Google selected Oriient’s Micro-Location solution

Google choose Oriient’s Micro-Location solution to be included in its Cloud’s integrated package solution for retailers. Oriient’s solution makes it possible for shoppers to easily and precisely navigate indoor such as shopping centers and huge retail stores, with no hardware installation required. Google Cloud’s customers will be able to use this solution in order to enables capabilities like search by product and shopping route optimization for their shoppers. It will also assist grocery pickers to locate items in the storehouse.

Oriient’s solution, which utilizes the sensors that already exist in every smartphone, is based on mapping the unique distortions which large buildings generate in the earth’s magnetic field due to amount of iron inside the building. Oriient’s solution “learns” the inner structure of the building based on those magnetic distortions, and creates a dynamic map, similar to Google map. This map, in turn, assists the user in navigating to the desired item, room or counter, at 1 meter (3 ft) accuracy.

No hardware is required to be installed in the customer’s site for Oriient’s solution to be used. Currently, the company provides services for retailers for developing navigation-bases applications, such as directing the shopper by a product or by shopping list. In addition, the platform provides comprehensive analytics regarding customer behavior in the store, in order to learn shopping patterns and routes, optimize the store layout and create things like contextual promotions. The platform is capable of recognizing items on the shelf, based on a database composed of item scans performed buy the shoppers’ smartphones.

Oriient Company, founded in 2017, has completed the development of its solution last year, and started to commercially introduce it to the industry. Significant customer lately announced is the delivery app Instacart, reportedly generated $1.8 billion revenue in 2021. The app, similar to Wolt, gained a great boom at the COVID-19 era, allowing shoppers to order groceries from supermarkets and grocery stores. Implementing Oriient’s solution in Instacart allowed pickers to easily and quickly locate the items in the order and provide the shopper with a better shopping experience. 

[Pictured above: Mickey Balter]

Google Pixel 4 Smartphone Includes Infineon’s Radar Chip

The announcement of Google Pixel 4 and Google Pixel 4XL smartphones in October 15, 2019 may not be a huge event for the smartphone industry, but for radars based chips – it is a major change. For the first time, a complete radar in chip is embedded into a smartphone allowing new type of applications and 3D gesture control of the device. To achieve this, Goggle went to Europe, to acquire Infineon’s new BGT60TR13C radar chip.

Infineon has developed a 60 GHz radar chip, based ob its earlier version, the 24 GHz BGT24MTR radar chip. Using an integrated antenna system, BGT60TR13C radar chip appears on a very small area (5 x 6.5 mm) coupled with low power consumption. It senses the presence and movement of people and objects with high precision or measures distances and speeds in an angular scan of 120° and distance ranging from few millimeters up to 5 meters. This chip is the base for Google’s Soli technology and has now been integrated for the first time into a smartphone, so that it can also be controlled by gestures.

“This is a revolution in the human-machine-interaction,” said Andreas Urschitz, Division President for Power Management and Multimarket at Infineon Technologies. “At Infineon, we are furthermore working on the fusion of multiple sensors to simplify interaction and increase the usefulness of the devices.”  According to Mordor Intelligence report, the radar sensors market was valued at USD 8.6 billion in 2018, and it is expected to reach USD 22 billion by 2024, registering a CAGR of approximately 20%. The main drivers for this market are the rapidly increasing automation, such as autonomous driving and the Industry 4.0. Until now nobody considered smartphones as a driver for this market.