CrowdOptic, Inc. (known as CrowdOptic) is a privately held San Francisco-based

medical technology Health technology is defined by the World Health Organization as the "application of organized knowledge and skills in the form of devices, medicines, vaccines, procedures, and systems developed to solve a health problem and improve quality of liv ...

company founded in 2011. CrowdOptic, led by CEO Jon Fisher, developed augmented reality technology and triangulation algorithms used in

medicine Medicine is the science and Praxis (process), practice of caring for patients, managing the Medical diagnosis, diagnosis, prognosis, Preventive medicine, prevention, therapy, treatment, Palliative care, palliation of their injury or disease, ...

, sports, and government that gathers and analyzes data from smart devices based on where they are pointed to identify areas of interest. As of 2016, CrowdOptic remains the only patented solution for wearables like

Google Glass Google Glass, or simply Glass, is a discontinued brand of smart glasses developed by Google's X Development (formerly Google X), with a mission of producing a ubiquitous computer. Google Glass displays information to the wearer using a head-u ...

and

Sony is a Japanese multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at Sony City in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. The Sony Group encompasses various businesses, including Sony Corporation (electronics), Sony Semiconductor Solutions (i ...

SmartEyeGlass.

History

CrowdOptic was founded in 2011 by Jon Fisher, Jeff Broderick, Doug Van Blaricom, and Alex Malinovsky. The company analyzes data from mobile devices to identify hot spot activity and connects Google Glass footage to live video feeds. The technology is in use by professional sports, medicine, and government including for emergency response, fire and public-safety workers. CrowdOptic's investors include

Silicon Valley Bank Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) is a commercial bank division of First Citizens BancShares. The bank was previously the primary subsidiary of SVB Financial Group, a Public company, publicly traded bank holding company that had offices in 15 U.S. state ...

John Elway John Albert Elway Jr. (born June 28, 1960) is an American former professional football quarterback who spent his entire 16-year career with the Denver Broncos of the National Football League (NFL). Following his playing career, he then spent 1 ...

Eric Yuan Eric S Yuan (; born 20 February 1970) is a Chinese Americans, Chinese-American billionaire businessman, engineer, and the chief executive officer and founder of Zoom Communications, of which he owns 22%. Early life and education Yuan is the so ...

, and

Ronnie Lott Ronald Mandel Lott (born May 8, 1959) is an American former professional football player in the National Football League (NFL) for 14 seasons from 1981 to 1994. Lott played college football for the University of Southern California (USC), and ...

. The company has raised $5 million in funding. In 2015, the company was named one of the most well-established of the 10 Glass for Work partners. In July 2015, 9to5Google announced that the CrowdOptic was in acquisition talks with a Fortune 500 firm. In 2016, CrowdOptic released its first in-house developed hardware product, the CrowdOptic Eye, a device that streams video through the company's video streaming stack with the push of one button. In October 2016, CrowdOptic launched Field App through the

Google Play Store Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store, Play Store, or sometimes the Android Store (and was formerly Android Market), is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certifie ...

to "triangulate on a point of interest and broadcast its GPS location to a command center with live-video verification." The application uses a cloud-based system,

GPS The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a satellite-based hyperbolic navigation system owned by the United States Space Force and operated by Mission Delta 31. It is one of the global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) that provide geol ...

, compass and live video and smart sensor data to coordinate emergency responders, firemen and police. In August 2017, the

Houston Chronicle The ''Houston Chronicle'' is the largest daily newspaper in Houston, Houston, Texas, United States. it is the third-largest newspaper by Sunday circulation in the United States, behind only ''The New York Times'' and the ''Los Angeles Times''. ...

reported that Hewlett Packard Enterprise and CrowdOptic reached a deal to combine CrowdOptic's augmented reality platform and triangulation algorithms and Hewlett Packard servers in its

internet of things Internet of things (IoT) describes devices with sensors, processing ability, software and other technologies that connect and exchange data with other devices and systems over the Internet or other communication networks. The IoT encompasse ...

lab in Houston, Texas.

Applications

The company is a founding certified

partner with its technology also in use by Sony, Vuzix, and

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

. CrowdOptic develops algorithms which let smartphones and wearables live-stream from locations such as hospital operating rooms or sports stadiums.

Sports

In 2014, CrowdOptic partnered with the

Sacramento Kings The Sacramento Kings are an American professional basketball team based in Sacramento, California. The Kings compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Pacific Division (NBA), Pacific Division of the Western Confere ...

to develop an alternative view of basketball games using

. The company broadcast Google Glass video footage from the perspective of players and cheerleaders on the

Jumbotron A jumbotron, sometimes referred to as jumbovision, is a video display using large-screen television technology (video wall). The original technology was developed in the early 1980s by Mitsubishi Electric and Sony, which coined JumboTron as a ...

and mobile devices. This technology was also implemented during warm-ups by the

Stanford Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth governor of and th ...

basketball team. The company also partnered with the

Indiana Pacers The Indiana Pacers are an American professional basketball team based in Indianapolis. The Pacers compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Central Division (NBA), Central Division of the Eastern Conference (NBA), Ea ...

to use the technology. The footage was broadcast from the video feeds of team employees wearing Google Glass. CrowdOptic has agreements with the

Philadelphia Eagles The Philadelphia Eagles are a professional American football team based in Philadelphia. The Eagles compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC East, East division. The team plays its ...

