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Post-Pandemic Workplace Wellness & Intelligent Building Automation Systems

August 10, 2020

by Jefferson Chu with No Comment Post-Pandemic Topics

The Pandemic

The world was caught unprepared for Covid-19 and its profound consequences on public health and the economy. In just the first six months following its discovery, the highly contagious virus was able to infect over ten million people globally, and has been responsible for at least half of a million deaths around the world in as much time.

Since the outbreak, the pursuit of workplace wellness has dramatically accelerated. Workplace wellness encompasses the physical health and safety of its employees, also how they can successfully perform their jobs and how they interact with one another.

Workforce Vulnerabilities

Most jobs (office, engineering, construction, government, etc..) can be broken down into daily tasks that have at least some element of human interaction – this may act as a channel for the virus to spread. Jobs that involve these tasks not only expose employees to risk of infection, they can also increase the spread of the virus by acting as a distribution network for it.

The challenge is in reformatting these jobs to keep our workforce healthy and productive. Checking temperatures at entrances, maintaining social distancing during working hours, assisting health professionals with contact tracing – these are just a few examples of what offices will need to do in order to reopen safely.

Enhancing Building Automated Systems with Edge AI

Edge AI driven video analytics from Gorilla provide reliable solutions to slow the spread of the virus. Integrating and deploying facial recognition access control, attendance systems, and smart parking solutions with current building automation systems to automatically monitor compliance in many ways are now possible. To name a few:

Performing screening for fevers and masks at entrances and other key zones.
Using crowd detection in cafeterias and break rooms to ensure proper social distancing is followed.
Assisting health authorities with link analysis & contact tracing when positive cases come to light.

Post-Pandemic Area Management solutions from Gorilla can also help maintain public safety and order – something that will prove to be a challenge as lockdown measures result in closed businesses and greater economic hardship for many people.

Gorilla’s offerings of behavior analytics, intrusion detection, loitering detection, direction violation detection, fighting detection — these can all help minimize the prospect of looting, vandalism, robberies. Gorilla is reaching out to assist law enforcement in preserving public order during this trying time.

While the health crisis is far from over and the full impact of the virus and global lockdown is still to be seen, we know we will get through this. We will return to our workplaces as they are re-tooled into safer and smarter environments – and Gorilla will help get us there.

The Woes of the Modern-Day Air Traveler – Could Facial Recognition Bring Back Some Measure of Joy?

June 8, 2020

by Justin Boothe with One Comment Post-Pandemic Topics Solutions

Remember years ago when travel used to be enjoyable? Friends and family could come inside and have lunch with you before your departure or meeting you at the gate as you stepped off the plane. Security wasn’t so picky as to what you could bring in your overnight bag. Plenty of non-stop routes. Lots of seating room on airlines? Remember when? I do. That’s how it was when I began my career in biometrics nearly 25 years ago.

Well, as we all know, the events that took place on 9/11 changed air travel forever. The last 19 years have been plagued by rules and regulations just to get inside security. Don’t get me started on trying to find a place to grab a quick lunch where you can actually sit down and eat. The airports are packed with people from all of the connections, you’re lucky to find a counter to lean on. Airlines now cram as many seats into one airplane as possible to maximize revenues using fewer planes which also means fewer direct routes. More connections, more security. The list goes on and on. Let’s face it, the fun has been taken out of air travel.

Now ring in the new year. Its 2020, air travel is simply a necessary evil of today’s global workforce. Then Covid-19 hits and the world realized that the 300,000+ flights daily from all over the world are helping to spread the disease like wildfire.

So – what are the CDC and industry leaders talking about now to further protect air travel? Mask wearing is being instituted by airlines around the globe. Some airports are also calling for it, handing out masks to travelers that forgot theirs at home. It seems we’ll be required masks from the time we step into the airport, till the time we leave the airport in the destination city. How will you have an enjoyable meal wearing a mask? How will you feel after breathing your own air all day? Imagine meetings with a customer or vendor in an airport wearing a mask? I’m annoyed just thinking about it. Then there is the potential for temperature screenings which no doubt will make the lines even longer.

