TBW ADVISORS LLC

Category: Research

  • Industry Whispers: Deep Learning and Generative AI in production – an engineering Panel

    This webinar will feature a panel of engineers that have deployed generative AI and their solution is in customers’ hands. You will be able to take away insights on the selection of technology, the process of realizing a solution, pitfalls, nightmares and what the panelists would do differently next time. 

    Research Code 2036.

    Industry Whispers (SM): Generative AI & Deep Learning in Production – Lessons Learned

    Friday, May 24, 2024 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM(UTC-08:00) Pacific Time (US & Canada)

    This webinar will feature a panel of engineers that have deployed deep learning and generative AI and their solution is in customers’ hands. You will be able to take away insights on the selection of technology, the process of realizing a solution, pitfalls, nightmares and what the panelists would do differently next time. 

    Can’t attend? Register and submit your question anyway, the answer will be on our YouTube channel.

    Research Code: 2045

    Dr. Doreen Galli has 6 degrees including a Waterloo CS Ph.D. in SIMD data storage and 8 patent held by IBM with 2 more pending at Microsoft. She has led significant and measurable changes at IBM, DPWN, Dell, ATT and most recently Microsoft where she was the platform architect for Azure and CTO in Azure’s MCIGET. She was trained as an analyst by Gartner where she was recognized as an expert in all things data from ingestion, quality, governance, integration, management and all forms and analytics including sensor data.

    An All-American Athlete Collegiate Runner, Dr. Galli enhanced her formal education with process improvement certifications of Black Belt, Lean Six Sigma, and Pull Thinking, along with Technology and Network Transformation Certifications from AT&T. She is a Top 25 Women on the Web recipient and a published author with over 200 articles. Her first book, “Distributed Operation Systems” was published by Prentice Hall in English and Chinese. Her second book, “Galli’s Keys to Success: Optimize your College Career” is available via online bookstores. Dr. Galli has been an invited speaker at such distinguished venues as Forbes Executive Summit, CIO Summit, CIO Academy, Grace Hopper, Network+ Interop Las Vegas, Gartner’s Catalyst as well as The Internet Security Conference.

    Omer Segal is the Head of AI at Pixellot, overseeing the AI group responsible for researching and developing automated sports production and automatic game highlights generation for Pixellot AI-automated sports camera systems. He has extensive leadership experience as CTO and R&D Director at companies in homeland security, mapping, and sports technology, where he oversaw the development of innovative AI applications. Omer’s project portfolio includes creating land vehicle and aerial mapping and navigation systems, AR applications for archaeological reconstructions, and athletes’ video analysis applications.

    Omer holds a BSc and an MSc in Electrical Engineering from Tel Aviv University, specializing in the application of advanced technologies such as deep learning, computer vision, and signal processing.

    With 20 years of experience as a Character Technical Director, I bring expertise in motion capture and avatar creation for diverse productions. Originally focusing on rigging for films, commercials, and games, I transitioned to real-time motion capture and game engine rigging over the past five years. Integrating AI into motion capture and avatar systems has been a recent passion, alongside a commitment to exploring new technologies and their synergies. From rigging for TV shows like “The Flash” to contributing to 3D Bitmoji development and virtual concert setups, my journey reflects a dedication to innovation and collaboration in the ever-evolving landscape of AI and entertainment technology.

    Heather Osborn was most recently Senior Director of DevOps at Cerebral, an online mental health care company which filled a much needed gap in access to this critical service.

    She has worked in technology as a systems and operations engineer and manager for over 25 years. Much of her career was spent working with on premises systems at Ticketmaster, where she helped grow the online presence from a handful of Windows gaming desktops set up as web servers to a global system, a mix of on premises and cloud-based systems that experienced unbelievable surges in traffic whenever a popular event went on sale.

    Her more recent career path has been entirely cloud-based, with a focus on AWS and Kubernetes. The goal is to lead teams to creating maintainable, secure infrastructure to enable developer autonomy and rapid iteration.

    She will be speaking at Southern California Linux Expo for the second time this coming Saturday with a presentation entitled: Organic Isn’t Always Good for You, which is a discussion of the methodology employed in bringing an organization to a more mature stable infrastructure rather than something that grew organically over time.

    She has been actively involved in women’s groups at her companies, including being a charter member of Minority Genders in Tech at Cerebral. She’s also served multiple years as a mentor of young women and girls who are interested in exploring technology. She is drawn to this cause because she’s often been the only woman on a team.

    She is also an avid distance runner, technology evangelist, live music aficionado, immersive camping enthusiast, dedicated mother, and cat mom.

