the capabilities of the device management systems at the bios (basic input output system) level limit what can be done remotely, making it almost impossible to meet the strict compliance standards banks operate under.
The solutions to these challenges and limitations lie with two Intel technologies developed specifically to address the performance, security, manageability, and stability issues and with Intel’s ongoing collaborations with partners like 42Gears.
- The Intel VPro Platform: A business-class platform built to enhance performance, security, manageability, and stability.
- Intel AMT: Allows administrators to control Intel VPro devices from anywhere.
“Intel’s AMT offers remote management above and beyond what most solutions can offer,” says Sahoo. “It allows VPro devices to be accessed below the operating system – what we call, ‘Out of Band Management,’ which means you don’t have to depend on the operating system to provide access to devices.”
Moving forward, Pandey and a Sahoo are confident that Intel’s collaborations with ecosystem partners will solve any problems encountered as remote banking management continues to grow and evolve, allowing ATMs and self-service kiosks to become much more than cash dispensers. “It’s collaborations between Intel and companies like 42Gears that will help solve the major issues plaguing the end point management industry and provide great opportunities for a lot of our banking customers,” says Pandey.
To learn more, connect with Santosh Kumar Pandey and Swapnil Sahoo on LinkedIn.
Subscribe to this channel on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Google Podcasts to hear more from the Intel Internet of Things Group
Open-Source technologies are quickly becoming an essential component in analyzing data, and “To the Edge and Beyond” covers insights on how edge computing is bringing data processing as close to the data source as possible. Host James Kent discusses the topic with Intel’s Brad Corrion, Director of Strategic Software Architecture, and TIBCO Software’s Jesús Centeno, Chief of Staff and Innovation Strategy for the office of the CTO. The two guests define the edge and how it compares to cloud computing.
“The main aspect is always contrasting with cloud computing,” Centeno added. “And how much more costly it is to send the data to the cloud, to do the processing, the inferencing, and get the insights that you need, and then send back those insights to the edge device to take action.” Centeno said people want instant access to that information, so they make decisions right away. But if edge computing is to catch up to the flexibility and scalability of cloud computing, tools are needed to make mass deployment a reality, and open-source projects are one way to help accelerate innovation at the edge.
Intel and TIBCO Software are both focusing on propelling open-source technology in new and exciting ways. One such example is Project AIR, an IOT platform for collecting, processing and visualizing IOT data. “Project AIR specifically focuses on edge computing. You can think of project AIR as your IoT platform that is going to help you connect the edge to the rest of your ecosystem.” Centeno said. Through the collaboration between Intel and TIBCO, the teams have created a whole suite of tools that allow developers to experiment, innovate and have access to hardware and data quicker.
Corrion says there’s one final hurdle for companies preparing to adopt Edge computing. “Company teams need to start playing with these technologies. That’s because when we talk about MLAPs, deep learning, collecting data, using containers, and using orchestration we are referring to Cloud practices that are brand new to this environment. Teams need to start playing with the tech, developing practices and muscle memory so they become natural for them. If a company doesn’t start now, that learning curve is going to hurt them later.”
Subscribe to this channel on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Google Podcasts to hear more from the Intel Internet of Things Group.
To learn more about Project AIR please check out the below:
- Check out the open source versions of TIBCO's project air at https://www.tibco.com/resources/demand-webinar/project-air-how-collect-process-and-visualize-iot-data-right-way
- Go and download today to try for yourself at https://tibcosoftware.github.io/labs-air/
Hybrid learning, meaning the use of technology to make alternatives to standard, in-classroom learning available, is nothing new. However, the pandemic has created an urgent need for more and more diverse hybrid learning options that work for both teachers and students. According to Duncan Peberdy of Learn From Anywhere, many colleges and universities have long recognized the need for hybrid options but are unsure where investments should be made. “Hybrid learning isn’t just the acquisition of ed tech,” says Peberdy. “It’s how that tech gets used – how staff and students are trained. There are lots of aspects around the technology that are crucial to getting it embedded and brought into everyday use.”
One solution to the complex and evolving needs of hybrid learning is The Visual Learning Lab (VLL). The VLL is a partnership between ViewSonic, Kramer, AVer, and Intel that seeks to democratize and improve hybrid learning using “standard kit,” meaning readily available products and services. “The great thing about the partnership we’ve got,” says Pebody, “is that those companies could’ve fathomed something out on their own, but we decided that by coming together we could potentially create something far greater.” The VLL has been working with Glasgow University to deploy and test a variety of hybrid learning options including remote conferencing, large screen collaboration, movement tracking, air quality, lighting, temperature control, and digital signage.
Another, and equally vital part of the hybrid learning puzzle is data. “For me, collecting and analyzing data from all sensors in our kit to see how effective our solutions have been is the key to moving towards a Smart Campus,” says Frost. Smart Campuses collect and make use of data from all sensors deployed in a building with a goal of better understanding and improving the educational environment and experience. “That research side is something we need to explore more,” says Claxton, “because we’re going to gain a lot of data, and we don’t want to slip back to pre-COVID days. We want to actually change what future classrooms will look like.”
Frost, Claxton, and Peberdy welcome feedback and communication via LinkedIn.
Subscribe to this channel on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Google Podcasts to hear more from the Intel Internet of Things Group.
In the second part of “Store as a Media: How can brands and retailers truly engage shoppers?” host Maroun Ishac, Director of Business Development at Intel’s Internet of Things Group, talked with David Roth, CEO of The Store WPP and Chairman of the BAV Group, and Jay Hutton, CEO of VSBLTY. The Store tracks emerging technologies, purchase platforms, and physical formats that are changing shopping rituals around the globe. VSBLTY offers state-of-the-art software driven by artificial intelligence and machine learning. Together, the trio explored the concept of stores as media and the many and diverse partners and abilities it will take to make that concept a reality.
More and more retailers and store owners are taking an omnichannel approach that reimagines the in-store experience by harnessing the capabilities of multiple partners. David Roth refers to these partnerships as a consortium. “When we bring a consortium of people with different perspectives and skillsets together, then things can be done very fast and at scale. But there isn’t one particular organization that has the skills and ability to pull all the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle together. It takes a collective of skills and disciplines to really make this technology work.”
Jay Hutton agrees saying, “There are a lot of players. It takes leadership – technology leadership, but more importantly concept leadership.” The overall take away of the conversation centers around the importance of what David Roth calls, ecosystem brands.
“Each element in the ecosystem plays a vital role in ensuring that the customer proposition is developed and delivered well,” says Roth. Equally importantly, however, is the need for an ecosystem to have a center of gravity around which all the partners can revolve and find balance. “I think Intel provides that center of gravity so that the ecosystem can then move around in what should be perfect equilibrium,” Roth concludes.
“The center of gravity is a great way to describe the role for Intel,” Hutton says. “But I have a point of view that suggests that new ecosystems are most quickly advanced by small companies that are agile and innovative aligning with big companies. That’s what we have on our hands now. I think Intel plays a critical role in the creation and delivery of thought leadership.”
Connect with Maroun Ishac, David Roth, and Jay Hutton on LinkedIn
David Roth: David.Roth@WPP.com
Jay Hutton: https://VSBLTY.net
Subscribe to this channel on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Google Podcasts to hear more from the Intel Internet of Things Group.
