Tag Archives: PAP

Goodnotes Acquires Korean AI Startup, Dropthebit, to Accelerate Development of AI Features

LONDON, Jan. 16, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Goodnotes, the leading digital paper app, has announced that it has acquired Dropthebit, the creators of Traw, a service that automatically organizes meeting, lecture, and video content into summarized notes and videos. Following the acquisition, Traw’s generative AI technology will be further enhanced and adopted into the Goodnotes platform.

Kyumin Sim, former CEO and Co-Founder of Traw (left) and Steven Chan, CEO and Founder of Goodnotes.
Kyumin Sim, former CEO and Co-Founder of Traw (left) and Steven Chan, CEO and Founder of Goodnotes.

Since its launch in 2020, Traw has focused its efforts on using technology to automate notes creation, both for a user’s own materials and for the content they find online. Following a seed investment led by Capstone Partners and KB Investment, Dropthebit launched Traw’s initial offering, Traw Whiteboard, in 2022. This smart digital whiteboard for lectures and meetings automatically recorded when a user spoke or drew on the board. Traw then automatically edited the video into meeting minutes with subtitles and distilled the video into a document for easy reading and editing. Last May, the company introduced Traw AI, a tool that automatically organized and summarized YouTube video content. Traw AI could create short video or textual summaries and even extract key information from videos into a table format, transforming the research process.

While this comes as Goodnotes’ first acquisition, this is not the company’s first venture in investment aimed at accelerating improvements to the overall user experience. In late 2023, Goodnotes invested $1.9M into South Korea’s largest digital stationery platform, WeBudding. This strategic investment was the first within a larger initiative to partner with rising startups that offer technology or services that complements the burgeoning digital paper space. AI innovation has been a particular focus for Goodnotes following the 2023 launch of Goodnotes 6, which included the world’s first generative AI for handwritten text and thereby transformed Goodnotes into the world’s first AI-powered digital paper company.

“Like many M&As, the meeting of Goodnotes and Traw was like fitting together forgotten puzzle pieces,” said Kyumin Sim, former Traw co-founder and CEO and now a product lead at Goodnotes. “We’ve put a lot of thought into what digital note-taking should look like, so it’s especially an honor to collaborate with Goodnotes, the world’s most popular note-taking app. I’m excited about the new features this will inspire and the value we’ll bring to many people.”

In addition to leveraging the skilled Traw team to create new ways to enhance AI note-taking features, Goodnotes plans to explore extending its offerings beyond “pen and paper” note-taking, incorporating modalities beyond the stylus, and eyeing new mediums to integrate into the platform.

“When I met the Traw team for the first time in Seoul, I knew right away that the AI tools they’ve built for audio and video recordings are a natural fit for Goodnotes,” said Steven, CEO at Goodnotes. “I was really impressed by not only their innovative ideas, but also their passion and drive. We feel very fortunate to be in a position to acquire small, capable teams like Traw to accelerate our roadmap.”

About Goodnotes 
Goodnotes is the leading AI digital paper used by more than 24 million monthly users worldwide. Launched in 2011, Goodnotes started as an improvement to physical paper notes — introducing the ability to take handwritten digital notes, search handwritten text, and organize everything into a digital library. Today, Goodnotes is pioneering generative AI for digital handwriting in the productivity space. Goodnotes was most recently named Apple’s 2022 iPad App of the Year.

About Dropthebit
Dropthebit, established in 2020, is a startup that has been founded to create services to improve everyone’s work efficiency. Its first product, ‘Traw,’ is a service that automatically organizes all content from meetings and lectures on a whiteboard into videos and transcripts. Since this year, it has been launching ‘Traw AI,’ which uses AI technology to organize and convert various data easily.

