Category: Tech News

ZHIYUN Presents New Camera Gimbals and Photography Lights at NAB 2023

ZHIYUN, a world leading gimbal brand for filmmakers with cameras and smartphones, will attend NAB 2023 at Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, where it will exclusively preview upcoming camera gimbal products, and exhibit its latest photography lights, including a combination of stabiliser and camera light that creates an efficient, professional shooting solution that enhance convenience and productivity.

The event will also showcase the new MOLUS COB lighting series, the recently launched FIVERAY series of professional lighting, plus other WEEBILL, CRANE and SMOOTH gimbals that are designed for everyone from amateur to professional filmmakers.

ZHIYUN Exclusively Previews WEEBILL 3S & CRANE-M3S

ZHIYUN offers NAB SHOW attendees an exclusive first-look at new professional gimbals WEEBILL 3S and CRANE 3S, which are due to launch this May. The updated design is based on the popular WEEBILL 3, which features the ultra-ergonomic SLING 2.0 grip, convenient built-in microphone and light, plus ZHIYUN’s latest quick-release mechanism. Meanwhile, the CRANE-M3 is a highly portable yet professional gimbal, with strong torque motors and wide compatibility across smartphones, action cameras, compact cameras, and even options for full-frame mirrorless.

For more information in the WEEBILL 3 https://www.zhiyun-tech.com/en/product/detail/617 and CRANE-M3: https://www.zhiyun-tech.com/en/product/detail/479

Discover the Latest ZHIYUN MOLUS Series Professional & Portable COB Lighting

Exhibited for the first time in the United States, the new ZHIYUN MOLUS range includes the portable G60 and X100 COB lighting units, offering a reliable and consistent 60W and 100W professional power output respectively.

As small as a Rubik’s Cube and an ultra-portable 300g, the MOLUS G60 provides initiative controls, an excellent CCT, CRI ≥96 and TLCI ≥97. For added convenience, the G60 can be charged using a DC power adapter or via a USB-PD fast charging.

At just 385g, the MOLUS X100 rivals much heavier cinematic lights with 3881 lux while still imbuing the simplest and most efficient setup. The MOLUS X100 offers excellent CCT, a CRI≥95, and TLCI≥97. On the go content creators can minimise downtime with three ways to power up the light, choosing between the grip battery, DC adapter and the 100W USB-PD fast charging.

Both lights have received excellent reviews from users so far, with comments that the product designs are portable, convenient, powerful and even adorably cute! The MOLUS G60 and X100 are effective at combining practicality and stylish design.

Learn more about the ZHIYUN MOLUS series:

X100: https://www.zhiyun-tech.com/en/product/detail/768

G60: https://www.zhiyun-tech.com/en/product/detail/757

FIVERAY F100 & M40 – Powerful Pocketable Professional Lighting

The palm-sized ZHIYUN FIVERAY M40 360° fill light epitomises stylish simplicity and utility, fits neatly in pockets for transport. This ultra-portable illumination companion for videographers uses DynaVort technology for superior heat dispersion, enabling a compact device without compromising on its 40W power – over 2X that of alternatives. Meanwhile, the FIVERAY F100 is designed for one-handed control and comfort, offering a pro lighting solution without the need for complicated set-up or setting adjustment. Embedded with 5 times more LED chips, F100 gives you ultra-bright output compared to similar-sized lights, reaching 20,708 lux at its 100W maximum power. F100 offers six creative lighting effects that help build up the atmosphere easily when inspiration strikes

Learn more about the ZHIYUN FIVERAY series:

F100: https://www.zhiyun-tech.com/en/product/detail/693

M40: https://www.zhiyun-tech.com/en/product/detail/704

World Backup Day: Britons are confused and ‘too lazy’ to back up irreplaceable pics

Britons have more than a thousand photos stored on their smartphone – all of which are at risk of being lost forever because of laziness and digital confusion.

Research found that millions of Britons don’t backup their pictures and of those who have no digital backup plan, a third say it’s because they simply “can’t be bothered” or they don’t know how to.

The news comes as Britons claim they know protecting digital images is important and more than a third admit they have irreplaceable pictures of passed loved ones stored on their device, making the issue of data loss even more poignant.