    Ziyuan(Zac) is the Chief Scientist at Birch.AI, where he spearheads the research and development of LLM and ASR models to automate healthcare call-center workflows. He is responsible for selecting and designing ML models, data processing, production system architecture, and deployment. With over 10 years of experience in speech recognition and natural language processing systems, Ziyuan has a proven track record of delivering production-ready systems for tasks such as classification, named entity recognition, and real-time transcription. Ziyuan holds a bachelor’s degree from Tsinghua University Beijing and a master’s degree from the Johns Hopkins University where he worked at the Center for Language and Speech Processing on projects that led to the creation of many open-source NLP and ASR toolkits

  • Conference Whispers: APPEX & SEMA  2024

    Conference Whispers: APPEX & SEMA  2024

    Analyst: Dr. Doreen Galli

    Photojournalist: Dr. Doreen Galli

    Published: November 12, 2024                    ID: 2054

    Readers: November 13, 2024

    Email Whispers: April 5, 2025

    ABSTRACT

    After 25 flights of stairs, over 35,000 steps and almost 280 minutes of recording, our coverage of AAPEX and SEMA closes. AAAPEX and SEMA are two different shows that take place at the same time. Together the two shows hosted 160,000 attendees, 2,400 brands, 1400 vehicles across 1.2 million net feet of exhibits. AAPEX specializes in automotive aftermarket replacement parts. In contrast, SEMA focuses on specialty equipment manufacturing that enhance safety, performance, styling, comfort, and convenience of cars, trucks and SUVs. The technology at AAPEX & SEMA spanned pressure, temperature, and oxygen sensors to technology to run the shop to marketing solutions.

    Highlights

    • The technology at AAPEX and SEMA focused on the variety of sensors available to build products to the technology to run the shop or to market the business.

    Cautions

    • Important to realize that technology at a non-technology conference is just a sample of the technology available. Common technologies such as those for marketing can just as easily be leveraged for other SMBs. Likewise, there may be similar solutions that did not come to the specialty industry conference.

    Conference Vibe

    After 25 flights of stairs, over 35,000 steps and almost 280 minutes of recording resulting in 28 videos and a few hundred shorts forthcoming, our coverage of AAPEX and SEMA closes. AAAPEX and SEMA are two different shows that take place at the same time. Together the two shows hosted 160,000 attendees, 2,400 brands, 1400 vehicles across 1.2 million net feet of exhibits. AAPEX, Automotive Aftermarket Products Expo, specializes in automotive aftermarket replacement parts. AAPEX was held at the Venetian. They hosted the new products showcase in the halls outside the exhibitions. The lower-level expo hall hosted Joe’s Garage, wheels, parts for EVs, and the podcasters media row*. APPEX upper-level expo had a variety of lubricants, oil, headlights, taillights, lights simply for tailgating and all things that make vehicles smell good. Food could be found at the Venetian Bistro or the Grab-n-go also at the Venetian. An outdoor beer garden could be found on the way to Caesars Forum connected by a handy walkway. Caesars also hosted exhibits for AAPEX specifically featuring products from China and Taiwan. Caesars’ Forum is connected to a Monorail station that can take one to the Las Vegas convention center for SEMA. Note: Caesars’ Forum is not located at Caesars’ Palace Casino.

    SEMA, Specialty Equipment Market Association, focuses on specialty equipment that enhances safety, performance, styling, comfort, and convenience of cars, trucks, and SUVs. SEMA took place at the Las Vegas Convention Center with its own eateries. SEMA West Hall was full of attachments for pick-up trucks to hold or tow any recreational or sporting equipment one could imagine, film to keep the sun out or wrap to change the vehicle color. A walkway from West Hall connects to LVCC Central Hall or one could ride the Vegas Loop. SEMA Central Hall hosted exhaust, gears, batteries, fuel injection solutions, any engine part one could imagine, transmissions and garage flooring. SEMA South Upper featured power solutions and lifts and collision repair. SEMA South Lower exhibits displayed various propulsion technologies, wheels, rims, and tailgating lights. Seeking to see custom cars? Head to the outdoor exhibits in the parking lots.         

    *When vendors’ names are shared as examples in this document, it is to provide a concrete example of what was on display at the conference, not an evaluation or recommendation. Evaluation and recommendation of these vendors are beyond the scope of this specific research document. Other examples products in the same category may have also been on display.

    Technology and Data Finds

    At TBW Advisors LLC we care most about Technologies and data solutions. The first stop is all about sustainability, a popular topic in any senior staff meeting. If your organization has a fleet of electric vehicles, a portable electric vehicle charger by Ampure may be something to evaluate. No longer needing to find a charging station, this portable charger can leverage any standard outlet and get your EV running! Likewise, when you get your fleet serviced, it may be easier to track your organization’s numbers if the service center leverages Sustainable estimatics by Solera that enables shops to provide carbon footprint estimate for all repairs.

    The second technology stop is all about sensors! MTE is one example of a vendor on hand that shared their oxygen, pressure, and temperature sensors. While smart manufacturing consultants were present, they all turned out to be camera shy. except for Bosch. Bosch had exhibits in multiple Expo Halls across the event. We were able to catch their talk on leveraging vision positioning to improve calibrations. The geospatial data content admittedly gave us flashback to our coverage of Commercial UAV Expo. Another talk discussing leveraging 3d data scanning to significantly save time on custom parts was given on the central stage.

