Vehicle appearance recognition service
(vehicle model, damage, license plate) solution
01
SMART FACTORY
Extraction of quantitative information from atypical
data, supply of AI+Vision-based inspection
equipment and solutions specializing in foreign
substance inspections
02
SMART FACTORY
Extraction of quantitative information from atypical
data, supply of AI+Vision-based inspection
equipment and solutions specializing in foreign
substance inspections
03
SMART FACTORY
Extraction of quantitative information from atypical
data, supply of AI+Vision-based inspection
equipment and solutions specializing in foreign
substance inspections
Beyond X-Ray
WideNET Camera
VPOS
Beyond X-Ray
Deep learning-based abnormal materials detection product
WideNET Camera
Camera-based production/waste monitoring product
VPOS
Video-based Productivity Optimization Solution
About us
We are constantly struggling to
provide the best user experience.
2023.03.31In the previous post, we announced that we would be exhibiting at the NAB Show 2023, which takes place from April 16th~19th at the Las Vegas Convention Center.There are many difficulties when you prepare for an event overseas, especially if the country where it is held uses a distinct language from your mother tongue. In addition to the hardships you may face due to language barrier, you may also feel fatigue while adjusting to the time zone difference, and this includes jet lags from your flight. To make matters worse, since you are not familiar with the country’s culture and neighborhood, the whole workflow from booth preparation to managing meeting schedules and travel budget may seem burdensome at times.So naturally, we were excited last September when NEXTLab successfully exhibited at the IBC 2022 in Amsterdam, Netherlands with no financial aid. Although it was not an easy journey, we made it possible with one goal in mind: to increase brand awareness in the global market. This year, we were fortunate to receive government aid by exhibiting in the Korea Pavilion at the NAB Show 2023. It was especially helpful to our exhibit preparations (and budget!)Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA) and Korea Information and Communication Technology Industry Association (KICTA) are the main sponsors for the Korea pavilion at this year’s NAB Show, and a total number of 15 companies are exhibiting in the Korea pavilion. The Korea pavilion is exhibiting in 2 halls at the convention center, which are the Central Hall and the West Hall. NEXTLab’s booth is located in the Korea pavilion at the West Hall, because many enterprises that provide various solutions for the pay-TV service providers exhibit in that hall.As you are aware, there are diverse business areas in the broadcast and telecommunications industry, from content production to delivering and renting broadcast equipment, etc. NEXTLab specializes in catering to broadcasting quality assurance (QA) needs, as the IPTV and OTT market grows ever larger and the importance of avoiding customer churn can never be emphasized enough. By providing extensive back data on video and audio quality anomaly occurrences, we help the clients maintain the subscribers’ quality of experience (QoE).Set-top box performance is also a key factor in maintaining high broadcasting quality. We discussed the all-new Intelligent Monkey Test solution in the previous post briefly, and its ability to run random tests in specified areas. Well, here’s how. Solution users can select certain menus (or UI) to focus the tests and define them as the desired testing area, and also the target ratio to run the tests for each menu. Once the target testing area is designated, random tests can be performed without worrying about leaving the testing area during the tests, because the cursor will return to the designated area automatically if it leaves the target testing area. Furthermore, clients can increase the test accuracy and efficiency by running a mixture of script-based test cases and random control-based tests as needed. Ever had difficulties in recreating errors? No problem, since the solution will leave a history of all tests, and test recreation feature also exists for detected errors.There’s more to NEXTLab’s test and measurement solutions than meets the eye. We offer real-time monitoring solutions that allow the clients to check various channels simultaneously. Features such as round-robin monitoring and sending off alarms when detecting anomalies are available, but the best part is that clients can set auto-restoration procedure to run in case of detecting live streaming quality drop before sending alarms.As NEXTLab is presenting its automatic test and measurement solutions at the Korea pavilion this time, there is another form of support provided by the sponsors. It is the directory of all the companies exhibiting in the Korea pavilion, and they have really done a wonderful job of collecting the information of all the companies there so that visitors can understand them at a glance. The cherry on top is, needless to say, that this data is free to view and use for visitors and exhibitors alike. Below is the section covering NEXTLab, so if you are attending the NAB Show this April, please feel free to use it as a guide to visit our booth and the Korea pavilion!Want to know more about NEXTLab and our solutions? Book a meeting here : shorturl.at/fntNV
