PALO ALTO, Calif., and
SEOUL, South Korea, March 17, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Dual Aperture
International ("DAI") today announced a strategic partnership with
SK Telecom ("SKT") in an effort to accelerate development of DAI's
smart 3D camera technology based on dual aperture 4-color (RGB-IR)
sensors. SKT becomes a strategic investor and partner to DAI
alongside a $1.4 million USD
investment, joining the previously closed Series A funding round
led by leading Korean venture capital fund, Value Invest Korea.
SKT will develop applications and additional use cases for DAI's
3D image capture, virtual reality and image enhancement
technologies. Prof. Chong-Min Kyung,
CTO of DAI, commented that, "SKT is a global technology leader with
the size and expertise to accelerate DAI's product implementation
into global industries spanning mobile, medical, security and
automotives. Korea already has a strong technological position in
these growing industries, and the partnership between SKT and DAI
will only further improve Korea's ability to provide innovative
technologies and solutions to these markets."
By sharing in the common belief of developing a global
technology company through growth of its proprietary intellectual
property, DAI is set to change the paradigm of jobs creation within
Korea alongside the Creative Economy initiative led by the Korean
government. DAI's patented Dual Aperture camera technology delivers
multiple functions, low energy consumption, and low-costs on top of
the built-in 3D image capture and imaging enhancements, which is
all enabled by its innovative 4-color image sensor and proprietary
depth estimation algorithm. DAI's solution also allows single
sensor cameras to obtain 3D image information; a preferable
solution to cumbersome two sensor solutions.
SKT has also established the Creative Economy Innovation Center
(the 'SKT CEI Center') in Daejeon, Korea (where DAI is
headquartered) since 2014 to promote the Creative Economy by
incubating venture companies that can generate both revenue and
employment opportunities. SKT has grown its CEI Center into an
essential player in the Creative Economy by starting an overseas
expansion program in March 2015. The
SKT CEI Center is also fostering a start-up ecosystem based on the
technologies and patents from the Daeduck Science Park.
Myungsoon Park, Senior Vice
President, Future Technology R&D Center of SKT, said, "We
expect to elevate our strength to develop core technologies for new
products needed for SKT's growth business through partnership with
DAI. SKT will continue to seek opportunities to collaborate with
technology companies. We will make model cases for Creative Economy
by developing mutually beneficial relations with small but strong,
innovative companies like DAI."
DAI and SKT will collaborate under the common goal of enabling
IP businesses to succeed in the creative economy. In
particular,
- In Korea, DAI will continue to refine its own technology while
SKT, with its global Research and Development experience, will help
define new applications for 3D cameras
- In US, DAI and SK Telecom Americas (SKTA) will jointly set up a
consumer applications development lab under SKTA's Innopartners
program in order to recruit innovators to develop new 3D, virtual
reality, image related applications for various markets including
Mobile, Medical, Security and Automobile applications.
DAI will also collaborate with Daejeon Creative Economy
Innovation Center of the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future
Planning, in actively looking for technologies and patents to
foster globally competitive start-ups.
About Dual Aperture International
DAI was formed by a joint venture between Silicon Valley's Dual
Aperture, Inc. ("DA") and the Center for Integrated Smart Sensors
("CISS"), Korea's leading-edge research institute affiliated with
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. DA was founded
by Dr. David D. Lee who was inducted
into CEA Hall of Fame in 2014 for his contribution in leading the
HDMI standardization. CISS was established as a Global Frontier
Project Agency under the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future
Planning in 2011, to research and develop the next-generation smart
sensors. The Ministry grants CISS headed by Prof. Chong-Min Kyung ten
million dollars a year for 9 years to lead the Global
Frontier R&D to develop the smart IT convergence technology
beyond the existing paradigm of IT technology. With its proprietary
dual-aperture RGB-IR sensor technology and algorithms, DAI utilizes
3D image capturing and other imaging enhancements to create a
multi-functional, low cost smart sensor technology that can be
integrated into many consumer, automotive, and industrial products.
DAI's unique depth and gesture tracking will also empower mobile
camera-based applications to explore new dimensions of user
experience. For more information, visit:
www.dual-aperture.com.
About SK Telecom
SK Telecom (NYSE: SKM, KSE: 017670), established in 1984, is
Korea's largest telecommunications company with more than 27
million mobile subscribers, accounting for over 50% of the market.
The company reached KRW 16.602
trillion in revenue in 2013. As the world's
first company to commercialize CDMA, CDMA 2000 1x, CDMA
EV-DO and HSDPA networks, SK Telecom launched the nation's first
LTE service in July 2011. SK Telecom
also became the world's first mobile carrier to launch 150Mbps
LTE-Advanced and on June 26, 2013 and
225Mbps LTE-Advanced on June 19, 2014
through Carrier Aggregation. Backed by rapid nationwide deployment,
a rich device lineup and diverse mobile value added services, the
company secured over 16.3 million LTE and LTE-Advanced subscribers
as of October 2014. Also, based on
its strength in network operations business, SK Telecom is seeking
new growth engines by building ICT convergence business models in
areas of mobile, medical, security and automobiles. For more
information, please visit www.sktelecom.com.
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SOURCE Dual Aperture International