NuData Security CEO Selected as EY Entrepreneur Of The Year Finalist in Pacific Region
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, July 21, 2015 /PRNewswire/ — Leading online fraud detection provider NuData Security announced today that CEO Michel Giasson has been selected as a finalist in the 2015 EY Entrepreneur Of The Year program.
Giasson is one of three finalists for the Pacific region of Canada in the Innovative Technology – Financial Services category. NuData Security, which Giasson co-founded in 2008 with CTO Christopher Bailey, predicts and prevents online fraud by leveraging user behavior analytics, to protect businesses from brand damage and financial loss caused by fraudulent or malicious attacks.
In addition to his work with NuData Security, Giasson is an active philanthropist and has been involved with the Canadian International Dragon Boat Festival Society, an organization that fosters learning and exploration of Canada’s diverse multi-cultural heritage.
A panel of independent judges selected 31 entrepreneurs across multiple categories based on their vision, leadership, innovation, financial success, personal integrity, and work in giving back to their communities. The Canadian Entrepreneur Of The Year program is in its 22nd year.
The overall Pacific winner will be selected at a gala on Sept. 24, 2015. The winner will then go on to compete with winners fromCanada’s other four regions. The Canadian winner will compete globally with more than 50 countries for the title of EY World Entrepreneur Of The Year in June 2016.
Michel Giasson, CEO, NuData Security, said:
“NuData Security was an early pioneer and industry leader in the use of behavioral analytics to better understand users’ intentions and detect fraud. The widespread growth of data breaches in the past few years has underscored the importance of cybersecurity. It’s an honor to be recognized by EY for our long-time dedication to providing customers with a solution that not only detects fraud, but predicts it up to 15 days before an incident occurs.”
Christopher Bailey, CTO, NuData Security, said:
“Led by a boundless passion to protect the world from online fraud, Michel has been a true driver behind our success. His commitment to what we do is an inspiration to me and to our team. When we started NuData Security, we knew that competing against the ever-evolving and increasingly sophisticated hackers and cybercriminals of the world would be a daunting task, so we made it a priority to surround ourselves with an incredible team to deliver innovative solutions that stay in front of the criminals.”
Lui Petrollini, Program Director, Pacific Entrepreneur of the Year, said:
“We’re proud to celebrate such inspiring and forward-thinking entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs are job creators, trailblazers and legacy builders. Each and every single one of them is helping to build a better working world.”
For more information about the program and the finalists, please visit: ey.com/ca/eoy
BEST Funds Invests $3 Million in GroupBy
BEST Funds has announced a $3 million investment into GroupBy, a ecommerce technology innovator located in Toronto.
The capital, says BEST, will allowGroupByto accelerate their sales growth and expand research and development efforts in technologies for the B2C and B2B ecommerce market.
“GroupBy is poised to become a market leader in the ecommerce space and is the type of company that can do great things with our assistance,” BEST Funds’ President John Richardson stated.
“The team here at GroupBy has used their many years of industry experience and technical prowess to create a platform that will change the way our clients interact with their clients online, we aim to create a fundamentally better user experience, by showing the right product, to the right user, at just the right moment,” Roland Gossage, CEO of GroupBy, said.
BEST Funds is a venture capital firm based in Toronto.
source: http://www.techvibes.com/blog/best-funds-invests-3-million-in-groupby-2015-07-20
Novus Health and mPulse Mobile partner to mobilize health management like never before
The collaboration will deliver robust mobile wellness solutions throughout North America
Toronto, Canada – July 09, 2015 – Novus Health, Canada’s leader in health navigation and wellness solutions, and mPulse Mobile, a Los Angeles–based mobile experience-management company focused on consumer health and wellness, have announced a new partnership to provide comprehensive mobile wellness solutions throughout North America.
Given that over 90 percent of Americans now use mobile phones, mobile has become a crucial communication channel for companies and organizations. The partnership will see Novus Health and mPulse combine their expertise to help organizations gain improved messaging penetration, instantaneous 360-degree feedback, and insight loops with the ability to promote positive behavioural changes among health consumers.
Since 2006, Novus Health has been providing insurers, employers, membership organizations, and wellness providers with future-ready web and mobile health management content, products, and tools alongside its telephonic concierge member services. Novus Health’s solutions—which include custom health navigation web and mobile platforms, integrated health risk assessments, health coaching, and member assistance programs—empower consumers and their families to best manage their health.
mPulse, a technology start-up, provides companies with a scalable SaaS-based, HIPAA-compliant mobile messaging solution that enables the delivery of health-related information. By analyzing data and consumer behaviour, mPulse’s platform determines how to deliver relevant messaging at appropriate times and engages consumers toward positive health outcomes. mPulse’s proven solution has already driven ROI for the largest health plans and providers in the U.S.