, and

for SmartEyeGlass to use the technology. In August 2014, CrowdOptic partnered with

NASCAR The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, LLC (NASCAR) is an American auto racing sanctioning and operating company that is best known for stock car racing. It is considered to be one of the top ranked motorsports organizations in ...

International Speedway Corporation International Speedway Corporation (ISC) was a corporation whose primary business was the ownership and management of motorsports race tracks. ISC was founded by NASCAR founder Bill France Sr. in 1953 for the construction of Daytona International ...

to broadcast live racing and behind-the-scenes footage from Google Glass. In 2016, CrowdOptic deployed with the Denver Broncos at the

AFC Championship game The AFC Championship Game is the annual championship game of the American Football Conference (AFC) and one of the two semifinal NFL playoffs, playoff games of the National Football League (NFL), the largest professional American football lea ...

Denver, Colorado Denver ( ) is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Consolidated city and county, consolidated city and county, the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Colorado, most populous city of the U.S. state of ...

and at the

Super Bowl 50 Super Bowl 50 was an American football game to determine the champion of the National Football League (NFL) for the 2015 season. The American Football Conference (AFC) champion Denver Broncos defeated the National Football Conference (NFC) ...

Levi's Stadium Levi's Stadium is an American football stadium located in Santa Clara, California, United States, just west of the much larger city of San Jose, in the San Francisco Bay Area. It has served as the home venue for the National Football League (N ...

in the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a List of regions of California, region of California surrounding and including San Francisco Bay, and anchored by the cities of Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose, California, S ...

Medicine

In June 2014, CrowdOptic announced a partnership with the

University of California, San Francisco The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Francisco, California, United States. It is part of the University of California system and is dedic ...

to stream procedures by UCSF Department of Orthopaedic Surgery faculty. The company announced in July 2014 that ProTransport-1, a California-based medical transport provider, would install Google Glass in its ambulances. Google Glass uses CrowdOptic's software to send a live video feed from an ambulance to a destination hospital. CrowdOptic also partnered with Stanford University Medical School. The software is used to live stream surgeries to doctors and medical students wearing

. The data from the live stream is owned by Stanford University. In 2017 the company debuted a live-streaming platform for medical practitioner training at National Bioskills Laboratories in

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

Government

CrowdOptic's technology has been deployed with

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

to enhance the launch and landing of a

lunar lander A lunar lander or Moon lander is a Lander (spacecraft), spacecraft designed to Moon landing, land on the surface of the Moon. As of 2024, the Apollo Lunar Module is the only lunar lander to have ever been used in human spaceflight, completing s ...

and provide live streaming for incident response. In 2016, the company paired with Solford Industries to market a low-bandwidth live-streaming device integrated with a conventional firefighter helmet in use by

fire departments A fire department (North American English) or fire brigade (Commonwealth English), also known as a fire company, fire authority, fire district, fire and rescue, or fire service in some areas, is an organization that provides fire prevention and ...

, police and first responders in both the United States and China. In September 2016 CrowdOptic also deployed augmented reality for

United States Special Operations Command The United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM or SOCOM) is the unified combatant command charged with overseeing the various special operations component commands of the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, and Air Force of the United States A ...

for field personnel to report to central command about specific targets including the

location and a live stream of the target using CrowdOptic's triangulation algorithms. In November 2016, CrowdOptic combined its augmented reality technology and algorithms with Portland-based SicDrone

unmanned aerial vehicles An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) or unmanned aircraft system (UAS), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft with no human pilot, crew, or passengers onboard, but rather is controlled remotely or is autonomous.De Gruyter Handbook of Dron ...

and Suspect Technology's facial recognition technologies to enable emergency responders and law enforcement with state-of-the-art surveillance and identification technology.

Vice Magazine ''Vice'' (stylized in all caps) is a Canadian-American magazine focused on lifestyle, arts, culture, and news/politics. It was founded in 1994 in Montreal as an alternative punk magazine, and its founders later launched the youth media company V ...

reported that the drones "fly fast, record faces in real time, recognize patterns in traffic and pinpoint people who are in the middle of an emergency."

Advertising

CrowdOptic joined with cosmetic company L'Oreal to market its products at the

Luminato The Luminato Festival, Toronto's International Festival of Arts and Ideas, is an annual celebration of the arts in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, launched in 2007. In its first decade, Luminato presented over 3,000 performances featuring 11,000 artist ...

festival in

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

, Ontario, Canada. L'Oreal's virtual art exhibit generated analytics that showed where people were aiming their phones.

References

{{reflist

External links

Official WebsiteCNBC on CrowdOptic's use in professional sportsHow CrowdOptic's Tech is Revolutionizing Sports Broadcasts, Business, & More
Software companies established in 2011 Companies based in San Francisco Technology companies of the United States Social information processing Crowdsourcing Augmented reality Augmented reality applications Defunct software companies of the United States Software industry Military technology Eyewear companies of the United States American companies established in 2011