The intersection of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and edge computing is resulting in a fundamental change in how we perceive, access, learn from, and employ data across a wide range of industries. The need for edge computing, or using a distributed computing architecture to shift data processing and storage closer to where the data is created to provide faster access to insights, is critical for low latency, privacy, and cost-effective movement of data.
Advances in AI have been fueled by compute becoming more sophisticated, powerful, and able to deliver very complex computations in a short amount of time. “The fuel that feeds AI is data,” says Wouhaybi. “We have a lot of data we’ve collected across domains. But we can’t scale unless we can collect more data. It’s become a snowball effect in which the more value you get out of AI, the more motivated you are to collect data. And the more data you collect the more value you get.”
Wouhaybi discussed the four ways AI learning is being used to solve challenges in a variety of industries:
• Continuous Learning: A single AI looks for ways to improve without input from other AIs.
• Distributed Learning: Groups of AI are deployed together, in the cell of a manufacturing facility for example, where they learn from and share what they learn with one another.
• Transfer Learning: AI watches, monitors, and mimics what human beings are doing, then seeks to improve on the process.
• Federated Learning: Massive amounts of data from multiple data sets is pooled, and AI is employed to study, learn from, and deliver outcomes without compromising privacy.
Despite what she describes as “remarkable advances in technology and innovation” that have occurred in both edge computing and AI, Wouhaybi feels that AI at the Edge is still in its infancy. “The more people play with AI, the better AI will be,” she says, “and the better we will be both as professionals and as human beings. I can’t wait to see what else AI at the edge will accomplish going forward.”
To learn more about Rita Wouhaybi:
• Connect with her on LinkedIn
• Visit http://www.intel.com/oneAPI
Subscribe to this channel on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Podcasts to hear more from the Intel Internet of Things Group.
The role of the store is changing. For success, differentiation and emotional connection with consumers is crucial.
In this episode of “To the Edge and Beyond,” host Maroun Ishac, Director of Business Development at Intel’s Internet of Things Group, talked with David Roth, CEO of The Store WPP and Chairman of the BAV Group, and Jay Hutton, CEO of VSBLTY. The Store tracks emerging technologies, purchase platforms, and physical formats that are changing shopping rituals around the globe. VSBLTY offers state-of-the-art software driven by artificial intelligence and machine learning. The trio explored the notion of the store as an advertising medium, branding use cases, and the many diverse partners and abilities it will take to make that concept a reality.
The pandemic has forced retailers and store owners to examine how they did business in the past and reimagine how it will be done in the future. Key concerns include how to creatively engage consumers and how to collect, analyze, and use data about their in-store shopping experiences. Ishac, Roth, and Hutton believe that the disruptions and changes brought about by COVID have paved the way for the new and faster adoption of technologies that will make creative engagement and broadscale data collection possible.
What used to be simply a distribution channel is slowly becoming a media channel, with the primary role of a store not being to sell products but rather to deliver the most emotionally engaging and interactive experiences possible, to develop and strengthen brand affinity and trust. Consumers can expect to see significant investment in digitizing traditional store elements like shelves, fridge, endcaps and displays.
But there’s still a long way to go, Ishac, Hutton and Roth talked about some of the infrastructure needed including alignment of technology with appropriate messaging, the right analytics engines to make sense of data and derive insights and staff that are wholly engaged in the process.
Stay tuned next week for part 2 where the trio discuss the ecosystem of partners and infrastructure needed to establish the store as a medium.
Connect with Maroun Ishac, David Roth and Jay Hutton on LinkedIn
Subscribe to this channel on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Google Podcasts to hear more from the Intel Internet of Things Group.
The use of Artificial Intelligence and other new technologies is becoming essential for manufacturers working to build resilience and remain competitive in an ever-changing marketplace. According to a recent survey from The Manufacturer, 65 percent of leaders in the manufacturing sector are working to adopt AI. In this episode of To The Edge and Beyond, Host Tyler Kern talked with Tara Thimmanaik, Systems Architect and Dave Austin, Senior Principal Engineer for the Industrial Solutions Division at Intel about adopting industrial AI for smarter manufacturing.
More and more manufacturers are seeing AI as the way of the future, so much so that its adoption is expected to grow at a rate of 57.2 percent CAGR over the next five years within warehouses. However, implementation can be challenging and there are barriers to entry. "The barriers are everywhere. “They usually start with the fact that there’s never enough data,” says Austin. “You’ve also got to have enough of the right kinds of data. AI needs context, labels, and quality to create viable solutions.”
Thimmanaik agrees adding, “It’s not just about getting AI training right. It’s about taking the environment in which the AI performs into consideration. That’s what Industry 4.0 is all about – the digital transformation of manufacturing.”
Thanks to the COVID pandemic, companies are realizing they need to innovate and shift their focus. “As a system architect, I like to understand what it takes to make those 4.0 transformations happen on factory floors,” Thimmanaik says. “There are LOTS of technologies which must come together and play well. We must realize that only those technologies that make business sense will be adopted.”
"AI is very good at giving us insight into what it's trained to do,” said Austin, “but once we start getting into that space of asking it to give us an answer for something it isn't trained to do, or outside of that data space, it's actually not so great."
Thimmanaik stresses that what is needed is an ecosystem of solutions. “Intel has a whole range of market-ready solutions, and we partner with some of the best players in this industry. It’s about identifying business problems and developing end-to-end solutions that are easily scalable.”
To learn more about Tara Thimmanaik and Dave Austin:
• Connect with them on LinkedIn
• Visit www.intel.com/manufacturing
Subscribe to this channel on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Podcasts to hear more from the Intel Internet of Things Group.
In this episode of To The Edge and Beyond, Host Courtney Echerd talked with Ron Eccleston, Global Market Strategist for the Internet of Things (IoT) Group at Intel, and Cole Baker, Senior Global Alliance Manager at LogiTech, the world leader in products that connect people in naturally intuitive ways to the digital experiences they care about. They discussed the many challenges facing companies and their remote workforces during the pandemic, as well as how technology companies have stepped up to meet the demand for solutions that replicate in-person experiences.
The global pandemic has forced companies to rethink how and where their employees work. One of the biggest challenges has been finding ways to ensure that meetings and collaborations can continue without in-person interactions. Thankfully, enterprise IT companies, such as Intel and LogiTech, have been able to anticipate and meet the technology requirements of remote workplaces. “There really aren’t a lot of heavy lifts at this point,” said Eccleston. “You don’t have to have a Ph.D. in IT or IT Support available. It’s really the easy button at this point. It’s plug-and-play. Anyone can do it, and it’s affordable.”
Looking to the future, neither Eccleston nor Baker feel workplaces will return to the way they were prior to the pandemic. “I don’t believe we’ll ever go back to everyone being in the office,” said Baker. “This hybrid work environment is here to stay. We need to have a flexible, work-from-anywhere mindset as we continue to adjust to this whole new world.”
Learn more about solving work-from-home challenges by connecting with Ron Eccleston on LinkedIn or visit https://www.intel.com.
Subscribe to this channel on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Google Podcasts to hear more from the Intel Internet of Things Group.