The partnership will leverage mPulse’s intelligent mobile messaging capabilities to drive consumers to manage their health via Novus Health’s customized wellness solutions and bring transformative mobile wellness solutions to market.
“We see that the future of health care lies in engaging directly with consumers through the use of mobile technology, and we’re excited to leverage mPulse Mobile’s state-of-the-art expertise to elevate our program offerings to a new level and help more of our members throughout Canada, Europe, and the U.S.,” says Novus Health CEO Robin Ingle.
“Mobile technologies present an exciting opportunity to empower consumers. Combining our mobile health expertise and Novus’s health and wellness leadership, we are able to collaborate to make health management a fluid and seamless experience for consumers everywhere,” adds mPulse CEO Chris Nicholson.
AcuityAds Inc. Receives Follow-On Order From a Leading North American Automotive Dealer for Over $340,000 CAD
TORONTO, Ont. – July 9, 2015 – AcuityAds Holdings Inc. (TSXV:AT) (“AcuityAds” or “Company”), a leading provider of targeted digital media solutions, enabling advertisers to connect intelligently with their audiences across online display, video, social and mobile campaigns, today announced that it has received a follow-on order for over $340,000 CAD from a leading North American automotive dealer to run a two-month programmatic advertising campaign.
“This automotive dealer continues to see significant return on investment (ROI) running their programmatic advertising campaign through us, and they have decided to further commit to another campaign,” said Tal Hayek, CEO of AcuityAds. “As a company, the most important way for us to continue growing aggressively in the market is through showing exceptional results to our clients. Delivering ROI has been the key focus since the day we started AcuityAds, and we continue to stay committed to that vision. I am proud to report that because of the quality of our technology and customer service, we have been able to keep an extremely high client retention rate year over year.”
The automotive industry represents one of six core vertical areas of focus for AcuityAds that, combined with publisher direct relationships and third party data source integrations, enables AcuityAds to deliver greater granularity in audience targeting. In addition to Automotive, AcuityAds’ other core verticals are Financial Services, Healthcare, Retail, Politics, and Entertainment.
AMD Insight Licenses ArcticDx’s Age-related Macular Degeneration MDx Test
NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – AMD Insight today announced it has exclusively licensed from ArcticDx the commercial rights in Canada for the Macula Risk PGx test.
Macula Risk PGx is a prognostic and pharmacogenetic DNA test for evaluating a patient’s risk of progressing to advanced age-related macular degeneration and aids in choosing appropriate vitamin formulations for AMD based on the patient’s genetic risk profile.
According to AMD Insight, about 10 percent of Caucasians will lose their sight due to AMD, and while progression to vision loss can be prevented with early diagnosis and treatment, up to 80 percent of advanced cases are diagnosed and referred to a specialist only in the later stages of the disease when permanent vision loss is likely.
ArcticDx President and CEO Greg Hines said that during the past decade, new technologies have been developed to diagnose and treat AMD, and new imaging technologies enable more accurate diagnosis. “Combining Macula Risk PGx with these technologies to stratify patients for disease management will improve outcomes,” he said in a statement.
Financial and other terms of the deal were not disclosed.
AMD Insight is based in Toronto and focuses on genetic testing for AMD. ArcticDx is a molecular diagnostics firm with a CLIA-regulated laboratory in Grand Rapids, Mich.
Financeit offers businesses and their customers ease and flexibility of financing
Peer-to-peer payments are currently gaining popularity, but what about peer-to-peer lending? Financeit is preaching the benefits of financing and the company’s point of sale options and services now have over 4,000 partners.
The benefits they hope businesses, including Independent merchants, sole proprietors and mom and pop shops and these businesses’ customers, include no fees or penalties for paying out early as well as making initial payments.
Leveraging mobile devices, apps and services that many users are comfortable with, Financeit also aims to take the fear, uncertainty and doubt often attached to financial services which always seem to stand to make a profit off customers.
Fianceit has $928 million in loan applications received from customers. Aiming for ease of use, Financeit has worked over may of the pain points of the process for getting a financing loan, so that its customers simply need to enter the point-by-point information from customers to enable financing on products and services.
Daniel Mayne, Financeit’s Director of customer success walked me through some aspects of the process which seemed straightforward enough and which highlights Easy to use entry points, help centre, points for borrowers and even support for eSign.
What this means for customers of Financeit’s partner businesses is the option to invoke financing rather than outright payments or using more credit cards which have notoriously higher interest rates.
