Qnap and IEI to Showcase ‘Grab & Go’ Intelligent Store

The World Congress on Information Technology (WCIT 2017), also known as the Olympics of the ICT industry, will take place from September 10-13 in Taipei, Taiwan.

In line with the theme ‘Living the Digi+tal Dream’, Qnap Systems, Inc. and IEI Integration Corp. will bring together their IoT innovations to demonstrate smart retail solutions – an ‘Intelligent Store’ that integrates business intelligence technologies to fulfill responsive in-store experiences and return business results faster. The demonstrated intelligent store also involves a technical partnership from Gorilla Technology Group‘s intelligent signage and Viscovery Group Pte. Ltd.‘s video AI services.

Meiji Chang, GM, Qnap, and chairman, IEI, highlighted how the company innovates by capitalizing on industry trends and technology: “Our strength built on solid storage and private cloud enables us to explore all possible IT innovations and practices as Qnap storage solution is where all digital data lands. While cultivating IoT applications, we are excited to collaborate with pioneering video analytic solution partners to unlock the possibility of machine-intelligent shopping environments – where the system recognizes you, knows more about you, and personalizes your shopping experience. We envision our intelligent device – AfoBot – for wider scenarios in our life.“

The intelligent store integrates artificial intelligence, intelligent signage, and AI-powered checkout services for optimizing personalized shopping experiences with savvy in-store marketing implied in every step of the operation flows. AfoBot is tailored for face recognition at the entrance, and is connected with IoT gateway- TANK series from IEI through QIoT Suite Lite, the private IoT cloud platform, to share a face database between all AfoBot devices, demonstrating that AfoBot is flexible to fit different smart retail scenarios. Combined with Gorilla’s intelligent signage that delivers targeted advertising to store customers based on gender and age, interactivity and tailored communication are made possible to realize better understanding of customer needs and improved performance in point of sales.

“The collaboration with QNAP and IEI fully realizes the potential of video analytics applications on powerful, stable NAS and embedded systems across different verticals,” said Dr. Spincer Koh, CEO, Gorilla Technology. “Gorilla’s Video IoT platform utilizes cloud and edge computing to extract video insights and IoT data from connected devices to provide business intelligence and innovative solutions for both public and private sectors. We are excited to see the growing adoption and range of video analytics applications as it will continue to drive innovation and bring new opportunities for businesses.“

AI and automation replaces cashiers to save costs and help reduce checkout time. By integrating Viscovery’s Video Discovery Service (VDS) for AI object recognition and using IEI’s industrial computer solution as an AI server, items at the checkout counter can be scanned automatically in real-time and transactions can be finished almost instantly, meaning that customers can just ‘Grab and Go’. Customer service is not sacrificed in this unmanned store. The company’s AfoBot provides video calling, allowing it to answer calls from remote customers and provide instant responses for customer enquiries.

“Viscovery is a Deep Learning technology company, and our mission is to make Unstructured Video data ‘Searchable’ and ‘Recognizable’,” said Don Hsi, chairman, Viscovery Group. “To accomplish this goal, we analyze seven major content classes: face, image, text, audio, motion, object, and scene. Brand it with the acronym FI-TA-MOS, the applicable industries include Contextual Advertising, Video Search Engine, Smart Retail, IoT, and many more. Our customers include most China online video platforms/OTT, and major retailers.“

The company’s QVR Pro is a next-generation video surveillance solution that can be easily deployed in the intelligent store. It can also work with QIoT Suite Lite to create customized event-driven recordings or to trigger alarms.

Qnap and IEI marketing and business development personnel will be on-hand to help determine product and marketing strategies for distributors and resellers to grow their business with IoT solutions.