On the second part of a two-part episode of To the Edge and Beyond by Intel with Voice of B2B Daniel Litwin is Maria Meow, APAC Hospitality Vertical Marketing Manager for Intel's Internet of Things Group, and Ankur Jain, Founder, and CEO of UdyogYantra Technologies, a company focused on bringing Industry 4.0 and its associated ecosystem of technologies to various industries, including Restaurants.
As consumer demands for convenience accelerated post-COVID, the need for scaled food delivery accelerated as well, turning many restaurant operations to consider implementing ghost kitchens, remote third-party food prep hubs as a solution. Innovative technologies like computer vision, IoT, data analytics, and artificial intelligence support this push in food and beverage, and strategies are leading to quality implementation and offering new business opportunities.
But, it's not all roses, as some restaurateurs have been hesitant to adopt these technologies at scale. Third-party delivery apps and ghost kitchens have led to some food quality issues that have led to consumer hesitancy. This hesitancy stems from consumer expectations that focused on dine-in quality, as opposed to delivery quality, according to Jain.
But, the industry will have to try to reap the benefits of AI and IoT though, according to Meow, as restaurants try to meet consumer demand for food safety, such as contactless payment, while also drawing new customers.
"We need to know how to use the technologies that we have right now, especially in AI and IoT, to streamline the operations, or even to create a better experience for customers," Meow said.
Subscribe to this channel on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Google Podcasts to hear more from the Intel Internet of Things Group.
In the third installment of Christine Boles’ treatise on the intelligent edge's power to help transform industrial businesses to meet future challenges, Christine explores the emerging role of 5G to accelerate the acquisition of connectivity improvements and speed of sharing data. While the full potential of a move to 5G will take time, Christine lays out the tangible benefits for why industrial firms should now engage in planning and testing wireless solutions that will allow incremental adoption of 5G solutions as they become viable. She shares how Intel and its partners have already completed 5G proof of concepts that demonstrate great promise for achieving real-time value and competitive advantages over firms who are reticent to act.
Learn more about Intel’s Internet of Things solutions by connecting with Christine Boles on LinkedIn or visit www.intel.com/industrial
Subscribe to this channel on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Google Podcasts to hear more from the Intel Internet of Things Group.
On this first part of a two-part episode of To the Edge and Beyond by Intel with Voice of B2B Daniel Litwin is Maria Meow, APAC Hospitality Vertical Marketing Manager for Intel's Internet of Things Group, and Ankur Jain, Founder, and CEO of UdyogYantra Technologies, a company focused on bringing Industry 4.0 and its associated ecosystem of technologies to various industries, including the Restaurant industry.
When it comes to IoT, Meow has been at the intersection for over ten years at Intel. One thing she's noticed is that as technology has evolved, so has knowledge. In her role she is regularly relying on IoT to help improve food operations and to help ensure the trust and quality of food, which addresses a lot of consumer concerns.
With population is expected to increase globally by 10 billion in 2050, this creates a demand for creative food solutions, according to Jain. "There is a need to have a safe, predictable, and stable food supply chain," Jain said. "Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, and data analytics can play a big role in creating these safe, predictable, and sustainable food supply chains."
Intel technology is at the forefront of these IoT innovations, powering AI and analytics solutions like UdyogYantra’s to address these concerns for both consumers and restaurant brands.
The wheels of ghost kitchens were already in motion before COVID-19. But, their viability increased during the pandemic, as restaurants pivoted to meet consumer demand for BOPIS and third-party delivery. Now that things have settled a bit, restaurants are still sticking with some or all of the models developed during the pandemic.
"Digital transformations have been accelerated ever since the pandemic began and have pivoted to delivery, pick up and drive through," Meow said. "Digitally transformed brands will reap the benefits.”
In part two of a three-part series, Intel’s Christine Boles continues to lay out the intelligent edge's role in industrial transformation through the convergence of AI and business operations analytics. She shares a roadmap for how companies can use the “edge” to drive greater insight into business operations and enhance their sustainability goals. She highlights how to leverage the right compute, capabilities, and AI-derived analytics to unlock information hidden in terabytes of underutilized process data, thus improving enterprise visibility and the bottom line.
Learn more about Intel’s Internet of Things solutions by connecting with Christine Boles on LinkedIn or visit www.intel.com/industrial
Subscribe to this channel on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Google Podcasts to hear more from the Intel Internet of Things Group.
Christine Boles, Intel’s head of the Industrial Solutions Division, shares her vision and makes a compelling case to seize Industry 4.0 opportunities by leveraging the power of the intelligent edge in industrial transformation. She highlights how integrating industrial capabilities like AI and machine learning and vision can generate new and meaningful insights about business processes that can drive improved decision-making and real-time efficiency gains. Through more IT/OT integration on the factory floor, Intel can be a processing capability multiplier by bringing the power of its developer ecosystem to bear on the challenges facing industrial partners.
Learn more about Intel’s Internet of Things solutions by connecting with Christine Boles on LinkedIn or visit www.intel.com/industrial.
Subscribe to this channel on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Google Podcasts to hear more from the Intel Internet of Things Group.
When you think of the challenges that a convenience store owner or operator faces, bleeding-edge technology may not seem high on the priority list. Traditionally, the convenience store industry is conservative in its approach to early technology adoption due to slim margins and aggressive competition.
But challenges during the coronavirus have brought technology, innovation, and smart business solutions to the forefront of store owners' minds, according to Intel IoT Sales Specialist Kristen Call and IoT Marketing Manager John Klafin.
Call and Klafin joined host Shelby Skrhak on this episode of To the Edge and Beyond to discuss edge technology deployment in the convenience store industry.
"I would have agreed, a year ago, that bleeding-edge technology is not on the forefront, but this last year has shifted that," Call said." We're seeing a lot more of the industry dive into how to make their businesses smarter."
Smart businesses have smart devices.
"We've seen the proliferation of edge computing, computer vision and artificial intelligence in the retail industry, as well as Internet of Things, where we make devices smart and connected," Klafin said. "There's a tremendous amount of intelligence that we're helping retailers process and turn into valuable business insights."
Actionable intelligence requires huge amounts of data, and data from internet-connected smart devices requires bandwidth to keep pace. Rather than connecting a store's growing number of smart devices and sending all its respective data to the cloud, the edge platform can give stores the power to analyze data on-site.
More than making c-stores better with data and business insights, IoT is making stores safer during the COVID-19 pandemic. Contactless temperature checks for customers, density monitoring, and customer counting are all tools that store owners can use to keep their employees and customers safe.
"Having artificial intelligence as part of your game plan is a huge advantage," Call said.
Learn more about deploying the edge in convenience stores by connecting with Kristen Call and John Klafin on LinkedIn or visit www.intel.com/retailSubscribe to this channel on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Google Podcasts to hear more from the Intel Internet of Things Group.
It’s a frustration many customers have encountered. After going online to see if a certain product or style is in stock, it’s time to head to the store and pick it up. But then, when you’re there, the item isn’t.
That could be changing, said Eshe Pickett, Software Architect for the Intel Internet of Things Group, as retail outlets utilize edge and cloud technologies to better manage data that tracks inventory and other metrics.
“One of the great things about this emerging interoperability … is where you have the ability to replicate your data in multiple locations and keep those datasets very well synced,” she said.
