DigIn! Media

CES 2012: Do Food and Advertising Mix?

by Limor Schafman

We've all heard of pop up restaurants being done by famous chefs and haute design food encounters created by the likes of David Rockwell (Nobu around the world). Foodies love it when the pairing of food and design come together.  How about when the design is digital, produced by projection, allows for games and interactive location based fact finding right there at table top and advertisers can buy your table for you and even top themselves up on the menu list if they pay enough.

 

That is what Inamo and their restaurant chain offers.  

2012 International CES: Unusual and Cool Finds at CES

by Limor Schafman

You've heard about the Samsung and LG seemingly paper thin 3D OLEDs (let me tell you they are amazing and the wall of 50+ LG 3D screens at the entry of the booth was mind boggling), but there were other small finds at CES that you may not have heard of so I will share them here. 

 

The Intel keynote with CEO Paul Otellini showed us what the power of chips can do beyond the gorgeous ultrabooks that proliferated the show floor.  Here we see the Adidas store footwear wall that was showcased in the London flagship Originals store and resulted in a 5% uptick in new product sales in two weeks.  

Then we move to the futuristic with the Aerial 3D Display made by Burton - these

are laser lights that truly create Star Wars like 3D holograms in regular air (in other words they do not need to have another particles in the air like mist in order to be seen as most laser displays require).  The laser lights can be interactive.  Apparently, you can make the lasers interactive with the Kinect, and probably any other interactive device like a tablet or smartphone. The can go as high as 5M in the air and 3M wide.  They can be multi-colored as long as they do only one color at a time.  

 

 

This is the Printing Dress which was featured at the Microsoft booth.  Made almost entirely out of paper, it allows you to tweet and display the text as art on the skirt.  While clearly a prototype - if you pear closely under the hem of the dress you can see the massive keyboard which is not condusive to elegantly moving through a crowd - the barrier between thought to public communication has lost one more brick.

 

Robitics in small sizes had a presence at CES as shown by Cubelets produced by Modular Robotics.  These are plastic building blocks that have sensors built inside and when you combine them, you can get the combinations to have different capabilities.  Matt, who works for Cublelets, gives us a great demonstration.  The Cubelets are available for direct purchase at the Modular Robotics website.   

 As you may have guessed, mobile devices are becoming the interface to our lives - they will (and in some cases already do) control our HVAC home systems, or TVs and radio systems, our car settings and garage door system, etc. etc.  Shelby.TV enables your iPhone to become your social media interactive video remote control.  Whew!  That was a lot of things together. What they do is they gather your Twitter and Facebook feeds and see what your friends are recommending you to watch. They then pick up the links, and post the friend comment with the video so you know why it is showing up on your Shelby.TV.  While you are watching, you can also comment and it will go back out to your social net.  And all this interaction between you and the TV is done through your iPhone or tablet. The app is free on iTunes.

 Another interactive I liked which was shown at the Verizon booth is the DNA Wall by Downstream which uses a mind mapping tool to display marketing information in a very dynamic way.  If you check out The Brain, you will see it is exactly the same.  I have used The Brain for a variety of projects for mind mapping a solution structure out, but also have used it for presentations.  A great way to keep the visual dynamic and the content visually structured.

And to drive out out of this blog into the next, we have Romotive's little Romo's which is a smartphone based toy vehicle in which one smartphone resides, and then another smartphone can control it.  It works with iOS and Android phones.  Very cute, very fun and just $99 if you want to give it a go.  

More CES highlights to come... 