NAB Show 2023
2023.03.10 NEXTLab is exhibiting in NAB Show 2023!NAB Show takes place from April 16th to 19th at the Las Vegas Convention Center.NAB is an abbreviation of “The National Association of Broadcasters”, and it is one of the biggest events in the media and broadcasting industry. This year, the event will be even bigger as it is celebrating its centennial, welcoming major players from the content production to the media and entertainment field.NEXTLab specializes in set-top box testing and measurement solutions, as well as network quality on-site testing and measurement. This year, we are excited to present our “intelligent monkey test” solution from our “STB Multimeter” for pay-tv service providers. The intelligent monkey test runs random tests in specified areas, and it covers the grey area between classic scenario testing and random control-based testing.Compared to the previous scenario-based set-top box testing solutions, it takes less time to prepare the test cases with the intelligent monkey test. Also, meaningful defects are easier to find, as running random tests for each designated UI is possible. If you are attending the NAB Show 2023, visit NEXTLab at Booth W2561 in the Korean Pavilion. It is located in the West Hall of Las Vegas Convention Center.Check out NEXTLab’s Booth LocationYou can also use the guest code below to register for the show free of charge before March 31st. Starting from April 1st, there will be a registration fee of $50 even when using the guest code, so don’t miss out on this opportunity!Register for free up to 3/31
Business Trip to Europe to Run Proof of Concept Demos to European Telecommunication Companies
2023.03.03NEXTLab has taken a big step forward in entering the global market by visiting Europe for approximately two weeks from February 5th, Sunday, to February 17th, Friday. The enthusiastic CEO, Sungmin Kim, and senior engineer, Woojin Jo, visited telecommunication companies in France, Germany, and the Netherlands to demonstrate the key solutions to them.The prospects that they visited were Bouygues Telecom and SFR (Société française du radiotéléphone) in France, Vodafone in Germany, and Rebox in the Netherlands. Among them, Bouygues Telecom and Vodafone gave a series of tests to run beforehand as PoC (proof of concept) of NEXTLab’s solutions using STB Multimeter. The tests were performed successfully in Korea, and in addition to those test cases, NEXTLab also proposed to carry out additional tests provided by STB Multimeter’s diverse functions.In addition to meeting NEXTLab’s prospects, this trip was a great opportunity to strengthen bonds with its business partner, nPerf, and discuss more details on future solution co-development. NEXTLab values its business partners as much as its prospects. Below is the interview of the senior engineer Woojin Jo, recollecting his memories on the trip. Q. What was the best/the most difficult part about this business trip?Woojin Jo(hereafter W) : The best part was that we finally got an opportunity to enter the overseas market and acquire more clients outside of Korea. On a more personal level, it was nice to be able to practice my English-speaking skills. However, the trip schedule turned out to be a bit too tighter than planned, so I was constantly under time pressure. We traveled from France to Germany and the Netherlands, then back to France again, so there was a lot of time spent on transportation. Add the jet lag and the fatigue coming from adapting to the time zone difference to that. Naturally, I was very tired.Q. Which part of NEXTLab’s solutions were the prospects most interested in?W : I would say they were most interested in our log viewer, which visualizes various set-top box log patterns and enables our clients to find the root causes of errors easily. They also paid attention to the random test (also known as the Monkey Test) and the intelligent monkey test. Currently, European telecommunication companies do their QA work regarding set-top box performance and video quality using script-based tests. So taking a random-based approach to testing was a fresh perspective, and our intelligent monkey test definitely grabbed their attention too.Q. Many people would be familiar with script-based, or in other words, scenario-based testing. However, the term ‘intelligent monkey test’ is a little hard to understand. Can you explain it a bit further, please?W : Of course. The ‘intelligent monkey test’ tests various ways to reach a single menu. For example, let’s say a subscriber of a pay-tv service watched an episode of “The Walking Dead,” and wants to watch the next episode the next day. After returning home, he/she turns on the TV and the set-top box, then he/she would navigate a series of menu to find the VOD and play it. But as you know, there are multiple ways to do this. He/She can go to “My VOD” menu, move the cursor between the previously watched VODs, and