NeurIPS, Vancouver – The Institute for Advanced Research in Artificial Intelligence (IARAI), an independent global machine-learning research institute established by HERE Technologies, today announced the results and winners of its traffic prediction competition, which aimed to solve mobility challenges using artificial intelligence (AI). Traffic4cast, a unique competition merging movie-prediction machine learning with traffic research, challenged competitors to understand complex traffic systems and make predictions about how they would flow in the future.

The results show how AI can effectively uncover insights to solve traffic gridlock through trial and error of industrial geospatial data from HERE, a leader in mapping and location-based services. Traffic comes about when drivers make simple decisions that lead to complex behavior patterns. These patterns depend on various factors, such as time of day, the road network, congestion situations, holidays, weather conditions and day of the week. Effectively identifying and analyzing traffic patterns lead to more accurate predictions of how traffic would move on given roads at given times of day.

AI, and more specifically neural networks—computer systems modeled on the human brain and nervous system—can help to solve this problem because they are very good at spotting patterns. Neural networks “learn” to do tasks by considering examples, such as datasets, usually without being programmed with task-specific rules. This ability to learn without being programmed means that although neural networks are good at identifying patterns, why they are good at it is unclear. Their inner workings are one of the mysteries of machine learning, the so-called “black box” AI, meaning that the processes cannot be easily understood or tested by programmers.

The Traffic4cast results show that neural networks were the most effective method used at predicting traffic and came closest to simulating the exact traffic flow. All the top entrants used neural networks instead of “non-black box” solutions, such as support vector machines, Bayesian networks and other fixed algorithms. Winners from South Korea, Oxford/Zurich and Toronto were among more than 40 teams from around the world who submitted over 4,000 entries. 

Working with HERE, IARAI provided participants with traffic movie clips based on a year’s worth of industrial-scale, real-world data for three diverse cities: Berlin, Istanbul and Moscow. The clips were created using data based on an unprecedented number of over 100 billion probe points from positions reported by a large fleet of probe vehicles. They captured morning, evening and rush-hour traffic. Each movie frame summarized GPS trajectories mapped to spatio-temporal cells. The movies showed multiple color channels characterizing traffic volume, speed and direction.

“This competition is special alone because of the sheer scope and size of the data,” said Sepp Hochreiter, a founding co-director of IARAI and an artificial intelligence pioneer (he invented the long short-term memory (LSTM) neural network framework).

Entrants had to forecast the traffic by completing the next part of each movie clip for all three cities. Contestants were given 285 full training days (full movie for the entire day) and 72 testing days (containing five blocks of 12 consecutive images with at least 30 frames between each such block); the rest were marked out validation sets. Each contestant then had to produce the three consecutive images following each given block of 12 images in each movie file for each day in the test set for each city.

“This competition brought together diverse groups to tackle a fundamental problem—predicting geospatial processes—that lies at the heart of sustainable mass mobility,” said Michael Kopp, head of research at HERE and founding co-director of IARAI. “Guiding the AI revolution to this problem using an interdisciplinary approach via billions of real-life data points is both novel and a paradigm shift that will be reflected in many applied scientific disciplines. The results seem to prove that ‘black box’ machine learning is most effective at solving predictive problems. This gives us a jumping-off point for further research into how AI learns.”

Media Contacts  
Jordan Stark
+1 312 316 4537
jordan.stark@here.com

Amy Stupavsky
+49 175 419 1678
amy.stupavsky@here.com

About HERE Technologies
HERE, a location data and technology platform, moves people, businesses and cities forward by harnessing the power of location. By leveraging our open platform, we empower our customers to achieve better outcomes – from helping a city manage its infrastructure or a business optimize its assets to guiding drivers to their destination safely. To learn more about HERE, please visit www.here.com and http://360.here.com.

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IRVINE, Calif., Dec. 13, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — ShiftPixy, Inc. (NASDAQ: PIXY), a California-based staffing enterprise that designs, manages, and sells access to a disruptive, revolutionary platform that facilitates employment in the rapidly growing Gig Economy, today announced operating results for the year ended August 31, 2019 (“2019”).