The question on my mind is, could facial recognition bring back some convenience to air travel? What if you could check in using just your face? Go through security using your face without passing documents and germs back and forth? Could you use your face as your boarding pass to eliminate people fumbling with the screen brightness on their phones or for the old-fashioned sort who use paper passes, losing them in their luggage. For this to become a reality, facial recognition with mask detection will be required.

Many airlines have been thinking about how to make opt-in programs for frequent travelers to provide perks beyond what is available today as just another number. What if the gate agent could hold the door a little longer because they knew a diamond member was moments away? What about the many airline lounges welcoming you by name as they recognize you walking by? Could other services be brought to you if the store or restaurant knew you were nearby? Using facial recognition with mask detection – the possibilities are as broad as our imagination.

Given all of the inconveniences in today’s air travel, would you opt in with your face to make your day a little brighter? It’s all about personalization or picking the frequent traveler out of the crowd to offer special services that haven’t been previously available. It’s time facial recognition becomes a reality for those that want some relief from the modern-day inconvenience.

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Reopening Service & Retail Business Safely in the Post-Pandemic World

May 12, 2020

by Silvia Kuo with No Comment Post-Pandemic Topics Solutions Technology

Lifting the Lockdown with Edge AI Technologies

Countries are gradually lifting their lockdown policies with the hope that life will go back to what we knew before as normal. However, we are all conscious of the fact that the impact of Covid-19 has redefined our understanding of normalcy forever.

One of the most significant consequences of the pandemic is the acceleration in the adoption of technology to optimize and automate operations. We have seen a steep increase in the demand for edge AI solutions over the past months in preparation for the world after COVID-19. Gorilla Technology has developed a dedicated solution that is not only flexible and scalable, but also market-ready. The solution taps existing products which have been customized to focus on helping businesses achieve the following goals:

Monitor Social Distancing
Optimize Service Efficiency
Automate Operational Processes
Improve Overall Store Hygiene

The New Normal for Service and Retail Business

It has become increasingly important during lock-down to monitor social distancing. Inside brick and mortar stores such as supermarkets, governments have restricted the number of people allowed within any given area at any one time.

Entrances and Access Control

Currently, staff has been diverted to manage people flow at the entrance of stores – a process that comes wrought with unavoidable human error and inefficiency. To combat this, when more businesses reopen their doors we can deploy and see edge AI video analytics performing automated people counting at the door, with minimal staff engagement required. Screens at entrances will show the exact number of people currently in the store, as well as the max occupancy allowed. The queue outside the store will be separated by marks on the floor. Once inside the store, automatic alcohol dispensers will be placed at various points for customers to use as they like.

For businesses that don’t need to keep their doors open during business hours, an access control device can be deployed at the entrance to measure peoples’ temperatures and grant or deny access accordingly. These devices can be equipped with Gorilla’s facial recognition technology in IVAR™, which includes mask detection and can integrate with temperature sensors. In order to provide flexibility, solutions need to be scalable, cost-efficient, and contactless. The choice will naturally be to deploy edge devices able to run AI analytics and convert this into real-time data. The key tool behind it will be computer vision.

Analytics On the Sales Floor

Inside the store, behavior analytics based on video footage will be used to monitor trends over time. The importance of gaining a bird’s eye view of customer’s behavior in the store is crucial for further action.

Businesses want to understand which areas in the store were frequented more in order to do proper sanitation. This data can also reveal customer preferences, which in turn can lead to more effective inventory management as well as an improvement in in-store product placement. Popular products can be placed in more accessible areas, but also, this can benefit the business owners by allowing them to better manage the shelf-space fee from vendors.

Having precise information about how much time people are spending in certain areas (dwell time) could prove valuable in assisting health organizations perform contact tracing. The contact history of the infected person can then be accurately traced, to inform people that have unknowingly been in contact with them. In addition to this, with the same dwell time information, retailers can correlate the data to uncover the exact product that people are spending more time looking at and tweak their supply chain accordingly.

