Archive for March 26, 2013

Kar Han Tan

A 3D image of an HP logo in RGB, from a completely transparent substrate.

Mobile holograms may soon be popping up everywhere from phones and tablets to billboard advertising.

HP is in the process of developing a 3D mobile display for images and video that can be seen from any angle, which they’ve just published and described in the journal Nature.

“This would mean you would see something like in ‘Star Wars,’ with the famous hologram of Princess Leia,” study researcher David Fattal, of HP, told New Scientist. “If you were to display a 3D image of planet Earth, by turning around the display, you’d be able to have a view of any country on the globe.”

HP’s Raymond Beausoleil described some potential applications of the technology to New Scientist:

Perhaps an approach like this could be used for low-cost 3D signage. We believe the technology has important applications in enterprise, related to the visualization of complex data, perhaps even imagining molecular configurations for pharmaceuticals.

Plus, 3D is just plain fun. HP says the display should be easy to manufacture, because it’s based on existing LCD technology.

Displaying images in 3D

Our brains’ visual system interprets light coming into our eyes by combining the two images coming from our two separate eyes — which each have a slightly different view, separated by about 2.5 inches. To see something in three dimensions, a display needs to mimic those two separate views and send them to each eye separately.

According to MIT’s Technology Review:

Videos displayed on the HP system hover above the screen, and viewers can walk around them and experience an image or video from as many 200 different viewpoints — like walking around a real object.

In comparison, the Nintendo 3DS only has one viewpoint that can create a 3D moving image, so the gamer needs to keep their head at exactly the right spot to see an image in 3D.

Conventional 3D displays — like those in theaters or on 3D TVs — use special glasses to filter images to the right or left eye to trick our brain into seeing the image as three dimensional.

Albert Jeans

A scanning electron microscope picture of the backlight surface for the HP logo shown on the other picture. It shows a closely-packed array of grating pixels.

The new display technology is different — it doesn’t require glasses because it uses tiny grooves in the display to send light to each eye.

Usually to do this a display needs spinning mirrors or lasers or other such fancy things. This new technology has no moving parts and uses the display from a normal LCD screen — the kind currently found on laptops, TVs, phones, and tablets.

“Conventional 2D displays have pixels that send light in all directions. A 3D display needs pixels that send light in carefully constrained directions, so that different light reaches each eye and the viewer’s two eyes thus see different images on the screen,” Neil Dodgson, a researcher from the University of Cambridge who wasn’t involved in the study, wrote in a News Views commentary in Nature.

Fattal, et. al, Nature, 2013.

Images created by the HP display.

Nanopatterned grooves

To do this the display uses “nanopatterned” grooves in the backlight of the display that create directional pixels that send off light in different directions. The screens are as thin as half a millimeter.

Dodgson, et. al, Nature, 2013.

How HP’s theorized 3D display works (bottom), compared to other 3D displays.

Though the display is thin, it’s pretty complex. Using these nanopatterned grooves, the light from the backlight is directed through the display’s color filters, polarizers, and shutters which create the image. This is similar to how normal displays work, but this takes it to the next level.

The tiny grooves in the display scatter the light in very specific directions — hence the name “directional pixels.”

The number of directions the hologram is visible from is determined by the number of grooves in the display. They can make static images that can be seen from 200 angles, while videos at 30 frames per second can be seen from 64 viewpoints.

The display works best with computer-created images — to create images for the hologram would need 200 separate images — seen from each of the angles.

“A 3-D interface for a cell phone or laptop might display different windows next to each other, or architects could use a tablet to show a 3-D model to a customer, instead of building a physical model,” Fattal told MIT’s Technology Review. “Or you might use a smart watch to view Google Maps in 3-D.”

Here are the display prototypes in action:

With a 4.8 inch screen, some folk thought that the Samsung Galaxy S3 was just a little on the large side for them. So the fact that Samsung went even further with its soon-to-launch S4 model – which comes in at whopping 5-inches – may well put even more people off. And all this before we even consider devices such as the Samsung Galaxy Note, which straddle the smartphone/tablet divide somewhat awkwardly.

But the fact is, mobile, Internet and entertainment go hand-in-hand – while you may prefer the smaller form-factor of the SGS2 or iPhone 5, there are millions who prefer the almost tablet-esque qualities of some of the latest “pocket” rockets.