    The third pillar of technology found at AAPEX and SEMA involves software running the shop. We had already mentioned Solera with their sustainable estimatics, ALLDATA is a one stop shop for OEM repair instructions for 95% of all vehicles on the road today. Shopmonkey is a cloud-based solution to run all your automotive bays from scheduling, estimating, inspecting to handling payments. If you are seeking an intelligent automated solution to run your automotive shop, then R.O. WRITER will even ensure you have maintained profits and all your service writers function as your best.

    The final technology stop was all about digital marketing, a topic heavily covered during our analysis of Adobe Summit. Optimize is a general digital marketing solution for any small or medium sized business. Their specialty is handling your google search page, your Facebook and your yelp, ensuring you show up on searches. Autoshop Solutions is a firm specializing in marketing for the aftermarket companies from the website, to search engine optimization to help you find your next customers. On the other end of the spectrum, Epicor Automotive Sector featured an advanced data aggregation solution including ERP and CRM.

    Next Year’s Conference

    Next year’s AAPEX and SEMA will be held in Las Vegas at the Venetian, Caesars Forum, and the Las Vegas Convention Center on November 4-8, 2025.

    ©2019-2025 TBW Advisors LLC. All rights reserved. TBW, Technical Business Whispers, Fact-based research and Advisory, Conference Whispers, Industry Whispers, Email Whispers, The Answer is always in the Whispers, Whisper Reports, Whisper Studies, Whisper Ranking , The Answer is always in the Whispers, and One Change a Month, are trademarks or registered trademarks of TBW Advisors LLC. This publication may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without TBW’s prior written permission. It consists of the opinions of TBW’s research organization which should not be construed as statements of fact. While the information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, TBW disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. TBW does not provide legal or investment advice and its research should not be construed or used as such. Your access and use of this publication are governed by the TBW Usage Policy. TBW research is produced independently by its research organization without influence or input from a third party. For further information, see Fact-based research publications on our website for more details.

  • Conference Whispers: InfoTechLive 2024

    Conference Whispers: InfoTechLive 2024

    Photojournalist: Dr. Doreen Galli

    There is no written analysis for this event. Clients should book an inquiry for a discussion on the event.

  • Conference Whispers: Commercial UAV Expo 2024

    Conference Whispers: Commercial UAV Expo 2024

    Analyst: Dr. Doreen Galli

    Photographer: Dr. Doreen Galli

    ABSTRACT

    After 12 hours of standing and over 200 minutes of taping, 40 videos and a few hundred shorts forthcoming, our coverage of the Commercial UAV Expo closes. The Commercial UAV Expo 2024 had over 3,000 attendees, Y exhibits and Z keynotes. The attendees travelled from over ZZ countries. The Expo had exhibits and keynotes on how to become a drone pilot to the drones themselves. There were countless examples of the latest technology in all types of UAVs and UASs, including the sensors and equipment they carry. The expo also showcased solutions for remotely operating and managing drone fleets, as well as advanced methods for analyzing geospatial data.

    Highlights

    • Information was provided across the vertical and horizontal spectrum for UAVs, UAS. Note: few were fully autonomous and would be referred to more accurately as remote-controlled helicopters, drones, and marine vehicles.

    Cautions

    • One must understand the use case to select the correct drone or solution route if one doesn’t want to take on the training burden internally.

    Conference Vibe

    After 12 hours of standing and over 200 minutes of taping, 40 videos and a few hundred shorts forthcoming, our coverage of the Commercial UAV Expo closes. The Commercial UAV Expo 2024 had over 3,000 attendees and was one of two conferences held at Caesars Forum not to be confused with Caesars Palace a stroll away. Everything seemed very organized with no significant registration lines on Wednesday morning. Attendees arrived from across the global and each was invited to put a pin on the map to represent where they traveled to attend. For those that had a full event pass, boxed lunches were available; we were able to catch videos of the boxed lunches Wednesday as well as Thursday. The exhibition hall* was open on Tuesday for cocktails, as well as Wednesday and Thursday. Overall, the expo had exhibits and talks on how to become a drone pilot to the drones themselves. There were endless examples of the latest technology in every type of UAV or UAS, to the sensors or equipment they may carry, to solutions to remotely operate and manage fleets of drones to advance solutions for analyzing geospatial data.

    Becoming a Drone Pilot

    One hot topic at the Commercial UAV Expo is getting enough pilots for the industry as most technology today is remote controlled versus truly autonomous. An entire aisle in the exhibit hall was dedicated towards pilot schools including the Pilot Institute. The Pilot Institute even has a free class for those just getting started with a hobby license. Dan Tartaglia from Droneability shared his lessons learned from his journey as a recreational drone pilot to a commercial pilot with his own company. Paul Rossi shared detailed information on his methodology for a pathway to professional drone pilot. Meanwhile, another session by FlyGuys highlighted that if you have a license and equipment, they will hold our hands and give you the settings if needed to help drone pilots to get experience on a 1099 basis.

