Jas’ Business Blog

This is the ideal stuff that one would imagine for year 2044 A.D – You are holidaying in Paris and the only French you know is “Bonjour” which you anyway spell with a rustic accent, taking count to zero. You are lost, need directions and communication being a roadblock here, you take out your phone and point to the buildings around you. The phone starts giving you information on the area you are in and maps you on an interactive map. You ask for some nice Italian pizzeria and it gives you a list of options and on selecting one of these, you get choice of routes to the selection. On the way a Greek restaurant catch your attention and you target your mobile, and you get all the reviews of it. You decide to try it out and ask for menu, point your phone on the menu and get the image results of the dishes and decide on your order. Just then you see a friend standing at the far end, you decide to play a prank; point your mobile to her and  voila! Your phone gives you an option to call, SMS him, post message on his Facebook page, blah blah… So what is the story? Just that all this is not 2044 stuff, it has become possible as we speak! May I have the pleasure of introducing you to Google Goggles in case you two haven’t met already!

Background
Image recognition has been attracting lot of R&D efforts since late nineties and biggies like Google, Microsoft and Nokia etc are pouring millions into the research. Google has been focusing on non text objects since 2000; one would remember about patent filed by Larry Page in 2004 titled “Method for searching media“. They bought Neven Vision in 2006, which was into “next generation” face and object recognition technologies, and hence got handful patents too  which were owned by Neven Vision. Google also brought Transformics in 2006 which enabled it to index the pages its Google crawlers were not able to – basically the unstructured information. Google then integrated this technology with its homegrown Picasa, and launched Face detection, though in primitive form, in 2008. With launch of Android phone, Google got the base on which it could bring out its future technologies and capture the feedback in legal and cost effective way. And a look into Google Labs would introduce this next generation image recognition application – Google Goggle.

Google Goggles was developed for use on Google’s Android operating systems for mobile devices. While currently only available in a beta version for Android phones, Google has announced it plans on making the software capable of running on other platforms, notably the Apple iPhone and Blackberry devices. See the video below to get the gist of Google Goggles-

Competition

IBM (Direct competition)
IBM came up with SAPIR (Search in Audio-Visual Content Using Peer-to-peer Information Retrieval) in 2009 which analyzes photos, sound files and even video queries. It has created its database by extracting data from Flickr’s ginormous archive and index features such as color structure, color layout, shape edges and texture. It also allows one to combine text with media to refine down the search.
Demo: Click here for YouTube demo video

Nokia (Can be a direct competition)
Nokia announced its Point and Find app for its handsets in April 2009, which can recognize barcodes and cinema posters.  The software uses the phone’s camera, internet access and GPS to call up pre-programmed tags; that can then bring up local movie times, the ability to book tickets, and – eventually – price comparisons.
Demo: http://pointandfind.nokia.com

Microsoft (Indirect competition)
Microsoft has not come up with something as sensational in image detection as examples listed above as they have been focusing more on gesture recognition and object recognition. I have already blogged about Microsoft Surface, read the post at http://www.jasginder.com/bizblog/2009/12/microsoft_surface. You will also hear about the project Natal which is being used to develop XBox’s next version to challenge Wii. As I mentioned earlier, focus of Microsoft is in enterprise and commercial sector rather than consumer side.

Like.com (from Riya.com, the start-up which introduced the concept of face recognition in personal photos)
Riya was the first website to introduce the feature of tagging friends in photo using face recognition. As Google and Microsoft made the inroads over here, Riya CEO Munjal Shah decided to become niche player by venturing into Like.com. Like.com is image search and takes images and text as inputs which only IBM has been able to replicate as of now. Say a user likes the watch that Megan Fox wore in some party then user can use it as an image query and Like.com will return results showing watches that look very similar. Right now it supports only shoes, jewelry, hand bags and clothing but it plans to expand over time to include other categories.

