4th Innovation Days – Creative technologies

4th Innovation Days - Creative technologies

They chose the technology area to apply their knowledge and creativity to projects that, in turn, they submitted and saw funded by one of the programs of the Innovation Agency. Evolve Space Solutions, NearInteraction, Ynvisible, Critical Software, Nonius and Intelligent Sensing are among the approximately 500 companies that will be present at the 4th Innovation Days, which have been taking place at the Parque das Nações Fil since Thursday, to show the solutions they have been creating.

The objectives they propose are different, as well as the development phases of each of the solutions, some still in proof of concept, others just arrived on the market. This is the case of Retmarker, a system for the automatic detection of changes in the retina.

Developed by Critical Software, Retmarker is a software for processing retinographs to detect and identify features linked to ocular pathologies.

Intended for the health area, the application allows its users to add comments and notes to the results provided, also providing visualization tools, which can help to check results.

Also for the health area, AAL – Ambient Assisted Living is the latest solution from Intelligent Sensing Anywhere and is about to be commercialized.

It consists of a monitoring console via bluetooth that serves as the basis for the Look4MyHealth system. “The measurements of vital signs are made by several wireless devices that are in the patient’s home, which transmit the collected data to the AAL, which are later sent by Ethernet for a server ”, explains Soraia Rocha, project manager.

The server that receives the data keeps it available for consultation by the clinicians responsible for monitoring and evaluation. “Users can access the system’s web page and, after registering, consult the patient’s history”, says the person responsible for the project started in September 2008.

Nonius brings to the fair several projects, especially Nivo. The platform, which is already being adapted to the hospitality and health market, uses IPTV to give customers a wide range of services, through the television they have in their hotel or hospital room.

At the Conference, the company demonstrates the version it is developing for a hotel in the Algarve. All information about hotel services, traditionally communicated on paper, leaps into the TV in an interface that is simple to use and pleasing to the eye.

Through TV, the user has access to TV channels, content on demand, also to games, Internet access or booking hotel services, such as a treatment at the SPA, or consultation of information about the various services available. An application is also integrated in the TV screen, allowing the connection to another technology developed by the company, the WG-WPS.

It is an application for locating people where an appliance and a WiFi TAG are combined that provides the necessary information. The service is already being used in a hospital in Porto and will soon arrive at the hospital in the Algarve, but the company has also thought of it for the hospitality industry and can integrate it with the TV platform, or the PDA, allowing, for example, a parent to see exactly where your child is at the resort.

By the end of the year, the solution will also be available with the Tag integrated into a bracelet, as explained by Luis Primo, product manager, who stresses the advantages of using WiFi over traditional RFID, since the use of this technology allows more accurate information with less level of investment. It also highlights the fact that Nonius’ solution works on any WiFi network.

Creative and emerging

The application sector of NearInteraction is more differentiated. Created exactly one year ago, using the Neotec program from AdI, the company currently focuses its business on the surfaces sector multitouch, a technology that has been mixing with others, in an experience that, for example, takes shape in the Tangible Mobile Connectivity project.

TCM, which stands for itself, integrates Bluetooth and surfaces multitouch creating an interface that allows users to choose, from the “table” or “wall”, contents that are then transferred wirelessly to their mobile phones, namely photos.

In its approach, Near Interaction promises to circumvent the possibly intrusive aspects of Bluetooth. “We have reversed the decision process for the user, that is, it is the user who chooses to take the content with him or not,” says Elga Ferreira, managing partner of the company.

This is just one of the projects of the Near Interaction which, despite the short space of existence, already has several solutions delivered in its portfolio, always developed on request, as is the case of the 1.5m by 1m table created for the last edition of Moda Lisboa or the wall that integrates Future Labs, the most recent permanent exhibition of the Fundação das Comunicações.

At the moment the seven-element company is finalizing a solution that crosses multitouch surfaces with physical objects. “The desk will be able to read information contained, for example, on a student card, returning the entire portfolio of works by that same student”, says Elga Ferreira.

“We don’t want to be known as a company that created the hardware, but as the company that created an experience of multitouch”, Concludes the person in charge.

Mobile gEO Positioning is the name of a solution still in production by Evolve Space Solutions. The system allows obtaining high-precision positioning on a mobile device and has the topography and survey survey as a practical application.

The mobile interface allows navigation interactively in a virtual scene that represents the area where the user is.

“The objective is to take advantage of the new features provided by mobile devices, namely smartphones and PDAs”, explains Rafael Perfeito, project engineer.

Started this year, two different distributions are being developed based on the solution: Personal, aimed at the individual user, and Positioning, aimed at professional areas, namely in the design of new objects or in urban planning systems.

“It is an Earth Observation application, where we bet on intuitive navigation that when activated will“ elevate ”the user in the air, providing him with a real aerial view and presenting him with geo-referenced information about everything that surrounds the place”, adds the person responsible for Evolve Space Solutions.

Recurring in events of this kind, YDreams has its solutions highlighted again, this time developed by spin off Ynvisible.

Result of a partnership with the Faculty of Science and Technology of Universidade Nova and with activity started this year, Ynvisible is dedicated to the development and research of ubiquitous computing technologies, namely by placing new functionalities in everyday objects, in this case screens.

YInvisible Quadros, Yinvisible Papel and Yinvisible Textil are the three projects based on electrochromism technology in progress, with proofs of concept successfully completed.

Financed by the Ideia da AdI program, the three projects had the partnership of three companies, respectively: Bi-Silque, Renova and Filobranca.

They are currently testing the technology on other surfaces, such as cork and wood, and to this end partnerships have already been formed with the business sector. A laboratory exclusively dedicated to these applications is also being completed.

«At the moment we want to give robustness to the technologies that we have already developed, in order to study the best methods to be applied at an industrial level and to ensure the capacity of scale», reveals Carlos Pinheiro, director of development and research at Ynvisible.

Patricia Calé