    Drones

    As one might expect, commercial drones were absolutely the highlight of Commercial UAV Expo. Many drones, like those of Swiss Air are remote-control helicopters. SwissDrones had their remote-controlled helicopter on exhibit along with Phoenix Air Group who manages a fleet of pilots across the US flying Swiss Air Drones. If you might have to travel somewhere before you fly your commercial drone, A2Z drones shared their 4 models during the Press Briefing. A2Z drones also had an extensive display sharing these collapsable charging docks as well as their release hook for packages. Attis Aviation introduced the new ROC VTOL UAV drone with extensive sensors leveraged for firefighting during the Press Competition. During the same event, Drones Amplified demonstrated how their drones are leveraged to create prescribed fires and backburns.

    For the healthcare industry, DrUber shared their solution during the press competition. Dr Uber can be leveraged for cross town emergencies be it organs or blood supplies. If weather interferes with your commercial operations, SwellPro, the pioneer of waterproof drones, was happy to share their solution with you. Of course, if one desired a fully automated drone, one of the more famous consumer manufacturers, DJI shared their Matrice 3d Fully autonomous drone. For the entertainment industry, we found the exciting drone shows. Not just any show but the drones that enable pyrotechnics plus drone lights by Pablo Air.

    The military use case is of course on top of everyone’s mind at the Commercial UAV show. If you were seeking paper or cardboard drones, you were in luck! Often referred to as blue drones, US military drones are not allowed to have components from outside of NATO countries. Harris Aerial shared their NDAA certified drones in the exhibit hall. The press competition shared impressive drone tech from Ukraine. Likewise, the exclusive provider of drones to Israel until 2027, Rhino Drones was also in the competition.  

    Finally, if you want a one stop shop and expect to need a variety of drones or perhaps prefer to lease them, then Exhibitors such as Blue Skies Drones, that manufactures and sells others’ drones was on hand. Frontier Drones provided an extensive tour of their exhibit. As an organization, they represent over 30 different manufacturers.

    Drone Components and attachments

    The key to the success of the industry is working together. Successful integration and successful collaboration dictate agreement on how things work or standards. The drone pilot hub featured a talk on establishing standards to ensure quality. One safety measure that was popular was drone parachutes which are required to enable flight over people in the USA. One vendor, VSS was involved in the press competition. Parazero Drone recover system was on exhibit and demonstrated how the parachute is as easy as buckling a seat belt to attach.

    Drones requiring satellite communication could leverage Gotonomi who presented in the Press competition. Ultrafast optical tracking technology was shared by SixdofSpace. Their optical tracking technology can be leveraged for landing UAVs or UASs. LiDar systems are popular cargo on UAVs but there are so many variations it can make you head spin. One attempt which looks promising is by Balko Tech who shared their Connectiv Modular LiDar solution. Many distributors were validating this solution internally – it will be exciting to see how it plays out!

    A new occurrence due to drones use in warzones is the requirement to operate even if GPS is jammed or spoofed. Annello Photonics shared their Silicon Photonics Optical Gyroscope (SiPhOGTM). It is the world’s smallest gyroscope on a chip which enables robust navigation that is reliable even in such hostile GPS contested environments. Another challenge of commercial real-world solutions like War is range. Range anxiety is as real for drones as it is for electric car owners. Gas solutions are as loud as a flying lawn mower. How do you triple the range of a UAV? The exciting news is that the UAV industry has a solution in hydrogen engines. Intelligent Energy provided TBW Advisors LLC with a detailed walk around of their hydrogen energy cells. Not only is the range better but hydrogen cells and hydrogen weigh must less over other energy solutions leaving more space for cargo and sensors.

    Fleets

    At the enterprise or sovereign level, there is an additional level of management required. SparrowHawk can identify UAVs in your airspace – friendly or hostile! flytebase provides an enterprise done autonomy software and platform for advanced field placement. Together it enables complete remote management of one’s fleet of drones. If you are seeking to manage the drones, missions and airspace with one piece of software, Anra Technologies shared their effortless solution. For enterprises just looking to get started and have no idea what drone is appropriate let alone how to build the entire solution to get the mission accomplished, Attis Aviation was in the exhibit hall to share their story of helping customers realize their UAV solutions.

    Geospatial Data

    Geospatial data is an exciting area within data that is critical for UAVs. Geospatial data has to do with the real world and is three-dimensional information about a space. Geospatial data is considered time-based data related to that exact location on earth. GeoCue shared their out of the box LP360 solution for evaluating LiDar information. This enables organizations to take the information from the LiDar and processes providing information that humans recognize and can leverage. Sense Aeronautics took great pride in their drone video analytics solution and its ability to recognize humans or cars coming into the monitored scene. Assetta has a specialty solution to detect red tide when spotted by drones. Dat/em also specialized in drone’s famous stereo image and makes it useful for customers, providing a coherent image as expected by clients. Finally, those that just want the data and don’t want to mess around with drones or getting the data useful, FlyGuys is a (DSP) data service provider that provides that exact service!