“The option for financing is attractive with a number of promotional programs resulting in an increase in sales and deferred sales,” Mayne points out. Consumers find this option acceptable, specially since they can since Financeit allows the use of pre-authorized debit which ensures overall lower interest rates and charges.
Financeit features competitive rates, instant approvals and intuitive loan management leading to an easier way to start boosting sales with consumer financing.
A Forester research study from last year showed that businesses which offered financing as a payment option enjoyed 20 per cent increase in sales which is significant for smaller businesses trying to make a profit in a competitive economy.
The walkthrough demo showed a straightforward and surprisingly transparent method of signing a customer up for a loan.
Partner merchants can use various features and support mechanisms like a purchase calculator, library function, posters, zero per cent interest and the option to pay monthly. Once a business signs up, they get access to a partner guide. Principal loan application forms are also available for those who prefer a non digital approach but most of it is online or through the app.
Other conveniences of the iOS app is that it can scan driver’s license to autocomplete information. Send it to the applicant and for signing on their device provided they have an internet connection.
Financeit has been around since 2011 in Canada and the service started last Fall in the US in a few states.
CogniVue’s “Opus” APEX Generation 3: Vision Processing With Implementation Flexibility
Practical computer vision (i.e. “embedded vision”) is rapidly becoming a mainstream reality. Numerous processor chip and core suppliers have responded to increasing market demand with a variety of processor options. One of the first companies to target the vision processor space, Quebec, Canada-based CogniVue, has just unveiled its third-generation core architecture.
CogniVue’s path to the vision market involved several intermediate steps. The company was initially founded fifteen years ago by several university professors as a supplier of computational memory devices (a lineage still evident in the abundance of localized memory resources on today’s APEX vision processor cores). In the mid-2000s, CogniVue transitioned to becoming a general-purpose multimedia coprocessor developer; the company’s focus narrowed to vision processing around 2010. And whereas CogniVue initially strove to be a fabless semiconductor supplier, the company has been wholly focused on the processor core licensing business for the past three years.
CogniVue’s publicly disclosed design wins include partner Freescale, whose SCP2200 and newly released S32V SoC families are based on first- and second-generation CogniVue Image Cognition Processor (ICP) cores, respectively, and two generations of NeoLAB Convergence “smart pens”. CogniVue’s APEX architecture blends scalar and vector processing capabilities within a customizable core. Looking at the second-generation APEX, for example, each Array Processor Unit (APU) is comprised of a variable number of four-element vector VLIW SIMD computational units (CUs), each paired with a variable (512 bytes to 8 KBytes) amount of computational memory (CMEM) (Figure 1).
Figure 1. CogniVue’s APEX vision processor core architectures embed both scalar and vector processing resources, along with fixed-function blocks, as this second-generation core example shows (top). Equally notable is the architecture’s flexibility, enabling it to be expanded and otherwise custom-tailored for specific applications’ speed, power consumption, and silicon area needs (bottom).
Conducting the symphony of CUs’ activities, along with providing scalar processing facilities of its own, is the custom RISC array control processor (ACP), which has its own tightly coupled instruction and data memory (IMEM and DMEM). And completing the picture are various optional hardware function blocks, such as DMA controllers, sequencers, and interfaces to other SoC cores and on-chip resources. The ratio between CUs and ACPs within an APU is customer-definable, as is the number of APUs within an APEX core. Factors in determining the exact configuration for a particular implementation include the required proportion of scalar versus vector processing resources, along with the relative priority of performance versus silicon area.
According to the company’s Vice President of Marketing, Tom Wilson, and Vice President of Engineering, Ali Osman Örs, with whom BDTI recently met, the new third-generation APEX core family’s enhancements were driven by key evolving market requirements such as:
- Many more computer vision functions operating in parallel, as in forward-facing camera automotive safety applications
- The need for ever-higher precision results
- Increasing adoption of 2k-resolution video to support longer-distance image analysis and more reliable object detection
- Key-customer interest in Cascade object-recognition classifiers, along with emerging interest in the use ofconvolutional neural network (CNN)-based classifiers
- The expanded use of various 3D sensor technologies (stereo, time-of-flight, structured light, etc.) with associated computationally intensive disparity map, point cloud and other processing requirements
As a result, for example, the CUs in the third-generation APEX approach, code-named “Opus”, are now 32-bit in nature, versus 16-bit in the prior generation. The “Opus” ACP has also grown, from 32-bit to 64-bit, and is now also VLIW in nature. The peak operating clock frequency has increased from 700 MHz to 1 GHz on a common 28 nm fabrication process node. And the amount of intra-core interconnect bandwidth has also been “significantly increased,” according to Örs and Wilson, in a particular nod to the needs of CNN-based designs(Figure 2). The result, they estimate, is a 5-10x average performance increase when comparing second- and third-generation APEX cores of comparable CU and ACP counts.