The two types of systems can work together to better integrate systems retailers need not only to work but to work quickly to provide the best type of customer experience.
“Enabling those systems to interoperate between cloud-backed inventory management or point-of-sale solution that is tied to in-store inventory is one of the things retailers have really been working to make seamless. So, being able to host data at the edge and cache the data, where it’s going to be most needed to reduce the latency in terms of going back to the cloud and coming back to the edge – you’re able to provide a much more seamless experience,” Pickett said.
That’s one of several use cases more advanced servers are helping retailers with, with others including improved point-of-sale experiences and loyalty customers being able to utilize an app to quickly get in and out of a store after deciding which items they want to pick up.
Intel is a founding member of the Open Retail Initiative, which provides the framework for a collaborative foundation for digital transformation and value-added innovation and a common deployment platform for edge-based solutions and devices.
Learn more about The Open Retail Initiative by connecting with Eshe Pickett on LinkedIn or visit https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/retail/open-retail-initiative.html.
Subscribe to this channel on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Google Podcasts to hear more from the Intel Internet of Things Group.
With the global IoT security market poised to grow from an annual $12.5 billion to $36.6 billion over the next five years, it is clear the need for solutions to protect the front-of-house bank operations is imperative. Devakumar Rajagopalan, Banking Segment Marketing Manager, and Wallace Lee, Senior Platform Solution Engineer, both with Intel’s Internet of Things Group, brought their insights on the current situation to this episode of To The Edge and Beyond.
Rajagopalan spoke about the frequency of cybersecurity events occurring in banking. “Every day, we hear of an organization where there is a data breach or a customer is losing money from their account with stolen credentials,” Rajagopalan said.
And how does the pandemic factor into these issues and risks? “2020 was a challenging year for banks when it comes to cybersecurity,” Rajagopalan said. “Because of COVID, the customer has to do more virtual banking, and employees are working from home. This has created the biggest cybersecurity challenge for banks.” Rajagopalan noted that, during comparative periods in 2020 vs. 2019, the number of cybersecurity incidents was up significantly.
“There is no doubt the financial industry’s done a good job keeping up with the investment in cybersecurity infrastructures,” Lee said. “Unfortunately, cybersecurity today is still pretty much like a game of cat and mouse. Why, you may ask? Because there is no way to know the vulnerability if you don’t know they ever existed.”
Edge Computing offers a wide range of security benefits for banks, including the ability to defend the attack right at the source without compromising the overall banking systems – once an attack has happened, there is a high chance it can multiply. This would allow a bank to defend an attack on one individual kiosk at the branch level rather than allowing the attack to spread to kiosks across all branches.
Intel is partnering with Independent Software Vendors, System Integrators, Video Analytics providers, and Banks to deploy and develop Edge security solutions.
Learn more about banking security solutions by connecting with Devakumar Rajagopalan and Wallace Lee on LinkedIn or visit https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/financial-services-it/financial-services-overview.html
Banks are a constant – they loom on urban corners and dot rural towns, providing necessary financial services to their customers. However, they’re also rigid, often resulting in slower adaptation of new technologies.
In today’s world of heightened consumer expectations and the desire for more personalized and automated experiences, that’s no longer an option. Even though physical, brick-and-mortar bank branches are here to stay, it’s time for them to evolve.
On this episode of To the Edge and Beyond, brought to you by Intel, host Sarah Dandashy was joined by a trio of industry experts in Senior Intel Principal Engineer and Chief Technology Officer of RBHE Sanjay Addicam, Chief Digital and Marketing Officer at Karnataka Bank Pankaj Gupta, and Co-founder and CEO of DaveAI Sriram P H to explore how that evolution is taking place.
“There is a shift that is happening away from the role the branches used to play, traditionally,” Gupta said. “The branches are kind of moving toward managing processes, managing collections, [and] managing other regulatory requirements rather than the transactions, themselves.”
From a technology standpoint, Addicam said there’s been a recent explosion in kiosk implementation and use, which is transforming the way in which a typical branch operates.
That’s where solutions like DaveAI, an artificial intelligence-powered sales augmentation platform that “helps brands create a virtual sales avatar to understand their customers,” come in.
“When you have to cover a larger space in terms of number of branches, how can do that much leaner without compromising on the experience?,” Sriram said. “I think that’s where we try and leverage some of these technologies, like intelligent kiosks, to create what we believe is going to be a ‘branch in a box,’ where you can deliver the same experience, digitally, without compromising what really happens in a branch.”
Learn more about innovation in banking by connecting with Sanjay Addicam, Pankaj Gupta, and Sriram P H on LinkedIn.
There remains a huge opportunity to market to consumers on the go, and a whole industry has risen to meet that demand. However, out of home advertising has many drawbacks that prevent companies from relying on this channel too heavily.
Companies like Intel hope to change this perception, as well as the overall effectiveness of this type of advertising.
In this episode of The Edge and Beyond, Shelby Skrhak discussed the past, present, and future of digital out of home (DOOH) advertising with Maroun Isaac and Andreas Soupliotis.
Isaac, the Director of Business Development in the Retail, Banking, Hospitality, and Education division at Intel, helped shape the company’s vision of effective DOOH advertising. Meanwhile, Soupliotis is the CEO and cofounder of Hivestack, helping to innovate the DOOH media buying process when the company was first established.
Traditional out-of-home advertising has not been a large part of any company’s marketing strategy because “brands are no longer interested in this type of media,” Isaac said. “They’re no longer interested in paying for ads that are incredibly inefficient and have lots of spilled impressions.”
However, things began to change in the 2000s, once Intel began “championing a new marketing playbook for out of home,” Soupliotis said.
In 2018, Intel and other industry leaders pushed DOOH further with the 3A initiative. The three As – which stand for addressable, accountable, and attributable – are crucial to helping DOOH companies remain competitive with today’s giants of online advertising.
In 2020, Intel and Hivestack worked with Live Board to implement the 3A approach to a live campaign based on location data and audience movement patterns. Hivestack partnered with Intel to programmatically activate screens targeting a high concentration of business decision-makers. In total, intent from 1704 business domains was measured, generating an 8.8% overall lift, with nearly 4 million impressions delivered and positive consideration and intent-driven among key decision-makers.
Learn more about DOOH by connecting with Maroun Ishac or Andreas Soupliotis on LinkedIn or visit https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/internet-of-things/iot-solutions/digital-signage/dooh.html.
Subscribe to this channel on Apple Podcasts or Spotify to hear more from the Intel Internet of Things Group.
The COVID-19 pandemic forever altered the QSR landscape. Innovations once believed to take years to develop arrived out of necessity. Intel’s Internet of Things Group, joined by partners like PreciTaste, led the way with AI solutions that not only got QSRs up and running during the early stages of the pandemic but continued to innovate and create efficiencies and cost savings to better position the industry for success in the future.
To the Edge and Beyond took a closer look at the trends in QSRs and how process optimization can be used to address these, with Farhaan Mohideen, Product Strategy & IoT Spokesperson at Intel, Kristen Call, IoT Sales Specialist at Intel, and Hauke Feddersen, Director of Global Operations at PreciTaste.
Mohideen admitted the industry faces challenging times.“(QSRs) have been trying to do everything possible to stay open with mechanisms like delivery or integrating with digital companies. But, at the same time, for customers and even staff, they also had to focus a lot on safety,” Mohideen said.
