In a move that took most industry pundits by surprise, Sony today announced that it will adopt the open ePub standard as the default format for books in its eBook store by the end of the year. EPub is an XML-based standard for publishing eBooks that has been adopted by a wide variety of hardware manufacturers, publishers, and retailers – with the notable exception of Amazon and it’s Kindle store and eBook reader. Thanks to this, even owners of non-Sony eReaders will soon be able to read books they have bought in Sony’s store. It is important to note, however, that adopting this open format doesn’t mean that all the books in Sony’s store will now be DRM-free.

Adobe DRM

While it isn’t quite clear what the specifics of Sony’s DRM scheme will look like, the company did announce that it will use Adobe’s Content Server to power its DRM solution. Adobe’s server relies on a proprietary DRM solution. EPub is a very flexible format and allows developers to put a DRM-wrapper around eBooks. Publishers won’t have to wrap DRM around their offerings. However, it is unlikely that a lot of book publishers (who are just as fearful of piracy as most music executives) will be able to resist this. In effect, this gives Adobe a lot of power in the eBook industry, as our friends at TeleRead point out in more detail.

Opening up the Store

Still, Sony should be lauded for adopting the ePub format and making its eBook store compatible with more devices from more manufacturers. All of Sony’s eReaders, including the first-generation PRS-500, will be able to read these books, but what is far more important is that users will not be locked into having to buy a Sony device just to make use of the Sony eBook store. In addition, as other publishers adopt this format, Sony’s own Reader will also be able to access books from a wider variety of stores.

Sony is clearly taking the eBook market very seriously. Just last week, it brought the prices for most of the books in its store down to $9.99 and announced two new eBook readers that look very promising.

Will Amazon React?

The question now, of course, is how Amazon will react to this. Amazon’s Kindle ecosystem is almost completely closed – starting with the proprietary eBook format up to the Kindle’s inability to display ePub-formatted books. In the press release, Steve Haber, the president of Sony’s Digital Reading Business Division, argues that ePub is “quickly becoming the de facto standard for eBooks.” If that is indeed the case, Amazon will have to adapt quickly if it doesn’t want to be left behind.

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Sony Adopts Open (But Still DRMed) Format for eBooks

A new study commissioned by the European Union has finally proven what many have suspected all along: internet users don’t want to pay for content. Period. And nothing is going to change their minds. The report finds, in a surprising contradiction to what industry executives have been spouting for ages, consumers’ behavior has nothing to do with the peer-to-peer technology (P2P) that has given rise to all-you-can-eat systems for free downloads of copyrighted content. In fact, many people claim that they wouldn’t pay for online content even if all other free options were taken away. This finding has dramatic implications for the future of business, and not just in the entertainment industry, either. If people won’t pay for content, how will companies survive?

The answer to this question is simple, but the actual solutions are hard. It’s clear that new business models are needed when it comes to online content, but what should these new models look like? How should they work? No one really seems to know yet.

Who Pays, Who Doesn’t

The European Commission’s Digital Competitiveness Report (PDF) is a comprehensive annual resource which looks at everything from broadband penetration to use of social networks and more. One of the chapters in the latest report, published earlier this month, deals specifically with online entertainment.

In this chapter, the EU study reports on the state of the online entertainment industry, revealing factoids like “less than 5% of Europeans have paid for online content in the last three months” and in the youngest age group “this figure is twice as high.” In other words, willingness to pay is an issue that’s only getting worse with each new generation of users, so something needs to be done…and done quick.

The most interesting results from the report, though, are not the details about who pays, but about who doesn’t. Among the non-payers, factors like lower prices would convince about 30% to pay while things like better quality, wider choice, better availability, and others would convince between 15-20%. Yet one figure stands out: only around 20% of online users would pay for online content if all the other free options suddenly disappeared.

