GEOPOLITICA DEL MONDO MODERNO

Category archive

Innovation - page 3

DAN EUROPE tests underwater drone

CADDY is an underwater drone and floating satellite designed to understand the body language of a scuba divers in distress.

The Cognitive Autonomous Diving Buddy, from where the acronym originates, is an EU-funded project currently being tested to ensure it is smart enough to be used by divers who scan the seabed alone.

“When you consider that half of diving accidents involve unaccompanied scuba-divers, CADDY will surely revolutionise the underwater experience. DAN Europe is very proud to contribute to the development of such a revolutionary piece of technology, especially since it guarantees diver safety, which is pivotal for our organisation,” said Prof. Salih Murat Egi, coordinator of the project for DAN Europe.

As part of the project, DAN is currently involved in the vehicle testing and regulating the manoeuvring capabilities of the devices to ensure all equipment used is safe.

“Diver safety is an essential component of the CADDY project and whenever diver safety is involved, DAN steps in. We’re here to represent the diving community and assist to build future technologies that will take diving to the next level,” he added.

CADDY is essentially composed of two ‘robots’ operating autonomously — one from the surface and another one from the vicinity of the diver. The latter will interpret a scuba-diver’s behaviour and is intelligent enough to detect anomalies. Meanwhile, the surface robot navigates the underwater drone and can communicate with the command centre in case of emergency.

CADDY has three main functions to ensure a safe and carefree diving experience: guide the diver, continuously monitor his body language, and assist his work through automated camera and torch light.

“DAN’s team of experienced researchers is also reviewing a system that generates an automatic diver status report generation system and testing the use of sophisticated acoustical communication technologies that relays the diver cognitive status to the command center” said Prof. Egi.

The diving buddy will also be trained to guide a diver from one spot to another on a predefined path so in case of emergency, the diver will be steered to a safe route to the surface or vessel.

PR25-2015 – Europe’s MSG-4 weather satellite delivered into orbit

BreakingNews @en/Innovation di

The last weather satellite in Europe’s highly successful Meteosat Second Generation series lifted off on an Ariane 5 launcher at 21:42 GMT ( 23:42 CEST) on 15 July from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.

The two-satellite MSG system provides up-to-date weather coverage over Europe and Africa every 15 minutes and ‘rapid scan’ imagery over Europe every five minutes.

Some 40 minutes after launch, MSG-4 separated from Ariane 5 into the planned transfer orbit. Over the next 10 days, the satellite’s propulsion system will raise it into a geostationary orbit some 36 000 km above the equator, where its speed matches Earth’s rotation.

Once these initial efforts are completed by ESA’s European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany, MSG-4 will be handed over to the satellite’s owner, the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites – EUMETSAT – to commission the payload.

ESA’s Director General, Johann-Dietrich Woerner, commented, “After just two weeks as the new DG for ESA, it has been a pleasure not only to witness the launch of this satellite, but also observe the continued cooperation between ESA and EUMETSAT.

“Tonight’s launch allows the continuation of high-quality observations of weather from space, including rapid detection and warning of extreme weather situations – imperative for keeping European citizens safe.”

After commissioning, MSG-4 will become Meteosat-11 and be ‘stored’ until it replaces one of its predecessors. It will then ensure the continuity of the data until the first Meteosat Third Generation (MTG) satellites enter service, expected in 2019 and 2021.

“We have learnt a lot from the long-term storage of satellites, which we can use for other operational systems such as the Sentinels,” noted Volker Liebig, Director of ESA’s Earth Observation Programmes.

“The excellent health of the Meteosat satellites in orbit means the launch of MSG-4 comes five years later than expected.”

ESA’s contribution to weather and climate watch is not limited to the Meteosat series of satellites – it has also developed the Meteorological Operational satellites MetOp, also operated by EUMETSAT.

Additionally, the ESA-developed Sentinel-4 and -5 missions dedicated to monitoring the composition of the atmosphere for Europe’s Copernicus programme will be carried on the MTG and MetOp Second Generation satellites, respectiv

European Agencies and ATM Security.

skimmer_800_800On June 10th, Europol and ATM Security Team reiterated their collaboration in contrasting the so-called “payment crimes”, during one of the three annual meetings of the Team, held to Europol Headquarters in The Hague. “Security team” means EAST, the European ATM Security Team, a European non-profit organization, whose task is to collect and disseminate information to and from installe  rs and bank ATM networks (ATM = Automated Teller Machine).

Europol Centre against Cybercrime (EC3) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with EAST, in order to further strengthen cooperation in the fight against all forms of crime linked to ATM cards and credit cards, including virtual fraud, i.e. those that are committed in the absence of normal magnetic supports, by malware or other hi-tech techinques, or by physical attacks to ATMs themselves.

