OAKLAND, Calif., December 11, 2012 – The Embedded Vision Alliance (www.Embedded-Vision.com) today announced that industry veteran Vincent “Vin” Ratford has filled the newly created role of Executive Director. Ratford will work with current and prospective Alliance Member companies to ensure that the Alliance's goals, strategy and objectives are aligned with those of its membership and are reflected in the Alliance's initiatives. Ratford will also assist with the marketing of the Alliance to the industry at large.
Ratford retired from Xilinx in July 2012, where he most recently held the position of Executive Vice President, Worldwide Marketing and Business Development. Ratford joined Xilinx in January 2006 via the company's acquisition of AccelChip, a high-level synthesis company where he was CEO. Ratford has 40 years' experience in technology, including positions in sales, marketing and engineering at Virage Logic, Mentor Graphics, Teradyne, Data General and Raytheon. He has also held board of director positions at Elliptic, Wavesat, Chippath, and ATMOS. Ratford is currently a principle at DeepTech Consulting Group.
“Vin Ratford is a genuine leader and visionary in the electronics industry,” said Jeff Bier, founder of the Embedded Vision Alliance. “I’m thrilled that he will be lending his talents and energy to help the Alliance expand its impact and accelerate its progress.”
The Alliance today also announced that Digital Media Professionals (www.dmprof.com) and LSI (www.lsi.com) have joined the Alliance as Technology Members. Digital Media Professionals (DMP) develops graphics processor IP cores used in a wide range of consumer electronics products. LSI designs semiconductors and software that accelerate storage and networking in datacenters, mobile networks and client computing. These latest additions further expand the ranks of companies that have united in an industry partnership dedicated to inspiring and empowering engineers to design systems that see and understand.
“DMP’s GPUs have been widely used in the imaging industry,” said Tatsuo Yamamoto, CEO of DMP. “Unlocking the GPU’s capabilities for next-generation vision applications is now our customers’ top priority. We are therefore very excited to be a member of the Embedded Vision Alliance, and look forward to working with its members to enable the industry to accelerate the creation of innovative vision technologies and products.”
The Alliance has also announced the date for its next Embedded Vision Summit, a technical educational forum for engineers interested in incorporating visual intelligence into electronic systems and software. Expanding on the highly successful inaugural Embedded Vision Summit, which took place in Boston, Massachusetts in September 2012, the West Coast edition of the Embedded Vision Summit, will take place on April 25, 2012 at the McEnery Convention Center in San Jose, California, in conjunction with UBM Electronics' DESIGN West Conference. The Summit will provide an opportunity for engineers to learn about the hottest technology in the electronics industry—"machines that see and understand." Attendees of this event will have access to a series of "how-to" presentations, demonstrations, and keynote talks. For more information, visit www.embedded-vision.com/embedded-vision-summit.
The Embedded Vision Alliance brings together providers of technology used in creating embedded computer vision applications. Using advanced image-processing techniques for tasks such as object recognition and motion analysis, computer vision technology is well established in applications such as manufacturing process control and inspection. As key vision components such as processors and sensors become more capable and less expensive, these same techniques can now be incorporated in a wide variety of electronic products. Incorporating vision capabilities enables electronic products to be more intelligent and responsive, making them more valuable to users. It enables electronic equipment companies to create valuable new products and add helpful features to existing products. As a result, embedded vision is now proliferating into products ranging from consumer electronics to automotive safety systems, and from retail digital signage to personal medical devices.
The addition of Digital Media Professionals and LSI brings Alliance membership to 27 companies, also including AMD, Analog Devices, Apical, Aptina Imaging, Avnet Electronics Marketing, BDTI, CEVA, CogniMem Technologies, CogniVue, eyeSight Mobile Technologies, Freescale, IMS Research, Intel, MathWorks, Maxim Integrated Products, NVIDIA, National Instruments, Omek Interactive, PointGrab, Synopsys, Texas Instruments, Tokyo Electron Device, VanGogh Imaging, videantis, and Xilinx. Analog Devices, BDTI, IMS Research, Texas Instruments, and Xilinx are Platinum Technology Members.
The Alliance was founded in May 2011 and is led by BDTI (www.BDTI.com). The Alliance is a membership-based collaboration dedicated to inspiring and empowering product developers to incorporate embedded vision technology into their products. A key means of achieving this is providing design engineers with the practical information they need in order to effectively use embedded vision technology. The Alliance’s first step was the launch of its web site at www.Embedded-Vision.com. The site, increasing in content and visitors on a daily basis, serves as a source of practical information to help design engineers and application developers incorporate vision capabilities into their products. Access to resources on the web site, which are provided by Alliance staff and member companies, is free to all. Information for prospective member companies is also available at the site.
In December 2011, the Alliance launched the Embedded Vision Academy (www.EmbeddedVisionAcademy.com), a free online training facility for product developers interested in incorporating vision capabilities into their designs. The Alliance also publishes a free monthly newsletter, Embedded Vision Insights, at www.EmbeddedVisionInsights.com. The Alliance website offers several RSS feeds (www.embedded-vision.com/rss.xml) to help viewers keep up-to-date on the latest embedded vision information, and maintains social media channels at:
- Twitter: @EmbeddedVision (www.twitter.com/EmbeddedVision)
- LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/groups/Embedded-Vision-Alliance-3934172
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/EmbeddedVisionAlliance
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