With these myriad challenges, Hauke saw opportunities, as well.
“Those that have a drive-thru and have delivery, the business flourishes,” Hauke said. “That means 10-30% more kitchen tasks, and they’re all handed out through the drive-thru window. This puts a lot of strain on processes, the crew and the supply chain.”
While many QSRs have drive-thrus, very few were optimized for digital journeys, Mohideen said. Those restaurants that had were already in a better position when the pandemic arrived.
“Our partners, including PreciTaste, have been in the forefront of these innovations.
Some of the AI innovations now deployed in QSRs include the ability to assess and count inventory, monitor social distancing, smart cameras that access customer ordering demand, and the ability to learn patterns to develop refined production plans. Kitchen process optimization solutions like PreciTaste’s also help QSRs use technology to understand when their stock is running low, how to keep their food fresher for longer and reduce food waste.
Learn more about QSR solutions by connecting with Farhaan Mohideen and Kristen Call on LinkedIn or visit https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/hospitality/overview.html
Subscribe to this channel on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Google Podcasts to hear more from the Intel Internet of Things Group.
The modern consumer is one that no longer views interaction and engagement as a luxury – it’s now an expectation for doing business with an organization, particularly in retail and hospitality.
Consumers are looking for elevated engagement and end-to-end, holistic experiences, and that means, for those retailers and hospitality organizations, turning to visual and interactive experiences.
On this episode of To the Edge and Beyond, brought to you by Intel’s Internet of Things Group, host Daniel Litwin was joined by IoT Group Technical Lead Ben Cope and Technical Lead, Multimodal Analytics Sangeeta Ghangam. The trio tackled the challenges facing these industries in conducting those now-critical digital transformations – and what Intel and the IoT Group are doing to help.
“Digitization has multiple trends in the different verticals that Intel IoT serves,” Cope said. “There’s one direction of increasing operational efficiency, and another angle is the ‘wow’ factor and the experiential [aspect of a business].”
Operational efficiency goals can be met with solutions like self-service kiosks and other solutions that free up staff members to play other roles, while the experiential side requires more impactful solutions, such as large LED video walls or interactive smart mirrors in retail fitting rooms.
Intel’s solutions are designed to help organizations engage with these solutions and with the multimodal aspect of today’s holistic technology suites.
“The multimodality of that digital aspect is becoming more and more prominent, now,” Ghangam said. “The expectation is that the interaction has to be done in more than one way, which leads to a type of processing that has to comprehend the different data sources.”
Learn more about how Intel is working to guide hospitality and retail organizations through their digital transformations by connecting with Cope and Ghangam on LinkedIn.
Suggested further reading on the topics discussed:
11th Gen Intel® Core™ Processors https://www.intel.co.uk/content/www/uk/en/products/docs/processors/core/11th-gen-processors.html
OneAPI Toolkit https://software.intel.com/content/www/us/en/develop/tools/oneapi.html
Intel® IOT Market Ready Solutions https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/internet-of-things/market-ready-solutions/market-ready-solutions.html
Touchless Technologies for Kiosks and Vending Machines https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/internet-of-things/iot-solutions/kiosk/resources/touchless-technologies-whitepaper.html
COVID-19: Re-Imagining Life in a Post Pandemic World https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/internet-of-things/reimagining-life-cities-ebook.html
Benchmarking metrics for anonymous video analytics (Queen Mary University) http://ava.eecs.qmul.ac.uk/
Edge computing means various things to different industries. For Christie Rice, Director of Business Development for Retail at the Intel Internet of Things Group, and Richard Newman, CTO and Co-Founder at Reliant, edge computing is all about the retail experience.
“For a lot of enterprises, particularly the ones that we focus on in retail and hospitality, the edge is where they do business in the physical world,” Newman said. “And the question then becomes how do the applications that they deploy at the edge manifest themselves? What type of applications are they, and where do they run?”
Newman and Rice see the edge as giving retail the ability to run a platform in a store or restaurant that allows them to deploy various applications. From there, stores can run IoT devices like payment terminals. In this environment, edge and cloud work together to deliver a next-generation experience.
“In edge computing for a retailer, the magic really happens when you take all of that information from all of those different devices – from the cameras, digital signs, point of sales terminals, even from things like temperature sensors and motion proximity sensors,” Rice said. “When you take all of that and you put it into one place where different applications can share that information, the retailer can start creating some business insights, understand what’s happening, and act on that in a holistic, quick and flexible manner.”
Newman said one exciting example of how edge computing is transforming next-generation retail is cashier-less check out, a trend that more and more retailers and quick-service restaurants are utilizing. “What makes the cashier-less experience possible is edge and cloud computing working together.”
Intel is working with partners like Reliant to help retailers optimise existing cloud native apps to run on Edge, modernise their existing Edge architecture and is working with Open Source communities to find ways to help people get started.
Learn more about retail solutions by connecting with Christie Rice and Richard Newman on LinkedIn or visit https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/retail/overview.html or https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/edge-computing/overview.html
Subscribe to this channel on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or Simplecast to hear more from the Intel Internet of Things Group.
There are two sides to every story, and there are two sides to edge computing – infrastructure edge and a device edge. Infrastructure is the edge hardware that ranges from light to medium and heavy edge products. This hardware consolidates multiple workloads on-premise.
Infrastructure edge hardware solutions are the sandlot Amy Leeland plays in. Leeland is the Edge Computing Director for Retail, Banking, Hospitality and Education at the Intel Internet of Things Group. She joined To the Edge and Beyond to share her thoughts and insights on the latest trends in edge computing solutions for these markets.
“My focus is to enable our customers’ digital transformation journeys with edge compute,” Leeland said. “We build new edge hardware products with original equipment manufacturers and original device manufacturers. We also create open-source reference implementations, and our partner team works with independent software vendors and solution providers.”
Edge compute isn’t one type of deployment model, device, or product. While edge solutions for retail, banking, hospitality and education vary, there is one constant that guides Leeland and her team.
“It’s all about bringing compute closer to the point of where data is being generated,” Leeland said.
Moving large amounts of data to an outside center is not always feasible, so creating on-site compute solutions for customers is critical.
The sheer number of devices people use in their daily lives is producing a vast volume of data. While this data proves an ongoing storage challenge, it also provides tremendous strategic opportunities for advanced use of intelligent applications and business insights.
“As the volume of this data increases, so does this inefficiency of transmitting all of it and processing it in a central location,” Leeland said.
Learn more about edge computing solutions by connecting with Amy Leeland on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/aleeland/, follow her on Twitter @Amy_Jaklich or visit https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/edge-computing/overview.html and click on solutions.
Subscribe to this channel on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Google Podcasts to hear more from the Intel Internet of Things Group.
Digital out-of-home (DOOH) is a rather broad term – in fact, according to Intel IOT Business Development Director Maroun Ishac, it’s “really the millions of screens that you see outside of the home.”
Alongside those millions of screens, which adorn everything from taxis and ridesharing vehicles to mall advertising, smart city infrastructure and airport signage, comes potential just as vast.
Ishac joined Intel’s host Mariya Zorotovich on this episode of To the Edge and Beyond to discuss the company’s role in powering that DOOH experience.