But how much does screen-size actually affect how a user interacts with their phone? Is there a direct correlation between time spent browsing the Web, and the diagonal dimensions of their smart device? According to data published today by OpenSignal today, well, there isn’t – not through a cellular connection, at least.

Just to recap, OpenSignal – formerly known as OpenSignalMaps – is the company behind the eponymous app that helps create independent maps of mobile phone network coverage based on information crowdsourced from Android users (though an iPhone app is on the way).

With more than three million downloads, OpenSignal is among the biggest sources of independent data on the speed and coverage of mobile phone carriers. Rather than relying on coverage maps provided by networks themselves, OpenSignal opens up this data to anyone, so they can see for themselves which ones offer the best coverage where they are. This was a major update included as part of its new Android app which launched in January.

Data gleaned by OpenSignal is certainly proving invaluable – just last week, OpenSignal showed that T-Mobile was testing LTE on the SGS3 and SGS4 in eight US cities. And it’s probably only a matter of time before OpenSignal starts licensing and monetizing the data is collects from its users. But we digress.

Size does AND doesn’t matter

For its latest study, OpenSignal set out to compare the amount of data used on devices of different screen sizes, on both 3G and WiFi. Given OpenSignal is Android-only, it obviously doesn’t factor in iPhones. But given that Android constitutes more than half the smartphone market in most western countries, and there’s a myriad of different screen sizes across the board, it actually lends itself better to this test anyway.

The following devices were sampled for this report: the Samsung Galaxy Ace (6 square inches), Galaxy SI2 (6.7 square inches), Sony Xperia U (7.1 square inches), Galaxy Nexus (8.3 square inches) and the Galaxy S3 (9 square inches). And to qualify, each user had to have accessed both cellular and WiFi data on the same day, thus samples were restricted to regions with significant WiFi penetration. The reason? Well, to ensure users did have the option of using both.

Over the course of a month, OpenSignal’s data shows that there only seems to be a weak relationship between screen-size and data-consumption over cellular.

According to this, data consumption only increases by 75MB per month for every additional square-inch of screen real-estate. Compared to data downloads over a WiFi connection, the difference is much more pronounced.

Over WiFi, as screen sizes get bigger people tend to munch more data. Indeed, data consumption doubles between a 6 square-inch device (e.g. Galaxy Ace) and a device with a 9 square-inch screen such as a Galaxy S3. For every additional square inch of screen real-estate, this leads to 288MB of extra data downloaded each month.

So it seems that while out and about, screen size has no significant effect on how much a user taps data over a cellular connection. Certainly, not as much as you would otherwise have thought. But over WiFi, those on smaller-screened devices likely have access to laptops, desktops and other fixed ‘connected’ devices to consume data. Though if they have something a little more sizable, they’re more inclined to remain on it when they’re at home.

Google on Tuesday announced it will be sending out invitations for its Google Glass Explorer Program and will be doing so “over the next few days.” If you’ve been participating in the company’s #ifihadglass campaign, you may be one of the lucky individuals to get a message from Google via either Google+ or Twitter.

Unsurprisingly, Google wouldn’t say how many applications it received or how many of those will be getting an invite. All we do know is that the application process has now been closed; indeed, the How to Get One page now reads as follows (we’ll let you know when it changes):

Thank you so much to everyone who applied to be a Glass Explorer. We have been overwhelmed, entertained and inspired by your responses. #ifihadglass is now closed and we will be notifying successful applicants soon. If you don’t hear from us, don’t despair! There will be more chances to get Glass at a later date.

Google also emphasized that this program is only for consumers, but said it is “working on connecting with businesses in other ways.” It’s important to note that this doesn’t necessarily mean Google is planning on selling Glass to other companies, though that’s certainly a possibility. The company merely said it has “received great applications from businesses” but it didn’t expand on whether these firms were developing apps, were hoping to give Glass to their employees, or were looking for some other type of partnership (read: advertising).

Google says it has received “so many creative, diverse, and (sometimes) crazy applications” showing “how much passion there is for Glass.” While this is certainly possible, we think it’s much more likely people are simply excited by the prospect of being able to get their hands on something so new.

