EU Project: The Social Network Graph

Charonite has recently had another Research & Development project funded by EU ERDF funds, called MAPGRAPH, which aims to study the graph structure of social networks in depth, while creating fast efficient algorithms that aim to answer questions like:

• Who are the most influential people in a graph?
• How can social network information be incorporated in the best way to improve search engine results?
• What improvements can be made to speed up social graph processing?
• Given a particular user, what other users exhibit similar behaviour? (this is technically known as collaborative filtering)
• And many other interesting R&D areas...

The ERDF funding was obtained after undergoing a competitive proposal process administered by Malta Enterprise. The MAPGRAPH project is expected to go on until mid-2012 and a team of expert researchers with backgrounds in IT/CS, maths, and physics has been setup internally to carry out the research work.

Charonite has already had another R&D project funded by EU ERDF funds last year, concerning computer vision and traffic applications. The success of this project, together with our past experience working on FP5, FP6 and FP7 projects, coupled with our initiative to eventually achieve CMMI Level 5 and the use of ITIL/PRINCE2 project management methods is paying off by making our team achieve results in a more consistent and predictable manner.

GPU Computing

One of the core competences at Charonite is GPU computing and high performance computing solutions. Our highly skilled team of HPC developers have extensive experience in developing and applying GPU based solutions in a variety of industries, with a special focus on the transportation, data mining, search engine and image processing industries.

The use of GPU computing to speed up algorithms provides a low-cost way of achieving performance levels to that approaching entry-level supercomputing. The main appeal of GPU computing is the fact that the cost barrier to entry is very low: most graphic cards used by gamers already can run GPU programs and compared to the cost of specialised computing hardware, the cost is minimal.

The speedup that can be achieved by implementing a GPU version of a particular algorithm can be extremely significant - we have often achieved speedups well in excess of 100%, sometimes even in the 1000% to 5000% range! Naturally, it takes experience in both algorithm analysis, highly parallel programming and an almost obsessive attention to detail in order to achieve the best performance out of the computing hardware.

We prefer the use of the nVidia CUDA programming language as it has the best support so far in the industry (we can also provide solutions using OpenCL but this is less in demand and has less support for developers in the type of solutions we have implemented so far).

Charonite's expertise and services that are offered in the area covers various aspects including:

• Algorithm analysis and conversion to parallel mode
• Profiling algorithm performance to identify the best areas for improvement and speedup
• Extensive CUDA Programming experience
• New algorithm design and R&D
• Integration with OpenCV and OpenGL
• Use of OpenCL if necessary to use non-nVidia hardware
• Theoretical and practical aspects of formal algorithm design and development
• Application of GPU and HPC concepts in a variety of industries
• Image Processing, Data Mining and Search Engine specialisations
• Expertise in applying GPU and HPC solutions in the traffic and transport industries

Typical GPU Core used for our CUDA solutions

Charonite has delivered a variety of data mining applications, including customer segmentation for e-Commerce applications and user segmentation in a variety of B2C sites. New modules that natively support GPUs are being added to the Obulus Platform, making it possible for Obulus applications to benefit from the GPU speedups out of the box without any GPU expertise needed on the part of the developers who develop Obulus applications.

An example of recent work that we have carried out in this area, we have recently completed some outsourcing expert work for the ODICIS project in collaboration with Dr. Ing. David Zammit Mangion the University of Malta, which is an EU funded FP7 project that aims to develop a single display cockpit by employing state of the art technologies.

Another example is the use of CUDA in our traffic analysis products, where we have received EU ERDF funding to develop advanced image processing and computer vision algorithms that automatically track a variety of vehicles, while using low-power GPU hardware that can lead to improvements in traffic flow, monitoring and control.

Kindly contact us for more information about our GPU programming and development expertise at info@charonite.com.

Transport Information Days

Charonite recently participated in the Transport Information Days held in Brussels on the 18 and 19 July at the Charlemagne Building. The event was organised by the European Commission’s Research Directorate General and aimed to inform potential researchers and companies about the new Transport Calls for Proposals under the co-operation programme under FP7.

Charonite is currently seeking partners to participate in FP7 proposal in the transportation area, concentrating mainly on Surface Transport, while looking to expand activities in the maritime and aviation areas. Our personnel have experience in participating in FP5, FP6 and FP7 projects and we have built up a robust research portfolio over the years.

Our research and development team consisting of around 20+ experienced developers and researchers have experience in working in a cross-country environment, as our company has offices within two EU member states (Malta and the UK), and also in the UAE and Australia.

Angelo Dalli, CEO, presenting Charonite in Brussels

For more information about Charonite's research and development activies, please have a look at our Charonite Labs section on our website and our blog, which presents latest news and informal posts giving additional insight into our company's activities.

Augmented Reality

At Charonite we encourage our development team to carry out research in a wide variety of related areas, giving enough latitude, flexibility and support that enables innovation to be carried out quickly and efficiently. Part of the philisophy behind this approach is that it fosters new products and innovative ideas to grow organically from within our organisation, drawing upon the strengths and skills of our highly talented staff.

