The last several months have seen several deals in the markerless AI, space —two examples being Wrnch’s acquisition by Hinge Health and Telus International’s acquisition of Playment. Both acquisitions echo other mega trends we’re seeing in the explosion of AI-driven applications in everything from sports, work and other human endeavors to the ever-multiplying applications within healthcare, mobility, and language. Ideas Lab strives to be a major voice in the evolution of AI to help build not just a structured data library of human motion but individualized blueprints for strengthening, injury prevention, and all-around improvement in biomechanics.
As the lingering shadow of COVID-19 constrains the jump back to local gyms and consumers everywhere realize the value generation of data in their workout routines, the need for markerless AI — leveraging the increasingly smarter smartphone camera — grows. Movement should be natural; analysis should not change the subject of that analysis. Environments matter. And what could be more natural than a selfie-in-motion.
Throughout Q3'21 Ideas Lab has made several leaps in both the underlying technology and the scaffolding required for the productization for Q4'21. While many of the core AI models are shared, we will be launching two separate products focused on a) golf and b) boxing, with further plans later in 2022 to apply the same technologies for yoga, tennis and other single-player sports (with multi-player sports firmly in our roadmap). And in regards to that scaffolding, we will be rolling out a beautified UI for simplicity of use among our customers without sacrificing any of the science or technical geekiness of the product for the more expert in the field of motion intelligence.
Below we highlight just a few of the recent updates which have kept moving since our Q2’21 update several months ago.
People
First, our people — in September, we added three more engineers to our team, all of whom bring their experience in AI and passion for the field to help make our products awesome! Say hello to Chiung-Ting, Yu-Hsuan and Tz-Ching.
And while we’re here, interested in joining the team? check out some of our open positions here:
- iOS Developer: 1111.com.tw | cakeresume
- AI Engineer: 1111.com.tw | cakeresume
- Cloud Engineer: 1111.com.tw | cakeresume
- Frontend Engineer: 1111.com.tw
We’ve also engaged recruiting agencies to support our HR efforts, notably TalentMade, Glint and Paul Wright Group.
And now, to the tech!
We are finalizing the last few sprints which will get us to product launch for Q4'21. As noted above, there are two key sports we’ve been focused on — one in boxing (notably around punch count and speed, together with working with boxing SMEs to identify the best metrics to focus on) and the other in swing mechanics, hip swing analysis and 2D to 3D technology for golf.
Golfing 3D Analytics & Swing Tracking
At Ideas Lab, we’ve never been satisfied with 2D video. Our 2D to 3D provides significant visibility for coaches across multiple sports. Using 2D video, we are able to recreate a 3D view of a golf player to provide kinematic and pose analytics. Q4 plans will include golf club tracking with analytics including swing speed, acceleration, shaft lean at impact, shaft release rate among others. Having a holistic view of how the body moves and golf club tracking will provide a comprehensive view of how golfing analytics.
We believe this type of player analysis is revolutionary as enables a significant range of analytics across the entire swing.Adding our additional technologies, such as stromotion, hip swing analysis and club analysis, will further empower both coaches and students to understand what makes the perfect swing in any setting or situation.
In the words of our CEO:
“This is a game changer. No where else is there a markerless technology that combines full body motion tracking together with clubhead tracking. Integrating body kinematics along with golf club tracking, this tracking technology will provide both a holistic view and comprehensive analytics for the everyday golfer.”
Turning to our Xview product with an initial focus on boxing:
Xview Uploader
Xview.ai was launched to address this gap in the market. Developed from years of R&D in biomechanics analytics and markerless motion capture technology, Xview.ai will revolutionize how professional-grade analytics can be placed in the palms of athletes of all ages, ability and activity. With a smartphone and a tripod, Xview offers both athletes and coaches with a digital platform that both captures and analyzes human motion across multiple sports, together with sport-agnostic metrics developed in close coordination with SMEs.
We are starting with boxing, both because the movements are discrete and the biomechanics well established but also because it will allow us to scale our single-player analysis into a dual-athlete setting (a third reason is we could add further analysis of kicks and lower-body motion as we further expand into the world of MMA).
Again, our focus over the last several months has been on an uploader platform which enables users to upload any short video and have that movement — in a matter of minutes, rather than hours or days as with our competitors — processed and analyzed. We’re working with top coaches, SMEs, biomechanics and other professionals to translation motion into meaningful action while helping draw insights with each kick, swing, punch, throw or position (if interested in lending your insights and expertise in this field, feel free to reach me here!).
Our system will be able to analyze multiple body points at once, so that customers can click on, say, both the left and right elbow, and analyze the curve of each punch session for each arm. What’s the ideal hip rotation during a punch? What’s the ideal angle of one’s next when blocking? What is the ideal foot placement like throughout multiple types of punches? Our system can analyze and assess these and hundreds of other questions by comparing the motion in the video with a “pro average” for that specific sport. In turning dumb video into smart video, we’re looking to raise the bar in digital fitness for anyone, anywhere.
Partnerships
While the core Ideas Lab team has been busy on product, we have continued the exciting work with our university partners at NTUS with whom we have been developing the technology to detect baseball spin using an ordinary iPhone. The models are currently being trained and tested using synthetic data due to Covid-19, but is yielding 95% accuracy at 240fps. Q4 plans taking the technology out in the field and testing it on live pitches.
Buckle up and strap in as we wrap up the year with the culmination of several years of technology development, expert discussions and market analysis. If interested in learning more about Ideas Lab and how specifically we’re working to democratize advanced analytics, contact us anytime at hello@ideaslab.com to learn more!
In the meantime, stay safe and keep moving!
ABOUT IDEAS LAB
Ideas Lab is an innovation lab and start-up studio building proprietary artificial intelligence, machine vision, and human motion analysis technologies. Today, while developing a suite of AI-based solutions, we are building a network of corporate and academic partners with whom together we will improve human performance in the many ways people move, perform and play!
Visit us to learn more about Ideas Lab today!