The role of advertising is shifting, and Ishac said DOOH solutions need to adapt. Often, they’re viewed as carrying with them inefficiencies in terms of spilled impressions (advertisers want their messaging to reach highly targeted audiences) and high costs.
“We need to move away from the old model of being ‘one too many,’” Ishac said. “We need to become fully digital and end-to-end accountable.” Ishac believes this shift allows immersive, rich content to be accessed via touchless, content aware, and AI responsive capabilities at scale. That’s where Intel comes in.
By helping media owners leverage cutting-edge artificial intelligence and analytics, DOOH digital signage solutions can connect brands with the specific audiences they want to reach more effectively, making more powerful and lasting impressions.
“We cannot be complacent,” Ishac said. “Even though we have all the ingredients and the technology and resource capabilities to be a fully digital medium, we’re only 14% programmatic. … We need to be at 100% programmatic.”
Connect with Maroun Ishac on LinkedIn or visit https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/internet-of-things/iot-solutions/digital-signage/dooh.html.
eCommerce has become a lifeline for so many and the primary way to shop for a variety of goods. The growth in this channel has transformed the technology of fulfillment, as well.
According to Naren Kumar, the Retail Segment Manager at Intel’s Internet of Things Group, the number of people shopping for products online doubled from 15% to 30% at the height of the pandemic.
As a result, leading retailers have “started exploring micro-fulfillment centers to process online orders faster, leveraging technology like robots and AI, and doing it all in a cost-effective manner,” Kumar said.
However, larger retailers have the clear advantage when it comes to micro-fulfillment centers, or MFCs.
“Larger retailers have the capital to invest in these technologies, and they’re already doing it,” Kumar revealed. “Small retailers, however, are constrained with capital. The good news is that these micro-fulfillment center providers are entering a partnership arrangement with these retailers and enabling them to meet these surging online demands, meet delivery expectations, and still maintain customer loyalty.”
“MFCs are all about fulfillment efficiency and how you do it in a relatively small footprint in close proximity to customers,” added Paul Zyskowski, the Director of Engineering at Intel Internet of Things Group. “They’re all about expediting that delivery to the customers.”
Automating these centers takes that efficiency one step further.
“Automation reduces the labor costs, decreases some of that human error, increases the density of that usable space, and can expedite the pulling and sorting of products,” Zyskowski continued. “And it may sound futuristic… but it can be something as simple as a robotic arm that grabs the product and puts on a shuttle or a conveyor belt that moves the items to the packing space. It’s all about what that space looks like and what business problems you’re trying to solve.”
Learn more about micro-fulfillment and accompanying technology by connecting with Naren Kumar and Paul Zyskowski on LinkedIn.
Subscribe to this channel on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Google Podcasts to hear more from the Intel Internet of Things Group.
Organizations often opt for technology solutions that address the most immediate and pressing problems which often result in tradeoffs for more holistic, longer-term solutions. Banking organizations are no exception--particularly when it comes to investing in physical branches. The tradeoff? Erosion of the customer experience, especially as customers engage digitally and expectations evolve.
On this episode of Intel’s To the Edge and Beyond, host Tyler Kern was joined by Intel Internet of Things Group Global Banking General Manager Seong Boon “SB” Ngoo and DBS Bank Head of Innovation, India Sandeep Varma, who walked Kern through the technologies and strategies that can help banks modernize their branches to meet growing expectations.
Though branches are no longer transaction centers in the digital age, which empowers consumers to bank on the go, there are certain elements of a bank’s role in our lives that can’t be fully automated. This is where branches enter the picture, and it’s why modernizing them to better fulfill these roles is so critical.
“Like most industries, you’ve seen consumer behavior evolve over time,” Varma said. “There’s a new generation of millennials who are digital-natives. So, what we’ve seen is that these digitally savvy customers prefer to do most of their transactions online or with [mobile devices]. … There’s always been a trend toward digitization, and the role of the branch is changing.”
While some customers still prefer face-to-face interaction and branches will always have a role to play, the pandemic has further accelerated banks toward digital interaction.
To keep up, banks need to modernize through technologies and solutions like self-service capabilities and kiosks, smaller, interactive spaces that serve as pseudo-branches, cloud and cybersecurity advancements, and more.
Learn more about bank modernization by connecting with Seong Boon “SB” Ngoo and Sandeep Varma on LinkedIn or visiting http://www.intel.com/banking.
Other episodes related to banking:
• Conversational AI Solutions for the Banking Industry
• The Digital Transformation of the Banking Industry
Subscribe to this channel on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Google to hear more from the Intel Internet of Things Group.
It is undeniable that the impact of the pandemic on students, teachers, and administrators has been swift and dramatic. Remote learning became a necessity overnight, and technology has become the key to success for the education industry.
Host Daniel Litwin was joined by Mark Frost, Visual Collaboration Marketing Manager for Intel's Internet of Things Group, Jag Minhas, CEO & Founder of Sensing Feeling, and Duncan Peberdy, EdTech Consultant at DroitwichNet Limited for an engaging discussion on utilizing technology such as AI and Computer Vision to analyze student engagement and wellbeing to improve learning outcomes.
Remote learning has changed the dynamic of education at all levels.
“Everybody has been desperate to have that continuity of education,” Peberdy said. “People have different perceptions as to whether technology is going to solve it or if it will actually be a problem.”
Campuses moved toward smaller groups and collaboration in person but have since moved back toward larger lecture audiences with remote learning via conferencing interface platforms. “It has not been a gentle transition,” Peberdy said.
“The IT challenges have been massive,” Frost added.
Student engagement is very difficult when working from a distance.
Video calling technology has been utilized to deliver a remote teaching and learning environment. Many accessory developments have been added to improve engagement during teaching sessions. This has led to “a gradual enrichment of the basic tools to help facilitate more interactive engagement,” Minhas said.
Collaboration technology, interactive touchscreens, virtual classrooms, computer vision technology, and IoT solutions are also being applied to remote learning. These technologies improve student engagement and collect data that can assist in evaluating other engagement technologies and teaching techniques.
It is important to integrate multiple technologies and communication tools to create a productive and efficient system. As learning has abruptly moved from in-person to fully remote and now toward a hybrid learning environment, educators need to be equipped to facilitate learning in multiple scenarios and be prepared for future situations that could be similar to COVID.
Learn more about Education with Intel by connecting with Mark Frost on LinkedIn or visit http://www.intel.com/education.
Subscribe to this channel on Apple Podcasts or Spotify to hear more from the Intel Internet of Things Group.
Every industry the world over is feeling the effects of innovative IoT solutions, and the restaurant and hospitality sectors are certainly no exception.
On this episode of To the Edge and Beyond, brought to you by Intel’s Internet of Things Group, host Mariya Zorotovich was joined by Orietta Verdugo, Global Hospitality and Restaurants General Manager for the Intel Internet of Things Group.
The duo dove into how Intel and its work in IoT are committing to elevate and personalize the guest experience in the restaurant and hospitality landscape, from drive-thrus to five-star overnight stays.
“There are two reasons why I really enjoy these two industries,” Verdugo said. “One is the focus on the guest experience, and the other is regarding operations excellence. These two areas are quicky evolving as technology delivers improved data insights to inform service improvements.”