    Next Year’s Conference

    Next year’s Commercial UAV Expo will be once again held at Caesars Forum on September 2-4, 2025.

    *When vendors’ names are shared as examples in this document, it is to provide a concrete example of what was on display at the conference, not an evaluation or recommendation. Evaluation and recommendation of these vendors are beyond the scope of this specific research document. Other examples products in the same category may have also been on display.

    ©2019-20204 TBW Advisors LLC. All rights reserved. TBW, Conference Whispers, Industry Whispers, Vendor Whispers, Technical Business Whispers, Whisper Reports, Whisper Studies, Whisper Rankings and Fact-based Research and Advisory are trademarks or registered trademarks of TBW Advisors LLC. This publication may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without TBW’s prior written permission. It consists of the opinions of TBW’s research organization which should not be construed as statements of fact. While the information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, TBW disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. TBW does not provide legal or investment advice and its research should not be construed or used as such. Your access and use of this publication are governed by the TBW Usage Policy. TBW research is produced independently by its research organization without influence or input from a third party. For further information, see Fact-based research publications on our website for more details.

  • ­­­Conference Whispers: Customer Care Week LV 2024

    ­­­Conference Whispers: Customer Care Week LV 2024

    Analyst: Dr. Doreen Galli

    Photographer: Dr. Doreen Galli

    ABSTRACT

    After over 750 minutes of recording and two lengthy walks from Caesars to Caesars Forum, and some 30 factchecks, our coverage of 2024 Customer Care Week Las Vegas comes to a close. Customer Care Week was held at Caesars Forum in Las Vegas from June 3-6. It is the premier event for customer care professionals. It spans 4 days, 300 speakers in over 165 sessions, and 5000 onsite attendees. Attendees witnessed endless examples of customer care solutions be they entire platforms, components for a solution or a services company to deploy the solution.

    Analysis only available to clients at this time.

  • Conference Whispers: AI CON 2024

    Conference Whispers: AI CON 2024

    Photojournalist: Dr. Doreen Galli

    AI CON is a TECHWELL Event. Photographed with permission of TECHWELL. TBW Advisors LLC is not related TECHWELL.

    There is no written analysis for this event. Clients should book an inquiry for a discussion on the event.

  • Conference Whispers: Identiverse 2024

    Conference Whispers: Identiverse 2024

    Analyst: Dr. Doreen Galli

    Photographer: Dr. Doreen Galli

    ABSTRACT

    After over 1500 minutes of recording and 14 escalator rides, and some 35 factchecks, our coverage of 2024 Identiverse comes to a close. Identiverse was at Aria Hostel in Las Vegas from May 28-31. It is the premier event for identity professionals. It spans 4 days, 250 speakers on over 100 topics, 150 exhibitors and 3000 onsite attendees. Attendees witnessed endless examples of identity and privacy solutions including many jokes about SAML (it is NOT dead), examples of passwordless as well as talks about the value of identity.

    Conference Vibe

    After over 1500 minutes of recording and 14 escalator rides, and some 35 factchecks, our coverage of 2024 Identiverse comes to a close. Registration for the four-day event kicked off after the long holiday weekend. The event featured 250 speakers on over 100 topics, 150 exhibitors and 3000 onsite attendees. There was so much packed in it was impossible to catch all of the exhibits. They had sessions in the Joshua rooms as well as Marisopa rooms. Opening day was then capped by  a mighty keynote featuring John Whelan, President of the Cyber Risk Alliance and Andre Durand, CEO of Ping Identity and Founder of the Identiverse Conference. The event provided food for the attendees. We were able to capture breakfast Wednesday. The attendees did explicitly find me to let me know they were disappointed with the breakfast due to the lack of protein. I do understand the Microsoft Breakfast did feature sufficient protein.  Many attendees complimented the lunch which was served Wednesday as well as on Thursday. The exhibits* were open on Wednesday after the opening keynote. They were spread between two large rooms across from each other.

    Our entire playlist of video research at Identiverse is available at our YouTube Channel. Save the list to capture related shorts when they are released.

    Digital Identities

    As one might expect, Identiverse is all about identity. Much to my delight, an entire panel was presented on confidential computing. Confidential computing strength lies in multiparty computations among untrusted parties – something that occurs in the identity space quite often. The session immediately following was on digital identity where they pondered how one could achieve such an exchange – unfortunately those panelists did not attend the Confidential session. On the digital ID panel, it was exciting to see that California is live with a digital driver’s license. Many are still trying to get their real id into their wallet! Australian Bank was on stage for a keynote making the case for the Bank ID. Admittedly this talk created a bit of déjà vu to the days in the bid to become primary certificate authorities. There is no shortage of information to make the business case to adopt passwordless for your organization.