The MoU will allow to exchange data and strategic information, between the Agency and the EAST, meaning that one of the three annual meetings of the tastierino-400x300same team will be always held at the Europol headquarters in The Hague, just as has happened for the first time in the abovementioned cisrcumstance.

Beyond the statements made by leaders of the two organizations, Europol has recognized the seriousness of the physical or virtual attacks to ATM systems, and has prepared a document containing guidelines about the threat. The document (the drafting was coordinated by the EAST) will be disclosed in the coming days and is an example of a coordinated response between security agencies and the world of finance banking, aimed to contrast the emerging and increasingly worrying growth of some criminal phenomena such as, for example, the “skimming”.

For non-experts, we point out that “skimmers” are devices that can read the magnetic strip of debit cards and credit cards, directly into the ATM slots. Obviously, the very high nanotechnology of these “readers”, is associated with the use of illegally concealed cameras, positioned in such a way to spy on the finger movements of the money pickers, recording the numbers that form the PIN sequence.Un momento della prima della firma del protocoloo d'intesa

Web marketing, success stories on the net

Innovation di

Berto salotti by Meda in New York

Meda is a small town in the Brianza’s area in Italy, famous for its handmade furniture and designer.

Berto Salotti is one of these handicraft industries established in 1972 thanks to the will and passion of the brothers Carlo and Fioravante Berto who for decades have produced and sold their best production in the store of their factory lounges.

Today the company is led by Filippo Berto, young and capable entrepreneur who has helped to enhance the company bringing it on the international market thanks to intuition, the use of the web for the internationalization of  his company.

filippo-berto-“The first budget of our line  promotion amounted to just a few hundred euro” confesses Filippo Berto during our interview via Skype.

“We started as subcontractors in the midst of an economic boom to create our own line then that is sold directly to shops and private individuals” tells Berto, a long path that crosses years at different times of the economy of the country and a market that imposes rhythms increasingly challenging but above all that is becoming global.

The changing market and the need to reach an increasing number of customers has prompted the company to evaluate new business models and new communication channels including the internet.

 

“We wondered how to keep the wealth of experience and expertise accumulated over time and especially how not to miss a story that definitely could have the dignity of being exported all over the world. Internet at this point has become a bridge that allowed us to connect all this with the rest of the world ”

In 2000 the first version of the company website with what was the first real investment “the first marketing tool was analytical and gave us the ability to understand what was happening in the site – says Berto – and that many people there were finding through keyword and it was easy to see that we had to use the pay per click advertising platforms to make advertising to target ”

But what were the results? “Our goal was to turn our contacts in visitors in our showroom. This became true and the contacts were so many that we have started a process of organizational restructuring of the company that still has not ended”

Internet is not just a new marketing channel, but a model which in this case has produced a veritable revolution “in our case the change was radical, we had a small showroom next to the production but the increasing number of visits prompted us to make investments, to broaden the exposure and to open the first flagship store “tells Filippo Berto during our interview,” we have increased staff in the production, administration, sales and structuring a marketing function. ”

The firm underwent a constant change thanks to the numerous requests coming from the web. In fact, about 80% of customers today come from the network and have pushed the company to distribute its products in the US and Russia.

“All thanks to our site in six languages, and the ability of our customer care that is able to convey to our customers Berto’s professionalism and quality of production”.

The model followed by Berto Salotti was not easy, but it has been pursued consistently over time. The first positive results came from experiments that have not always been positive. But even  thanks to the errors, they have managed to develop a successful new model in a channel marketing, that is still evolving and still does not have a solid foundation of experience to exploit for their own success.

You need to make a very important effort of analysis, planning and study of the medium in order to get results. Sometimes it is difficult to  assess what type of commitment  you need. Initially the economic commitment  can even be lower.

“We started with a budget of a few hundred Euros with Google Adwords, that commitment in time and thanks to the results changed dramatically” confides Filippo Berto “creating a blog is not expensive, but keeping it updated and developing relationships in the network of a certain quality, trying to build value through a daily update is not easy. ”

The site of Berto Salotti factory is constantly updated and pages on social media offer an overview of the products and the people who work for the company that attract attention from around the world.  Some of the videos on Youtube have also collected 600,000 views that for a product of this type are definitely a success.

Google in 2014, together with the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry has created  goole.it/madeinitaly as part of the Made in Italy excellence in digital platform. This has been created by Google Cultural Institute and among Italian companies selected there is Also Berto Salotti, an award based on product quality and the ability to use new technologies for the development of their company.

“We use the Google platform since 2002 and we are perhaps among the top advertisers in Italy in the furniture industry by giving us an advantage that I define evolutionary species” that has generated a competitive advantage in the market and that has allowed Google to know in depth since the beginning. “An important recognition for a company that today has grown by focusing on the global market  by successfully using the web as a marketing tool for growth and communication.

Alessandro Conte

Alessandro Conte
0 £0.00
Vai a Inizio
×