CONTACT: press@goodnotesapp.com

China’s Digitized Container Duckbill Speeds Up, Faster and Smarter

Backed by a new round of capital, Duckbill aims high to be a dominant player in the domestic container trucking market

BEIJING, July 23, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — Chinese digital container logistic platform Duckbill announced today the completion of a Series C financing round valued at CNY 330 million (around USD 48.85 million). This round was led by the SAIC-CICC private equity fund. Existing shareholders including Shunwei Capital, Future Capital and Furong Capital continued to pump money into this deal.

The startup will use the fresh funds to support the ongoing research and development of digitalization in container land transportation, business expansion to more ports across China, and optimization of service, the statement reported.

A latecomer, but a quick grower

Founded in 2017 and headquartered in large-port megacity Shanghai, Duckbill is an innovator in the container trucking industry, with branches and services in all the main ports in China, including Shanghai, Ningbo, Shenzhen, Qingdao, Guangzhou and Tianjin — they are also parts of the world’s top 10 busiest ports in terms of container throughputs in 2021.

Although it is only a five-year-old startup, Duckbill has previously closed six rounds of funding since its inception, snagging a total of approximately USD 200 million from a bunch of notable venture capital firms. They include Singapore’s state-owned investor Temasek and growth-stage venture investor Pavilion Capital Partners. Within this frame of reference, Duckbill is the most promising drayage servicer in China.

The company has long specialized in the international freight container business — a more complex but lucrative niche market — and redefined it via its state-of-the-art algorithm-empowered software and management system. Meanwhile, with a team of experienced IT professionals from the shipping logistics industry featuring deep insights and superb execution skills, giving this trucking service platform featuring intelligent dispatching and transportation management an unparalleled advantage in upgrading the whole chain of container transportation through digital systems.

There is no doubt that Duckbill, a latecomer to the industry, has made tremendous strides in its first five-year journey.

Duckbill is ambitious, with supportive operating figures
Duckbill is ambitious, with supportive operating figures

According to the official website, it garnered the crown in terms of trucking capacity and scale, with over 2,100 trucks under control and about 13,000 partnered vehicles by the end of 2021. The volume of orders topped 1.1 million TEU (twenty-foot equivalent unit) containers in the past year accordingly, 54 times larger than that of 2017, with a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 172.3% from 2017 to 2021, putting it stands heads and shoulders above other competitors in China in this regard.

However, Duckbill’s ambitions go much further than that.

It is accelerating its path of expansion actively to cover four more ports this year, namely Lianyungang, Nantong, Qinzhou and Haikou. Moreover, it also plans to build a fleet of more than 10,000 trucks serving globally by 2025; in its envisioned future, orders will accordingly enlarge over six times the size of its current operations.

The scale of its business is matched by a large number of high-profile clients. The company’s official website shows that it currently ships over 100,000 foreign trade factories and serves more than 9,000 companies, including Shanghai-based logistics giant Sinotrans, China Merchants Group-backed Sinotrans (SH:601598; 0598:HK), state-owned COSCO Shipping, home appliance supplier Midea (SZ:000333) and Alibaba’s logistics arm Cainiao.

Digitalization: There is hope

As with all startups EqualOcean covers, we care most about future opportunities and the potential of rising stars. Through an in-depth analysis of the company, we find a keyword in Duckbill’s success — digitalization.

China’s foreign trade volume stood at USD 6.05 billion in 2021, up 30.1% year-on-year despite the COVID-19 pandemic continuing to weigh on global trade, official data from the General Administration of Customs (GAC) showed earlier this year.

Buoyant exports have become the backbone of China’s economy, for sure; however, with rising domestic labor costs, the labor-intensive manufacturing sector is falling out of favor with developed economies. The pandemic has accelerated this shift even more, with Southeast Asia, Africa and South America becoming more preferable options. Vietnam, for example, reported upward Q1 economic figures and promising outlook when China was fighting with Omicron flare-ups in major manufacturing hubs like Shanghai.

Total exports and imports make up a large share of GDP, but its losing pace
Total exports and imports make up a large share of GDP, but its losing pace

At the same time, the game of great powers as well as the continued industrial transformation and upgrading have all contributed to a weakening of the momentum of China’s foreign exports.