Peer-to-Peer File Sharing Not to Blame, Says EU

The impact of this finding didn’t escape the notice of the EU researchers, who go on to point out that this seems to mean, contrary to what industry execs say, illegal copying is not to blame:

“…the low percentage of individuals that consider the possible lack of freely available online content as a reason for paying, calls into question the argument put forward by representatives of the content industry that European consumers will in the long term suffer from a lack of commercial availability of high quality content if the current model of audiovisual content distribution, based on illegal copying, is not curved.”

Instead, what seems to be happening is that people pay for their internet connection and then gorge themselves on the abundant free content that’s available online. Because there’s so much out there which costs nothing at all – from web news to streaming video to software applications – internet users tend to balk at the idea of actually having to pull out their wallets to make a purchase. It’s the internet itself that has led us down this path to a place where old monetization models simply no longer apply.

What’s the Answer?

The report goes on to look at the business models of all sorts of content sites in detail including online news/newspapers, video, movies, music, and online games. While the ways consumers access these different types of content may vary (RSS for reading news, streaming videos, downloading music), the findings are relatively consistent across the board. With only a few exceptions (Apple’s iTunes Store, music-based games like Guitar Hero, etc.), many of the current business models are not sustainable.

So what’s the answer? There isn’t really a good one just yet. Many businesses try “freemium” models which convert power users to paying users. Other sites try sustaining themselves on online ads (which is difficult to do in a down economy). But the best ideas for new business models may very well be the ones that haven’t even been thought up yet. The only question is whether or not they’ll be discovered in time before more content-producing industries fail.

Image credits – used freely thanks to the Internet and Creative Commons: downloading, flickr user Arenamontanus; I love P2P, flickr user Brocco Lee; p2p logo, flickr user jatop

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P2P Not to Blame for Content Industry Failures Says EU

But was this a fair fight?

Mobile analyst firm MSearchGroove has just published the results of a series of tests which show that the mobile search service ChaCha beat out two other voice-enabled search applications on the iPhone when it comes to search query accuracy. To test this, the researchers used Google’s own mobile application and Vlingo for iPhone, an app that lets you search both Google or Yahoo. Oddly, they ignored Yahoo’s mobile app, which also has voice search built in.

The results of their study aren’t entirely shocking: if you want to be understood, ask a human, not a computer.

The Mobile Search Tests

ChaCha’s mobile search service can be accessed both by SMS and by calling a toll-free 1-800 number. Since these tests focused on voice search, the phone-in method was used. When using ChaCha, the service identified the queries accurately in 94.4% of the cases and delivered accurate search results 88.9% of the time. Vlingo, which the researchers used to test Yahoo search, only interpreted queries correctly in 72.2% of the cases and delivered accurate results 27.8% of the time. Google, surprisingly, fared worst of all. Their mobile application only understood spoken queries in 16.7% of tests and delivered accurate results 22.2% of the time.

To test the applications, the researchers conducted two rounds of tests using both keyword search and natural language queries where they asked questions using sentences. The queries represented a cross-section of typical mobile searches in categories like navigation, directions, local search, general information, social search, and long-tail search.

It’s not all that surprising to find that ChaCha outperformed the other voice-enabled applications – after all, they have real, live humans on the other end of the line to interpret the spoken questions. What is surprising, though, is how wide the gap is in between the human-powered search and the speech recognition apps, especially when contrasting ChaCha with Google.

Did Google Just Get Beaten at Search?

When you think of search, you tend to think “Google.” When you use Google, there’s a certain expectation that your queries will be interpreted accurately and your results will be relevant. What these tests show, however, is that when it comes to the mobile platform, all bets are off. Not only was Google outperformed by a mobile application whose name few mainstream users have probably heard of (Vlingo), they were also outperformed by a crowdsourced workforce who answer ChaCha queries in their spare time. Could this mean that mobile search is an area – perhaps the only area – where a competitor could actually get a foothold and steal away a bit of Google’s market share?