find “The Walking Dead”, then go to the next episode. Well, this isn’t the only way to navigate. He/She could also go to the search menu on the Netflix “Home” page, then enter “Walking Dead” to search for the series, then navigate to the next episode. As you can see, since there are multiple ways to play a single VOD, scenario-based tests may not always replicate OTT service users’ experiences exactly. However, the intelligent monkey test will automatically test those different paths to reach a menu, which brings the tests closer to measuring the subscribers’ QoE (quality of experience).Q. Thank you for a detailed explanation. In your opinion, what exceeded your expectations during the solution demonstration meetings?W : Well, that would certainly be applying cloud servers for our solution. Originally, we used physical servers for our clients in Korea, because usually using physical servers has a higher performance compared to cloud servers. So naturally, when we applied the cloud servers for our meetings in Europe, we thought that the response time would take far longer than in Korea. To our surprise, the delay in response time was shorter than what we had expected, and it was good to confirm that the delay was short even with live video streaming included in our demos. This proves that our solution is viable to use outside Korea.Q. Wow, it’s really interesting to hear that the cloud server was more stable than what we had thought earlier! As NEXTLab delivers its solutions to all top 3 telecommunication companies in Korea, I’d like to know the difference between having business meetings in Korea and in Europe.W : Firstly, there is a big difference in the needs of our Korean clients and European prospects. The main difference is the network infrastructure. From the late 1990s to early 2000s, the South Korean government invested a large amount of capital in setting up the network infrastructure in the IT field. This led to establishing Korea as the country with the highest internet speed in the world, according to a global trend report published in 2014 by Statista, a German research company specializing in statistics. On the contrary, in Europe, the internet speed and performance isn’t as stable as in Korea. That is probably one of the reasons why European telecommunication companies are interested in network quality measurement. Basically, collecting network logs is an important precondition in most of the tests, while Korean pay-tv service providers are relatively not as interested in it. Next, their TV system and usage environment is different, so we needed to adjust to that when preparing the test cases. For example, Korean TV channels usually start from “000”, but when we prepared for a PoC for an European prospect, the starting channel number for their pay-tv app was “200”, so we had to keep that in mind. Last but not least, the language barrier did exist, as neither of them nor us used English as first language. As we prepared additional tests during the trip, they gave us a document requesting certain test sets, but due to the difference in terms, there was a minor difficulty in understanding exactly what they wanted. But this led me to think that our intelligent monkey test will be fairly competitive in Europe, because it tests different ways to reach one menu, and therefore the language barrier will be lower than other tests. Q. It seems NEXTLab’s intelligent monkey test solution is really ready to set sail in European waters! Last question here. Could you share a funny incident during the trip?W : Sure! We had dinner in a French restaurant with Arik Benayoun from our business partner, nPerf, but Arik’s dinner menu was different from what he ordered. We told the server that he got the wrong menu, but the restaurant did nothing for us. Personally, I learned to appreciate the high service level of Korean restaurants, because at least many of them try to apologize sincerely if they make a mistake.Q. I see. I can relate to his experience personally, because one time when I visited a restaurant, my lunch order was completely forgotten, and I found out about that after 30 minutes had passed! The owner apologized, but it still felt bad to wait all that time for nothing. Well, I guess that’s it for today. Thank you very much for your time.W : No problem.Overall, the business trip to Europe proved to be a very fruitful experience for NEXTLab. It was a great opportunity to compare the Korean and European markets and gain a deeper insight into the difference in their needs.Although the two who left Korea to meet the prospects in Europe worked hard to prepare for the solution demonstrations, the development team in Korea also stayed late and worked overtime to ensure the system was fine. It was impressive to see everyone unite and work as a team for a common goal.With the precious lessons learned from this trip, NEXTLab will continue to create outstanding automated testing solutions for pay-tv service providers and internet service providers. Now that there is a better understanding of NEXTLab’s solutions’ strengths, there will be more room for additional upgrades in the future.