Whether or not the hype surrounding Glass stays is another question entirely. Getting other businesses on board, however, will certainly help in that mission.

See also – Google Glass and wearable tech: This is a game-changer, not a fad and Google reportedly in talks with Warby Parker to make its Google Glass specs look cool

Top Image Credit via Google

Last evening, The Verge reported an issue by which Google Calendar in the latest build of the updated Windows 8 communications applications failed to function. TNW has learned that Microsoft has moved those applications to IMAP support, ending functional support for Google’s Calendar service.

Google is moving away from Exchange Active Sync support. Microsoft’s decision to move to IMAP support stems from that, it claims. In a statement issued to TNW, Microsoft says that “in light of Google’s decision to change its support for EAS, we are now using IMAP for those customers that wish to connect their Gmail accounts.”

IMAP support will manage email and contact syncing, but not calendaring functions. If you need help getting up to speed with the new apps, head here.

Microsoft switched to IMAP support earlier than was perhaps utterly necessary, given Google’s unpredictability when it came to its decisions to end products, and support for certain protocols.

This isn’t a new issue, but merely a continuance of a larger narrative. By ending Exchange Active Sync support, Google is putting its Gmail service into some doubt on Windows Phone devices as well. However, Google and Microsoft managed to patch together an agreement by which Google wouldn’t switch of that key conduit until Microsoft builds support for its CalDAV and CardDAV protocols.

This is an incredibly frustrating problem for those using Google services on Windows 8-based devices. Microsoft would likely argue that we should switch over to its cloud-service offerings. But while Gmail and the rest of the Google web apps that we depend on daily for communication lack utter support in Windows 8, the operating system will suffer from the added friction.

Microsoft must find a solution to this; Also, I award it demerits for not being more upfront with its decisions. Those who were not ready to move to an IMAP-only world could have held back on updating their core Windows 8 applications had they known.

Top Image Credit: BUILDWindows

Earlier pieces in this series on “BYOD Grows Up” have explained how bring-your-own-device policies can be productivity enhancers, employee morale boosters and even, counterintuitively, security enhancers (because new policies can allow IT departments to push through long-overdue upgrades).

But enough with the logical arguments. Let’s have a look at the hard numbers behind the BYOD trend, as laid out in this handy infographic jointly produced by Intel and ReadWrite. Be sure to let us know what you think in comments. 

Read more in the series “BYOD Grows Up”:

• Why Processor Choice Matters To BYOD
• Yes, It IS Possible To Have A Secure BYOD Program
• 10 Tips to Make BYOD A Success In Your Enterprise
• Why Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) Is So Hot Right Now

According to Autodesk CEO Carl Bass, creating free smartphone apps is much more difficult than building expensive professional and enterprise software.

“People are more demanding for a low-cost consumer thing than they are for [expensive] profressional products,” Bass told me in a sit-down at the company’s slick gallery space in downtown San Francisco. “The cheapest things have to be the easiest to use,” he explained. They don’t get a user manual or training classes to show people how to use them.

From AutoCad To Apps

That’s a big deal to Autodesk, which made its name with high-end design and engineering software like AutoCad and Revit, but has made an aggressive move into smartphone and tablet apps in the last few years.

And it’s especially releveant because on Tuesday morning the company introduced Autodesk ReCap, the “industrial strength” version of the free consumer product called 123D Catch, introduced in 2012. The products are designed to create “intelligent 3D data” from captured photos and laser scans.

To me, though, the most interesting part of the story is what the heck a professional software company like Autodesk is doing mucking around with free mobile apps for consumers.

Bass said the company first got into the area almost by accident. “The first thing we did was Sketchbook – a piece of professional software that was relatively unsuccessful… Nobody knew about it. Then two guys went and turned it into an iPhone app,” Bass said. “If I had been asked,” he added,” I would have said it’s the stupidest thing I’d ever heard of. Would would want to fingerpaint on an iPhone?”

That product now has 15 million users. Overall, Autodesk’s mobile products have gained some 100 million users in three years, compared to 15 million users of its professional products gathered over 30 years. The company is now building apps “as fast as we can,” Bass said.

Why Build Apps?