One of the recent prototypes developed involved the use of Augmented Reality (AR) technology, using a combination of off-the-shelf hardware such as the Sony PS3 PlayStation Eye to track the user and the Nintendo Wiimote to track hand movements and acceleration accurately. The user wears AR glasses which simultaneously film what the user is seeing, send it to a computer for processing, and then display an AR graphic overlay that appears to be seamlessly integrated with the real world.


Augmented Reality prototype in action

At Charonite we are currently evaluating the use of AR technology in various applications including intelligent transport systems, vehicle information augmentation, ANPR / LPR augmentation, UAV control, and data mining results visualisation. Prototypes that show enough promise will then form part of our R&D pipeline and hopefully open up new collaboration with other industrial partners. The AR software prototypes are built using a mixture of proprietary algorithms and open source systems such as PTAM.

For more information about AR please have a look at the Wikipedia entry on AR.

For more information about Charonite's R&D activities, have a look at our Labs section.

Scoop New Version Launched

We have recently launched a new version of Scoop, our on-street and off-street traffic enforcement product that offers a streamlined parking enforcement solution. Scoop automates the legal process of collection of penalty charges from vehicle owners and provides a complete tool kit for asset-owners, such as private land owners, local authorities, retail and business parks for off-street use. Scoop also has features for local councils, municipalities and other governmental organisations who need to do on-street enforcement.

Scoop Progression Screenshot

The new version of Scoop has been launched in the UK and is currently being phased in at a number of sites in England and Scotland. The new version provides the following improvements:

• Enhanced workflow capabilities and ticket progression views
• Faster Penalty Charge Notice (PCN) processing and enforcement, capable of dealing with large sites that process thousands of PCNs per day
• More flexible enforcement process and configuration
• Better support for multiple languages
• Better support for multiple regimes and jurisdiction / rules with a new "regime pack" option that allows operators to pick and chose preset rule packs in their deployment site
• Enhanced compliance with the Parking Industry Code of Practice
• New Scoop Mobile application which compliments the web-based PC / tablet version which runs on rugged mobile devices using the Windows Mobile OS
• Modular means of plugging in Blink
• Modular means of plugging in speed camera data
• New support for Digital Traffic Enforcement systems

Scoop complies with the Road Traffic Act 1984, TMA 2004 and British Parking Association code of practice for parking enforcement. Our Smart SaaS deployment solution together with Scoop mobile allow for flexible configuration scenarios that provide exactly what operators need.

For more information please have a look at our Products section on our website or contact us on sales@charonite.com.

Juicy Fridays: Yorick Wilks

Charonite's Malta based team has a tradition of regular events held on Fridays for all the development team, called Juicy Fridays. On a Juicy Friday afternoon we discuss various different topics that are of interest to the whole team, in an ongoing effort at continuous improvement.

Occassionally, we invite external speakers to participate at our Juicy Friday events. Recently, Professor Yorick Wilks, who acts as our Chief Scientific Advisor on our advisory board, gave us an inspiring presentation on Natural Language Processing (NLP) and the Semantic Web. Professor Wilks' insight and depth of experience made for an informative and often entertaining afternoon. As most of our developers have some experience in either NLP or Search Engine technology, the event proved to be quite interesting as various points ranging from the finer points of using RDF as a knowledge representation technique to the future use of NLP techniques in a search engine architecture were raised and discussed.

Professor Yorick Wilks at Charonite

Prof. Wilks brings a wealth of experience to Charonite, having over 40 years of experience in the fields of Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Processing.
Amongst other awards, Yorick has won the British Computing Society Lovelace Medal in 2009, which is considered to be one of Britan's highest honours given to individuals who have advanced Information Systems significantly, with past recipients being Sir Tim Berners-Lee (WWW inventor), Douglas Engelbart (inventor of the computer mouse) and Linus Torvalds (Linux original author). Yorick has also won the ACL Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008, and the Antonio Zampolli Prize in 2008 (similar to the Nobel prize, in the Natural Language Processing field).
Yorick has pioneered various AI technologies, including the invention of one of the first practical Machine Translation systems at Stanford University in 1973, and forming part of the team that won the 1997 Loebner prize in AI.

New Office Building

Charonite will be moving into our own new office building in Q1 2012 in Ta' Xbiex, Malta. The new office building will house all of our Malta based staff and provide working space for our UK based staff when they come over to work in Malta. The groundbreaking process started at the end of February 2011 and construction and finishing work is expected to be carried out by the end of January 2012.

3D Rendering of the New Office Block

The new offices have been designed with state of the art ecologically friendly building techniques as part of our commitment to sustainable and green IT. The offices will have a large photo-voltaic panel installation that will generate most of the electricity used for lighting, efficient insulation and triple glazing to cut down on air-conditioning costs while reducing environmental noise, and better use of natural light whenever possible. The offices also feature a custom-designed environment that is suitable for an advanced technology company like Charonite including fibre-optic interlinks throughout all floors, provisions for development server rackspace, redundant power supply and standby generator systems, and a high security environment. Project management is being provided by WH Works who are also entrusted with the internal finishing and commissioning of the offices.

The new office location is in the upmarket area of Ta' Xbiex, and is located on the seafront with a tranquil garden area and yacht marina in front. The office offers views of the Marsamxett sea harbour and views of Malta's capital city of Valletta.

We look forward to providing further updates around September when the office shell should be completed.