The new research has been released by F-Secure, a global leader in cyber security experiences to mark World Backup Day this Friday (31 March). The findings also revealed that losing photos would have the biggest impact on Britons’ lives, more than losing passwords, contacts and login details.

Timo Laaksonen, F-Secure CEO, says: “In today’s digital age, people carry their memories, contacts, and important documents in their pockets. This collection of digital moments is crucial to our lives, yet we are leaving ourselves vulnerable to data loss, which makes no sense.

“World Backup Day is a reminder to take that extra step and protect our digital assets. While 59% of respondents in our survey said they think protecting their digital images is important, they’re not doing it.“

When asked what moments they capture digitally, Britons said holidays and travel were the most common, followed by personal pictures and shots of family and friends. The full list is:

  1. Holidays and travel
  2. Personal pictures
  3. Family and friends
  4. Children
  5. Passed loved ones
  6. Work material
  7. Health and fitness selfies

Timo Laaksonen, F-Secure CEO, concludes: “World Backup Day helps us raise awareness of the importance of data backup and protection and encourage people to take a pledge to back up their digital life, whether it’s personal or professional. It is an opportunity to assess the value of the data that we carry around with us every day and to ensure that the data is protected.”

To help Britons backup, F-Secure offers these five tips:

  1. Follow the 3-2-1 rule to backup – make at least three copies on two different devices, and one kept offline in a different location.
  2. If you backup your data to an external hard drive, disconnect it from your computer when a backup isn’t being done. This will prevent your backup data being stolen or damaged along with your computer.
  3. If you’re using an online cloud storage service, make sure you use a strong password and enable two-factor authentication (an identity and access management security method that requires two forms of identification to access resources and data to add an extra level of security to your data).
  4. Enable automatic backups or schedule regular backups so you don’t have to remember to do it.
  5. Install cybersecurity to avoid malware (a term for any type of malicious software designed to harm or exploit any programmable device, service or network) from erasing your data/photos.

SAS-sponsored students present bike data to Irish government officials

Six students from Larkin Community College Dublin, sponsored by analytics and AI leader SAS, have outlined to delegates from the Department of Education how cycling uptake can be increased in Dublin after analysing reams of publicly available data.

The students, participating in a global education initiative called P-TECH, performed analysis on 5.4GB of publicly available dublinbikes station data with the aim of identifying cycling patterns and trends that could be leveraged to improve the uptake of cycling in Dublin. They presented their findings at a showcase event on Wednesday 29 March 2023.

P-TECH, founded by IBM, operates in many countries globally and aims to reform education to prepare young people with the academic, technical and professional skills required for 21st century jobs and ongoing education.  In Ireland there are multiple industry partners as well as five schools and a college participating.

Recent research from SAS underlines the importance of tackling the shortage of data science skills, as  63 per cent of businesses don’t have access to people with the right AI and analytics skills.

Minister for Education, Norma Foley TD, said: “The aim of the P-TECH placement is to provide students with a real-world experience working on different types of projects. Developing new skills, knowledge and understanding how to meet these challenges is a key part of P-TECH. Working with different colleagues and learning in new environments based across the P-TECH Industry Partner sites, each and every student should be proud of the work they have achieved and their accomplishments over the last six weeks.”

As part of P-TECH the students joined the SAS team at its Irish headquarters in Dublin, participated in team building activities and were trained in the use of SAS Visual Analytics, SAS Visual Statistics and project management.

Alan McGlinn, Country Lead for SAS Ireland, says investing in the next generation of data professionals is critical for everyone’s future success. He said:

“We firmly believe that this is not only an investment in their future, but also in the future of our industry and the prosperity of the economy and our country. By sponsoring students to take part in P-TECH, we are not only helping to bring reforms to education and presenting them with real world examples to work on, but also giving young people the essential data skills they need to thrive in the workforce. We are proud to support this global initiative and to play our part in shaping the future of data analytics.”

Other P-TECH industry partners, alongside SAS, include IBM, Irish Life, Salesforce, Cisco, Virgin Media and Irish Water.

SAS supports a number of initiatives aimed at equipping people with the data skills they need to thrive in a modern economy. It founded the SAS STEP programme, a free reskilling and employment initiative to help jobseekers across Ireland and the UK, empowering the workforce and rebuilding for the future.