Sure, the apps are popular, but why would an professional software company would dive into apps? It certainly isn’t for the money, at least not yet. While Autodesk’s consumer revenue will double this year, Bass said, “We don’t make enough [on consumer apps] to pay the rental on this floor.”

The real reason? “A huge amount of learning about how people really want to work with their tools,” Bass said. Autodesk needed to figure out “how quickly you had to get someone from knowing nothing to satisfaction” in order to eliminate the learning curve and make professional software as satisfying as consumer apps. “If it’s easy to do in your personal life, why is it so hard in the business world?” he asked.

Compared to modern consumer apps, he said. “Enterprise software sucks.” The message has become, “less expensive means easy to use, more expensive means really difficult to use,” Bass said. “We have to remedy that!” Increasingly, professionals want the ease and convenience they get in their personal lives in their business environment as well – and are intolerant when the don’t get it. Business software companies that don’t give them that “will be losers,” Bass warned.

Enterprise Software Can Be Sloppy

That’s a challenge for Autodesk, because “we are an enterprise software company,” Bass acknowledged. Thirty percent of company revenues come from 1% of customers. “The very biggest companies in the world,” including huge automotive and aerospace manufacturers, buy thousands of licenses, he said. And they run their businesses on that software.

In the development process, he explained, “you can be a little bit sloppy with professional applications,” figuring that “they use it all the time, they’ll figure it out.” Developing the variety of devices makes you pay more attention to detail, Bass claimed, particularly when something doesn’t work. Consumer app users want “instant gratification,” he said, and “we’re trying to push that into our professional products.”

The company is already translating what it’s learned in apps to full-scale software. One example is so-called Marking Menus: Rather than put the menus at the top of the screen, the idea is to overlay the menus on top of the place where you are working. “It makes even more sense when it’s your finger,” Bass said, “but why not the mouse?”

Getting Ready For Touch Screens

Autodesk also needed to learn how to take full advantage of multi-touch interfaces, Bass said. “Clearly, the next generation of desktops will have multitouch,” he said, and “we will change our products to take advantage of that… Direct interaction is a more natural way for people to work with their models.”

The transition isn’t as simple as you might think. For one thing, there’s a more “emotional connection” with touch screens, Bass believes. “You interact with it in a slightly more intimate way. You actually touch it – that’s different than a keyboard and mouse.”

And there are also practical considerations. On Windows, for example, many things are called up by hovering the mouse over an area of the screen. That generally doesn’t work with touch.

Finally, despite the fact that consumer apps aren’t a big money maker right now, “if you have an attentive, engaged audioence of loyal consumers, you can find a way to make money on it”, Bass predicted. “Look at Twitter.”

Will The Enterprise Go Social?

The final frontier for enterprise software is probably social. These days, we get constant access to social information in our personal lives, but that turns opaque in our professional lives, Bass said.

But he believes that professionals “want to and are willing to share – even though that’s a little taboo in the enterprise world.” So Autodesk is bringing social aspects into its professional tools. Upcoming products, including Autodesk 360, now in beta, will translate the “social graph” to the “design graph,” letting users Like and share on an ad hoc basis, he said.

Put all this together and it begs the question: Is there any real difference between consumer apps and enterprise software? Looks like we’re about to find out.

Top image by Fredric Paul

If you’ve logged on to Facebook or any other type of social media today, you may have noticed that the Internet is awash in a sea of red and pink. Many people have changed their profile pictures to be the same image: two pink bars on a field of red. What is it?

That’s the “Red Equals Sign” and it’s a symbol for marriage equality. Today is the first day of Supreme Court oral arguments over the constitutionality of California ballot initiative Proposition 8. Passed during the 2008 elections, Prop 8 defines recognized marriage in California as only valid between a man and a woman.

The Red Equals Sign has been championed by the Human Rights Campaign, an activist group that works for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equal rights. The campaign urges people to wear red today and has organized for people to stand outside of the U.S. Supreme Court while the ballot initiative is being debated inside. 

The group has galvanized social media with the Red Equals Sign as well as the hashtag #UnitedforMarriage. 

Over the past couple of years, the Internet has occasionally flared into a hotbed of activism around particular issues, especially pertaining to court cases and proposed legislation. The most famous instance in the past year was when the Web “blacked out” as a response to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in January 2012.