    More than Passwords

    Thursday morning’s keynote concluded with the Power of Passwordless sign-on. This session includes a number of guest speakers from the FIDO Alliance, Clarkson University, Bank of America and Amazon. The net result is that companies love it, their customers are more engaged, and the security posture is improved. Numerous examples of passwordless solutions were shown in the exhibits. AllAUthenticate shared their passwordless solution. Bringing blue collar workers who need to punch in and out into this century, Bio-Key displayed their product leveraging MFA Mellon RFID. If you would prefer your identity solution to eliminate any and all standing privileges, SGNL can get you there and help you stay in that security posture. Zluri is available to handle access control for all SaaS solutions. Aserto is an identity service that considers policy and relationship-based access control. If your service accounts are your pain point or you don’t even know how many you have of what – a start-up just out of stealth mode called Anetac may be someone you want to evaluate. If your organization’s problem is more about non-human identity issue, Natoma can assist in provisioning, deprovisioning and maintenance of non-human IDs. The word of the conference was service and non-human IDs is an area exploding with a reported over a dozen just announced at RSA.

    Google hosted an entire detailed workshop on Google Sign-On, Passkey and the use of FedFCM to deal with 3rd party cookies. It was exciting to see they are working to push privacy forward with browser.

    Identity in Practice

    An attention-grabbing keynote Thursday morning alerted to the Darkside of identity. Reminding all that identity is the most common entrance point for the uninvited. Another keynote reminded all attempting to forge a path in identity, that the most important thing is to just get going! Furthermore, pay attention to the point of no return. Identity and security are all about depth of defense, spend the effort when there is a big payout. Do not insist on 100% for each program as the last percentages take resources without improving security posture. It is far better to find a new program that will affect the remaining identities with the remaining resources.

    One often too difficult aspect of identity is customer onboarding. To that end, Strivacity specializes in the end user aspect of identity. If you challenge is too many identity services and you are having difficulty getting a complete picture, TenableOne provides a unified dashboard to see the entire threat attack surface. If your difficulty is all about connecting identity platforms to other sources and targets, Aquera Platform provides identity connector along with automation and governance in their solution. Saviynt provided a demonstration of their identity cloud with a visual display. RSA Shared their Unified Identity platform that is available on prem or in cloud for SAS saps as well as supporting SAML. Radiant Logic also provides an identity middleware heavily focusing on the data and metadata of identity. This point was also shared during John Pritchard of Radiant Logic’s keynote.

    There were options if one is seeking assistance with their identity solutions. AOH offers identity consulting spanning assessment, architecture, execution and maintenance. ProofID offers global managed identity services and are key partners with many of the top identity technology providers such as PING Identity.

    Cisco provided an in-depth workshop on defining and building an identity graph. It was very insightful, and the audience was glued to the screen. What caught our eye was the end when they said, “look at that picture – you know what that means. You know what that means you are supposed to do” Even in 2019 when I was at Gartner, augmented intelligence was present so hearing, “look at the picture” was surprising. More commonly is generative AI incorporated so it suggested actions based upon what is seen. Fortunately, Microsoft was there to bring it all back to 2024. There was an Microsoft Entra deep-dive by Nichole Peterson as well as a Microsoft Entra with Co-pilot demo that allowed attendees to zoom back to 2024.

    Next Year’s Conference

    Next year’s Identiverse is held June 3-6, 205. Furthermore, next year’s conference will be at Mandalay Bay.

     *When vendors’ names are shared as examples in this document, it is to provide a concrete example of what was on display at the conference, not an evaluation or recommendation. Evaluation and recommendation of these vendors are beyond the scope of this specific research document. Other examples products in the same category may have also been on display.                                

    ©2019-2024 TBW Advisors LLC. All rights reserved. TBW, Conference Whispers, Industry Whispers, Vendor Whispers, Technical Business Whispers, Whisper Reports, Whisper Studies, Whisper Ranking, The Answer is always in the Whispers, and Fact-based Research and Advisory are trademarks or registered trademarks of TBW Advisors LLC. This publication may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without TBW’s prior written permission. It consists of the opinions of TBW’s research organization which should not be construed as statements of fact. While the information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, TBW disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness, or adequacy of such information. TBW does not provide legal, or investment advice and its research should not be construed or used as such. Your access and use of this publication are governed by the TBW Usage Policy. TBW research is produced independently by its research organization without influence or input from a third party. For further information, see Fact-based research publications on our website for more details.

  • Industry Whispers (SM): Generative AI & Deep Learning in Production – Lessons Learned

    Analyst: Dr. Doreen Galli

    Held May 24, 2024

    This webinar will feature a panel of engineers that have deployed deep learning and generative AI and their solution is in customers’ hands. You will be able to take away insights on the selection of technology, the process of realizing a solution, pitfalls, nightmares and what the panelists would do differently next time. 

    Can’t attend? Register and submit your question anyway, the answer will be on our YouTube channel.