41% of tech leaders think their company will work 100% remotely in the future

Storm Technology, the business technology consultancy, today announces the findings of a new survey which reveals that 41% of IT leaders think their company will become 100% remote in the future.

The survey – conducted by Tech Central and involving more than 100 IT decision-makers from larger enterprises and businesses across Ireland – found that over two thirds (67%) think their organisation is currently equipped to support such a move.

Some 81% of respondents think the way their company is currently working is effective and the same proportion think their IT department is adequately supporting remote/hybrid working for their organisation.

However, 65% don’t think their company is using remote/hybrid working solutions to their full potential and over half (58%) don’t think virtual communications are an adequate replacement for human interaction.

In terms of other challenges stemming from remote/hybrid working, IT leaders see supporting company culture as the biggest, cited by 42%. Other leading challenges include providing secure access to company systems and information (39%), training staff to use existing technologies to the fullest (39%), enabling collaboration across locations (35%), and managing remote devices (31%).

As for the long-term issues arising from this way of working, 46% said spending too much time in meetings. Meanwhile, 39% cited working longer hours and some 32% said having to spend time on wellness to prevent burnout. Thirty per cent of IT leaders also see not staying ahead with the latest tools to do the job as a long-term problem of remote/hybrid working.

While the research found that its impact was largely positive across the areas of staff wellbeing (80%), employee experience (77%) and business growth (69%), this was less so when it came to talent and culture. Just over half (54%) felt the impact of remote/hybrid working was positive on attracting and retaining talent, while only 35% believed it has had a positive impact on company culture.

Arguably, this may stem from challenges relating to collaboration across locations. The leading barriers to collaboration were revealed as a lack of digital skills (48%), people having the time to collaborate (45%), and a lack of face-to-face meetings (44%).

Furthermore, a quarter (25%) of IT leaders cited securing communication platforms as an obstacle to collaboration and almost a fifth (17%) identified the impaired ability to share information as a barrier to same.

Speaking about the findings, Mike Lillis, Chief Commercial Officer at Storm Technology, said: “Of course the workplace of today is vastly different to what we had five years ago, and our research suggests that it will continue to evolve – perhaps even becoming fully remote for some organisations.

“Yet, the core of what makes a successful organisation is the same – enabled, engaged and empowered people. If companies are to make remote and hybrid working a success, they need both the technology and the strategy in place. If people lack the means and knowledge to collaborate, they cannot work effectively.

“In turn, this jeopardises not just service delivery and business but also company culture and employee wellbeing as people end up working harder and longer. Business leaders must therefore implement the technologies and provide the training required to create a productive, proactive, and positive workplace. Only then can they make a real impact for their people and their organisations as a whole.”

To find out more about this research, check out Storm Technology’s Modern Workplace Report 2023.

Jabra PanaCast video solution first to market with Microsoft device ecosystem platform

Jabra, a leader in professional audio and video solutions, will be the first to market with its PanaCast 50 Video Bar System leveraging the new Microsoft device ecosystem platform, as announced on the Microsoft blog today: What’s new in Teams Rooms and Devices at Enterprise Connect. Microsoft collaborated with Jabra to optimise the platform to leverage Microsoft Teams Room for Android as the first industry market solution. 

The Microsoft device ecosystem platform brings together the best of Microsoft and Android, tailored for shared spaces and optimised for Teams devices.  Built on the Android Open Source Project (AOSP), the platform delivers the security, reliability, management and deployment that Microsoft is known for, along with the diversity of hardware and software support that comes with Android. It is designed for innovation – with the extensibility and customisation that manufacturers need to deliver innovative products with both hardware and software extensions. 

 The Jabra PanaCast 50 Video Bar System is an integrated solution. It includes a Qualcomm Technologies Inc. state-of-the-art system-on-chip (SoC) for IoT running Android, which will be upgradable to the new Microsoft OS. It also includes other SoCs, as well, speakers, microphones, video cameras, with network and display interfaces for easy deployment. The solution comes with a 10.1” touch controller to manage the room experience. The system natively and securely runs Microsoft Teams Rooms on Android. 