Among other things, SOPA would have allowed the federal government to effectively “black out” sites accused of fomenting copyright infringement without judicial involvement or much in the way of due process. Sites such as Reddit went completely dark that day and even search behemoth Google blacked out its logo as part of the activism against SOPA. 

Did you change your Facebook profile picture today to support marriage equality? Let us know in the comments. 

T-Mobile’s transition to the “un-carrier” is complete. The last of the big four U.S. network carriers has an LTE service to call its very own: T-Mobile officially flipped the switch for its LTE network on Tuesday. At a press event in New York City, T-Mobile announced the first 7 cities that support the fast mobile broadband service: Baltimore, Houston, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Phoenix, San Jose, and Washington, D.C. New York City is expected to have LTE service by early summer.

The carrier says it will deliver LTE speed to 100 million Americans by the middle of this year and 200 million by the end of 2013. LTE devices will include Apple’s iPhone 5 on April 12, plus the Galaxy S 4, BlackBerry Z10, HTC One and, after a recent software upgrade, the Samsung Galaxy Note 2. A new Sonic 2.0 Mobile Hotspot also joins the list of LTE-capable devices.

Earlier this week, T-Mobile announced Simple Choice plans that don’t have contract terms. Instead, customers will choose from a rate plan including unlimited text, talk and various capacities of high speed mobile broadband service:

“Customers start with one line at $50 per month for unlimited talk, text and Web with 500MB of high-speed data. Customers can add a second phone line for $30 per month, and each additional line is just $10 per month. They can also add 2 GB of high-speed data for $10 per month more per line. Unlimited 4G data is only $20 more per month per line.”

The benefit here is that service is unbundled from the phone due to the lack of contract: Instead of sticking consumers with a phone for 24 months or more, phones can be upgraded at any point in time with no change in rates, nor any time commitments.

One evening earlier this month, I was at a entrepreneur-packed, outdoor party in Austin. The beer was flowing, the music was blasting, but here’s the thing: It was co-hosted by the AARP.

It’s not an organization you’d expect to see courting young tech founders and Silicon Valley venture capitalists. But if you’re a startup, particularly a health startup, get ready to see more of the nonprofit, which is on a mission to both bring more innovation to the 50+ crowd and sow some entrepreneurial seeds among people in that demographic.

To twenty-something startup founders, building services and products for silver-haired seniors might not seem as sexy as taking on messaging apps like Snapchat. But the AARP has some strong statistics on its side: every day, 10,000 more Baby Boomers join the 50+ demographic, which includes more than 100 million people, and, as a group, they spend $3.5 trillion a year.

Among policy wonks in D.C., addressing the needs of older Americans is seen as a burden, said Jody Holzman, AARP’s SVP of thought leadership.  But for startups and investors? It’s an opportunity, he said. “You’d really have to be an idiot to turn your back on the only humongous growth market that exists,” he quipped.

The ‘Longevity Economy’

In 2011, the non-profit launched its “Innovation@50+” campaign at the DEMO startup conference, with scholarships for startups that either target the 50+ market or included a 50+ founder.  In April, it will host its second annual Health Innovation@50+ LivePitch event, in which selected startups pitch in front of investors and a voting crowd of AARP members.

But this year it also partnered with the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation for a startup training program for Baby Boomers, funded Oxford Economics research into what the AARP calls the “longevity economy” and, this October, will back a Bloomberg conference exploring the costs and opportunities associated with longer life expectancies.

Some of the startups it has supported have gone on to attract attention from other accelerators and venture capitalists: Carelinx, for example, the winner of its Live Pitch event last year, went on to join the Startup Health Academy, and NeuroTrack, which graduated from health accelerator Startup Health, recently took the health prize at the SXSW startup accelerator.

Overcoming the youth bias

When the AARP first launched its campaign, Holzman said, they were the ones making cold calls to health tech accelerators. Now, he says, they’re on the receiving end of that communication. In the not so far off future, as it looks for additional ways to encourage innovation to benefit those over 50, it’s possible that the AARP could sponsor an entire class at one of the new incubators for health startups.