Well, not so fast. Google could still dominate on mobile thanks to brand recognition alone. Mainstream users aren’t going to seek out new alternatives to search, even if they’re better. That’s precisely why companies like Microsoft have to spend millions of dollars on advertising campaigns just to gain a percentage point or two of search market share.

Then there’s the fact that tests which compare human-interpreted queries to machine-interpreted ones seem a little unfair. We all know that people can still understand each other much better than computers can. (Well, for now at least). ChaCha wins this round, but only because this was never a fair fight to begin with. Speech recognition and natural language processing are technologies still in their infancy. But if we know Google, they’re coding away right now to improve them as we speak.

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ChaCha Beats Google and Yahoo in Mobile Voice Search Tests

For the earliest of early adopters, the concept of a service like LaunchSet sounds like being buddies with the biggest, coolest club promoter in town: Get a first look at pre-launch sites for testing and feedback before anyone else on the block.

For already stressed startups, LaunchSet provides a valuable service: Management of registrations and analytics during the packed-to-the-gills months, weeks, and days between launching private and public versions of a site or app.

Founder Danny Roa is a San Francisco-based Python/Django/.Net developer. He was also one of the minds behind Hubb.me, a product of this spring’s Startup Weekend in San Francisco.

His pitch for the site is simple: Launchset will manage your site’s closed alpha/beta registration system, including invitation codes, email addresses, waiting lists, and/or parameters such as having users follow the startup’s account on Twitter or add the app or company on Facebook before gaining access to the app or site.

“Some sites want to slowly roll out their release to the public,” he wrote on the LaunchSet site. “This can be done by collecting email addresses from users and manually giving them access to the site. Some sites build functionality that would give out and take invitation codes.

“While these are not insanely hard to code, this functionality is disposed of when the time has come to launch openly to the public.”

So why make each individual startup do something that only needs to be done once? Why reinvent the wheel?

Roa wrote that he got the idea to start this service as he was trying to create a way to grant limited access to just a few users while working on another project – perhaps Hubb.me.

In addition to allowing startups to specify exactly how many users they want to give access to for their private launches, LaunchSet can also help sites target a particular set of users once their “talent pool” of ubergeeks grows a bit more.

The idea is that by using LaunchSet, not only will the invitation/registration process become much easier for startups to manage; they’ll also be able to see how many people are interested in your site either by how many people following it or how many users are waiting to get access.

LaunchSet went live in July. Sites can sign up here, and early-adopting end users can register here. Kudos to Roa for executing a great idea that simply solves a simple problem and that has the potential to make a lot of people very happy.

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LaunchSet: Beta/Alpha/Private Access and Data for Startups and the Early Adopters Who Love Them

Philadelphia-based early-stage investment outfit DreamIt Ventures is in the business of finding, funding, and accelerating great startups.

Like many similar programs we’ve covered in the past, DreamIt, now in its second year, sees startup founders through the summer with seed funding and advisement, allowing them to demo their wares for media and investors mid-August. The ten companies demonstrating today include a few exciting ideas, from a crowdsourced version of CliffsNotes to a personal inventory management system to an app that predicts the price of event tickets and more. Read on for a rundown of Philly’s freshest startups.

First, here’s a video about DreamIt and the 2008 teams:

On to this year’s startups!

Notehall

Notehall allows college students to buy and sell lecture notes and study guide materials online. According to DreamIt, Notehall is currently active and generating revenue at three universities and has more than 13,000 users and 5,500 documents for sale.

While at Dreamit, Notehall has successfully launched an automated recruiting campaign at Drexel University and is planning to rolling out its services to more institutions this fall. The team is also in the process of raising a round of funding.

OurShelf

OurShelf, currently in public beta, helps users to catalog, lend, and manage their belongings while searching for items they need to borrow from friends for short-term use. Users can also use the site to list their unwanted items for sale on multiple third-party auction and classifieds sites.