“This trend is irreversible. We deeply believe that in the medium to long term, the sustainable growth for the container trucking industry pivots on utilizing digitalization and mobile interconnection to accelerate industry integration, carrying out scale operation, reducing operating costs while enhancing the customers’ experiences,” said Duckbill, who has faith in this assertion and been decisively engaged in it. The paperless campaign that has been vigorously promoted in recent years has further strengthened the industrial base in building a digital truck land transportation industry.

In fact, the whole world is going digital, and not just shipping. Since 2016, the world’s largest container firm Maersk, SIPG (SH:600018), China Merchants Group, China COSCO and a slew of others logistics companies have put forward a vision for the development of digital transformation. While only until recent years, the urgency is being rapidly amplified.

It follows that the company attaches great importance to research and development along with technological transformation, the proportion of R&D personnel reached 30% as of the end of 2021, with dozens of in-house intellectual property rights annually.

The company’s self-developed intelligent transportation service platform www.yazuishou.com provides international clients and freight forwarders a fully online, instantaneous, complete freight management system that offers immediate quotations, bookings, inspection services plus real-time 24/7 shipment track and trace under ‘EXWLocal Manager.’ It guarantees visible, reliable and efficient transportation services in the whole process of cross-border transportation from factories to targeted ports. Such certainty is even more crucial in the current VUCA world — volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous — and is then only available in a technology-driven company like Duckbill via its forward-looking strategies.

When it comes to the internal data center, its dispatching system, transportation management and risk control system are also noteworthy. Based on big data, Chinese satellite navigation system Beidou as well as AI-powered algorithms, Duckbill enables intelligent dispatching and real-time dynamic supervision of trucks on the run. Instantaneous data exchange also creates positive synergies in processes of transportation, loading, terminal release and customs clearance. Highly granular customer data analysis is another highlight of its digitalization solutions, which enables Duckbill to maximize user contributions, helping it to personalize its services, identify and fill in the gaps in its current operational capabilities.

In addition to its ongoing digital enhancements to optimize customer experience, Duckbill also values its freight drivers truly. It has launched a one-stop service terminal for container truck drivers named Future Truck Boss, a ‘freight version’ of Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi’s app. The mobile app provides drivers with a series of after-vehicle services such as pick-ups, collaboration, billing and refueling, which greatly lowers the thresholds for drivers to enter the industry, saves time and boosts efficiency. At the same instant, thanks to Duckbill’s intelligent dispatching algorithms and 7/24 manual support, drivers on the platform can also enjoy a stable, standardized and guaranteed workflow. This is something not offered by Duckbill’s rivals in the traditional trucking industry.

Duckbill’s digital solution has multiple advantages
Duckbill’s digital solution has multiple advantages

Tang Hongbin, the founder of Duckbill, told EqualOcean that the rational and effective application of new technology is the strongest driver of the industry. “We have made digitization our core competency at the current stage and continued to optimize customer service in exchange for a higher level of trust.”

Rosy future ahead

China overtook the United States as the world’s largest trader in goods for the first time in 2013, and even in the eventful 2021, China still maintained that lead.

The fact that container land transportation between factories and domestic ports is entirely undertaken by domestic freighters has created the largest as well as the most geographically concentrated niche market in the world. According to the Ministry of Transport, the container handling volume at China’s ports stood at 282.72 million TEUs in 2021, which gives the A-level player Duckbill in this segment a large growth potential.

“Looking ahead, we must embrace new technologies such as autonomous driving to strengthen our overwhelming advantages,” added Tang, whose team also eyes on the research and development of autonomous driving in port scenarios with a CNY 200 billion market cap. Currently, Duckbill is incubating its sub-brand BOOM, with plans to have a production model off the line by 2024 and mass production capability by 2025. “We expect auto-driving to reshape the economic model of the container logistics industry.”

The fully-automated logistic plant with zero carbon emissions is also on its list, which is designed to improve both security and efficiency via intelligent algorithms and big data analysis. It would also be a showcase for Duckbill’s social responsibility.

