Listen Up. Hear and Know Enables Information Access in an Innovative Way
May 18, 2016
Improbable as it sounds I found myself a short distance from the offices once housing the Exalead search company. Once I used Google Maps to find my way from Opéra to the Rue Royale where Exalead had its office. GPS did not do the job. Exalead was located next to a food shop behind intrepid Parisians who parked their Smart Cars, bicycles, and motos on the sidewalk.
On this trip to Paris I was going to learn about a company with technology that performed some GPS type functions without GPS.
In addition to tracking hardware and firmware, the company called Hear and Know has a database system which sends out emails and SMS alerts to inform the team tracking an object of interest exactly where that said object is in real time. Based on my concerns about the precision of GPS centric systems, I wanted to understand the Hear and Know approach. (Yes, “hear” refers to the company’s approach to capturing audio.)
Instead of search, the company Hear and Know developed systems and methods to have information flow directly to a person who needs to know who, what, where, and when events take place. This is practical, real time, and actionable information. None of that keyword search and fuzzy geo-location implementation.
Like Google, Exalead was anchored in the world of Alta Vista, Hotbot, and Lycos. A failure to recognized the impact of mobility, pervasive connectivity, and an insatiable appetite for gizmos or firmware that leapfrog the keyword approach locked the door on traditional search. At the same time, mobile and wireless kicked open the door to new ways of thinking about information. Here and now, real time, flows, and the potential of embedding smart technology in miniaturized components.
Times change.
On the dot, Jean Philippe Lelièvre, founder of Hear and Know, walked in the door of my so-so hotel not far from the Madeleine metro stop in Paris. M. Lelièvre sat down, ordered a Badoit, and reminded me that he and I had met at a conference in a country soon to be named “Czechia.
With my studied Kentucky suaveness, I asked: “What’s up?”
The answer was that Lelièvre’s company continues to attract customers from government sectors as well as commercial operations. Hear and Know works in the technical space described as “radio solutions for traceability and security.” Founded in 2012, Hear and Know tackled the problem of imprecise location of objects like cargo or persons of interest. GPS is okay for finding one’s way to Opéra from Madeleine to the Sorbonne. For many information tasks more precise geo-location coordinates are necessary. Examples range from tracking shipments of nuclear material, persons of interest, individual packages within containers, fire and rescue, and myriad other use cases. GPS is okay, just not as precise as many assume.
The company’s technology combines a miniature radio transmitter which fulfills requirements of traceability, geolocation, and secure data transmissions by authentication and encryption. The system transmits its ID. The “tag” allows the user to find the asset, the vehicle, the person or the package on which the miniaturized component is attached. The firm’s engineers have designed the device to perform other functions; for example, temperature, pressure, and audio. What makes the hardware interesting is that a Hear and Know device can function as what Lelièvre calls an “effector.” I interpreted the concept as making a Hear and Know device function as an “alarm” or a signaling device for another hardware or software system.
In addition to tracking hardware and firmware, the company called Hear and Know has a database system which sends out emails and SMS alerts to inform the team tracking an object of interest exactly where that said object is in real time. Based on my concerns about the precision of GPS centric systems, I wanted to understand the Hear and Know approach. (Yes, “hear” refers to the company’s approach to capturing audio.)
In my talk with Lelièvre we did not discuss military applications of the company’s technology. During my flight from Paris to Kentucky, I thought about the value of embedding Lelièvre’s devices into weapon systems. If those weapon systems find themselves “out of bounds,” the devices can activate a disabling mechanism of some type. A smart weapon that becomes stupid without the intervention of a human struck me as an application worth moving to a prototype.
Lelièvre described a use case in which Hear and Know’s radios are deployed for a person of interest. The locations and other details flow into the Hear and Know data center and allow an investigator to formulate a statement of fact along the lines:
John Doe was on MM/DD/2016 at HOUR:MINUTE at the address LATITUDE/LONGITUDE.
Another application is the use of the Hear and Know devices to monitor individuals with a medical condition; for example, people with Lyme disease allows the family to know the family member’s location and support them if help is needed.
These data can be displayed on a map in the same way Geofeedia presents tweets or Palantir shows the location of improvised explosive devices. The difference is that Hear and Know provides:
- Nearly undetectable radio form factors
- Adjustable transmission frequencies
- Multi-month operational autonomy
- Email and SMS alerts about location of tracked object or person.
Hear and Know has remarkable technology. At this time, the company is best known in Europe. It customers include:
- Atos
- BPIFrance
- Esiglec
- Mov’eo
- Thales
US law enforcement, intelligence, and commercial enterprisers are wrestling with pinpoint tracking in real time. My view is that the Hear and Know technology might lead to some hefty revenue opportunities. The company has begun to probe the US market. In January 2016 , Hear and Know received a silver medal certificate for innovation at the January 2016 Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas.
Hear and Know will be participating in the Pioneers festival in Vienna May 23 to 25, 2016 and in the Connected Conference in Paris, May 25 to 27, 2016. This summer, their next step will be looking for partners and fundings in the US.
To contact Hear and Know, write sales@hearandknow.eu.
Stephen E Arnold, May 18, 2016
Comments
3 Responses to “Listen Up. Hear and Know Enables Information Access in an Innovative Way”
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Bonjour Stephen,
thank you for your kind paper.
Looking forward seeing you again in Europe or in the US,
Jean-Philippe
bait@kanye.horse
Recruitment Bangkok