Figure 2. The latest third-generation “Opus” APEX architecture iteration widens both the scalar and vector processors, along with the buses interconnecting them to each other and their associated memory arrays (top). Multiple cores can communicate with each other over both internal “AXI-like” and external full-AXI fabrics (bottom).
CogniVue has also noted the increasing popularity of heterogeneous processing in SoCs for vision, a trend driven in part by the maturing OpenCL framework standard maintained by the Khronos Group. In response, the third-generation “Opus” architecture also makes notable improvements to its inter-core connectivity capabilities. An internal “AXI-like” interconnect fabric allows for chaining together multiple APEX cores. Inter-APEX core connections can alternatively be made via the external fabric, which is AXI-3-compliant, implements up-to-AXI-4 capabilities, and is primarily intended for stitching together an APEX vision coprocessor and other cores such as a CPU and GPU.
Silicon potential means little without development tools to actualize it, of course, and CogniVue strives to deliver here as well (Figure 3). An APU Compiler tool chain supports both conventional and OpenCL C source code inputs and generates corresponding kernel code, which the higher-level “Simulink-like” APEX Core Framework toolset stitches together, comprehending and accounting for data dependencies as well as maximizing the utilization of on-core memory resources to boost performance and minimize power consumption. According to CogniVue, Core Framework also enables developers to rapidly evaluate various proportions of per-core ACPs and CUs in order to optimize size, speed, and other parameters.
Figure 3. CogniVue is determined to not make the mistake of focusing predominantly on silicon to the detriment of associated (and necessary) compilers, libraries and other development tools.
To simplify software development, the company provides the APEX-CV base library for free to core licensees; its 87 optimized kernels handle various image manipulation, image filtering, color space and color format conversion, image statistics, morphology, shape analysis, interpolation, and image transform tasks. And the separately licensable APEX-CV Pro library includes optimized higher-level algorithms for classifiers, geometric image transforms, motion analysis, edge and line detection, key point detection, feature point descriptors, image segmentation, and computational photography.
CogniVue, a pioneer in the vision processor core space, is facing increasing competition from an increasing number of larger competitors. The company is responding not only by enhancing its foundation silicon architecture but also by bolstering its associated development tool suite as a means of enabling licensees to rapidly and cost-effectively deliver robust SoC designs to market. And the architecture’s fundamental flexibility (“scalability from ultra-tiny APEX configurations with just 32 CUs for wearables up to > 256-CU configurations for high-end automotive vision,” to quote CogniVue) will also serve the company well as it strives to secure licensee agreements across a range of applications and markets.
source: http://www.bdti.com/InsideDSP/2015/06/30/CogniVue
Aite Highlights NuData as Leader Behavioral Analytics
Aite Group, a market research firm specializing in the financial services sector, has released a new report on digital fraud mitigation. In it, research director Julie Conroy finds that there is a growing place for behavioral analytics systems such as the one offered by NuData Security.
The research was conducted this past spring and involved interviews with 26 fraud specialists working with 19 financial institutions in North America. It found that while 79 percent of the banks involved said they plan to increase spending on anti-fraud measures for online and mobile banking, less and less of that investment will be going to knowledge-based authentication systems; over half of the banks said their use of such systems is expected to decline over the next couple of years. Instead, many of the banks are looking to more technologically sophisticated solutions, with six of the banks suggesting they’ll adopt biometric authentication, and various behavioral analytics systems seeing the potential for strong growth in the sector.
In a statement, Conroy suggested that while behavioral analytics is a form of biometrics, “it is not subject to the same onerous laws as traditional biometrics, therefore Aite Group categorizes them as a form of behavioral analytics.” She proceeded to single out NuData as a leading vendor.