At present, Duckbill gets further ahead of its challengers in a number of key indicators, including fleet size, transport flexibility and visibility, fulfillment capacity and the volume of orders. It is telling a new story to the capital markets: starting from container trucking, it is heading towards the prosperous track of building a closed-loop for the whole on-land logistics market.

This path contains sizable opportunities, although Duckbill’s future may not always be roses and rainbows; maybe, long-termism is the best answer.

Cision View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/chinas-digitized-container-duckbill-speeds-up-faster-and-smarter-301591815.html

Handheld announces new version of the NAUTIZ X6 ultra-rugged Android phablet

LIDKÖPING, Sweden, Sept. 9, 2021 — Handheld Group, a leading manufacturer of rugged mobile computers, today launched a new version of the popular NAUTIZ X6 ultra-rugged phablet, a handheld computer that combines the big-screen functionality of a tablet with the go-anywhere performance of a rugged phone.

To view the Multimedia News Release, please click: https://www.multivu.com/players/uk/8947251-handheld-announces-new-version-of-the-nautiz-x6/.

With this platform upgrade, the new version of the Nautiz X6 ultra-rugged phablet runs Android 11 and is Android Enterprise Recommended (AER). One of Handheld’s most successful products since its launch in 2019, the Nautiz X6 is ideal for industrial and field applications with the reliability to perform most challenging outdoor and industrial environments.

The Nautiz X6 rugged phablet offers:

  • Android 11 operating system with GMS, Android Enterprise Recommended (AER).
  • A sunlight-readable, 6-inch capacitive multi-touch display with super-hardened Gorilla Glass.
  • IP67 ruggedness rating for waterproof, dust-tight performance, plus a broad operating-temperature range.
  • An 8-core, 2.2 GHz Qualcomm® Snapdragon processor with 4 GB RAM and 64 GB storage.
  • Built in GNSS solution for precise navigation using GPS/GLONASS/Galileo/BeiDou.
  • Dual cameras, including 13-megapixel rear-facing, and 5-megapixel front-facing.
  • Optional high-quality, high-speed 2D imager.
  • Multiple enterprise-focused accessories for professionals.
  • MaxGo software to quickly apply custom settings to multiple devices.

"Since its introduction, the Nautiz X6 has been one of our fastest-selling devices. With its combination of military-level ruggedness, slim design, and reliable performance, the Nautiz X6 has been exactly the rugged handheld our customers needed," says Johan Hed, Handheld Group director of product management. "The platform upgrade and Android 11 plus the quality assurance that the Enterprise Recommended certification brings is likely to add to the product’s success."

Availability

The new version of the Nautiz X6 can be ordered now with shipments expected to start in mid-September.

Helpful links

NAUTIZ X6 product specifications 
Press images 
Customer success stories 
What is rugged?

About Handheld

Handheld Group is a manufacturer and global supplier of rugged mobile computers, handhelds and tablets. Handheld and partners worldwide deliver mobility solutions to businesses within geomatics, logistics, forestry, public transportation, utilities, construction, maintenance, mining, military and security. Handheld Group, headquartered in Sweden, has subsidiaries in Finland, the U.K., the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Australia and the USA. Learn more at www.handheldgroup.com.

 

The Nautiz X6 ultra-rugged phablet runs Android 11 and is Android Enterprise Recommended (AER). It is designed for industrial and field applications and has the reliability to perform in the most challenging outdoor and industrial environments.
The Nautiz X6 ultra-rugged phablet runs Android 11 and is Android Enterprise Recommended (AER). It is designed for industrial and field applications and has the reliability to perform in the most challenging outdoor and industrial environments.

 

AlpVision to offer free of charge security feature to protect COVID-19 relevant medicines against counterfeiting


VEVEY, Switzerland, Nov. 13, 2020 — On November 13th, 2020, AlpVision is launching the "AlpVision COVID-19 Initiative" helping pharmaceutical companies to protect COVID-19 relevant medicines against counterfeiting.

