They could not count by weight (before ML)? For e.g - If 100 pearls weight 10 gm etc? They could also have used a machine for counting them
A Japanese company cut 80% of the time needed to manually count pearls
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Re: A Japanese company cut 80% of the time needed to manually count pearls
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
I live in Southeast Asia and am in a Facebook group where foreigners often post asking for recommendations. Americans always phrase their questions as, "What's the BEST pizza?" or "What's the BEST sushi?" As if they would die (or could even tell the difference) if they had the fourth or tenth best option in the city instead. And if you recommend a place too expensive or too far away it becomes immediately clear they…
Perhaps it has to do with different interpretations of what is meant by best? If I told you the best Thai place around where I live, I would tell you a place that is best not just because of its food, but also its price, parking, distance to travel. It is the best in that it is the most optimal given my own value judgment of those factors.
This is exactly right. Before I lived in Seattle, I was told (moving from the southwest), that there was no good Mexican food in Seattle.
Of course after I moved there I found quite a number of excellent Mexican food restaurants, and for a few years I wondered what strange definition they were using.
I eventually figured out that they meant that there was no good Mexican food within walking distance of downtown
Re: A Japanese company cut 80% of the time needed to manually count pearls
#153Wow, this is such a simple application of ML and it is incredibly valuable. On their website, they charge $100/month per device or $1000/year per device [0] and I bet they're making a killing. [0] https://countthings.com/en/
Value pricing at it's finest. If the customer saves $1000/month per device, they'll happily pay the $100/month. As it still saves them $900. They don't care how complex/simple the ML implementation is.
But is there any barrier to entry though?
By the looks of it, none, the next app will charges $5 per month and it could even be generic ('round objects counter')
Re: A Japanese company cut 80% of the time needed to manually count pearls
#154I think what the CountThings app is doing is great. There are too many industries where tasks are being performed inefficiently due to a lack of applying readily available technology. They had the foresight to develop a product for a very common problem and make a business out of it.
I’m a bit surprised that this is making the rounds of HN though. OpenCV and other computer vision libraries have trivialized such counting applications for decades now. ML isn’t really necessary.
The watershed algorithm for example, comes built-in and allows segmentation which can then be followed up with blob counting: http://www.cmm.mines-paristech.fr/~beucher/wtshed.html
I don’t want to diminish OP’s work since the product seems to be well-developed and respond to a real need. I guess the challenge must have been making the app robust enough to support different workloads, lighting conditions, etc. I suppose the novelty factor is seeing to what extent the technology that we as developers and engineers work on every day is often disconnected from practical application.
Re: A Japanese company cut 80% of the time needed to manually count pearls
#155They could not count by weight (before ML)? For e.g - If 100 pearls weight 10 gm etc? They could also have used a machine for counting them
Pearl vary in size a lot; they can easily double in diameter, ie. possibly x 8 in weight. Weighting could be valuable, in addition to counting and measuring how round and shiny they are — but it would be the 4th or 5th more important aspect, at most.
Source: my distant family has a pearl farm and I implemented pricing algos.
Re: A Japanese company cut 80% of the time needed to manually count pearls
#156They could not count by weight (before ML)? For e.g - If 100 pearls weight 10 gm etc? They could also have used a machine for counting them
The picture in the bottom of the article shows that varying sizes of pearls need to be counted at the same time, making using weight very unreliable.
Even if only similar size pearls are allowed, small variations multiplied by a large amount of pearls can cause issues, such as distinguishing 100 pearls of 99 grams each from 99 pearls of 100 grams each.
Re: A Japanese company cut 80% of the time needed to manually count pearls
#157Hi, there! I'm one of the project managers at CountThings, I'll try to respond to comments here but I guess you can AMA.
How did you come up with the pricing strategy. I imagine some big companies might pay more if they can save lot of money with this.
Re: A Japanese company cut 80% of the time needed to manually count pearls
#158They could not count by weight (before ML)? For e.g - If 100 pearls weight 10 gm etc? They could also have used a machine for counting them
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Re: A Japanese company cut 80% of the time needed to manually count pearls
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
It really depends on the city and the type of business. Bucharest wages are higher. Btw, we are not an outsourcing company. Everything is done in Romania: development, sales, management.
Having an US office is due to business needs?
Our CEO is from the US.
Re: A Japanese company cut 80% of the time needed to manually count pearls
#160Hi, there! I'm one of the project managers at CountThings, I'll try to respond to comments here but I guess you can AMA.
How did you come up with the pricing strategy. I imagine some big companies might pay more if they can save lot of money with this.
We iterated through different ideas and numbers. It's not an easy task, I can tell you that.
We also try to have a good variety of choices: enterprise license, yearly, monthly or even packages of 24h.
And we also have some free demo counting template, you don't need a license while using them. Including one to help people involved in the vaccination process: https://countthingsqanda.com/?p=1587