Intel is working to help industry players achieve through tools and solutions that address unique pain points. This means translating business and customer drivers into tangible industry solutions in collaboration with the greater technology ecosystem. For example, business drivers such as efficiency, data security and customer drivers of seamless experience, contactless and personalized service translate into solutions that improve keyless entry, self-service markets, and loyalty to name a few.
The COVID-19 pandemic brought health and safety pain points to the forefront, with hospitality and food and beverage organizations needing to reconfigure their digital footprints and earn elevated trust in the face of consumer expectations.
The three biggest trends entering 2021, Verdugo said, are frictionless solutions, personalization and sustainability, and Intel’s Internet of Things Group will be working to provide customers with thorough data and actionable insights and strategies designed to help them capitalize.
Learn more about how IoT is shaping the hospitality and restaurant industry by connecting with Orietta Verdugo on LinkedIn or visit https://www.intel.com/hospitality.
AI, or artificial intelligence, is more than a buzzword; it drives real solutions across myriad industries, including banking. And AI’s arrival is perfectly timed to help solve challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Kathy Crumley, Global Market Lead, Banking & Payment Enablement at Intel, and Vicki Milhoan, Solutions Engineer at Intel, spoke with To the Edge and Beyond about how technology, driven by the digital transformation of AI, machine learning, and relevant form factors such as kiosks are set to reshape the banking experience for millions of customers.
“Without question, COVID has been the single most disruptive hit to the banking industry in, most likely, the last century,” Crumley said. But, if there is one silver lining, the pandemic is fast-tracking some banking payment modalities, such as contactless transactions, that may have taken years to catch on in the United States.
According to Crumley, the top three focuses for bank branches are modernizing and transforming bank design, increasing the number of assisted self-serve devices and terminals, and cross-channel integration from an on-premise technology, as well as a mobility technology.
There are several in-demand use cases where a conversational AI is targeted and delivers an excellent solution in self-service kiosks. From opening a new account to bill pay and check-in appointments, there are many ways this new technology is helping consumers do more.
How are these kiosks, and the data provided from these interactions, enhancing the customer experience?
“Indicators are showing that customers are using the kiosks as another tool in their toolbox,” Milhoan said. “With more data, we’ll be able to understand each customer better, and we can provide more tailored solutions on what they can do at the kiosk. We can also evaluate those kiosk services being used less.”
There are plenty of opportunities to add, change and improve kiosk services with more accumulated data.
Learn more Intel-based banking solutions by connecting with Kathy Crumley and Vicki Milhoan on LinkedIn or visit https://www.intel.com/banking.
Subscribe to this channel on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Google Podcasts to hear more from the Intel Internet of Things Group.
The banking industry has always been one of reinvention. It’s an old industry, but not one slow to evolve. As banking meets a new chapter post-COVID where digital channels are outperforming traditional ones, the industry will meet new challenges and pain points. Dr. Seong Boon “SB” Ngoo, Global Banking General Manager for Intel’s Internet of Things, provided an update on the future.
“The banking industry is familiar with disruption. However, it is one of the first to innovate in technology transitions,” Ngoo said. Financial institutions, hit hard by the 2008 economic crisis, had to reinvent their playbook. The pandemic is different. It’s a global health crisis with a significant financial impact.
Ngoo spoke about the areas where banking is making strides with technology. “There are more digital channels for onboarding customers, mortgage approvals, and other activities. These are meeting the new expectations of customers. Banks are adjusting sales models and leveraging data, AI, and IoT to improve processes and delivery.”
How exactly is banking using these innovative technologies? Ngoo shared, “AI is in use in banking from digital signage that can personalize messaging to smart ATMs. In branch usage of cameras can analyze flow and queues and provide recommendations for staffing.”
The branch banking experience is evolving as more customers have shifted to digital channels. “We want to make branch technology easy to deploy and useful. It’s not enough for banks to replace a few things. They need to rethink their business architecture, how they meet customer demand, and comply with regulations in every medium,” Ngoo commented.
Connect with Dr. Seong Boon “SB” Ngoo on LinkedIn, or visit http://www.intel.com/banking.
Drive-thrus have been a staple of the quick serve restaurant (QSR) industry and have been increasing in popularity over the years. With the pandemic, the drive-thru has increased in importance even more, and the application of data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) has incredible opportunity.
Host Daniel Litwin joins Ravi Sirigineedi, Global Restaurant Lead for Intel's Internet of Things Group, and Luke Irving, Founder and CEO of Fingermark, to discuss drive-thru trends, the application of AI and analytics, and where the industry is headed.
“The basis of success in this industry is all around convenience and customer experience,” Irving said.
One of the biggest challenges since the onset of the pandemic has been capacity. Before COVID, the utilization of drive-thrus for QSRs was between 50-75% of a store’s revenue. Now, that number is 90-95% and, in some cases, the drive-thru is now the only source of revenue.
Curbside also has a large opportunity. Parking lots can be turned into ordering bays as customers can order from their phones.
Sirigineedi noted that this change in customer behavior of using drive-thrus and curbside services is likely to continue.
Drive-thrus have often been a bottle neck and it is critical, now more than ever, to improve efficiency.
Data is providing insights to improve traffic velocity and help the restaurant utilize capacity to the fullest extent. For the customer this translates to personalized, accurate and quick service. This technology can also be used to detect customers who have left as a result of constrained capacity to understand lost revenue.
Sirigineedi adds that from an operator’s perspective, AI can improve operations by automating mundane tasks which allows staff to focus on better service and value directly with customers.
“It’s beyond restaurants, as well,” said Sirigineedi. The drive-thru can be applied to convenience stores, supermarkets, big box retail, and other retail formats.”
Learn more about hospitality and restaurants by connecting with Ravi Sirigineedi on LinkedIn or visit https://www.intel.com/hospitality. To learn more about Intel’s partner Fingermark, connect with Luke Irving on LinkedIn.
Subscribe to this channel on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Google Podcasts to hear more from the Intel Internet of Things Group.
In August, the UN issued a 26-page policy brief on education during COVID-19 and beyond. The UN Secretary General did not mince words when he said the pandemic has created the largest disruption of education in our world’s history. And, if we don’t put solutions in place, “these learning losses threaten to extend beyond this generation and erase decades of progress.”
On this episode of To The Edge and Beyond, Education Marketing Director Chris O’Malley and Platform Solution Architect Marcos Silva from Intel Corporation’s Internet of Things Group sat down with host Shelby Skrhak to discuss these challenges and share how technology is improving hybrid learning solutions and more.
“What we’re facing now with COVID is absolutely the greatest disruption in history; there’s no doubt about it,” O’Malley said. “When I look at this, technology is a key input we have to address this disruption around the world. As a technology company, Intel continues to step up to ensure that progress is made in education.”
Students from elementary school all the way to higher education are using remote learning technologies during this pandemic, but, as Silva explains, the term remote learning encompasses both synchronous and asynchronous learning, as well as blended approaches.
Synchronous learning in elementary and secondary schools offers a more teacher-centric approach to learning — one that allows teachers to interact more often with students. At the higher education level, students require less direct instruction from teachers, but instead rely on curriculum distribution and effective collaboration tools that allow them to work in small breakouts with other students, often called asynchronous learning.