Aurangzeb Khan, SVP for Intelligent Vision Systems at Jabra said, “We are delighted to have contributed to the development of this enterprise grade Android platform and to deliver it with the PanaCast 50 Video Bar System as the first video solution for this Microsoft ecosystem platform for Android. Together Jabra and Microsoft present a video solution that combines the Microsoft heritage in platforms, security, management, and scale with Jabra’s leading video technology, for the benefit of our customers.”  

With a hardware-based root of trust and attestation, built on Microsoft’s PKI cryptography and Qualcomm® Trusted Execution Environment, the platform delivers security and tamper resistance with attestation by enabling secure identification of the device and its configuration. This is built with the advantage of the Qualcomm® QC8250 SoC for IoT supporting multiple concurrent instances of VPU-based hardware offload, with up to 8K video encoding and decoding. The Qualcomm QCS8250 SoC also allows for up to 64-megapixel video capture for exceptional high-definition videos. 

“Qualcomm Technologies is proud to be a part of the collaboration to create the Jabra PanaCast 50 Video Bar System, featuring the premium Qualcomm QCS8250 SoC,” stated Dev Singh, Vice President, Business development, and Head of Euilding & enterprise, and Industrial Automation, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. “The PanaCast 50 Video Bar System utilises the SoC’s advanced security and video processing functions to bring to market this first-of-its-kind collaboration system.”  

“We are excited to partner with Jabra to bring the Microsoft device ecosystem platform to our customers and as its first adopter from the partner ecosystem building devices Certified for Microsoft Teams,” said Dave Kearney, General Manager of Program Management at Microsoft. “Security, reliability, management, and performance are critical for businesses globally and by building on the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) and partnering with Qualcomm we are pleased to offer a solution designed for shared spaces which brings the best Microsoft has to offer across those fronts while providing flexibility and diversity in the hardware and software offered.” 

Security is backed by Microsoft – with government-grade secure development environment, state of the art code analysis, threat detection, and software updates customers can depend on for shared meeting spaces. Matching this, the PanaCast 50 Video Bar System is designed to adapt to the evolving UC experiences and hybrid workplace needs with its AI-powered software-defined platform. It is easy to install, manage and use with everything needed for video meetings embedded in the PanaCast Control for a one-touch start/join without requiring any additional devices, allowing simple, secure, and scalable deployment and management in any small-medium sized rooms. 

For more on the Microsoft device ecosystem platform, please visit the Microsoft blog here: 

What’s new in Teams Rooms and Devices at Enterprise Connect 

More on the PanaCast 50 Video Bar System: Jabra PanaCast 50 Video Bar System    

AWS launches Startup Loft in Dublin to support early-stage tech entrepreneurs reach their potential through the Cloud

The AWS Startup loft is a home for technology startups in one of AWS’s Dublin city centre offices in Charlemont Street. This co-working space is free to use for startups and is equipped with open seating, phonebooths, WiFi and coffee to keep startups fuelled.

The loft regularly hosts office hours and talks with venture capital, legal and accounting firms. Every Wednesday and Thursday startups can sit down with an AWS solution architect or account manager for ‘Ask the Expert’ sessions. This could be an opportunity to discuss a startups technology roadmap, architecture guidance or cost optimisation.

Vyra – Eoin Le Masney (Sector – Sustainability EdTech)

Backed by behavioural science, the Vyra Platform provides businesses with a highly engaging solution to up-skill employees rapidly and at scale. Whether it is through Vyra’s best-in-class learning modules or bespoke company learning programmes, the Vyra Platform is there to deliver to 50 or 5000 employees. https://vyra.ie/why-vyra/

KowRoo – Sheelagh Brady (Sector – Travel and Corporate Security)

Risks associated with travel, such as delays, accidents, criminality, or even death, can have an enormous impact on a business. The global security market is estimated to have an annual turnover in excess of $66.9B for the US alone. KowRoo combines analysis of real-time data that is personalised for the user, whilst integrating the risk appetite of the business, and communicating dynamic risk rating results via an app to the user. KowRoo will have a mobile app and desktop user interface, behind which a large volume of historical risk assessments generated from past analyses and real time incidents will be used as inputs to modern AI algorithms to build a real time robotic analyst “KowRoo”.