And rightly so. The company’s NuDetect platform has been honed over the course of its development toidentify the early warning signs of fraud very effectively, leading to acclaim from others as well, as in the case of Gartner, which named it a Cool Vendor in Cloud Security, and in the case of NuData’s being named a Gold Winner at the 2015 Global Excellence Awards. The company is clearing a path in the nascent industry, with others sure to follow.
source: http://findbiometrics.com/aite-highlights-nudata-as-leader-behavioral-analytics-26254/
Behavioral Analytics Security Innovator Interset Named As One of Canada’s Most Promising Startups by C100 48 Hours in the Valley
Ottawa, ON, June 23, 2015 – The C100, a San Francisco-based non-profit focused on connecting Canadian companies with the Silicon Valley, has selected Interset as one of Canada’s most promising startups and a participant in the 48 Hours in the Valley event, to be held this week in San Francisco. The event provides 20 Canadian startups selected from hundreds of applicants the opportunity to expand their businesses through access to new networking, mentoring, and business growth opportunities in Silicon Valley. Participating startups include cloud, mobile, IT and security companies; Interset is a pioneer in providing a highly intelligent and accurate cyber and insider threat detection solution that uses behavioral analytics, machine learning and big data to protect critical data.
“It’s an exciting time for innovation in security, an area primed for huge advancements in detection and mitigation of advanced threats through the use of big data architectures, advanced analytics and machine learning, “said Interset CEO Dale Quayle. “We’re very pleased to be identified by The C100 and grateful to this excellent organization for the service and platform they’re providing for Canada’s tech innovators to expand our businesses on the global stage.”
Interset offers a next generation solution for the User and Entity Behavioral Analytics market, which is transforming security, according to Gartner, because it makes it much easier for any organization to gain visibility into user behavior patterns to find offending actors and intruders. Aggregating and analyzing these patterns can filter out extraneous noise and deliver an accurate and prioritized view of true threats facing an organization. To learn more about Interset’s approach, download the whitepaper, “Redefining the Science of Threat Detection,” at https://www.interset.com/info-center/white-papers/redefining-the-science-of-threat-detection/.
C100 Association is supported by many partners including Premier Partners KPMG Canada, BDC Capital and RBC Royal Bank. 48 Hours in the Valley is being held June 22 -24 in San Francisco at Cooley LLP in Palo Alto and at Juniper Networks in Sunnyvale.
source: https://www.interset.com/news/press-releases/c100-selects-interset/
TV TEM Adopts Dejero LIVE+ GoBox and LIVE+ Mobile App for Field News Crews
WATERLOO, Ontario — June 23, 2015 — Dejero today announced that TV TEM, a regional affiliate of Brazil’s Rede Globo television network based in Sorocaba, Bauru, São José do Rio Preto, and Itapetininga in the state of São Paulo, has chosen Dejero’s video-over-IP solutions to expand and enhance its newsgathering capabilities. TV TEM has deployed LIVE+ GoBox professional-grade mobile transmitters and LIVE+ Mobile Apps from Dejero to its field news crews, enabling them to cover live events and breaking news where and when they happen using bonded cellular, Wi-Fi, and portable satellite connections.
“In our competitive broadcast market, having the ability to be the first to go live directly from the source of breaking news is a key differentiator. Although we still rely on traditional microwave and OB vans, the Dejero technology has increased the mobility of our news teams and enabled them to go live immediately, rather than waiting for the vehicle to arrive,” said Ewerton Maciel, Director of Technology, TV TEM. “Of the various technologies we evaluated, Dejero’s LIVE+ platform offers the best video quality with minimal latency. Dejero also comes out ahead in terms of ease of use, portability, and flexibility in supporting available cellular connections. For instance, the LIVE+ GoBox can accommodate SIM cards for each of the major Brazilian cellular providers to ensure that we will always have the cellular connectivity we need for a high-quality transmission.”
Deployed to news crews in major cities throughout the TV TEM viewing area, the rugged and highly portable LIVE+ GoBox transmitters enable reporters to broadcast live from virtually any location using bonded cellular, Wi-Fi, and portable satellite connections. They can also record up to 40 hours of HD video for later broadcast. In addition, TV TEM videojournalists have installed the LIVE+ Mobile App on their smartphones, enabling them to use the devices’ built-in video cameras and cellular connections to transmit live video. At TV TEM’s broadcast center in São Paulo, a LIVE+ Broadcast Server receives the incoming video feeds for playout to air.
“News organizations everywhere have come to depend on our LIVE+ platform as a highly versatile and reliable addition to their mobile newsgathering capabilities for producing industry-leading, high-quality video,” said Brian Cram, CEO, Dejero. “As one of the top news organizations in the state of São Paulo, TV TEM knows the importance of breaking news coverage for maintaining market share. With the LIVE+ GoBox and LIVE+ Mobile App from Dejero, they’ve given their news crews a big advantage, enabling them to capture and transmit live, high-quality video whenever and wherever news is breaking.”Dejero Solutions Extend Network’s Mobile Newsgathering Capabilities by Enabling Reporters to Cover Live and Breaking News Directly From the Source