2012 International CES: Fun Finds at CES Unveiled

by Limor Schafman

Several themes are already starting to emerge as topics we will be hearing a lot about over the next few days:

1. CEA analysts project over 100m tablets to be purchased worldwide in 2012.  But the tablet market is maxing out with purchase rate increments starting to flatten.  
2. The largest buying upsurge in smartphones is going from Africa and the Middle East; and the same with tablets and all forms of mobile devices.  This is attributed largely to the lack of infrastructure in these countries which is forcing people to immediate go mobile.  China also shows the same trends.
3. Ultrabooks are grabbing the market of mobile PCs.
4. Desktop purchases are down. 
5. TV market penetration is maxed out. The belief is that most households that want TVs now own them. 
6. TV tech is going to LCDs which are shifting quickly to LED and will OLED slowly but steadily as prices continue to drop.
7. 3D TV is said to be on the rise.

The pre-conference press expo called CES Unveiled showcased several companies (Picture left show Gary Shapiro, CEO of CEA and Steven Smith Editor in Chief of Twice).  

 

I highlight here below some of the fun and interesting finds:    

House of Marley - (LVCC Central #15237) This company, started in the name of Bob Marley, always have music oriented product (headphones, radios) have fantastic design.  The product materials are strictly conservation and natural in focus- wood is FSC compliant (Forest Stewardship Council – chop one/plant one); plastics, cardboard boxing are all from recycled product; and any cloth is hemp or recycled cotton.  Visit this booth to see a good example of aesthetic, planet conscious consumer electronics.

My PowerBag - Won an Innovation Award – a bag that has a battery charger in it that can recharge multiple devices as well.  Takes 3 hours to charge the bag, and then you are good to go with plenty of power for the road.  Allegedly the bag isn’t heavy but didn’t have a chance to test that myself.

MyCharge - This is a small device – about the size of a smartphone, just a bit thicker – that can be charge through electrical outlet or USB and then used as a portable charge for up to 5 devices simultaneously.  Nice compact charger with all the cord attachments built into it. 

Kivic - This is a streaming multimedia device that takes media from the iPhone and streams it through itself to a car system.  One way to take your personal media on the road.

Eers - by Sonomax, this gadget produces custom fitted earphones within 5 minutes.  You put the SonoFit™ Custom Fitting System over your ears and adjust.  They do not go too far in so no damage to eardrums.  The silicon forms to your ears unique shape.  After 5 minutes, you remove the earpieces and place them on your own headset and you are ready to go. 

Bikn - (LVCC Central Plaza 8) Produced by Tree House Labs, this is a sensor platform for anything you want to track, find and measure.  They are developing multiple products based on the platform – one of the first is a lost and found application.  You have the sensor attached to whatever it is you want to keep track of (phone – has a special casing with the sensor built in); a pet; a child; etc. The iPhone application (Android OS is under development) shows on the phone where the item is.  You can activate the application to show location, to show how close you are to what you are searching for (in case it is not immediately visible) and you can set geographic boundaries so that if an item is suddenly outside the set zone, an alarm goes off.   Another product places sensors in a football helmet so that if a player hits his head, you can know the level of impact sustained.  They are also offering the platform to companies for license or as part of services for the production of privately developed products. 

Invoxia - (LVCC North #6406) This product produces VOIP over iPhone through an elegant handset.  The system is unique in its interface [you interact through the iPhone]; it can manage 8 mikes simultaneously so it acts like a Polycom office system; it auto-configures with existing PBX systems as well; they are beginning to offer their own telecom services (France currently, and coming to the US).  They too won an Innovation Award.

Sculpteo - This was one of the most interesting technologies I saw.  It allows for 3D sculpting based on designs that you can do yourself.  It is a cloud based system in which you can design products; they handle the production of the item in plastic or ceramic.  You can use the application for free, and then just pay for production.  The company is partnering with manufacturers to produce large orders.

3M - (LVCC South 4 #35806)was showing a multi-touch screen which offers a steady base with a min of 20 simultaneous touchpoints.  Works with a Windows 7 computer. It’s being used by the military as a flight simulator- Lockheed Martin has taken 18 screen monitors to create a cockpit and then can train soldiers on multiple aeronautic interfaces by simply choosing another flight sim software application rather than building another actual simulator.   The financial sector is using the screens in brokerage rooms, and they can be found in the retail space as well. (Yep, those are my creative doodles testing 20 points with the sales person.)