    Research Code: 2045

    Omer Segal is the Head of AI at Pixellot, overseeing the AI group responsible for researching and developing automated sports production and automatic game highlights generation for Pixellot AI-automated sports camera systems. He has extensive leadership experience as CTO and R&D Director at companies in homeland security, mapping, and sports technology, where he oversaw the development of innovative AI applications. Omer’s project portfolio includes creating land vehicle and aerial mapping and navigation systems, AR applications for archaeological reconstructions, and athletes’ video analysis applications.

    Omer holds a BSc and an MSc in Electrical Engineering from Tel Aviv University, specializing in the application of advanced technologies such as deep learning, computer vision and signal processing.

    With 20 years of experience as a Character Technical Director, JC Leon bring expertise in motion capture and avatar creation for diverse productions. Originally focusing on rigging for films, commercials, and games, I transitioned to real-time motion capture and game engine rigging over the past five years. Integrating AI into motion capture and avatar systems has been a recent passion, alongside a commitment to exploring new technologies and their synergies. From rigging for TV shows like “The Flash” to contributing to 3D Bitmoji development and virtual concert setups, my journey reflects a dedication to innovation and collaboration in the ever-evolving landscape of AI and entertainment technology.

    Ziyuan(Zac) is the Chief Scientist at Birch.AI, where he spearheads the research and development of LLM and ASR models to automate healthcare call-center workflows. He is responsible for selecting and designing ML models, data processing, production system architecture, and deployment. With over 10 years of experience in speech recognition and natural language processing systems, Ziyuan has a proven track record of delivering production-ready systems for tasks such as classification, named entity recognition, and real-time transcription. Ziyuan holds a bachelor’s degree from Tsinghua University Beijing and a master’s degree from the Johns Hopkins University where he worked at the Center for Language and Speech Processing on projects that led to the creation of many open-source NLP and ASR toolkits

  • Conference Whispers: Smart Retail Tech Expo 2024

    Conference Whispers: Smart Retail Tech Expo 2024

    Las Vegas, NV April 24-25, 2024

    Published to clients: May 14, 2024                                        ID: 2043

    Published to Readers: May 15, 2024

    Published to Email Whispers: January 14, 2025

    Public: January 15th, 2025

    Analyst(s) and Photojournalist: Doreen Galli, PhD MBA

    ABSTRACT

    After 400 minutes of filming, 30 videos, countless shorts and over 30 factchecks, our coverage of this years’ Smart Retail Tech Expo 2024 closes. Smart Retail Tech Expo is part of 5 conferences held at once at the same time and place: White Label, Retail, Supply Chain and Logistics Expo, Smart Retail Tech, Ecommerce Packaging and Labelling and Com Business Live. It was held in Las Vegas from May 8 to May 9 at the South Lower Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center (LVCC). The event featured 5 theaters with each featuring 4-5 talks each day for a total of 47 keynote sessions. With discussion on distribution and logistics and vendors for every step of the journey, one could launch a new business with the contacts from this event alone.

    Conference Vibe

    After 2 days of filming some 400 minutes of content, 30 videos with endless shorts coming and over 30 factchecks, our coverage of this years’ Smart Retail Tech Expo closes. The event is five events held at once all together. White Label, Retail, Supply chain and Logistics Expo, Smart Retail Tech, E-Commerce Packaging and Labelling and Com Business Live. With row after row of exhibits*, the event was made whole by the balanced combination of talks and exhibits. Even better, there was 15 minutes in between the talks so one could catch the exhibits. Furthermore, all theaters schedules were once again aligned in the event you wanted to switch theaters as well.

    The short two-day event packs a punch with 5 keynote theatres each featuring 4 or 5 talks a day for a whopping 47 sessions. The first day was supposed to be capped off by a presentation Presidential candidate Robert Kennedy but it was cancelled purportedly due to security concerns. We captured 30 videos that will result in a lot of great shorts so be sure to save the entire playlist of videos for Conference Whispers: Smart Retail Tech Expo. We were able to capture the walkabout of the entire conference right at the conference’s grand opening. If you are wondering what was to eat at the show, we have you covered with video of the food lines and menus.

    Keynotes

    The keynotes at this smaller event were quite impressive and featured talks from Google, AWS, Home Depot, Lenova, and ASCM (Association of Supply Chain Management) to name a few. Douglas Kent of ASCM (Association of Supply Chain Management) shared top supply chain trends during his keynote. Jesus Sanchez from Google show the many ways in which you can put Google AI to work for you for your retail solution. It is all about optimizing marketing expenses. He also shared the interesting statistic that 15% of all searches are unique. Amazon’s Justin Honaman shared the many ways AWS Gen AI is being leveraged for innovation in retail and CPG. Phil Pench of DHL ecommerce shared an interesting talk with the list of options for the end of the supply chain particularly for those importing goods.