Elkstone Capital – Kate Fullen (Venture Capital)

Elkstone is a leading Irish Investment House focused on Entrepreneurs, Senior Executives, Institutional LPs, the Venture Community and Irish Diaspora. Their mission is to increase the economic value and overall wellbeing of the Island of Ireland by enabling deserving investments and delivering superior investment performance.

Minister of State in the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Minister Dara Calleary :

“The Start Up Loft initiative is an important addition to the entrepreneur and start up ecosystem here in Ireland. This space and others like it play a vital role by supporting early stage and start-up companies test out their ideas, pitch for investment, and build their networks. I’m pleased to support the launch today which will complement the range of government supports and schemes available through our enterprise agencies, including the Local Enterprise Office network and Enterprise Ireland, to help Irish start-ups scale up, grow, and succeed both at home and on the global stage.”

 Mike Beary – Country Manager, AWS Ireland:

“At AWS, one of our leadership principles is to “Think Big”. Here in Dublin, we want to enable a culture of “thinking big” by providing some of Ireland’s brightest entrepreneurs with a space for their ideas to grow. This new Startup Loft will create the ideal forum for new companies to meet other founders, interact with VCs, and discuss how to take their businesses to the next level.”

Kate Fullen – Elkstone:

“Spaces like this give the VC community a chance to work with some of the most interesting founders in the country as they get their new companies up and running. The AWS Startup Loft is a great addition to the business ecosystem in Dublin.”

 Sheelagh Brady – KowRoo:

“Putting a company together from scratch is a hugely complicated and exciting project. The Startup Loft gives me a dedicated space to expand my business while learning from other entrepreneurs as we move our projects to the next stage. Having access to VCs and AWS experts is an added bonus. ”

 Eoin Le Masney – Vyra:

“The AWS Startup hub has been a game changer for Vyra – we have met some fantastic founders, solved problems with solutions architects and even used the space to pitch to mentors and investors. AWS Startup Loft is always creating value through events and regular check-ins and I know that in the future we will reference the AWS Startup hub as a key ingredient in our early stage success.”

Irish Team Leads Rollout of Affordable Healthcare Platform for Millions in Africa

A new platform, that aims to bring affordable primary healthcare to millions of people in Africa for as little as €7 per month, has launched this month following a collaboration between a team based in Dublin and their South African colleagues.

Lead by Irish woman Elaine Devereux, managing director of Lucky Beard in Dublin and its chief creative officer James Nelson, also based in Dublin, Unu Health is a digital platform that uses technology to drive down the cost of primary healthcare and empower the 50 million people in South Africa that currently rely on state healthcare to significantly improve their health and wellbeing.

According to recent reports, South Africa’s healthcare remains a two-tiered space, where access to private healthcare remains linked to the ability to pay for private medical scheme membership. Private healthcare accounts for 50% of the total expenditure on health, and supports only 17% of the population.

Seed-funded by the Standard Bank Group, the largest bank in Africa, Unu Health is initially targeting the 5.5 million formally employed population that cannot afford medical aid, with the launch of a corporate offering that enables employers to provide access to private primary healthcare for their employees.

“This breakthrough in healthcare has the potential to transform the lives of millions of people in Africa, where the average life expectancy falls ten years below the global average and the majority of the population rely on an overstretched public healthcare system, often waiting days to see a doctor,” said Devereux, whose global team from Dublin and South Africa are the lead advisors across strategy, brand, product design, and technology.

“Over the past 18 months, our teams have worked tirelessly to develop a solution that provides affordable, accessible, and effective primary care to individuals who previously had limited options.

“Unu Health uses innovative technology to simplify access to healthcare and drastically improve the patient experience while driving down the cost, much like Revolut did for banking, with the ambition to bring ‘healthcare that makes you smile.

“The initial offering will not only improve the health and wellbeing of employees but also enables employers to develop informed HR strategies and wellness initiatives that reduce absenteeism and ultimately enhance productivity.”

The app enables people to manage all of their healthcare needs in one place, offering easy access to their health records and medical history.  Users can get an up-to-date clinically valid health score updated each month and plug in their private health insurance plan so they can view and track their benefit use over time. They can also chat instantly to a nurse or doctor via WhatsApp or video call using a network of 3,400 private GPs, 8 000 specialists and 3,500 pharmacies across South Africa.

