SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- TASER International
(NASDAQ: TASR), the global leader in public safety technology,
including body-worn video and smart weapons, today announced two
acquisitions to launch a new artificial intelligence group called
"Axon AI." The acquired technologies and team of about 20
researchers and engineers will accelerate the introduction of new
AI-powered capabilities for public safety.
TASER acquired Dextro, Inc, the first computer-vision and
deep learning system to make the visual contents in video
searchable in real time. Agencies and departments will have the
ability to quickly isolate and analyze the most important seconds
of footage from massive amounts of video data. This acquisition
will form the technology backbone of the new Axon AI platform.
The company also acquired from Fossil Group, Inc. the computer
vision team that was part of Fossil Group's acquisition of Misfit,
Inc. The team includes machine-vision researchers focused on
improving the accuracy, efficiency and speed of processing images
and video. Together, these acquisitions will broaden TASER's
industry-leading DEMS (Digital Evidence Management System) to
enable customers to gain more insight from video, photos and audio
to improve training, operations and community engagement. Financial
terms of the transactions were not disclosed.
The Axon network connects devices, apps and people for more than
half of the nation's major city police agencies. Axon AI will
extend TASER's research and development efforts and significantly
expand the capabilities of the Axon network. These investments in
artificial intelligence will have a transformative impact on Axon
products by making workflows smarter including deep data analysis
on the more than 5.2 petabytes of customer data hosted across the
Axon Network.
Axon AI will transform key customer workflows using computer
vision and natural language processing along with machine learning
techniques. The addition of artificial intelligence to Axon's
upcoming records management system (RMS) has the potential to
automate the collection and analysis of virtually all information
in public safety while extracting key insights never before
possible. The benefits of this groundbreaking technology leads to a
future of hands-free reporting and real time intel in the
field.
"We believe it's time for video data to move to the center of
public safety records systems, with far richer and more transparent
information than historic text-only systems," said Rick Smith, CEO and co-founder of TASER. "Axon
AI is focused on extracting usable information from these video
records, automatically populating our new RMS system. AI will
significantly streamline these business processes so officers can
focus on what matters: their operational environment. Axon AI will
also greatly reduce the time spent preparing videos for public
information requests or court submission. This will lay the
foundation for a future system where records are seamlessly
recorded by sensors rather than arduously written by police
officers overburdened by paperwork," concluded Smith.
"Dextro has built a highly advanced video analytics technology
driven by machine learning, which requires high volumes of video
training data," said David Luan,
Dextro co-founder and CEO. "On the Axon network, customers manage
the largest repository of law enforcement footage and annotations
in existence. By combining our algorithms with the largest video
data network in law enforcement, we create an incredibly powerful
AI solution tailored to the unique requirements of public safety.
We're excited and honored to partner with Rick and TASER as we
continue scaling out our video analysis product to the law
enforcement community."
To learn more about how TASER is bringing AI to law enforcement,
join Rick Smith and David Luan for a webinar on February 15, 2017 where they'll discuss the
implications of AI in public safety. Register here:
www.axon.io/ai-webinar.
About Dextro
Dextro makes videos discoverable and searchable using machine
learning. In the two years since their founding they have poured
countless research hours into computer vision, developing
algorithms that can analyze the audiovisual contents of video
footage in real time in order to provide meaningful data. Their
experience ranges from analyses of web video content for marketers
and video curators to real-time analysis of security footage and
automatic categorization of video evidence for law enforcement.
About TASER International, Inc.
TASER International makes communities safer with innovative
public safety technologies. Founded in 1993, TASER first
transformed law enforcement with its electrical weapons. TASER
continues to define smarter policing with its Axon brand which
includes a growing suite of connected products and services from
body cameras and digital evidence management tools to mobile apps.
More than 178,000 lives and countless dollars have been saved with
TASER's products and services.
Learn more at www.TASER.com and www.axon.io or by calling (800)
978-2737.
TASER® is a registered trademark of TASER International, Inc.,
registered in the U.S. All rights reserved. TASER logo,
Evidence.com and Axon are trademarks of TASER International,
Inc.
Note to Investors
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www.twitter.com/officialtaser and
https://www.facebook.com/TASER.International where TASER discloses
information from time to time about the company, its financial
information, and its business.
Visit our Investor Relations Safe Harbor Statement at:
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For investor relations information please contact Arvind Bobra via email at IR@taser.com.
CONTACT:
Sydney Siegmeth
VP of Global Communications
TASER International, Inc.
PressTaser.com
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SOURCE TASER International, Inc.