2019 Financial Highlights

• Earnings per share improved to $0.57 in 2019 compared to $0.58 for 2018.
• Gross billings grew 59% to $353 million, compared to $222 million for 2018.  Q4 billings exceeded $100 million for the first quarter in our history at $105 million for an exit annualized billings rate of over $420 million.  
• Revenues increased 53% to $53 million, compared to $35 million for 2018.
• Gross profit was $12.4 million, increasing 125% over 2018 gross profit of $5.5 million due to improving margins and workers compensation cost savings.  Gross profit per worksite employee improved to $1,200 for 2019 from $800 for 2018.
• Loss from Operations improved to $9.7 million from $11.6 million in 2018. 
• EBITDAS Loss (Operating Loss excluding depreciation and share-based compensation) improved to $8.3 million for 2019 from $11.0 million for 2018 due to improved margins and reduced spending on our mobile application, offset by increased operations costs.
• Investment in our mobile application and technology solution deployment decreased to $4.9 million in 2019 from $7.5 million in 2018 due to reduced costs relating to movement to our new in-sourced development team.  Total Human Resource Information System (HRIS) and mobile application investment is $15.5 million to date.

2019 Operational highlights

• The number of employees billed during the year and retained in our employee HRIS exceeded 25,000.
• The active number of worksite employees billed increased to 13,100 at August 31, 2019, a 54% increase, from 8,500 at August 31, 2018.
• Average gross billings per worksite employee increased by 4.3% to $33,600 in 2019 from $32,200 in 2018
• Average operating support costs per billed worksite employee improved in 2019.  We have staffed to manage up to 50,000 active worksite employees with our current corporate overhead.
• Our dispute with our outsourced software development partner delayed our HRIS and mobile application launch in 2019 and necessitated our move towards in-house development. 

“We continue to see strong growth in our legacy business which has driven top line expansion and improvement in our operating metrics, including gross billings and gross profits for 2019,” stated Chief Executive Officer, Scott Absher.  ”Delays in the launch of our mobile application solution are now behind us and the project is now back on track and well received by our initial launch customers.  We believe it will support revenue growth in 2020 from both significantly higher worksite employee counts and added technology features.  The reception from our target customers has been phenomenal and we expect to see a significant increase in our business activity levels as we move into calendar 2020 and continue our focus on creating long-term shareholder value.”

About ShiftPixy
ShiftPixy is a disruptive human capital services enterprise, revolutionizing employment in the Gig Economy by delivering a next-gen platform for workforce management that helps businesses with shift-based employees navigate regulatory mandates, minimize administrative burdens and better connect with a ready-for-hire workforce.  With expertise rooted in management’s nearly 25 years of workers’ compensation and compliance programs experience, ShiftPixy adds a needed layer for addressing compliance and continued demands for equitable employment practices in the growing Gig Economy. ShiftPixy’s complete HCM ecosystem is designed to manage regulatory requirements and compliance in such required areas as paid time off (PTO) laws, insurance and workers’ compensation, minimum wage increases, and the Affordable Care Act (ACA) compliance.

ShiftPixy Cautionary Statement
The information provided in this release includes forward-looking statements, the achievement or success of which involves risks, uncertainties, and assumptions. Although such forward-looking statements are based upon what management of the Company believes are reasonable assumptions, there can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate. If any of the risks or uncertainties, including those set forth below, materialize or if any of the assumptions proves incorrect, the results of ShiftPixy, Inc., could differ materially from the results expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements we make.  The risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, risks associated with the nature of our business model; our ability to execute the Company’s vision and growth strategy; our ability to attract and retain clients; our ability to assess and manage risks; changes in the law that affect our business and our ability to respond to such changes and incorporate them into our business model, as necessary; our ability to insure against and otherwise effectively manage risks that affect our business; competition; reliance on third-party systems and software; our ability to protect and maintain our intellectual property; and general developments in the economy and financial markets.  Statements made in connection with any guidance may refer to financial statements that have not been reviewed or audited.  The Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements if circumstances or management’s estimates or opinions should change, except as required by applicable securities laws.  The information in this press release shall not be deemed to be “filed” for the purpose of Section 18 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, or otherwise subject to the liabilities of that section, and will not be deemed an admission as to the materiality of any information that is required to be disclosed solely by Regulation FD.  Further information on these and other factors that could affect the financial results of ShiftPixy, Inc., is included in the filings on Forms 1-A and 10-Q and in other filings we make with the Securities and Exchange Commission from time to time. These documents are available on the “SEC Filings” subsection of the “Investor Information” section of our website at https://ir.shiftpixy.com/financial-information/sec-filings.

Consistent with the SEC’s April 2013 guidance on using social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter to make corporate disclosures and announce key information in compliance with Regulation FD, ShiftPixy is alerting investors and other members of the general public that ShiftPixy will provide updates on operations and progress required to be disclosed under Regulation FD through its social media on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube. Investors, potential investors, shareholders and individuals interested in our Company are encouraged to keep informed by following us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube.