“In elementary education, it’s more about how you connect the teacher [with students], but in higher education, it’s about making discussion and collaboration more efficient,” Silva said.
O’Malley said, during this first year of widespread remote learning, technology providers have removed many of the impediments to distance learning by “getting technology in the hands of students and getting connectivity between the students and the school.”
Now, technology is helping merge in-class materials with the digitization of classroom content, but all that digital content and classroom video is driving another challenge — cloud connectivity problems.
“Now we’re starting to run into new challenges,” O’Malley said. “For school districts, that’s driving the need for local edge computing. That is a shift in the compute paradigm of balancing the immense amount of data stored in the cloud and locally. School districts are realizing this need.”
Most importantly, Intel and their ecosystem partners are focused on ensuring teachers know how to best leverage technology to enhance learning, as the “classroom” of the future is evolving quickly. This continues to also be an opportunity to learn from teachers to ensure solutions are naturally integrated into teaching approaches and easy to use.
Learn more about Education with Intel by connecting with Chris O'Malley or Marcos Silva on LinkedIn or visit https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/education/intel-education.html.
Subscribe to this channel on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Google Podcasts to hear more from the Intel Internet of Things Group.
When looking at the future of retail, gaming and entertainment, there is a significant opportunity for these industries to evolve, grow and leverage emerging technologies. On this episode of To the Edge and Beyond, Cheol Kim, General Manager of Intel IOT Retail, Gaming and Entertainment offers a look ahead.
In the realm of retail, Intel focuses on three outcomes. Kim explained, “They are to provide a frictionless customer experience, improve operations and augment workforces.”
These three outcomes cross many use cases, and Kim discussed what they really mean for retailers in the future.
“To improve the customer experience, technology can have major impacts. Self-checkout kiosks and autonomous stores enable frictionless shopping. Smart shelves and virtual dressing rooms provide new opportunities to engage shoppers under a variety of conditions,” he said.
Technology, specifically edge computing, boosts operational efficiency with data capabilities. “Examples include the use of RFID for real-time inventory management as well as analysis of safety protocols like temperature scans and monitoring physical distancing,” Kim commented.
In the world of gaming and entertainment, those industries were hit hard by the pandemic. Kim is optimistic on the long-term outlook, as these markets are adopting digital technology with speed. “We are focused on consolidating computing workloads that maximize performance of AI, computer vision, security, graphics rendering and platform optimization,” Kim said.
Kim is also responsible for digital out of home (DOOH), which is digital advertising automation and optimization of media reach to customers outside the home. This medium is traditionally one to many and has opportunity to become more intelligent and smarter by serving improved content to the right audience.
The future of this market is becoming 3A compliant. 3A refers to addressable (serving ads to the right audience in proximity), accountable (how many people see it, who are they and how long do they see it) and attributable (what’s the business impact from the exposure to the ads). “We’re working with partners to provide the next generation of DOOH tools and improve the value of this medium,” he said.
Learn more about Future of Retail, Gaming and Entertainment by connecting with Cheol Kim on LinkedIn or visit https://www.intel.com/retail.
The future of retail is being built daily, but one thing is practically certain – as a continuation of pre-pandemic trends and in the wake of COVID-19, consumers will be on the lookout for frictionless experiences.
In this episode of To The Edge and Beyond, the host Tyler Kern explores the use cases Intel’s Internet of Things Group brings to frictionless retail and the solutions that are powering it with Intel’s Christie Rice, Retail Business Development Director, and Samir Sandesara, Platform Architect for Retail.
Frictionless retail is a hot topic in industry outlets. Frictionless includes a wide range of solutions, such as self-checkout, grab-and-go stores, kiosks and more. Technology building blocks needed include artificial intelligence, IoT sensor data, and a range of components depending on the shopping format and context.
“Retail establishments view frictionless retail as a value for customers,” Rice said, adding that customer experience should be any company’s primary focus. “People today want service options that are fast and convenient.”
Whether in a retail store or a corporate environment, people want products quickly without waiting in lines and any unnecessary interactions. Having access to technology that makes the retail experience quicker is crucial and will ultimately lead to higher sales.
Intel’s role in frictionless retail is in designing technology that is adaptive to different environments. Visual processing is becoming more intricate, and Intel can provide adaptive technology in the form of both hardware and software for any frictionless retail environment. Real sense cameras also help with collecting depth data and assist in machine learning.
The capture of data is foundational. For example, if a store camera is mounted too high or is too pixilated, useful data will not be able to be extracted. Sandesara understands that the fundamental needs are simple – customers want a quick retail experience, and the technology can be adapted to meet specific needs. And gathered data provides a better understanding of the need and helps identify which solutions are best.
Although not a new conversation in retail, transaction security and customer privacy are primary to any frictionless experience. Intel and ecosystem partners work in context of the retail format to ensure compliance and that standards are met.
“Once you’ve implemented these systems, you can extract ever increasing amounts of decision-making information out of them. You do not have to redo sensor implementations over and over again if implemented right,” Sandesara said. “The same set of cameras can help you with not just frictionless, but also inventory management, food safety compliance, and employee assistance. It’s an investment for the future.”
Learn more about Retail with Intel by connecting with Christie Rice or Samir Sandesara on LinkedIn or visit http://www.intel.com/retail.
Subscribe to this channel on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Google Podcasts to hear more from the Intel Internet of Things Group.
The education revolution is here. Digitization of learning, although critical, wasn’t on the fast track. The pandemic changed all that. Educators, administrators, communities, and students face new learning challenges, and technology is key to improving access, engagement, and outcomes. Wei Oania, Global Education General Manager for Intel’s Internet of Things Group, shared Intel’s vision and plan with Mariya Zorotovich, host and customer experience advocate at Intel.
“Technology is enabling students to receive the education they deserve and desire without location boundaries. We’re using a data-driven approach to find intuitive ways to teach. Now is the time for smart learning with multiple different delivery methods to ensure learning can be conducted everywhere,” Oania said.
Oania discussed three main areas of focus—equality, efficiency, and personalization—that technology can address. She commented, “Equality is about accessibility, it remains a priority for us. Efficiency improvements can occur with the use of AI to support repetitive tasks so teachers can focus on higher value work. Personalization is key, as education isn’t a one size fits all. We need to make it easier for different learning styles to thrive.”
How does deployment of technology to the classroom work? Some countries have adjusted well to the disruption of COVID-19. Others are struggling. “We’re looking at student-centered approaches and creating an engaging learning environment, whether that be virtual or in-person. Those schools succeeding early already had a digital foundation,” Oania noted.
The mission is to support digital transformation through four stages, which require communities, schools, and the technology ecosystem working together. “We welcome those education solution providers to collaborate with us for pilot programs and define solutions to solve these challenges. The disruption happening now is also an opportunity. With the right technology, we can deliver improved outcomes,” Oania said.
Learn more about education and IoT by connecting with Wei Oania on LinkedIn or following her on Twitter @WeiOania. Or visit http://www.intel.com/education.
Intel is proud to announce a powerful, single source of insights to help you make sense of use cases across industries — and it's coming soon to your podcast feed. On "To the Edge and Beyond," a podcast by the Intel Internet of Things Group, you'll hear expert perspectives, best practices, tech considerations and much more. Subscribe now!