Jas Technology Concept, Emerging Technology, Google, Microsoft, New Launch, Product Launch

If you have seen the last earnings presentation of Microsoft, you would have seen the biggest optimistic line in that presentation – strong product pipeline. We will see in couple of posts under this series – Emerging Technologies that in which all baskets is Microsoft putting its eggs. One such strong market is the (multi) touch based devices which has been betting on gesture recognition technology. And Microsoft is betting its next few devices, including XBox, on gesture and speech recognition. One such technology which Microsoft announced in 2008 is Surface. Codenamed Milan, Microsoft Surface is a software and hardware combination technology that allows a user(s) to manipulate digital content by the use of gesture recognition and has ability to interact with living as well as non living entities.

To keep things geekly simple, Microsoft Surface is a surface computing platform (where GUI is intuitively placed on a touch-sensitive screen and user interacts directly with it) that responds to natural hand gestures and real world objects. It has a 360-degree user interface, with a projector underneath the surface which projects an image onto its underside, while cameras  record reflections of infrared light from objects and human fingertips on the surface. The surface is capable of object recognition, object/finger orientation recognition and tracking, and is multi-touch and is multi-user. Users can interact with the machine by touching or dragging their fingertips and objects such as paintbrushes across the screen, or by placing and moving placed objects. This paradigm of interaction with computers is known as a natural user interface (NUI).

Enough of geekness, lets see what it can do. Surface lets you literally grab digital content with one’s hands and move information with simple gestures and touches, something which was revolutionized by Apple’s iPhone. Surface also sees and interacts with any object placed on the screen, allowing one to move information between devices or adding or accessing the information on those objects. Say one wants to order a hot cappuccino from 20 odd favors offered by a cafe chain, one can choose between the options using Surface, see calorie or ingredient information as one would see in internet, then place a customized order. Once the order arrives, Surface can understand when waiter places Coffee on it. Now you may want to leisure your time away, creating your play-list of your favorite songs on Surface, and browsing through the historic details of how coffee is made, see the videos of plantations from where your Coffee beans were plucked etc. Or say you just had a trip to Himalayas and want to share your images from camera to the Smartphone you are carrying. All you need to do is place compatible camera and phone on the Surface and it will recognize them giving you an options menu, you can then select to transfer the images to your phone without even touching any of these two, just by placing them on Surface! To be frank, this is one technology product which is still looking for the areas where it can be applied to, opportunities are endless but commercial viability and idea limitation are to play the devil’s advocate. Click here to see the sample applications which Microsoft showcases on its Surface website.

The idea of surface came when Microsoft in 2002 undertook a project to ensure that the company expands its role as a major player in the consumer market by creating, developing and marketing a new software platform. Microsoft hired Cheskin, a …., for ideation and to generate additional concepts. Each member was then issued pretend venture capital dollars to fund the concepts given by Cheskin that most appealed to them. This “VC investor” exercise had each team have only 10 minutes to pitch their concept to “potential investors.” PlayTable (now Surface) was the clear winner.

Microsoft is mainly looking at B2C market for acceptance of this product, hence is all set to woo businesses, and is creating enough noise about the product so as to increase the consumer acceptability once installations are done by businesses. As of now Microsoft has entered into partnerships with Harrah, Starwood Hotels, T-Mobile and International Games Technology (which produces Microsoft games).  T-Mobile is planning to use Surface at its sales terminals. Surface will recognize a phone placed on the tabletop and provide the phone’s characteristics and a price list. Customers will be able to drag icons that represent parts of a service plan onto the phone and place an order for purchase. Starwood explores the possibilities of using the computers for photo sharing, music play-list browsing, food and beverage ordering, games and game-related activities, and as a ‘virtual concierge’. Harrah’s wants to use the Surface tables to let people access maps of its different properties, find out the details about events and venues, as well as create their personal itineraries.

The consumer version of the product is expected to come in 2015, in case the product picks up. So lets see what is in store for Microsoft Surface.

Jas Technology Business, Concept, Emerging Technology, gadget, Launch, Microsoft, New Launch, New Trends, Science

Am starting a new chain of blog posts on the emerging technologies, the ones that have come in at least Alpha phase of development or which have a high probability of being next revolutionary technology. You may have heard about the technology already, in that case bear with me. And in case I have got some thing wrong in explanation or concept, please feel free to comment on it, they are more than welcome.