INVESTOR CONTACT:

InvestorRelations@shiftpixy.com
800.475.3655

ShiftPixy Inc.
Consolidated Balance Sheets

ShiftPixy Inc.
Consolidated Statements of Operations

KELSEYVILLE, CA, Dec. 13, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — via NEWMEDIAWIRE – Vet Online Supply, Inc. (OTC PINK:VTNL) (“Vet Online Supply” or the “Company”), BrewBilt Manufacturing, LLC (a California Limited Liability Corporation) CEO and Chairman, Jef Lewis, states the following:

“On November 22, 2019, we entered into a Merger Agreement between BrewBilt Manufacturing and the Company. Pursuant the 8K Filing on November 22, 2019, the Merger with BrewBilt brings a growing business with revenue of $2M+ and assets to the company and to our shareholders. With new purchase orders of over $1M in process, BrewBilt has been manufacturing quality beer brewing systems since 2014, and manufacturing cannabis systems used for extraction of hemp and CBD during the same period. The global industrial hemp market size is estimated at USD 3.9 billion in 2017, expanding at a CAGR of 14.0% over the forecast period. Growing demand for hemp-based food products including cooking oil, dairy alternatives, flour, and salad dressings is expected to drive market growth. In addition, rising demand for bakery products such as bread and cookies is expected to drive the market.

“Our objective in being a publicly owned company at this time is to broaden our scope of value over the next 5 years as we grow and enter the world market for supplying the growing beer industry and cannabis extraction industry. Our business is not a start-up, and we continue to be recognized as the quality manufacturer for restaurants and small breweries, and for cannabis growers seeking extraction systems for processing hemp and CBD.

“Our auditing firm and accounting firm are preparing the required Super-8K filing consisting of our financials. The audited 10K for the period ending 12/31/2019 will be filed on or before 3/15/2019. The company plans to change its name to ‘BrewBilt Manufacturing’ and receive new trading symbols. The Pet Product business will be spun-off before the end of 2020.

“The future outlook over the next 5 years for our company, based upon our growth rate since 2014, is promising since the hemp seeds segment is likely to expand at a CAGR of 17.1% during the forecast period, in terms of revenue. This growth is attributed to the rising demand for oil, seedcakes, and various food and nutraceutical items. Nutraceutical products are known for their high fatty acid content and nutritional value. Seeds comprise about 35.0% oil, which contains roughly 80.0% essential fatty acids and 20.0% crude protein. BrewBilt manufactures the highest quality products for this industry.”

BrewBilt Video Link: https://www.brewbilt.com/about-1

ABOUT BREWBILT:  (www.brewbilt.com)

Located in the Sierra Foothills of Northern California, BrewBilt is one of the only California companies that custom designs, hand crafts, and integrates processing, fermentation and distillation processing systems for the craft beer, cannabis and hemp industries using “Best in Class” American made components integrated with stainless steel processing vessels using only American made steel. Founded in 2014, the company began in a backyard shop by Jef Lewis with a vision of creating a profitable company in “Rural America”. BrewBilt has built a solid foundation by having strong relationships with local suppliers of raw materials, equipment and services in California, an aggressive referral network of satisfied customers nationwide, and an Advisory Board consisting of successful business leaders that provide valuable product feedback and business expertise to management. The craft brewing & spirits industries continue to grow worldwide. California is where craft brewing began and now has over 900 operating breweries – being centrally located in this booming market was a large draw for BrewBilt to locate its manufacturing facility in the Sierra foothills. All BrewBilt products are designed and fabricated as “food grade” quality which enables the company to build vessels for food & beverage processing. More important, the company has been building systems that are pharmaceutical grade for clients involved in distillation for the cannabis and hemp industries over the past 36 months, thus making the revenue potential much greater. 

Safe Harbor for Forward-Looking Statements: This news release includes forward-looking statements. While these statements are made to convey to the public the company’s progress, business opportunities and growth prospects, readers are cautioned that such forward-looking statements represent management’s opinion. Whereas management believes such representations to be true and accurate based on information and data available to the company at this time, actual results may differ materially from those described. The Company’s operations and business prospects are always subject to risk and uncertainties. Important factors that may cause actual results to differ are and will be set forth in the company’s periodic filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Contact:
Meridian Consulting
415-756-4057