 Parrot - (LVCC South #31424 and LVCC Central Plaza CP9) This company was showcasing its flyingrcraft technology which can be used for remote controlled video capture.  Tablets (and presumably smartphones and touch screen laptops) control the drone.  What is shown here is the AR.Drone, the first quadricopter piloted by wi-fi and using augmented reality.  

2D/QR Codes Pave the Way to Consumer Focused Augmented Reality

by Limor Schafman

One of the interesting things about this year's CES was the arrival of technologies long in the works and now ready for consumer use. Such is the case with Augmented Reality.  All the rage in marketing and advertising circles, augmented reality, the use of digital interfaces or other extra-experiential mechanisms or story telling tools to bring an enhanced experiences to a given situation, is starting to show up increasingly in the consumer world.

  Now, we've been seeing the use of 2D, also known as QR, codes for some time in some one-time-only oriented advertising by brands, on magazines, coke cans and bus stop posters.  And the uses have been pretty cool.  Now we are seeing a resurgence and we will be seeing greater ubiquity in usage.  Hallmark cards will be releasing a special brand of card using 2D codes. I have not yet heard what will be the augmented part of the experience (if you go to the Sobel Media event tomorrow morning and learn more, do tell), but the very fact that a name brand is taking 2D codes and making in part of a card found in any store, is a commentary of how accessible the technology is now.

   Intel, interestingly enough at CES, was showing off its new i5 core processor with an augmented reality display.  As you will see in this video, they chose to use Esquire's December issue with Robert Downey Jr. as an example of technology requiring enough processing power to use their new chip. 

To get the full effect of what is happening with the AR, check out this video by Esquire on the December issue:

I have to say that I was not buying that this could only be done with the new Intel chip. Nevertheless, it is nice to finally see technology which was showcased 10 years ago at Siggraph and which I saw also demoed at the University of Washington Human Interface Technology Lab at that time, finally hit the mass market.

Taking this one step further, tonight, at the Disruptathon event in Tysons Corner, VA, I saw another level of 2D code use.  Until this point, we have been seeing 2D codes that are all the same, thus featuring the same media - very creatively, but still a mass production. Ven Chava of AirArts has taken this to the next level with his company's TalkingTag products. With patent pending technology, Chava has created a system for producing unique 2D codes which then allow for very personalized use of the codes to create UGC media as an augmentation to whatever you want to stick a tag onto.  This enables voice, photos, video and other data of ones own making to be added to anything that has this unique identifier - like a post note or notebook page.  All you need is an iPhone or Windows Mobile phone. Take a look at this video interview with Chava to hear more in his own words:

Take TalkingTag's technology and put the tags on Hallmark cards and you have a whole other level of personalized greetings. On the simple level think what this could mean to direct mail, books, magazine and newspaper articles.  Add the TalkingTag fingerprint-style uniqueness and imagine how cool it would be if we could embed 2D codes in a tweet and other social media communications.  Configure a photo with a 2D embedded watermark and add vocal commentary or any other additional media.  As you can see, I think Chava is on to something quite big.  Check out the TalkingTag store for products with which you can create your own augmented reality experiences.

Now if you want to hear more about Esquire and from some of the thought leaders in this area, walk fast and be ready to stand at the SobelMedia Augmented Reality panel breakfast taking place at the Samsung Experience Store in the Time Warner Building in NYC tomorrow, Thursday morning.  Come bright and early at 7:30am to hear from David Curcurcito, Creative Director for Esquire; David Polinchock, founder of the Brand Experience Lab [with whom I saw the first iterations of this technology at Siggraph oh so long ago]; Doug Dimon, Creative Director/Broadcast Design at Creative Bubble/NYC and Adam Broitman, Ringleader of Circ.us.  And with digital media visionary, Richard Carey, as moderator.

I'm always interested in hearing more about cool uses of 2D codes and experiences and explorations into augmented reality.  So please do write in and send links to cool things we should take a look at.