Presenting AI-based Outdoor Parking Control Automation
2023.02.07NEXTLab cooperated with KSI and
successfully developed outdoor parking control automation technology. Last year, in November 2022, NEXTLab demonstrated
the prototype at the outdoor parking lot located in Samdeok Park, Anyang.
People from both NEXTLab and KSI, as well as from companies that were
interested in this technology, attended the demo event, and responded
positively. After observing the optimistic atmosphere there, NEXTLab decided to
apply jointly for the patent with its partner, KSI. The new technology applies NEXTLab’s own vehicle
detection, vehicle type recognition, and license plate recognition technology,
and is differentiated from previous parking control solutions in that it has
been refined to guarantee higher recognition accuracy with lower costs. <Outdoor
Parking Control Solution Summary>As shown in the picture above, the improved
tech recognizes the incoming customer’s vehicle and its license plate and
divides the parking lot area into sections to recognize whether a car is parked
there and to get parking information. It integrates video information from
multiple CCTV cameras installed in the outdoor parking lot, and enables
automatic parking control to enhance customer experience in various ways, such as
paying parking fees, searching for the parked space of their vehicles, etc. This technology’s benefits lie in that it
provides the same “Find my Car” services in major department store parking lots
with lower costs. In Korea, most large shopping malls and buildings have
underground parking lots, and since they are huge and complex, often there are unmanned
parking control machines that search for the customers’ vehicle location and
allow easy payment before leaving the parking lot. Also, it is not restricted to indoor
parking lot areas and can be used to recognize vehicles outdoors, which can be
a bit more challenging than doing it indoors. This is because the CCTV camera
images may vary more depending on the weather and time of day. Video footage
from indoor parking lots will be consistent because the lights and background
will be the same, rain or shine. However, outdoor parking lots are different. If
there is heavy rain, or it is very foggy, there is always the possibility that
license plates may not be clearly visible, thus harder to recognize. Despite
these challenges to license plate recognition environment in outdoor parking
lots, NEXTLab’s accumulated experience in the field has finally made the
breakthrough. According to NEXTLab’s CEO, Changgeun Lee,
the most meaningful part of this technology is that the vehicle recognition
algorithm has been upgraded to detect identical vehicles more accurately from
diverse angles, thus displaying higher detection accuracy compared to previous
vehicle recognition solutions. KSI’s CEO, Seungho Kim, stated, “With the
higher precision in vehicle and license plate detection technology provided by
NEXTLab, we can also reduce errors in our smart parking control solution. By
cooperating with NEXTLab, we are excited to provide efficient parking
management methods to parking lot operators and enhance the parking lot
experience of customers.”