Authentication using smartphones
Authentication using smartphones

COVID-19 has caused not only a worldwide health crisis, but also created unprecedented economic challenges. In response, AlpVision has decided to launch the "AlpVision COVID-19 Initiative". The initiative supports pharmaceutical companies by providing them for free with the necessary tools to protect COVID-19 relevant medicines and vaccines against counterfeiting.

To do so, AlpVision will provide pharmaceutical companies and their suppliers with all necessary tools to deploy the Cryptoglyph on their packaging. The AlpVision Cryptoglyph is a digital security feature which can be implemented and deployed within just a few weeks. The Cryptoglyph is invisible to the human eye and authentication of a product protected with a Cryptoglyph is done using a regular smartphone. Securing of packaging with a Cryptoglyph is very easy as it neither changes the standard production process, nor requires additional consumables. In addition, the smartphone applications connect to AlpVision’s Brand Monitoring System (BMS), a centralized server platform through which pharmaceutical companies are able to monitor in real-time product authentication activities and gain important insight into counterfeiting activities.

The "AlpVision COVID-19 Initiative" starts on November 13th, 2020, and subscription will run for an initial period of three months. Participating companies will be able to protect their COVID-19 relevant products with zero additional cost for the authentication feature. AlpVision will provide this service gratuitously until the pandemic is officially declared as ended by the World Health Organization. Companies interested in participating in the initiative are invited to contact AlpVision. More information can be found online at www.alpvision.com/Covid/.

ALPVISION – MORE THAN ANTI-COUNTERFEIT SOLUTIONS

AlpVision was founded in 2001 and is the world’s leader in digital anti-counterfeiting technologies for product authentication and counterfeit protection. AlpVision’s digital anti-counterfeiting solutions for product authentication are applicable to a wide variety of items, including packaging and labelling, plastic and metal products, and high-value documents. AlpVision anti-counterfeiting solutions are commercialized worldwide under license agreements as entirely customizable turnkey computerized systems. Today AlpVision protects over 30 billion of products each year. More information is available at www.alpvision.com. Join us on LinkedIn and follow us on Twitter.

Cryptoglyph and AlpVision are registered trademarks of AlpVision SA. Smart Embossing, AlpVision Fingerprint® and Krypsos are trademarks of AlpVision SA.

Contact:

Martin Kutter 
+41 21 948 6464  
avinfo-20@alpvision.com

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Related Links :

http://www.alpvision.com

XAG Deploys Drones to Seed Burned Land for Australian Fire Recovery

  • XAG joined hands with DELWP and HDLN on the first-ever post-fire drone seeding operation on Cobrico Peat Swamps, Victoria in Australia.
  • Drones with intelligent spreading system were used to distribute seeds directly into the fire-ravaged, difficult-to-access areas.
  • The trial project in Lake Cobrico demonstrates the best practice of drones to regenerate peat swamps after a wildfire in a safe, cost-effective manner.

COBRICO, Australia, May 13, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — In a collective effort to restore Australia from wildfire devastation, XAG has joined the first-ever post-fire drone seeding operation on Lake Cobrico, Victoria. This project was funded by Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP) and managed by Heytesbury District Landcare Network (HDLN). It is the first time that agricultural drones are used to re-establish native vegetation within a fire-ravaged peat swamp in Australia.

XAG Drone Seeding to Help Vegetation Regeneration in Australia
XAG Drone Seeding to Help Vegetation Regeneration in Australia

Due to the increasingly frequent, large-scale bushfire, Australia has been facing an unprecedented decline in biodiversity as well as substantial increase in greenhouse gas emission. Particularly, as one of the world’s largest terrestrial carbon reserve, peatlands have been experiencing drainage and fires, which contributes to 5% of global carbon emission. Immediate actions should be taken based on partnership to restore the country’s damaged ecosystem.

