NEWS
GITEX 2017
Microsoft showcases artificial intelligence
for workplaces and Coco blockchain
easily expanded to identify objects placed in hazardous positions
or do asset tracking. Built with the Microsoft Cognitive services
platform, the workplace safety solution also showcased its use
in scenarios where people who need special tools, are spread out
across multiple areas or floors of a site. With the use of intelligent
cloud, the cameras can identify a specific tool, as well as the
closest authorised person who can deliver it, saving everyone time
and keeping the workflow moving.
Coco Blockchain
Microsoft demonstrated how an existing CCTV camera can be transformed
into a safety and security tool, as well as its Coco Blockchain framework.
Microsoft introduced Gitex delegates to its Workplace Safety
demonstration, built on the company’s Cognitive Services
platform, with significant contribution from its artificial
intelligence capabilities to deliver workplace safety.
Using existing commodity cameras, and advances in artificial
intelligence, the workplace safety solution brings the digital
and physical worlds together to help make everyone more safe,
secure and productive. The demonstration showed visitors how
any existing CCTV camera can be transformed into a safety and
security tool, by the perfect union of the intelligent cloud and
artificial intelligence capabilities.
The demonstration was built around a live feed from a staged
workplace setting, and focused on a series of scenarios, revealing
how the artificial intelligence vision, deep learning tool and cloud
computing can enable organisations to apply business policies
that recognise the relationships between people, places and things
and ultimately turns these places into artificial intelligence-driven
safety zones. That technology and platform can enable similar
solutions in areas where safety is a top priority from hospitals to
petrol stations and manufacturing plants.
The manufacturing sector is now Dubai’s third largest, and
the emirate’s Department of Economic Development expects
around $19 million to be spent on research by manufacturing
companies, as the sector expands from a current value of $11.2
billion to $16.1 billion by 2030. Attendees watched a live artificial
intelligence-powered chatbot act as a security and safety officer
identifying in unauthorised personnel, objects and safety threats
while providing real-time alerts for necessary actions. The
demonstration also covered safety-monitoring, showcasing how
you can automatically detect threats such as fire, and workers
not wearing the appropriate protective gear. The solution
demonstrated how people in the real world can take action in real
time to improve safety and well-being. That demonstration can be
Based in the intelligent Azure cloud, Coco enables high-scale,
confidential networks that meet all key enterprise requirements,
providing a means to accelerate the digital transformation potential
of blockchain technology. Coco uses existing blockchain protocols,
trusted execution environments such as Intel SGX and Windows
Virtual Secure Mode, distributed systems and cryptography,
to deliver a platform for enterprise-ready ledger solutions. The
framework’s capabilities include database-level throughput and
latency; richer, more flexible, business-specific confidentiality
models; network policy management through distributed
governance; and support for non-deterministic transactions.
Coco is open, and compatible with any blockchain protocol.
Microsoft has already begun to integrate the open-source
Ethereum into the framework, as well as JP Morgan Chase’s
Quorum, IBM’s Hyperledger Sawtooth and R3’s Corda, with other
ledgers to follow in the coming months.
As more and more blockchain protocols have emerged,
enterprises have noticed that many fall short on critical
compliance requirements, such as performance, confidentiality
and governance. While public blockchain networks require
trade-offs between, for example, confidentiality and performance,
the Coco Framework eliminates these trade-offs by catering
specifically to confidential consortiums, where participants in the
blockchain network are explicitly declared.
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