Startup partners to bring machine learning, facial recognition to IoT developers

A partnership has been formed between Useful Sensors, which supports the addition of AI interfaces to consumer electronics, and OKdo, a subsidiary of RS Group which makes and sells single board computers, to increase the availability of machine learning capabilities like biometrics, presence detection, hand gesture recognition and voice interaction.

The partners plan to bring small, low-cost machine learning hardware modules to market through the global manufacturing and distribution deal.

Useful Sensors makes a coin-sized module with a camera and a microcontroller that can perform facial recognition, according to the announcement. Other applications for the company’s person sensor technology include person detection, QR code scanning, and speech recognition.

“We’re excited to be working with OKdo,” says Pete Warden, CEO and founder of Useful Sensors. “The company’s deep expertise in building products that solve real problems for their customers is going to improve the solutions we’re creating and help us come up with entirely new ways of helping system builders.”

Useful Sensors was formed a year ago by Warden and CTO Manjunath Kudlur, who are both founding members of Google’s TensorFlow open-source machine learning framework.

The companies are carrying out live demonstrations of their joint technology at Embedded World in Nuremberg, Germany this week.

Article Topics

biometric sensors  |  biometrics  |  facial recognition  |  machine learning  |  microcontroller  |  OKdo  |  person detection  |  research and development  |  Useful Sensors