A personalized social shopping experience is created by laying an item graph (complete with related items and reviews) over a social graph. DreamIt describes the app as being “like Del.icio.us for physical goods.”

Parse.ly

Parse.ly is an aggregator of web content. Still in private beta, the site claims to adapt to user preferences to “filter, prioritize, and even suggest relevant content from countless news and blog sources across the web.” DreamIt claims the app works better than Google Alerts. We weren’t able to test-drive the app ourselves, but this is a hot space with a few excellent competitors, and we eagerly await the finished (or public beta) product.

Postling

Postling is a site we reviewed a scant week ago. Founded by half of Etsy’s founding team, along with a former Etsy and Amazon.com product manager, the site aims to be ground zero for small business publishing to social media platforms.

Postling lets users publish content simultaneously to many major social platforms, including blogs, Twitter, and Facebook. In addition, users can read and respond to comments left by readers. The site offers paid accounts only. Aimed squarely at enterprises only, Postling is revenue-ready.

SeatGeek

SeatGeek, currently in private beta, aims to be the Farecast of event tickets. It’s a web app that will forecast sports and concert ticket prices so consumers know whether to buy a ticket now or wait until the price drops. For sellers, the app helps them determine the best time to sell their inventory. DreamIt tells us that SeatGeek’s crawlers have compiled millions of ticket transactions and have aggregated other factors that influence ticket prices. The patent’s pending on that money-making algorithm.

And although free accounts are available now for consumers, this fall will bring premium subscriptions for brokers and other ticket sellers.

Straight Up English

Straight Up English is a SaaS company now in private beta and launching public in the fall. It aims to address the most persistent speech challenges for ESL learners in areas such as word stress, intonation, and pronunciation with a multi-modal approach and a focus on oral communication. DreamIt tells us that this startup will include both web and mobile apps and communities for students and teachers.

Three Screen Games

The “three screens” of this startup‘s name refer to mobile, computer, and television screens. The team plans to converge and capitalize on all three with social gaming apps, the first of which is FanGamb, a fantasy sports game that tests players’ abilities as sports bettors.The app is in private alpha and will go live by the start of the NFL season. The team is due to announce the close of a six-figure seed capital raise in the near future.

Trendsta

The team behind Trendsta were formerly some of the minds behind myYearbook and Owned (a top-10 Facebook app). They think they know teen influencers pretty well by now and are selling brands on a marketing platform that, according to DreamIt, “puts products in the hands of the most influential teens on the web… as they create buzz about those items.” The team has so far been working with hot-name brands such as Atlantic Records, Penguin Books, Neutrogena, and Polaroid.

Jobaphiles

Jobaphiles is for employers who want to auction their part-time jobs and one-time gigs, allowing them to hire the most qualified and competitively priced applicant and saving them time and money. Also, jobseekers compete with the added knowledge of one another’s qualifications and bidding prices.

Kidzillions

Kidzillions, now in private beta and live in the fall, is an online allowance and chore management system that helps kids learn to spend and save in our cashless society. Kids work for money to buy real stuff as parents assign chores and monitor their progress.

And that wraps up DreamIt Ventures’ graduating class of 2009. We’ll be keeping an eye on these companies, sites, and apps as they go live, secure funding, and take their next steps.

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Philly’s Freshest: DreamIt Ventures Graduates Class of Ten Startups

Earlier this week we looked at how the emerging Internet of Things, when everyday objects become connected to the Web, will affect product managers and marketers. Today we look at some of the implications for accountants and bean counters – those people responsible for revenue and expenditure in companies.

A recent article by McKinsey, a consulting firm, outlined the business value of Internet-connected objects. In a nutshell, real time usage tracking enables companies to value their products and services much more efficiently.