The main problem an emerging technology faces is the tough task of making followers out of people who sample it. If an early adopter finds the technology useless or lacking,then the technology has lost a string of customers already from that one single person. And even if the technology appeals with Early adopters, the visionaries will pass the judgment on whether the technology can be utilized fully (see Product Life Cycle diagram below). Hence the crucial area called Chasm, which is the make or break phase for a technology. Emerging technology markets often stall when they reach this phase. It is too late to attract new Visionaries , who are not interested because they can’t be the first to adopt the technology, and too early to attract Pragmatists, who are too risk averse to invest in solutions from anyone but established market leaders that have been referred by a trusted source. (Pragmatists invest in solutions, not technology, and consider Visionaries to be risk takers. Therefore, they are not inclined to consider them trusted references.)

I shall discuss the technologies which are yet to pass through the Chasm phase.

The first technology that I will be blogging about is Microsoft Surface.

Jas Technology Brand Endorsement, Concept, Emerging Technology, Microsoft, New Trends, Science

A good piece of technology and a bad piece of branding – that is my view on Adobe Acrobat Connect.

Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today introduced the Adobe® Acrobat® Connect™ software product line, the first web conferencing and collaboration solution to offer “always-on” personal meeting rooms. The product line, consisting of Adobe Acrobat Connect and Adobe Acrobat Connect Professional, enables knowledge workers to instantly connect online with nothing more than a web browser and the ubiquitous Flash® Player software.

Source: Adobe press release

With Connect, Adobe had introduced a new (re-branded) product line: Adobe Connect (hosted) and Adobe Connect Professional (hosted and on-premise). This product was part of Macromedia paraphernalia when it was acquired by Adobe in 2005-06 with the name Macromedia Breeze, which further was acquired as Breeze technology by Macromedia from Presidia. The product is based on Flash technology which has already made a mark and commands high availability paving way for higher acceptability.

The (re)branding though is a concern for many factors. First of all the product had already a decent acceptance in market as ‘Breeze’ so may confuse current users or people who know about it. Secondly the product has come out as an extension of Adobe Acrobat, a product which is widely known and has a very clear keywords attached to it – static page, non modifiable, preview file etc. All these keywords are not even closely related to this product. The very idea of a meeting or a discussion results in a document either modified or created, which is not possible with Acrobat. So it can be only used for plain discussion or presentation. If Adobe can integrate the solution with Photoshop or Illustrator like products of its, it may help production and print houses. Also Adobe may like to extend the Connect link to applications like Microsoft Office and browsers rather than just Acrobat.

For some brighter side points, unlike traditional web conferencing solutions, the Acrobat Connect products enable users to choose a simple and easy-to-remember web address for their online personal meeting room that is unique to them, much like a phone number or e-mail address . Accessing a personal meeting room is easy and instant, requiring little more than a web browser. Because there is no cumbersome software to download, knowledge workers can easily hold spontaneous, ad-hoc meetings that are virtually hassle-free to join.

Connect will have to fight for market share with products like webex and live meeting. According to Frost & Sullivan, Breeze had a 0.3% market share in 2007.

Below is the snapshot preview of Connect with various menus expanded to show case its features (which I have photoshopped to reflect features in single pic).

Though a nice product with great features, I must admit that though am a fan of Adobe’s thought process on the products, innovation and branding, the Acrobat -Connect combo doesn’t go down very well in synergy.

Jas Marketing, Technology Brand Check, Business, New Launch, Product LookUp, Rebranding

Every other weekend when I check the ever growing internet for new startups, its surprising to see the new ideas which have come from different black corners. One of these startups I have seen growing in front of me where I know personally the three musketeers who have created it is Fachak.com

Fachak

Lets talk about the idea of this startup first. Fachak.com has rolled out what it calls as the “independent ‘format-neutral’ & ‘multi-source’ content sharing platform”. Fachak allows one to share content of various formats like DOC, Videos, JPEG, PNG, PDF and PPT etc. Its USP lies in enabling users to not only share the data by uploading it at Fachak servers but also sharing the content from other famous content shating sites like YouTube, Slideshare and Scribd. So in case you already have some file uploaded in YouTube by yourself or someone else, you can embed that in Fachak and share with Fachak’s community. Its a clever feature as a typical user may share his presentations from Slideshare, videos from YouTube and Images from Flickr over here in one consolidated profile page. But the revenue doesnt come from the content per se, revenue for these host – YouTube, Slideshare etc come from the UI in which they show this content. So in the end Fachak saves upon the server space and cost as content is coming from other website’s server while it gains the revenue as UI is of Fachak! Pretty neat!