John Curran of ARIN Speaks on IPv6 at Digital Government Institute Conference and CES 2010

CES has begun and we are very excited to have our panel on IPv6 this coming Friday at 1:30pm at LVCC South Hall S225. We are part of the Issues and Attitudes track which perfectly describes our session.

To give you a taste of the topic, watch this interview I did with John Curran, CEO & President of ARIN who discusses the reducing numbers of IPv4 address and why it is vitally important to prepare for v6 now. This was taped a the Digital Government Institute conference (9/17/09).

Looming Internet Address Space Crisis Quickly Becoming One of Key Issues, Panel Sessions at 2010 CES

LAS VEGAS, NV and CHANTILLY, VA--(ARIN - January 4, 2010) - The American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN), a nonprofit that manages the distribution of Internet number resources, announced today its President and CEO John Curran will participate in an expert panel, "The Looming Internet Address Space Crisis" at the 2010 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) on Friday, January 8, 2010 at 1:30PM PT, in Room S225 of the South Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center. The panel will explore what needs to be done to face one of the biggest challenges the Internet community has yet seen -- we're running out of Internet Protocol addresses.

This year, CES will help launch hundreds, if not thousands, of new products that connect to the Internet. Each of those devices requires its own unique IP address. When the Internet was originally built, an addressing system was used that allows for just over four billion unique IP addresses. While this number at one time seemed huge, the Internet community is on pace to run out very soon -- just over 10% of IPv4 addresses remain. The industry must therefore adopt a new protocol, IPv6, which will allow an effectively unlimited number of unique addresses. The session at CES will explain what actions Internet-dependent businesses must take now to survive and thrive beyond 2010, and how global organizations can otherwise prepare for an IPv6 world.

Curran joins an esteemed panel moderated by Limor Schafman, immediate past President of the IPv6 Forum-Israel, comprising experts on Internet addressing from both the public and private sectors. Participating in the panel will be: Pasi Hurri, President and CEO for BaseN Corporation; Erik Kline, IPv6 Software Engineer at Google, Inc.; Steven Pirzchalski, Director, Enterprise Network Services/Office of Enterprise Communications for the US Department of Veterans Affairs; and Steve Reynolds, SVP - CPE and Home Networking for Comcast.

"This is an impressive group of minds that truly understand how the Internet runs and how it will run in the future," said Schafman. "Especially against the backdrop of all these incredible Internet-powered devices at CES, it's imperative for decision-makers to fully understand the importance of IPv6 adoption and the potential fallout from failing to act. I'm confident this group will hammer that home and provide the vision for getting it done."

About the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN)

ARIN is the nonprofit corporation that manages the distribution of Internet number resources -- IPv4, IPv6, and Autonomous System numbers -- in its service region, which includes Canada, many Caribbean and North Atlantic islands, and the United States. More information on IPv6 adoption is available at http://www.getipv6.info/ and http://www.arin.net

CES 2009: IPv6 Mentioned in Keynote

by Limor Schafman, President of KeystoneTech Group and the IPv6 Forum Israel

I was delighted to hear Gary Shapiro, CEO and President of CEA mention IPv6 duirng his keynote as one of the new technologies that will be making a statement in 2009.  CEA has already shown its commitment to spreading the word and, we hope, usage of the protocol, in the editorial and article featured in Visionmagazine's September issue.

Now, those of us in the IPv6 world have known about IPv6 for over a decade, but the need for that protocol has not been articulated into an immediate need business case and so adoption has been at a snail's pace here in the United States.  Still, it is happening with infrastructure and operating systems in place.  Now we just need some creative applications to make it come alive. 

I was invited to bring IPv6 within the  CES fold last year for the first time after I spoke with Shapiro, explaining the direct impact IPv6 will have on CE.  This year we have a new session on Saturday, January 10th at 3:00pm in room LVCC, South Hall S104-105 focusing on actual existing applications taking advantage of IPv6 enablement features. 