NEXTLab Launches Custom Real-time Monitoring Service
2023.1.11NEXTLab launched a customized real-time monitoring service for global clients. With this real-time monitoring solution, there is no need to stare at many monitors manually for a long time simultaneously. It provides 24/7 fully automated continuous monitoring, as well as sending alarms in case of error occurrences. As a result, it reduces human error and saves precious time and cost spent by monitoring engineers and allows them to focus on other tasks. Furthermore, intuitive and easy-to-use UI lets you jump right in the action without extensive training to use it.Have you ever thought, ‘Which menu am I supposed to click to see what I want to see? There are so many functions to this tool and it’s so confusing.’ while using a legacy software? No worries! We at NEXTLab asked ourselves the following question, ‘How can we make monitoring work as easy and simple as possible?’ then came up with a solution providing a simple UI and essential functions that are tailored to the engineers’ needs. More functions, such as TS quality monitoring, will be updated and integrated in the future.[Key Functions Provided in NEXTLab’s Custom Real-time Monitoring Service]
- Automatically detects video and audio quality deterioration
- Automatically sends alarms and tries to restore when an error occurs
- Remote monitoring is possible by controlling the remote control UI
- Automatically identifies channel names and numbers and updates them when a change is made
- Real-time monitoring of online video contents
- Easy and user-friendly pre-set monitoring scedules As you can see from the picture above, simply set the channels you want to monitor and you can view their video and audio quality at a glance. The solution will automatically check the video and audio quality, and try to restore it if errors such as screen freeze, silence, etc. occur, even when you’re away. <Meet the Penalty Box, where you can view all channels with errors!>If an error occurs, you will be able to see it in the ‘penalty box’ menu, as well as receiving an alarm. The system will try to restore the video/audio quality automatically according to a pre-set procedure, which can be fully customized. It also comes with a dashboard where a summary of the logs for error occurrences is displayed. <*This process is an example and can be fully customized.>You can also manage channel information well by automatically identifying channel names and numbers, and updating them through the solution’s pre-set monitoring command.Ever wished for an easy-to-use, fully automatic, real-time, and remote monitoring solution that greatly improves your workflow? Contact [email protected] for more information!
NEXTLab Successfully Developed Newspaper Text Digitization Automation Technology
2022.11.14NEXTLab has succeeded in developing
newspaper text digitization automation technology, and patented it. This
self-developed technology uses AI to automatically recognize newspaper original
text from pdf files and lets the users read them easily on their mobile devices.
Recently, it passed KOLAS test certificate, and received patent so that the
government would acknowledge it. Thanks to all the talented developers at
NEXTLab, we were more than happy to introduce the solution to PlantyM with new
OCR technology. Let’s give a big round of applause to them! <Example picture of applying the
solution>Last December, NEXTLab successfully
concluded a POC project targeting newspapers affiliated with Korea Press
Foundation, and in 2022, the project was selected as an AI voucher support project
from National IT Industry Promotion Agency. Its technology and business
feasibility were verified, and it took approximately 6 months of development
period to pass the KOLAS test certificate. NEXTLab also signed an MOU with
PlantyM for future technology advancement and business cooperation. AI-based newspaper text digitization
automation technology analyzes pdf files collected from newspapers, and then basically
provides features such as AI-based layout analysis, OCR process, natural
language processing, and inspection processing. Through this process, users can
enjoy the same level of experience as reading published articles online.
NEXTLab independently developed the latest deep
learning-based layout parser, news clustering, and news categorization
technology to include in the solution, and linked it with the newspaper viewer
app “WINE” developed by PlantyM.<Picture
of newspaper text digitization automation solution concept> Since the solution’s completion, NEXTLab is
preparing to introduce it to major newspapers, online media, libraries, and
even airlines. With the growing demand of users checking news conveniently in
their hands, the solution can help provide old articles to read as well as new
ones. Gwang-woo Lee, CEO of PlantyM, stated, “We
are pleased that many major newspapers can utilize this technology to automate their
text digitization process and increase their work efficiency in it, so that the
amount of work which required about a hundred people to do previously can be
effectively reduced and managed with much fewer people. It has been a great
opportunity to cooperate with NEXTLab and use their excellent technology, and
we look forward to providing high-quality online newspaper service, while
guaranteeing high customer satisfaction.”Chang-geun Lee, CEO of NEXTLab, announced, “NEXTLab
has focused on the consistent theme of AI Vision and OCR technology since its
foundation, and as a result developed and introduced many solutions in the telecommunications
and broadcast industry, smart work, and traffic compliance field. With our
accumulated experience and development capabilities, we could provide highly
credible and stable solutions that are in demand, and we were delighted to work
together with a brilliant partner such as PlantyM along the way.”
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