Previous to the pandemic, most of the sourcing in retail chains was done through personal relationships between vendors and buyers. Decision making was largely made by buyers who relied on their own experience, a system that is time consuming and not quickly replicated. The pressing need to automate and make decisions based on precise data will become indispensable for businesses reopening in the post-pandemic era.

POS and Check-Out

The need for social distancing will not subside for a long time. Some businesses estimate that such measures will need to be kept in place for the next two to three years. In view of this, the areas where people are likely to concentrate within brick and mortar stores are crucial. The check-out area is one of these high risk areas where edge AI video analytics can help manage the amount of people queuing up in order to reduce wait times.

Crowd detection analytics in computer vision solutions like IVAR can help detect the number of people in a determined zone and send a notification to appropriate staff when the amount of people exceeds a pre-established limit. Once staff is notified, they can reduce check-out time by opening more counters to serve more people.

Reopening Through Digital Transformation

If COVID-19 has taught us anything, it is to pause and reflect on our business practices. This forced halt in our daily activities has no doubt impacted us negatively, but has also allowed the world to reset itself and find new best practices.

It has made us humble about our own limitations and brought us together to collaborate as a community. It has put into question the way we consume, and striped our purchases to the bare necessities. It has also pushed organizations that were hesitant about digitalization to quickly pivot and adapt. In the wake of the pandemic, the service and retail industries will go back to business transformed – empowered by AI-driven technology and enhanced by data-driven decision making.

Facial Recognition – Visitor Check-In

March 30, 2020

by Vicky Tsao with No Comment Solutions

Visitor Management Systems: There Must Be a Better Way

Giving a schedule of expected visitors to reception is a common part of day-to-day operations for most business professionals. Typically, the only two pieces of information you pass to reception is the visitor’s name and what time you’re expecting the visit. Have you ever wondered if there’s a better system to manage/control visitor and guest access?

Corporations are constantly seeking out and embracing new technologies to enhance their visitor management systems. For many businesses, visitors no longer need to exchange their ID for a visitor badge – some corporations will register your visit prior to the meeting and the system will log it. This helps corporations monitor foot traffic and also provides a layer of safety to employees, yet still leaves some questions about the visitors unanswered.

The Challenge of Current Visitor Management Systems

More advanced visitor management systems enable us to track who will be visiting today, tomorrow and in the following weeks. However, let’s not ignore that the receptionist still needs to interact with and identify the visitor using limited information. After reaching out to multiple businesses and building managers in professional spaces, we discovered that there are even more issues that arise when using a system like this:

Visitors provide the wrong information when scheduling a visit.
The visitor is actually an unwelcome guest but provides false information in order to sneak into the office.
An ex-employee leaves the company on bad terms and has threatened to come back to the office and make a scene.

The above are the most common and real situations that happen in office buildings all over the world. What can be done about these oversights?

With recent improvements in biometric and facial recognition technology, there is now a better way to secure corporate safety on the front line and streamline visitor management.

Smart Access Control for Visitor Management

A quick internet search shows that more technology providers are offering biometric solutions like fingerprint scans to improve physical access control. We are no longer limited by using pin codes or RFID cards to swipe in and get building access. Businesses, however, are not able to collect biometric information prior to guest visits. Enter facial recognition.

This new approach to access control is innovative and straight forward. This smart access control system operates something like this: the staff inputs the visitor’s contact information along with an image of their face prior to the visit, the system then logs the profile and automatically issues a badge for the visit, and when the visitor’s face is scanned for identification & verification upon arrival, they are admitted to the building. This technology means no more incorrect visitor information, no more impersonators gaining entry, and ensured safety from disgruntled employees. To add even more value, the person at reception doesn’t need to be there to identify the visitor anymore as the entire process has become automated.

Smart Access Deployment for Visitor Management

Leveraging facial recognition and access control concepts gives us flexibility to transform outdated visitor management systems into proactive ones. Smart access control deployment is something that Gorilla Technology leads the field in and is well-versed in assisting companies making this transition. Using facial recognition in video analytics to improve visitor management systems can be applied in many scenarios.

By utilizing Gorilla edge AI technology to realize truly smart buildings, we can now create visitor management systems that give better guest experiences while increasing safety for everyone.

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