Description:	In 2010, existing Internet space for IPv4 addresses will be tapped out. IPv6 will usher in a new level of always-on connectivity. This conference highlights how ubiquitous connectivity will be used, new applications, and what the next two years hold for device development and production.
Moderator:	Limor Schafman, President, IPv6 Forum-Israel and KeystoneTech Group, LLC
Panelist:	Cody Christman, Director of Product Engineering, NTT America
Panelist:	Junaid Islam, CTO, Piano Networks
Panelist:	Latif Ladid, President, IPv6 Forum
Panelist:	Sureswaran Ramadass, Director, Nav6 Center for Excellence, University Sains Malaysia

Also, I want to seed your mind:  CES and I have tried for the past two years to create an IPv6 Tech Zone.  But we need a larger group of companies using this protocol to come and showcase what they are doing.  If you are one of these, and you want to be part of an IPv6 Tech Zone next year, contact me at limor@keystonetechgroup.com and type IPv6 Tech Zone in the subject matter field.  I want to hear from you!

I look forward to seeing you all this Saturday at 3pm at our session!  And bring your questions.

Green Consumer Electronics at CES 2008 and on the Hill

Green consumer electronics has taken a new turn.  It's no longer just about how to recycle your CE devices [which is still a big issue].  It's about CE companies competing in the green space for how much they are doing to diminish their carbon footprint, buy carbon credits, diminish energy demands in their operations and in what their consumer goods will require, use recyclable materials,  and produce products that support green living.    At CES this year in the keynotes and on the floor, companies competed with one another showing consumers how much greener they are compared to their competitor.

Some green products and services that you can buy today:
MyBoneYard.com has a fun and rewarding approach to recycling electronic goods.  Created as a collaborative effort by The Wireless Source, eco|International and Young America, at the site you choose from one of 4 categories of what you want to recycle[mobile phone, laptop, monitor, PC systems], fill in the specs and they will tell you what kind of reward you will get.  This is an instant process.  I registered an LG monitor I want to recycle and immediately got its value of $16. [I won't even tell you what I paid for it all those years ago.]  You get this money in the form of a Visa prepaid card that you can use anywhere.  MyBoneYard.com takes care of everything including paying for your shipment. And the company promises not to look at your data and to destroy all elements of the product in a green and secure way.  And they have a $2500 sweepstakes giveaway taking place until July 16, 2008 for anyone who uses their system.

HydroPak is a water-activated power system produced by Horizon Fuel Cell Technologies and Millennium Cell that uses a hydrogen fuel cell system to produce a portable generator usable to recharge or run your lower energy devices.  Just pour in some H20 and you're good to go.  This nicely designed device puts out 25 Watts of continuous 110 Volts power for 10 hours, is 8x8z3 inches in size and 6 lbs with water inside it.  The system generates hydrogen energy by chemical reaction, generating more energy than produced by batteries.   Apparently this all began when just for fun some engineers at the company decided to create minutarized fuel cells the company was producing for industry in order to power a toy.  Launched in 2006, their hydrogen powered palm-sized car is apparently the best selling hydro fuel cell product in the world, selling in 28 countries.  The Hydropak will start selling later in 2008 at SRP is $400.

Voltaic Systems Inc. makes backpacks that will recharge your laptop, cell phone,  DSlite, just about any electronic device just by walking around or lounging in the sun.

And on the Hill this week there was a Technology Policy Exhibition put on by the Advisory Committee to the Congressional Internet Caucus.  Green was most prevalent with Lenovo which is not only putting out cool looking laptops with its IdeaPads [watch out HP Pavillion], but also meeting green requirements by producing monitors which use recycled water bottles for 28% of the plastic casing.  Now that's taking a plastic product we use up quickly and often and turning it into green profit.   

