It’s been a week since the GeekWire Sports Tech Summit and we here at Akvelon are still thinking about it. What a great event! The panel speakers were incredible with lots of takeaway knowledge and wisdom which made us excited to be in Seattle and involved in sports technology innovations. Sue Bird’s panel and Dr. Uma Jayaram’s talk struck us the most. Between Bird’s push for smart use of data in the world of sports and Dr. Jayaram’s enthusiasm for innovation in meaningful virtual experiences, the entire day was inspiring.Rush and Jeremiah at the GeekWire Sports Tech SummitIn between the panels and speakers, we were excited to showcase our own involvement in sports tech and virtual experiences with a demo of our augmented reality MiniGolf game developed for the Microsoft HoloLens.The MiniGolf game allows for users to play a small round of golf on a virtual course overlaid on the real world. Our HoloLens application makes it possible to play golf anywhere. Even in your living room, kitchen or, in our case, the CenturyLink Event Center.We built a virtual mini golf course in the hallway of the event center with the HoloLens and several attendees of GeekWire’s Sports Tech Summit participated in our demo. It turned into a heated competition at some points with many players asking about their scores curious to know if they were still placing well and in the running to win a prize.We are extremely grateful to everyone who decided to give our new technology a try. Take a look at some of the participants in our demo having fun on the augmented reality green!Daniel swinging with textbook formDaniel taking a serious swing inside rhe HoloLens mixed reality world. #gwsportstech pic.twitter.com/DJlfz0ypVL— Akvelon, Inc. (@AkvelonInc) June 22, 2017 Elizabeth positioning for a top ranking scoreElizabeth from @Avvo taking the third place spot in the MiniGolf experience with a great score! #AR #gwsportstech pic.twitter.com/3nEDFGuaFZ— Akvelon, Inc. (@AkvelonInc) June 22, 2017 Jack watching his shot inch closer to the holeJack from @StBootstrapper giving AR MiniGolf a swing. #GWSportsTech pic.twitter.com/j2S51ejjei— Akvelon, Inc. (@AkvelonInc) June 22, 2017 Belle having fun lining up her shotBelle with #alltech having fun and getting a great score. Currently in 4th place on the leaderboard: https://t.co/ETZLYl735t #gwsportstech pic.twitter.com/5Dv1keAaJO— Akvelon, Inc. (@AkvelonInc) June 22, 2017 Natalie taking to the virtual green like a proNatalie with @capitalone taking fantastic shots. Thanks for playing! #gwsportstech pic.twitter.com/orkBhqVJ2y— Akvelon, Inc. (@AkvelonInc) June 22, 2017 A great smile after a great score. Patrick ended up winning first place. Congrats!Patrick currently has the leading score! Who wants to challenge??? #gwsportstech pic.twitter.com/VQfCJ2lWdF— Akvelon, Inc. (@AkvelonInc) June 22, 2017We appreciate everyone who came by to try out our new technology and a huge thanks to GeekWire for organizing an incredible event! See you at the next one.
The amount of deaths caused by traffic accidents each year is staggering. In 2014 alone, there were over 35,000 motor vehicle related deaths in just the United States and it’s nearly forty times that worldwide.With recent advancements in technology, Victor Bahl, director of Microsoft’s Mobility and Networking Research, decided to take this issue head on and use machine learning to make intersections safer. GeekWire recently reported on the ‘Vision Zero Partnership’ composed of Microsoft, the City of Bellevue, the University of Washington and the Washington Department of Transportation, along with other organizations, to achieve the enormous goal of completely eliminating traffic deaths and injuries.Even with so many organizations involved with this project, they still need everyone’s help to reach this goal. There are tens of thousands of traffic video files to review, so they are turning to crowdsourcing for the review process. Volunteers are helping identify objects in video files in intersections around Bellevue to help Microsoft’s algorithm learn the difference between a bicycle, a car, and a pedestrian, while also being able to recognize near-misses and accidents. By this process of selective learning, they will be able to train the computer to predict areas of danger within intersections, allowing officials to make changes in the intersection before anyone is injured. In effect, they will be avoiding traffic accidents from ever occurring.Identifying objects in video files is a simple process anyone can do.I decided to try this out for myself here in the office. There was no sign up or red tape to go through, I was immediately served a video file a few seconds long of an intersection in Bellevue on an ordinary rainy day.I began by identifying a pedestrian by drawing the box around the person. I checked the “Pedestrian” box on the left to identify the “Object” and then checked the “Crossing the Road” box to indicate to the computer the actions this person was taking in the video file.I did the same for cars and buses, making sure the boxes drawn around the objects were as tight and accurate as possible. This video file had around twenty objects to track and it took about twenty minutes to complete.Once I had all of the objects identified in the video, I submitted my work. My lunch was extra satisfying knowing that I had contributed a little bit to help this project reach its ultimate goal. Plus, it was neat to experience another form of selective learning in the exciting field of machine learning and predictive analytics.The process of identifying the objects in the video was very simple and straightforward which made the entire experience much more enjoyable. If you’re interested in volunteering your time to help identify objects in these videos, click here and you’ll be served a video immediately.It’s easy and it’s fun to experience the backend of this machine learning project plus you’ll be giving your time for an important cause and exciting project. Here at Akvelon, we’re keeping up with the latest in machine learning and predictive analytics. Follow us on Twitter for news and check out our Careers page for current open positions.
19 Mar McKinstry Posted at 17:05h in by Marat Zimnurov 0 Comments 0 Likes Really great work. Thus far we could not be happier with your progress and the results of your efforts.
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