McKinsey explained:

"Goods and services that self-monitor can be sold in much finer slices and much more efficiently. Rather than buy a product outright, or sign a long-term service contract, sensors can track actual usage, enabling customers to pay only for what they consume or even the value they receive. In some cases, what was once a weighty capital expenditure is transformed into a lighter-weight operating expense, when products are transformed into services."

It goes on to illustrate this ‘product as a service’ transition with an example from the insurance industry:

"…auto insurance companies now are experimenting with networked sensors installed in cars that allow them to price insurance based on actual driving behaviors (such as distance, speed, and where the car is driven) rather than blunter demographic characteristics (such as age or where a customer resides)."

This same model could be applied to car ownership. Why own a car when you can ‘subscribe’ to one as/when you need it? Indeed, the "car as a service" model is already being successfully deployed by Zipcar (we wrote about this back in March). With Zipcar you subscribe to a ‘pay as you go’ plan or a monthly plan. You may then borrow a car whenever you need to, at the most convenient location, in your own city or any other city where Zipcar is available.

It’s worth pointing out the potentially negative impact on the consumer of these types of business models. As a commenter on the McKinsey article noted, if the driver of an owned or borrowed car happens to work in a part of town that gets more crime than other parts, then their insurance premiums will go up. For the owner of the car, the value of it will decrease over time due to its driving history. So while accountants may view Internet of Things as an enabler of more efficient pricing models, many consumers may think it’s unfair and inequitable.

Bean counters at manufacturers and retailers should also take note of the trend towards using RFID and sensors in the supply chain. For example using RFID technology to monitor temperature when transporting flowers ensures that no short cuts are taken and that the product is optimal.

Let us know your further thoughts and ideas in the comments.

Top image: Esteban Cavrico

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Accountants & Bean Counters: What The Internet of Things Means For You

One of the first appearances of a mobile phone in a major Hollywood movie was in director Billy Wilder’s 1954 Audrey Hepburn classic, “Sabrina”. Today, millions of phone owners across the world could recreate “Sabrina” from start to finish from the comfort of their hand held devices. In fact, if we chose to, we could mobilize a global streaming event. But let’s be honest, the last thing we want to do is sit inside story boarding a pre-existing movie. It’s the summer! Get outside, grab your phone and capture some of the great moments happening around you. Below are some of our favorite mobile video services.

1. Ustream: Ustream recently announced the launch of their Recording App for the iPhone 3GS. The app can syndicate video to Ustream, Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook. Ustream also lets mobile viewers discover new videos by common hashtags in the Media Feed. The company’s recently launched a white label solution for conference and business broadcasting.

2. 12cast: After much anticipation, 12seconds.tv released their video application for the iPhone 3GS. The app allows users to create a short 12 second video clip and from here they can share the video’s short URL with their friends through Twitter.

3. Twitvid and Posterous: Both Twitvid and Posterous allow users to create videos on their mobile phones and email them to be uploaded to the site. With Twitvid, friends receive a DM message with a link to the newest video. ReadWriteWeb recently covered Twitvid in a round up of Twitter video apps. Meanwhile, with Posterous, your files are instantly converted and embedded as a flash player on your site.

4.Livecast Bambuser and Flixwagon: Livecast, Bambuser and Flixwagon are all similar services that allow users to stream videos live to their channels, blogs and Facebook accounts. Depending on your community preference you can upload vlogs, short films and vignettes.

5. Qik: Qik allows users to stream live videos to their channels, blogs, Facebook, Twitter and Justin.tv accounts. One nice feature of the Qik video for Android is that users can trim their clips via their phones before uploading them. ReadWriteWeb named Qik one of the top 100 products of 2008.

6.Kyte: While it doesn’t support live streaming, Kyte’s iPhone 3GS app allows users to record video and upload it to their channels in an extremely easy manner. The service also offers branded mobile sites for big name celebrities.

We know we’re only skimming the surface. If your favorite app isn’t listed above, let us know about it in the comments.