CES 2008 - Cool Stuff Part 4 - Real Life Virtual Interactivity

Now what on earth do I mean by that title.  Well Paul Ortellini of Intel went on to bring out a combination of some fun technologies that together create an immediately accessible interactive virtual experience.

He started with Alan  J. Gluekman of eJamming.  This online music portal enables musicians of all types to come together in a social networking environment and collaborate, share and perform music.  What is super cool about eJamming is that musicians can play in real time through the Internet with each other.  Steve Harwell, lead singer for Smash Mouth got the audience clapping demonstrating this.  Then they added the technology of Big Stage, which will launch officially in Q2 of 2008, which lets users create 3D avatars of themselves in about 5 minutes.  Just take three digital pictures of your face, face on and in profile, load it up and in a couple of minutes you have a hairless version of your face.  Dress that up anyway you want and you're good to go.

Next they added a virtual garage soundstage by Virtual Heroes, a virtual worlds/simulation/serious games developer.  On this virtual soundstage, all the members of the Smash Mouth were shown in avatar form ready to play together.  Add Organic Motion, which has created a commercial markerless motion capture system which simulates human vision, throwing out former computer vision approaches. 

Put them all together and you have a compelling, fun, alternative world experience in which you bring together people from different parts of the real world in avatar form to perform live in almost real time together in virtual space.  I can tell you it is worth checking out the video of the keynote from the CES site, off of eJamming or just search it on You Tube.  And keeping an eye on these companies.  Better yet - Go play and experience these techs for yourself!

 

CES 2008 - Cool Stuff Part 3 - Augmented Reality

Paul Otellini, President & CEO of Intel Corporation gave one of the most interesting keynotes at CES 2008.  I liked his speech so much because he showed the audience the interconnectivity between real and virtual.   

First, Ortellini and Craig showed a travelers handset that automatically syncs a traveler up to GPS based information and language translation.  Walk down a street in Beijing, point this mobile device at a street sign, and the English translation [if that is what you want] automatically shows up on the screen of the device floating in virtual space on top of the video picture of the actual street sign. Walk up to a restaurant sign and using Total Immersion technology [I can't find a link - someone please send info on this if you have it], enables the viewer to  get a translation of the name, see a translation of the menu, access the website, watch consumer reviews, all appearing as an overlay of the real video capture of the restaurant signage.     

Meet someone walking down the street who speaks a foreign language, just turn on your device, and use it reciprocally as your digital translator for real time speech2speech translation.  It both provides audio and the visual translation of what is being spoken/written.

Ortellini and Craig showed Everyscape as a means to see how to get to Intel's Beijing Kerry Center headquarters which requires walking through a maze of high end retail and office space.  This was a cool app in and of itself as a new way to show directions.  But the demo only scratched the surface of what Everyscape offers. You can create your own scapes if you go to Become a Scape Artist by using their tools to embed websites, images, tags etc in your own visual landscape.  Very cool and worth checking out.  Whether used for business or consumer purposes, Ortellini sees this technology as building an ecosystem for new business models.

While still "visiting" China, Intel showed an augmented reality avatar travel guide in the form of a terracotta warrior who describes through audio the history of the location where the visitor stands, still on the handheld mobile device.

Ortellini foresees all rich media found on the Internet flowing through mobile Internet devices (MIDs) and ultra mobile PCs (UMPCs).  With that in mind, Intel has created Menlow as a platform that will manage and deliver Internet experience to these devices.  I venture to say that the thinking that needs to happen is not to put the Internet as we think of it today on a mobile device, but to think about the experience that mobile device user wants to have and create the platform, system, device, media, etc. that will meet those needs.  I am hopeful this is what Intel and others have in mind.  Ortellini spoke of the improved user experience and interface, using not only better design, but also technologies that are now coming to a level ripe for widespread consumer usability such as gesture technology, facial reading technology, audio commands, and others.  The fact that these capabilities will require better, faster, cooler chips hence continuing the Intel lifespan goes without saying.  Ortellini didn't stop there either.  More cool stuff to follow in the next post...