Tania Joffe, CEO and Principal of Unu Health, says the platform’s vision is to transform the delivery of quality primary healthcare in Africa, making it accessible, affordable and dignified for all. “Owing to the friction involved in accessing primary healthcare, most South Africans initially self-medicate acute symptoms while their chronic conditions go largely undiagnosed. As a result, on any day 15% of the workforce is absent – that’s 2.25 million people who are not at work.

“We’re looking to change the status quo by removing the friction and develop a hyperconnected patient-centred ecosystem linking healthcare users, healthtech resources as well as traditional in-person health resources, via an inclusive platform that is intuitive and easy to use from mobiles.

The Innovation Exchange partners with RDI Hub to partner globally ambitious Kerry SMEs with large corporates

Skillnet Ireland has announced the partnership of The Innovation Exchange, with the RDI Hub (Research Development Innovation Hub) based in Killorglin, Co. Kerry.  The Innovation Exchange is Ireland’s innovation marketplace connecting large companies facing digital transformation challenges with technology companies that can fast-track the solution.

As the newest regional channel partner of The Innovation Exchange, the RDI Hub is a world-class centre for design-led, digital innovation located in Ireland’s South West.  It focuses on digitisation, ideation and commercialisation of innovation and research in the Digital, AI, Data and related technologies’ sectors. The RDI Hub is also part of the Fexco’s Innovation division and operates as a not-for-profit public-private partnership with Munster Technological University and Kerry County Council.

There are currently six companies signed up from Kerry; one corporate, Astellas, as well as five SMEs; Graphite Note, Quodos, Galarus, Salaso and Turtle Transformation. Cork-based, RDI hub member Perkforce is also signed up.

The initiative will allow globally ambitious tech SMEs located in Kerry the unique opportunity to pitch to, and collaborate with, large companies looking to access innovation as part of a diverse and curated community of startups and scaleups. As a part of this collaboration, the RDI Hub will bring both corporate entities and scale-up businesses situated in Kerry together as members of The Innovation Exchange, expanding its growing community.

Attending the launch, Norma Foley TD, Minister for Education and TD for Kerry, said: “Ambition in any field should be limitless, but for it to be limitless we must ensure that the right supports are in place. Today we launch The Innovation Exchange, an initiative of Skillnet Ireland. It gives an opportunity to provide a level of support which will be a catalyst for so many businesses to go further and to go beyond; there is great insight here, being provided by the experts. The spirit lauded by this new initiative and development is that together we can go further and further; limitless opportunity, limitless abilities being celebrated and given an opportunity to advance.”

Speaking at yesterday’s announcement, Paul Healy, Chief Executive, Skillnet Ireland said: “Today we see the Innovation Exchange developing its footprint in Kerry as part of our drive for a nationwide expansion of this successful programme. The Innovation Exchange is serving an important role in promoting innovation and economic growth in Ireland by building deep links between SMEs and large corporations, encouraging ideation and facilitating the development of new business projects between these sectors. We encourage local SMEs and larger companies with a presence in the South West to join the programme and take advantage of the many benefits it offers.” 

The aim of the Innovation Exchange is to establish a nationwide footprint by onboarding up to 10 regional channel partners throughout 2023. Earlier this year The Innovation Exchange announced its partnership with the Galway Technology Centre, which supports innovative, global trading companies in the ICT sector. The expansion of The Innovation Exchange, which currently has in excess of 350 participants, will offer even more SMEs access to the programme’s benefits, including an instant sales pipeline, market intelligence and the capability to sell to large companies

Conor Carmody, programme director of The Innovation Exchange commented on today’s news: “We are thrilled to be collaborating with RDI Hub, as we continue to bring our offering to SMEs and corporates across Ireland. Our main focus is to showcase the amazing talent and capabilities of the companies in the region, while also helping them to scale their businesses. We see this partnership with Skillnet Ireland as an opportunity to expand our network and leverage RDI Hub’s resources and expertise to support our members and drive their success.”

Liam Cronin, CEO of RDI, said: “The ethos at the RDI Hub is all about making connections for start-ups, scale-ups, SMEs, corporates, and enterprises to create, digitalise, innovate, and scale businesses for future economies. The Innovation Exchange is a perfect partnership for us as it supports the key focus of the RDI Hub   of creating new jobs, products, and services in the Southwest. This is a fantastic opportunity for agile companies to innovate and solve specific problems for large corporates, and for corporates to gain fresh perspectives on their business challenges.”

