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Fabrice Goffin and Tommy Deblieck,
joint managing directors of Zora
Bots. “Our first years of operation
have allowed us to continually test
and improve the way NAO is used
on a day to day basis. Today, with
the Zora
®
solution, NAO is set to
conquer new areas.”
Over 10,000 NAO have already
been sold in almost 70 countries.
This strategic rapprochement
between the two companies should
make it possible for NAO to attract an even wider audience.
In retail, hospitality, education and other sectors, NAO
equipped with the Zora
®
solution is the ideal companion
for carrying out repetitive tasks such as reception services,
providing information (product/services catalogues, school
exercises, events agendas) and leading activities. It is also
perfect for offering opportunities for interaction unique
to all individual user groups such as clients, students and
colleagues.
“Our vision has always been to create a solution that would
allow everyone, regardless of whether they are adept at
using new technologies, to imagine their profession and
their everyday life differently through the intuitive use of
an undeniably versatile and likeable robot,” add Zora Bots’
directors.” With SoftBank Robotics, we share this vision that
every day, robots can assist man rather than replace him”.
PARIS, JULY 20 2017 SoftBank Robotics
and Zora Bots have just signed a major
partnership aimed at reaching a wider
audience for the humanoid robot NAO.
Zora Bots, which has already deployed
its software designed for robots in
the health sector, is now the world’s
leading distributor of NAO and is poised
to expand its solution in many areas
including retail, hospitality, education
(STEM skills) and personal services.
This strategic rapprochement in the
international arena will bring humanoid robotics into a new
dimension and make NAO available to a wider audience.
Every day, the humanoid robot created by SoftBank
Robotics and equipped with the Zora
®
solution is already
working alongside healthcare teams, performing various
feats and providing new kinds of support throughout the
world. In hospitals, treatment centres, nursing homes and
care centres, this small robot just under 58 cm tall has
been adopted as a working tool that makes it possible to
improve patient care significantly.
Today, SoftBank Robotics and Zora Bots have reached
an agreement to expand their partnership. Designed and
developed to universalise the use of humanoid robots, the
Zora® solution will now be available worldwide, facilitating
the use of NAO in a considerable number of domains.
“Humanoid robotics is entering a new dimension,” explain
NAO sets out to conquer new markets with the Zora solution
Machine intelligence development is fundamentally
composed of two stages: (1) training an algorithm on
large sets of sample data via modern machine learning techniques
and (2) running the algorithm in an end-application that needs
to interpret real-world data. This second stage is referred to as
“inference,” and performing inference at the edge – or natively
inside the device – brings numerous benefits in terms of latency,
power consumption and privacy:
Compile: Automatically convert a trained Caffe-based
convolutional neural network (CNN) into an embedded neural
network optimized to run on the onboard Movidius Myriad 2 VPU.
Tune: Layer-by-layer performance metrics for both industry-
standard and custom-designed neural networks enable
effective tuning for optimal real-world performance at ultra-
low power. Validation scripts allow developers to compare the
accuracy of the optimized model on the device to the original
PC-based model.
Accelerate: Unique to Movidius Neural Compute Stick, the
device can behave as a discrete neural network accelerator
by adding dedicated deep learning inference capabilities to
existing computing platforms for improved performance and
power efficiency.
Movidius Neural Compute Stick is now available for purchase
through select distributors for MSRP $79 and at the conference
on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR) in
Honolulu, Hawaii, from July 22-25.
16 l New-Tech Magazine Europe