    Home Depot’s Paul Ganz shared the ripple effect of failing a customer. He reminded all that you only get one chance to take care of your customer. That once the customer bought the product, you are handling their item – not yours and it should be treated as such. Chewy’s Debarati Das gave a detailed talk highlighting the complexities of inventory management in the context of the corporate goals and customer satisfaction requirements. There were many people waiting to speak with this speaker following the talk. Kevin Lawton of @thenewwarehouse examined the question of doing fulfillment from the retail location versus a warehouse. Admittedly, this talk reminded me of a patent I was awarded as an IBM Engineer on this exact topic in the heart of the dot com era.

    Exhibits

    While many of the exhibits focused on the White Label portion of the show were captured in the walkabout, there was no technology for us to cover. Nonetheless, we discovered quite a bit of tech to capture. If you need to make a professional video to sell your wares or any other services in getting your product to market, newegg was on display with media, sellingpilot, and marketplace. If you are not sure about the size of the object you are selling, vMeasure was on site. vMeasure leverages cameras, sensors and scales with some great AI /ML models to provide the size of the object.

    If one is selling something in a store, are instead display, Retail Media Management was there to share their digital signs and smart retail tags. One only needs to change the price online, and all price tags will automatically update. They are reported to have a 5-year battery life. Admittedly, we know days of batteries in such electronics is limited as glass can now capture energy from thin air as seen in our coverage at CES. Another digital sign company, Hongzhou had a smart menu kiosk on exhibit. This kiosk not only takes the order and payment but coordinates the order to the kitchen staff. Limited staff but want to open a pizza joint? Pzza has an automated solution to make commercial pizzas that only requires one employee to run the shop. This exhibit gave us flashbacks to the automatic stir fry tech we saw at CES, Techmagic. If you would like to bring home the bacon instead of serving it, Bacon Tech was on site with their staffing and employee management mobile application. If your retail business involves CBD, Argyle Payments was on hand to help you with your banking needs.

    To secure a retail space, many require video surveillance. LVT remote surveillance with their solar panel powered solution complete with simple intelligence was on the floor. This intelligence is leverages to identify objects in the video and notify as appropriate. Is your business is looking for warehouse space AND will create 10 jobs or more? Global Site Location Industries collaborates with municipalities around the country. This collaboration allows Global Site Location Industries to offer their assistance for free.

    If you warehouse scanners or other mobile technology is missing or you need an extra, ASR Tech was on site and can fix anything. If simply cannot find your products in your warehouse or want to monitor them through the supply chain, Lyngsoe Systems passive RFID has a solution for you. RFID has come a long way with stickers at just .05 each. We also heard about Cirro Fulfillment’s Smart robots as they were to enhance the supply chain. SRSI shared their automated storage and retrieval technology available in all 50 states. In fact, SRSI handles all technology available within the 4 walls of the warehouse. Goods was on display to remind you to focus on your business with their integrated solution handling inventory management, order management, and warehouse management.

    As a conference about logistics, there were many logistics companies! Fellowship logistics shared that they can reach 99% of the US in 2 days and 75% in 1 day. Meanwhile, ExFreight was sharing that they provide 100% online capabilities for their entire service logistics offering to 175 countries. C&C logistics serves all continental US and Mexico and can move anything from a single pallet to an entire warehouse.

    There were vendors on display with technology for every aspect of your retail business. Shopline intelligent offered a unified commerce platform. There was also a solution called iVision to automate customer loyalty. Admittedly, both solutions intelligence is not yet fully realized compared to many of the technologies analyzed at the Adobe Summit or even Fintech Meetup.

    Next Year’s Conference

    Smart Retail Tech Expo comes to Las Vegas every year. The next Smart Retail Tech Expo will occur April 16 and 17th, 2025, in Las Vegas, NV at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

    *When vendors’ names are shared as examples in this document, it is to provide a concrete example of what was on display at the conference, not an evaluation or recommendation. Evaluation and recommendation of these vendors are beyond the scope of this specific research document. Other examples products in the same category may have also been on display.

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  • Industry Whispers: AMA with Founder and CEO of TalkR.AI Katya Lainé

    Analyst: Doreen Galli PhD. MBA

    Register early to submit your questions for this exciting AMA (Ask me Anything) with Katya Lainé  who founded the advanced conversational and Voice GEN AI product known as Talkr.AI

    Katya Lainé is co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of TALKR.ai and world-renowned for her expertise in Conversational AI. Katya has spent over a decade reshaping the way organizations handle customer interactions, playing a pivotal role in modernizing call centers by replacing traditional Interactive Voice Response Systems with Intelligent Voice Conversational AI Assistants. Katya is also a respected expert at the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI) contributing to cutting-edge AI research and international cooperation. Beyond her GPAI role, Katya serves on the board of Numeum, where she is President of its AI Commission, championing ethical practices and advancing the adoption of AI technologies. Katya co-founded OpenLLM-France, further exemplifying her dedication to advancing technology and ethical standards in AI. Additionally, she is a Co-founder and Vice President of Le Voice Lab, underscoring her commitment to shaping the future of voice technology in Europe. She holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA), in addition to a Master’s degree in Broadcast Journalism from Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski.

    Research Code TBW2044