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Capture Your Summer with Great Mobile Video Apps

The IBM PC, the machine that helped launch the original revolution in business computing, burst onto the scene 28 years ago today.

Though it was far from the first personal computer available for purchase, IBM’s original 5150 model quickly became the gold standard for business computing, and helped to transform our notions of communication and collaboration forever.

The year was 1981. While Apple and other companies had been selling to hobbyists and select geeks, there was by no means any guarantee that personal computers would be as influential as they are today.

But just a year later, Time had named the computer “Man of the Year,” and 80 percent of Americans predicted that home computers would be “as common as television sets or dishwashers.” The millions of IBM PCs sold and the army of clones it inspired are what jump-started that shift.

The IBM PC was a driving force behind getting people to see computing as a personalized activity at work and at home. By cementing the idea of computing as a personal activity in our culture, the IBM PC set the stage for the Web as we now know it, a phenomenon that would eventually circle back to influence the enterprise enormously.

Photo courtesy Wikipedia

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Happy Birthday Business Computing, You’re 28 Today

Not to be outdone by recent announcements from streaming music site Spotify, Gainesville-based Grooveshark announced a $3 per month or $30 per year ad-free Grooveshark VIP service. Grooveshark VIP offers users early access to development pipeline releases including early testing on the upcoming Grooveshark iPhone application and early August 24th access to Grooveshark 2 – the site’s next generation. In addition to offering users WordPress and Facebook integration, Grooveshark spokesperson Josh Bonnain laid down some key differences between Spotify and Grooveshark.

Bonnain went on to explain that Grooveshark’s subscription services cost less than a quarter of Spotify’s monthly fees, and will offer many of the same features. For instance, both services stream ad-free music and both allow members to connect and discover premium content. Nevertheless Bonnain points out, “We’re in 231 countries, we’re web-based and our users can upload their entire catalogue to our site. Spotify requires users to install it on every machine they own and they’re only available in a few countries.”

Additionally, Bonnain went on to point out the Grooveshark artists community and quiet honestly, we were thrilled to discover it. Beyond the fantastic experience of the music discovery engine and the listener-focused features of the site, Grooveshark actually has a Bandcamp-style service for artists to promote themselves.

The Artist Dashboard allows bands to track their most popular songs, fan favorite play lists and measure play counts. Additionally, Grooveshark also allows bands to sell merchandise via Junkytees and TuniPop, license music via Creative Commons, land deals via YouLicense and crowdsource album funding via SellABand.

Within the artist’s environment, Grooveshark monetizes its service by offering musicians a chance to have their music advertised and played alongside similar bands. With more than 7 million tracks in its catalogue, the company is effectively leveraging its size and existing audience to make a case as the premier destination for artist promotion. Artists can expect to see their tracks in community playlists and distributed via widgets, links and soon, through mobile playlists.

While Spotify’s iPhone application has received a ton of buzz for its ability to play cached music streams, Grooveshark also has an iPhone application in the works. While the app’s current iteration does not allow for offline play, Bonnain assures ReadWriteWeb that the feature is in the mobile developer pipeline and it won’t cost $15 a month to try it when it arrives.

While both Grooveshark and Spotify’s premium subscription programs are in their infancy, it will be interesting to see which service will find the right features and licensing partnerships to come out on top.

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Grooveshark Launches Subscription VIP Service

Augmented reality (or AR) is fast becoming as ubiquitous a term as “Web 2.0.” The field is getting noisier by the day, and AR as a field of research now has to co-exist with its status as an industry buzzword. Knowing the difference between the two is important. To do that, we have to examine the field and then revisit the buzzword you may have heard 10 years ago.

What Is Augmented Reality?

Augmented reality is a human interface for information that uses spherical coordinate systems to display information relative to the position of the viewer. Its most common application today is the overlay of information on the viewfinder of digital cameras. This is already a feature in many mid-point to high-end digital cameras that overlay the position of faces on the screen.