For a social sharing site the flow of pipeline is very important. People should keep sharing the stuff and people should keep viewing the stuff, any one of this dries up, the site may go in for a toss. So how is this site faring? I logged in today and saw this message “Your last log in was Mar 6th, 21:46. There are 8640 entities since your last login”. Boy! That is a huge number now!

And just to emphasize the fact that it is promising enough, check these stats by WebSite Outlook

Net Worth :  $15395.7
Daily Pageview : 6451
Daily Ads Revenue : $21.09 ( This has been rising and was $15 just 2 weeks back!)
Backlinks : 2051
Google Page Rank : 3

The website is in alpha right now and have been adding features, improving them and becoming more mature. The entry is by invitation, but the views are for free. I have invites available , so in case you want it just leave a comment mentioning same.

Jas Technology StartUps

I dont know for how long Gmail will be in beta but anyway they are coming up with more and more features in this almost decade old application. Apart from new additions that you see in the mailbox, you can also check the features in the pipeline, the beta of the beta version, one where Google Lab is still working.

Two days back Google Labs launched another feature to Gmail users – Multiple Inboxes. There are people who have different accounts in gmail for different ‘categories’ and demarcation ; while there are others who use another account which is running on Google Apps (i.e. Google allows use of Gmail as your domain name mailbox). FYI, I belong to latter group.

Using this experimental feature in Gmail Labs, one can customize the different “inboxes” to see them in one view when one logs into Gmail. See the image example below:

To turn the feature on, follow these three simple steps:

1. Turn on Multiple Inboxes from the Labs tab under Settings.
2. Set up a filter to auto-archive all mail sent to your work or other address.
3. Customize one of your multiple inboxes to show mail sent to your other address. To do this, go to the Multiple Inboxes tab under Settings and set up one of the panes to search for mail sent to your other address.

Tagged and starred emails can be displayed alongside the main inbox, making more emails visible at the same time.  Since many people use their email to manage their to-do list, it’s a well-chosen feature on the part of the Gmail Labs crew!

Psst..! Did you notice?

You may have also noticed a new design of buttons in Gmail. Designer Douglas Bowman says, “The buttons are designed to look very similar to basic HTML input buttons.  But they can handle multiple interactions with one basic design.  The buttons we’re using are imageless, and they’re created entirely using HTML and CSS, plus some JavaScript to manage the behavior.  They’re also easily skinnable with a few lines of CSS, which was a key factor now that Gmail has themes.”

Jas Technology Google

Jas Technology Google, New Launch, Product Launch

Jas Technology Google

• Checkout is faster and easier for cardholder as no swiping needs to be done in RFID cards
• VISA allows no signature for most purchases under $25
• As you remain in control of your card during the transaction, the risk of fraud is greatly reduced
• VISA is giving the Zero Liability this card too, which ensures you are not responsible for fraudulent or unauthorized transactions.
• These cards also have a magnetic stripe so in case RFID reader isnt there, you can pay by normal swiping method.

Sources: VISA websites

Jas Technology New Launch

Probably one of the most important features I saw in chatting apart from chatting was the option of ‘invisible mode’. It lets you to have an important chat without everybody bombarding you with pings and hence your screen. It has been a strong feature that was missing in Gtalk and I know about many people who didn’t used to come online on Gtalk, me included, as everybody would be seeing you and hence it ends up a time consuming thing, especially when you have come online for some work on Gtalk.

But then voila, Google has now brought this option in its latest version of Gmail chat. For the people using AIM in Gmail (Google allowed AIM clients to be Google chat compatible few months back), invisible mode also makes them appear signed out on the AIM network. Invisible mode is one of the most requested chat features and so it’s a much awaited addition, starting in Gmail Chat, and in the future all Talk clients.

But at the same point Google’s official Gmail blog has mentioned that the chat may not be useful if lot of people go off line. So do give a feedback to them in case you have any opinion on this…

Jas Technology New Launch