Bertie Murphy, Chief Strategy Officer Fexco and RDI Hub Board Director, said: “This new partnership between the RDI Hub and the Innovation Exchange creates a brilliant opportunity for innovation between SMEs and scaled businesses. This reinforces our vision at Fexco for the RDI Hub as a key enabler of innovation. We have already achieved success at the RDI Hub in creating an ecosystem that has generated exciting new technologies, services, and jobs. This announcement provides an opportunity for the RDI Hub to further build on that success and, in addition, facilitate the ability of SMEs to introduce innovative and transformative ideas and services to larger corporations in the region.” 

Skillnet Ireland has committed €5 million to fund The Innovation Exchange which is designed to address the barriers that exist for scaling companies when selling to large companies and multinationals. The programme will support over 1,000 companies between 2022-2025.

Scale-ups and corporates in the Kerry region are being encouraged by The Innovation Exchange to sign up at www.theinnovationexchange.ie.

Zoom Announces Zoom IQ Expansion + Use of OpenAI

Today at Enterprise Connect,  Zoom Video Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: ZM) announced the expansion of Zoom IQ, a smart companion that empowers collaboration and unlocks people’s potential by summarizing chat threads, organizing ideas, drafting content for chats, emails, and whiteboard sessions, creating meeting agendas, and more. The company also announced it will use OpenAI to bolster its unique federated approach to AI based on flexibility.

Zoom’s federated approach to AI leverages its own proprietary AI models, those from leading AI companies– such as OpenAI –and select customers’ own models. With this flexibility to incorporate multiple types of models, Zoom’s goal is to provide the most value for its customers’ diverse needs. These models can also be customized to perform better for a customer, based on their vocabulary and requirements.

“Zoom has long built AI solutions into our products to empower customers to be more productive,” said Smita Hashim, chief product officer at Zoom. “We are excited to bring many more capabilities with new large language models. Our unique approach to AI will give customers the flexibility they want and help significantly improve collaboration and customer relations.”

In today’s work environment, workers find it increasingly difficult to balance workday priorities between emails, team chats, meetings, and project management tasks. Teams are also looking for ways to better co-create effectively in real-time. To help solve these challenges, Zoom IQ will have a host of new capabilities scheduled to release soon, including:

  • Zoom IQ chat compose: Zoom Team Chat users can soon use the compose feature to help compose messages based on conversational context in addition to changing message tone to customize suggested responses.

  • Zoom IQ email compose: Harnessing the power of Generative AI, users will get email draft suggestions in response to the conversational context from prior Zoom Meetings, Zoom Phone calls, and email threads. Available initially in Zoom IQ for Sales.

 

  • Zoom IQ meeting summary: Generate a summary, capture next steps, and share via Team Chat, Zoom Calendar, and email without recording the conversation, so those who didn’t attend will no longer have to sit through lengthy recordings.

Additionally at Enterprise Connect, Zoom is showcasing the following innovations to make teamwork more meaningful and strengthen customer relationships:

 

  • Zoom Huddles (formerly Zoom Spots) is a new video-enabled virtual coworking space designed to foster ad-hoc discussions and relationship building, to replicate the “working alongside” aspect of an open office and encourage free-form video-first conversations. Zoom Huddles is now available globally for customers to request early access by visiting the product page.

  • Intelligent Director uses multiple cameras in a Zoom Room to determine the best angle of the individuals in the room to display within the meeting. With high-quality, reliable video and voice, Intelligent Director also provides a best-in-class experience for remote participants. Available in beta soon.

  • Zoom Scheduler makes it easy to find the perfect time for meetings by sharing the host’s availability so others (even external participants) can conveniently book appointments. Zoom Scheduler reduces the back-and-forth hassle of manual scheduling by placing a meeting on the host’s calendar with a Zoom Meetings link already included, saving both participants time. Zoom Scheduler works seamlessly with Zoom Meetings and Zoom Mail and Calendar, and integrates with Google Calendar and Microsoft 365, so hosts can use their preferred calendar.

Read Zoom’s Enterprise Connect blog to learn more about what Zoom will be showcasing.