The MWC 2012 Conference – A vision of 2022 (second part)

The conference continued on the vision of 2022 (see my previous post here) by presenting several companies and their innovative solutions. Paul Lee (Deloitte), the chairman of this conference, has asked us for a vote in order to see which of these innovative solutions epitomizes the future:- EarSmart: enables an object to hear (even in an extreme sound environment). They believe that, in 2022, the voice will be more useful than at the present day. In order to achieve that, the sound quality and voice capture must be improved not only for mobile devices but also for vocal translators and even for social networks. Companies such as Skype, HD voice, Apple (with Siri) and FaceBook set technology trends through (because of) their users. For this purpose, the communication networks, LTE/4G/WiFi/G, must provide better quality of service (I am not sure I understood it correctly: was Google serious in what concerns Google TiSP ???). EarSmart technology enables us to differentiate voices in an extremely noisy environment. More than 60 mobile devices use this technology at present. Technology demonstration: the manager of EarSmart showed us a movie with an employee entering a crowded restaurant. All we could hear was a deafening background noise. Then, he asks a technician to connect a device to the audio outlet of the computer and to plug the audio cable to this device. We watch the same movie again, but this time we can hear the employee who was filming while presenting the EarSmart technology. It was impressive. Only a faint background noise could be heard.- Expert Maker: the manager of this company pointed out that there is a total overload (in what concerns data and Apps) and this situation is not going to improve in the future. The Apps enable us to verticalize and narrow data fields (to sort or display), but this will not solve anything. Time is also a problem: another verticalization by Apps. Expert Maker thinks that non-structured data is a way of solving this issue. Therefore, they propose a concept built upon an information flow filtered based on user preferences (either by parametering, or by learning the system concerning data and Apps use). The sources are not only RSS but also Apps (such as YouTube, Yellow Pages, FB, etc.) which propose “several things”. Each info can be classified, prioritized, rejected and transferred. Thus, it is a non-structured data analysis, presented as a social network news thread. The demonstration was quick, as the project focused essentially on the processing part; therefore there were few visual aspects.- Fiksu: this company has developed a platform for centralizing the collection and dissemination of Apps. Its aim is to enable ‘your’ application to reach the final user. There are so many Apps (and there will be millions more in the following years) that it is difficult to make one’s App stand out from the rest (the noise). Fiksu seeks to simplify this through its platform in order for it to become the only bridge between the final users and the stores: only one place to load an application on the stores, only one place where the users can find the App.- Blippar: augmented reality. Blippar has coined a new word, “Blipping”, which means turning something real into something virtual. They use a cellphone camera to capture images of an object tagged as Blipper, which enables to add interactive content to the image. It functions on any type of surface and object. For the demonstration, the manager of Blippar has taken out his smartphone and several objects among which a music CD, on which additional contents were screened (song lyrics, the schedule of the band’s future tour, photos of the band, etc.), and a cereal bar on which a game was screened (a quiz as well as the advertizing spots).Imagine this technology applied to a street or an entire store and yourself wearing a pair of glasses incorporating a screen and a camera connected to your mobile device (or replacing the mobile device altogether): I can’t wait. Blippar won the audience’s votes and mine, even if I think it is a pity that Expert Maker’s concept hasn’t been really understood by the audience (it is a concept without an application to show). In my view, Blippar’s votes are mainly due to the fact that the demonstration was visual and interactive. Thus, Blippar won AT&T’s support in the form of a contract with WAC, which is going to help them to integrate their solution within an AT&T network.