There are currently two distinct methods of augmented reality: marker-based and gravimetric.

Gravimetric Augmented Reality

Gravimetric AR uses data from a gravimeter to calculate the precise positioning and angle of a display device to determine the center, orientation, and range of a spherical coordinate system.

The first platform that was capable of delivering gravimetric AR applications on mobile phones was the Open Handset Alliance’s Android operating system running on the HTC Dream (better known as the TMobile G1).

One of those applications is Mobilizy’s Wikitude, which overlay’s Wikipedia data over the mobile phone’s camera view. Point the phone’s camera lens at the Golden Gate Bridge, for example, and see information overlaid on it. Move the phone around to find things on the bridge that you may not have noticed before.

Marker-Based Augmented Reality

Marker-based AR uses a camera and a visual marker known as a fiducial to determine the center, orientation, and range of its spherical coordinate system.

Hosted by the University of Washington, ARToolkit is the first fully-featured toolkit for marker-based AR. It is freely available under the GPL open-source license for personal use. ARToolworks Inc. is the commercial licensor of the platform.

The most popular marker-based AR applications use the FLARToolKit, a descendant of ARToolkit, which uses Flash to overlay information on video from a computer’s webcam when a fiducial marker is visible.

Among the most recent implementations of this method is GE’s Smart Grid information website, where readers can print out a fiducial marker and hold it within range of their webcam. The screen then displays an interactive 3-D model.

The iPhone’s World

At the iPhone’s launch in 2007, John Doerr, Partner at Kleiner Perkins, joined Steve Jobs on stage. Speaking of this technology’s potential, he said, “Think about it: in your pocket you have something that is broadband and connected all the time. It’s personal; it knows who you are and where you are. That’s a big deal, a really big deal. It’s bigger than the personal computer.”

Over the past two years, we have seen the iPhone seed an entirely new field of mobile-connected experiences, with many mobile applications and competing platforms.

Because AR uses a spherical coordinate system to display data, it needs to know not just the orientation of the device but the direction in which the camera is pointing. To do this, it needs an accelerometer capable of gravimetry — or, simply put, it needs a compass.

The iPhone 3GS is the only iPhone that can run gravimetric AR applications. ARKit, an open-source toolkit for creating AR applications on the iPhone 3GS, was just created and released at iPhoneDevCamp last weekend. Apple alerted its developers last week that AR applications will not be available in its App Store until September. The Palm Pre does not have a compass, and the BlackBerry Storm has no AR apps. So, for now, Android phones are the only mobile gravimetric AR devices in the wild.

Augmented Reality and Ambient Intelligence

Ambient intelligence is a human interface metaphor. It implies that the connected devices around us are all connected to some form of intelligence. We see this when we drive through an automated toll system like FasTrak on the Golden Gate Bridge. Using the RFID tag issued by the bridge authority, the bridge knows who we are and what to do. We don’t have to actively submit intelligence of our own: the ambient intelligence takes care of the job.

Globally positioned data is so voluminous that not all of it can be displayed. That fact combined with the bandwidth limitations of mobile carriers creates quite a challenge for the industry: deliver the data that is relevant to the user and location, and before the user gets there.

The holy grail of the mobile AR industry is to find a way to deliver the right information to a user before the user needs it, and without the user having to search for it. This holy grail is likely in a ditch somewhere beside a well-traveled road in the district of the semantic Web, ambient intelligence and the Internet of things. Be wary of any hyped-up invitation to invest in a company that claims to have gotten the opportunity right. What we’ve seen in the commercial industry to date is a rather complex version of a keyboard, mouse, and monitor.

Guest author: Sid Gabriel Hubbard is a blogger, Internet entrepreneur and three-time CTO. He leads the Android Maker’s group in San Francisco and the Bay Area Augmented Reality Meetup Group and is a contributing member of the iPhone ARKit open-source project.

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Augmented Reality: A Human Interface for Ambient Intelligence