Its efforts are being aided by growing interest in general digital health startups, many of which target senior needs. But getting venture capitalists to embrace older entrepreneurs could be a different kind of challenge. A couple of years ago, investor Vinod Khosla said at a conference that “people over 45 basically die in terms of new ideas.” And, judging from all the recent college grads (and college dropouts) that get venture funding, he’s obviously not the only investor to favor younger favors.

“The bad news is that most traditional VCs have a youth bias that they will state very overtly,” said Steve Jurvetson, managing director at venture firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson. “You always wonder if that’s a self-fulfilling prophecy or if it’s something about the nature of those businesses.”

Are younger founders really more successful?

Despite Silicon Valley’s preference for young entrepreneurs, the research may not be on their side. A 2008 study led by columnist and Singularity University vice president of innovation and research Vivek Wadhwa looked at 502 successful engineering and tech companies. It found that the average and median age of successful founders was 39 and that twice as many founders were older than 50 as were younger than 25. It also found that there were twice as many founders over 60 as under 20.

Jurvetson has long talked up the value of the 50+ demographic and his firm has invested in several companies with applications for, and/or led by, those who are 50+. Posit Science, for example, provides brain-training software that can be used as part of elder care (as well as for anyone hoping to sharpen their mind), and its co-founder and chief scientific officer, Michael Merzenich, was over 50 when it launched. Other companies include Rethink Robotics, founded by 58-year-old Rodney Brooks, and Synthetic Genomics, founded by 66-year-old Craig Ventner and 81-year-old Hamilton Smith.

According to the AARP, hundreds of new startups are founded by seniors — one of the first startups to benefit from its DEMO scholarship, called OhMyMeds, was co-founded by a 71-year-old (it later went out of business). And it makes sense that after decades in a given industry, older professionals would have the experience and perspective to start their own business. To date, the majority do so without ever looking for venture capital. But, in the future, it’s possible senior startup founders could find that they have another source of investment: the AARP.

“I hope that down the road, we’d be in a position to invest or invest in funds looking at opportunities in the space,” Holzman said. “But we’re not there yet.”

If you want to share your own content, the web offers no shortage of publishing tools, from full-on blogging platform WordPress to lightweight Tumblr to mobile micro-blogging app CheckThis. But the options aren’t as plentiful when it comes to easily creating online multimedia content with a group.

Startup Padlet, which has been simultaneously enrolled in Y Combinator and ed tech accelerator Imagine K-12, has created software to fill that hole. It lets people quickly create an online “wall” for sharing any kind of content, from text to images to video, and allows them to collaborate on the creation of that content as well. It first launched as Wallwisher in 2008, but re-launched the product in October and changed its name to Padlet in January. The founders, who will be on stage Tuesday at Y Combinator’s Demo Day on Tuesday, say the site has seen 30 percent month-over-month growth for the last seven months and has had 300,000 users and 750,000 visitors in the last 30 days.

While the site has been open to anyone, co-founder Pranav Piyush said a number of teachers have been using it to post class files and encourage student collaboration. “There’s no obvious answer to what a school teacher should use that’s fun and collaborative,” he said. “We’ve set out to find the easiest way to put stuff on the Web.”

On Padlet.com, users create a “wall” with its own URL with one click. Then they can choose how public or private they want it to be and how much control they want to give others. They can add content and change the design with a drag-and-drop interface. A teacher could use it to share and collect images and video related to a history lesson or friends could use it to share memories and pictures from a recent trip. The NYC Public Advocate’s Office used Padlet to collect online tributes for the first responders to Hurricane Sandy.

Other online collaboration tools exist but they tend to provide slightly different functionality. Google Docs, for example, let people share and collaborate around documents and spreadsheets, but they tend to focus on text (you can share images and drawings but not in an integrated way). Scoot Doodle, a new startup that recently raised funding from Pearson and others, encourages online collaboration, but via Google Hangouts and with more of a focus on real-time face-to-face communication. Dropbox is great for sharing files with a group but not really built for group content production. In education, teachers could use social platforms like Edmodo and Schoology to share content and collaborate, although those sites are intended for far more than one-off collaborative projects).

While the basic product is free, Piyush said the company is piloting premium versions for schools and corporate clients. The startup also envisions opening up the platform to third-party developers to create a paid marketplace of add-ons for further customizing with backgrounds, themes and other tools.