New Trends on Our Radar - October 2013

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Trends on our Radar

Our regular pick of five hot technology areas and some of the leading innovative companies leading the way (October 2013) Produced by our Open Innovation and Technology Scouting team

Five Emerging Technology Areas and their Leading Innovators

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Credit Scoring

Smart Home

Behavioural Biometrics

CO2 Conversion and Use

Wearable Health Devices


Credit Scoring Medium Term Trend

The explosion of social media and other online data has allowed companies to begin determining credit scores using this new source of information. This approach has advantages such as enabling faster loan decisions and allowing credit scoring of people with limited credit histories who may traditionally have been unfairly labelled as high risk.


Lenddo, Hong Kong Lenddo makes loans after using social media accounts to assess applicants’ creditworthiness, scoring them on their online behaviour and the strength of their connections. Members of a community are able to vouch for each other’s character and then exert social pressure for loans to be repaid.

Cignifi, MA, USA Cignifi has developed an analytics platform that provides credit scores for consumers based on their mobile phone behaviour, using as little as four weeks’ calling history.

Example Innovators

Kreditech, Germany Kreditech provides credit scoring for consumers in emerging markets where traditional banks lack scoring data. Credit scores are determined from 8,000 online indicators, such as location, social interactions, behavioural analytics (movement and duration on web pages), shopping behaviour and device data.


Smart Home Near Term Trend

While the concept of the smart home has been talked about for decades, a range of new consumer behaviours (such as ubiquitous smart phone use) and the ability to connect objects to the internet are helping to stimulate a new generation of smart home technologies and services.


Example Innovators

AlertMe, UK AlertMe provides a single platform for data, insight, control and intelligent automation in the home. Its system integrates multiple devices and services through a single ‘super app’ to create a system that connects everything, and has the ability to intelligently automate devices to work together seamlessly.

Lumawake, CA, USA Lumawake is a smart dock for iPhones that is integrated with home automation systems, allowing it to trigger events such as automatically turning off your lights and TV when you fall asleep and turning on the coffee pot and morning news when you wake up in the morning.

Ayla Networks, CA, USA Ayla Networks allows existing home appliance manufacturers to transform their products into cloud-connected smart devices quickly, easily and economically.


Behavioural Biometrics Medium Term Trend

Behavioural biometrics is used to asses the authenticity of a user based on the way they interact with hardware or software. Advantages of this approach include allowing non-intrusive and continuous authentication systems, helping to protect against cybercrime threats.


Example Innovators

BehavioSec, Sweden & USA BehavioSec’s technology uses algorithms that measure the unique pattern and natural rhythm that every user has when interacting with their devices. By using the system in everyday work the software becomes increasingly more efficient and information becomes more secure.

Oxford Biochronometrics UK The company’s ‘Bio-Chronometric Signature’ is based on ‘markers’ that are created when a person interacts with almost any modern computing device that can accept human-initiated input.

BioCatch, MA, USA BioCatch determines each users unique ‘Cognitive Signature’ by injecting subtle cognitive challenges into applications which the user responds to without noticing they are there. When a deviation from the regular behavioural profile is spotted the system sends out an alert of a possible security breach.


CO2 Conversion and Use Medium Term Trend

While the capture and underground storage of carbon dioxide has yet to be proven commercially viable, there are a number of promising technologies being developed that instead convert unwanted CO2 into saleable goods, potentially offering an economic route to reducing CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere.


Example Innovators

Skyonic, TX, USA Skyonic has developed technology that captures carbon dioxide from power plants and turns it into baking soda and chemicals that can be sold. The company is currently operating a demonstration plant and expects to start making a profit at a commercial-scale facility within three years.

University of Georgia, USA Researchers at the Bioenergy Systems Research Institute have developed a way to take CO2 directly from the atmosphere and transform it into industrial products. The technology involves a newly created microorganism that imitates photosynthesis in plants.

Liquid Light, NJ, USA Liquid Light is developing catalysts and processes for the efficient and economic conversion of industrial waste CO2 into chemical products such as glycols, alcohols, olefins and organic acids.


Wearable Health Devices Near Term Trend

Advances in low power wireless communications, sensors and electronics have opened up the opportunity to create a whole new range of wearable systems for monitoring health and fitness.


Example Innovators

NovioSense, Netherlands NovioSense is developing a wireless sensor that fits under the eyelid and measures glucose levels. The wireless signal sent from the sensor can be used to control an insulin pump, creating a closed loop system that offers personalized care for diabetics.

AiQ Smart Clothing, Taiwan AiQ Smart Clothing integrate stainless steel yarns and threads directly into clothing to create functional, lightweight, and washable products. For example, it’s BioMan Fabric is used in sports clothing to monitor vital signs, such as heart rate and respiration and send the information to a smartphone for analysis.

MC10, MA, USA MC10 reshapes electronics to create devices that can be placed inside, outside or on the body and measure health parameters such as blood pressure, brain activity, muscle function and hydration.


Thank you www.ventureradar.com @venture_radar Andrew Thomson, Director Email: [email protected]

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New Trends on Our Radar - October 2013

Technology

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