MOSCOW, November 1. /TASS/. The Ivideon cloud-based video surveillance and video analytics service, which raised $8 mln of investments from Rusnano Sistema SICAR and Skolkovo Ventures funds, launched the Russia’s first cloud solution for face recognition Ivideon Faces, press service of the Rusnano Group said on Friday.
"Existing face recognition solutions from other vendors require installation of local costly and complex equipment. The technology transfer to the cloud will release the business from the need to buy new specialized equipment and give access to analytics from any device worldwide subject to Internet access availability," the press service said.
The new service targets retail, banks, and the services sphere, along with office and public spaces. The product already undergoes pilot testing in caf· chains and other companies.
"Consumer market players has the acute necessity to ‘recognize’ faces of their buyers: personalize the service and offers, analyze the guest’s mood and his or her readiness to return. Our principal task is to give an affordable and friendly instrument of emotions recognition and audience portrait identification to the market. We want to make the product as providing maximum benefits and convenience for the progressive business, which has the need to cut costs and return clients, rather than merely buy technology solutions for reporting," the press service cited Andrei Yudnikov, chief executive of Ivideon.
Market trends
The launch of the new cloud-based technology from Ivideon is in line with the global trend: according to estimates of iKS-Consulting, the cloud services market in Russia amounted to 68.4 bln rubles ($1.1 bln) in 2018 and may reach 155 bln rubles ($2.4 bln) by 2022.
"We see at the moment that machine learning technologies, particularly the video recognition function, penetrates the majority of business process, starting from security provision and ending with forecasting consumer behavior in retail chains and entertainment centers," Senior Managing Director of Rusnano Sergei Vakhterov told TASS.
The turbid growth of face recognition technology application is directly linked to development of the video surveillance as a service (VSaaS), Vakhterov said. "The global market of VSaaS is growing by 22% annually and will reach $6 bln by 2022. Accordingly, the wider is the technology spread, the cheaper and more affordable it is," he added.
Opportunities of service
Ivideon Faces is able to recognize new and standing clients, analyze visits by days and hours, determine the age, sex and emotions of people. The business will get an opportunity with the aid of service to generate lists of visitors (either loyal or undesirable), set notices when finding faces from the list, look for specific faces in the archive and generate detailed reports on the target audience.
"Therefore, the decision will enable the retail and banks to create personal offers for guests and optimize staff work and large office spaces - to count staff and record working time," the press service of Rusnano said.
Ivideon Faces requires CCTV cameras only for operation. The technology works with any models, including obsolete ones, using the Ivideon Bridge product making possible to connect simultaneously up to 16 devices or video recorder channels to the cloud.