This April, XAG sent 3 sets of its P Series drones, equipped with JetSeed granule spreading system, to distribute native seeds directly on Lake Cobrico. Within only two days, approximately 40 hectares of burned land was replenished with new plants, using a blend of 12 different seeds. In the next six months, XAG and HDLN will closely monitor the result of drone seeding, which will be compared with that of the other area where plants are going to be natural regrowth. It is expected that the project would be replicated across the region and state, especially within the areas where traditional techniques are inapplicable.

Lake Cobrico is a swamp wildlife reserve located near Warrnambool in Southwest Victoria. Part of the peatland was severely damaged during the 2018 St Patrick’s Day Fire, with the vegetation and deeper soil layers left in ruins. In areas of high burn severity, the ecosystem itself might be unable to regenerate naturally and requires human intervention, such as direct seeding, for fire recovery. Re-establishment of native vegetation can slow down erosion and sedimentation, and suppress invasive weeds after a wildfire.

XAG drones allow seeding to be done on Lake Cobrico, where landowners and managers used to find it difficult to restore the wet, inaccessible fire-impacted areas. During the operation, the drones accurately followed the pre-set flight route, while harnessing high-speed airflows to project seeds from 2-3 metres above the ground. Also, seeding rates could be precisely controlled and adjusted in real time to ensure that the proper amount of seed was distributed evenly into the targeted bare land. This has not only limited the exposure of staffs and ground vehicle to rugged terrain, but also avoided using either too much or too little seeds.

HDLN co-ordinator Geoff Rollinson said in an interview with Cobden Timboon Coast Times that, drone technology provides access to all areas despite the complex landforms. “This project wouldn’t be able to go ahead in the normal manner because some areas of Lake Cobrico are unstable,” he said. XAG is the first business in Australia to obtain swarm flight approval from Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA), therefore operation of up to five drones by one pilot is made possible to increase efficiency.

By innovatively using drones for direct seeding, XAG has transformed the way ecosystem restoration works are conducted. Seeding by hand or ground equipment is inapplicable to Lake Cobrico where part of the peat swamp is difficult to access; this approach might also disturb the vulnerable post-fire vegetation and soil. Aerial seeding by plane or helicopter can cover a larger area, but besides costly, it might result in seed drift and uneven distribution that might adversely affect a successful outcome.

The trial project in Lake Cobrico demonstrates the best practice of drones to regenerate fire-impacted peat swamps in a safe, cost-effective manner, without human or mechanical trampling on vegetation cover. XAG’s drone seeding solution is now recommended by DELWP and HDLN as a ‘well-designed and sustainable option for environmental restoration works.’

Bushfires are a natural part of Australia’s ecosystem, in which many plant species develop to become fire-resistant. However, the 2019-20 Australian bushfires, as one of the most severe, has brought devastating, long-lasting impact on the world’s biodiversity. Over 17 million hectares of land was burned across the nation, with an estimated one billion animals killed in the raging fires.

Facing great environmental challenges caused by the fire disaster, Australia has been going through a bumpy pathway to long-term recovery. New technologies can empower government and land managers to restore the fire affected regions under safer operating conditions. XAG’s smart agriculture solutions, including drone surveying, remote sensing, and precision chemical application, have been gradually adopted in Australia. If drone seeding techniques can be scaled up for ecosystem restoration across the states, it would help to accelerate the footstep of Australia’s fire recovery.

About XAG

Founded in 2007, XAG is a world-leading agriculture technology company with 12 years of technical experience in unmanned aerial system (UAS) and 6 years of practical experience in innovative field applications. Up to 1 January, 2020, XAG has over 50,000 agricultural drones in operation, having empowered 7 million farmers with precision crop protection services on 25 million hectares of farmland. With a global mission to advancing agriculture, XAG is devoted to building digital farming infrastructure, developing precision farming equipment, such as robots, drones, AI and IoT, and creating smart agriculture ecosystem.

Cision View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/xag-deploys-drones-to-seed-burned-land-for-australian-fire-recovery-301058231.html