Food Freshness, a new type of email and robot wolves

November 19

This week we look at a new way to keep food fresh and a way to test for freshness. We also investigate a new type of email that is bound to revolutionize e-commerce. We examine a few new developments in Construction and catch up with a company that we featured a few months ago to see how they have developed. Finally we meet a Japanese Robot Wolf.

Food Freshness

Researchers at Jiangnan University have developed an electronic nose that provides a portable, automatic, real time analysis of food freshness. A combination of colorimetric barcode combinatorics and deep convolutional neural networks have been developed to provide a system for sensing meat freshness.

The barcodes comprise 20 different types of porous nanocomposites that form scent fingerprints that are identifiable by the neural network. The neural network was able to predict meat freshness with 98.5% accuracy. The system is able to be incorporated into a smartphone application. It is fast accurate, non destructive and enables supermarkets and consumers to monitor food freshness.

Santa Barbara California based startup, Apeel Sciences has developed a plant based spray on coating for fresh fruit and vegetables that can extend their shelf life by up to 5 times. Made from leftover lime, avocado and cucumber skins as well as asparagus stalks the coating forms a natural barrier and protects the fruit from the elements.

The US Food and Drug Administration has approved the first products Edipeel and Invispeel as safe to eat. Edipeel keeps water from leaving the fruit and stops oxygen from entering, Ivisipeel forms a barrier to insects. The product is now being used in Southern California, Kenya and Nigeria.

New type of Email

Currently when we are sent an email to checkin for a flight, take advantage of a special price for our favorite wine, complete a survey or take any action other than read the email, we have to leave the email and go to a website to complete the transaction.

Think of what you have to do to complete online checkin for a flight. You need to open the email, clink on a link that takes you to a website, enter your membership number, remember your password, click on a couple of links to take you to the checkin page and then checkin for the flight, select your meal and your seat, buy excess baggage and then go and open another email which contains your boarding pass. Imagine being able to check into your flight, select your seat or meal, buy extra baggage and receive your boarding pass all within the one email.

SeatAssignMate (SAM) is developing a new generation of email that will allow you to complete the entire checkin transaction within the one email.

As with most businesses they were hit hard by Covid and they have had to pivot. They are now adding e-commerce functionality to email. Users will be able to see an image carousel of products, select their preferred item, color, size and SKU add it to their shopping cart and checkout within email. The email will also set up package tracking and initiate delivery. Online auctions, surveys, concert tickets (with dynamic pricing), hotels with real time availability and booking are just some of the uses that SAM is developing. I am not sure how they will deal with spoofing, phishing and other scams. How they build trust with users will key to their success.

Head mounted computing

Computing and assisted performance of duties are entering every facet of modern business. realwear a Washington State based company has developed an Android tablet that is head mounted and specifically built for industrial applications. The tablet is voice controlled and allows hands free operation and communication in real time. It can take photos via a voice command and in the future may be supplemented with Augmented Reality training programs for live instruction.

The system can link in software such as Microsoft Teams, Cisco Expert and Geocall for real time collaboration. realwork have developed uses in Automotive, Manufacturing, Oil & Gas, Health Care, Utilities and Field Services.

Update on Takeoffs.io

In July we looked at the impact of AI on Architecture. One of the companies that we featured was an Australian company (now located in Denver) that was using AI to automate the cost estimation for building projects. They have made significant progress since July. They are now called Joyne (joyne.co) and they have added a materials marketplace (6 million products), payment system (60 days interest free terms on material purchases) in addition to their automated estimation services. It is great to see how quickly the team has been able to vertically integrate many of the pre-build services into the one online platform. The service is available in Australia, NZ, US and Canada.

Spot works in Construction

Spot (the Boston Dynamics Robot Dog) has recently entered the construction business. Spot is being used to capture and monitor progress on a construction site. Most projects have multiple sub-contractors working on different parts of the project. This requires constant coordination and monitoring.

The dog is able to conduct continious routine scans in the ever changing environment of a building site. Projects can be tracked against predicted timeframes and design changes can be incorporated very quickly and accurately into the checking process. This helps construction projects to be able to brought in on-time and on-budget.

Robot Wolves

Kisarazu City in Japan has engaged a robot wolf to help scare animals away from farming crops. Wolves became extinct in Japan in the early 1800’s after a Government sponsored eradication campaign. This has led parts of Japan to be overrun with deer and wild boar. These animals love to feast on rice and chestnut crops.

Some 200 hundred years after the wolves became extinct, the enterprising Japanese have recreated the predator as a robotic replacement. Currently the wolves are immobile (maybe spot can teach the wolves a thing or two) however each wolf has an effective radius of a square kilometer.

The beast is about 65 centimeters in length (similar to a real wolf) and has tufts of grey hair and impressive fangs. Solar rechargeable batteries sustain the wolf and it detects intruders with an infrared sensor. Once an animal is sensed nearby the wolf uses a range of sounds to scare the animal off. These sounds include a howl, gunshot and a human voice.

Paying it Forward

If you have a start-up or know of a start-up that has a product ready for market please let me know. I would be happy to have a look and feature the startup in this newsletter. Also if any startups need introductions please get in touch and I will help where I can.

If you have any questions or comments please email me via my website craigcarlyon.com or comment below.

I would also appreciate it if you could forward this newsletter to anyone that you think might be interested.

Till next week.