Vobile’s new TVSync tech uses your phone’s camera to track your TV

Janko Roettgers — Wed, 15 Aug 2012 13:30:39 +0000

Now this is cool: Content identification specialist Vobile launched a new platform for second screen app developers dubbed TVSync Wednesday that uses your phone’s camera to figure out what you’re watching. Vobile CEO Yangbin Wang told me during a phone call Tuesday that this novel approach is faster and less error-prone than traditional audio-based content recognition. “Most people think audio is easier — actually, audio has less information,” he explained.

Vobile is best known in the online video business for its content protection work; the site provides several mainstream and adult video and file hosting sites with video recognition and filtering solutions that are supposed to prevent the upload of unlicensed content. It also works with major broadcasters to fingerprint content. Now, it is taking this kind of technology to a new area: The tablets and phones that consumers use while watching TV.

Vobile’s TVSync relies on a combination of audio and video content recognition.

Content recognition for these kinds of second screens has been a growing business as broadcasters are trying to keep distracted viewers glued to the screen through companion apps. Social TV apps like IntoNow also use content recognition to figure out what viewers are watching and provide check-in services, and audio recognition specialist Shazam is making inroads with broadcasters as well.

IntoNow and Shazam use your iPad’s microphone to listen to the audio track of a show and identify it through so-called audio fingerprinting, but Wang told me that this doesn’t always work. Imagine you’re in a bar or at an airport, for example, where TVs are either muted or drowned by other noise.

And audio technology can be slow even if it works. Wang said that audio recognition can take anywhere from five to ten seconds to identify a TV program. TVSync on the other hand captures video and audio, which can bring that time down to two seconds, according to Wang. “No one can match that speed,” he told me.

But, don’t start to scour the Apple app store for a TVSync app just yet. Vobile is providing this technology exclusively to outside developers, and Wang told me that his company is targeting both big broadcasters and pay TV operators as well as smaller app developers that want to provide social TV apps without complicated check-ins. “We are an open platform,” he said, adding that he’d love to see some college students tinker with TVSync’s capabilities.

So don’t be surprised to see some kids taking pictures of the TV screen the next time you’re at a bar: they might simply testing the latest second screen app.

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Gowalla looks for relevance as a local travel guide

Ryan Kim — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 20:05:37 +0000

Gowalla , like many other check-in services, has had trouble keeping pace with Foursquare. But the location startup is relaunching its service with an eye toward becoming more of a city travel guide, downplaying the role of check-ins in favor of discovery, travel and storytelling.

The relaunch is an important step for Gowalla, which needs to find a better way to differentiate itself. It had tried to emphasize games early on with virtual goods called items, which could be collected and traded. But it announced last month that it was ending the use of items and was refocusing on its core mission of encouraging people to go out and explore the world.

Now, Gowalla is looking to take a piece of the travel market, by building more than 60 curated city guides that help tell people where to go and what to see. The guides are written in-house by Gowalla, or by partners such as Disney or National Geographic. They incorporate a lot of the location data provided by users in the past, including favorite user highlights arranged by category within a city.

Users are also encouraged to build “stories” out of their travels, which start with check-ins but can be augmented by tagging other people and gathering pictures uploaded for particular stories. The emphasis is less on the initial check-in and more on the interaction that happens afterward, which can be put together and reviewed later. So Gowalla is trying to have it both ways, reaching out to travelers as well as locals looking to better discover their surroundings.

There are some interesting ideas at work, but the features aren’t without precedent. Color has attempted to group pictures around specific spots, while Gogobot takes Foursquare and Facebook check-ins and location tags and turns them into sharable travel journals.

But the bigger story is that it’s not easy to make a buck or establish a runaway success in the location business. Foursquare is the leader in dedicated location-based services with more than 10 million users, but even it is still working out how to turn on the revenue engine. Gowalla, which has about 2 million users, has had a tougher time capturing attention in this market. So it makes sense that the service would want to distance itself from Foursquare and try to occupy a space that straddles travel and local discovery.

Will it be enough? It’s hard to say. In some ways, it could find itself overlooked because it’s not quite clear which audience it’s trying to hit between tourists and locals. I do like the idea of preserving memories and creating a lasting resource, but I’m not sure consumers will think of Gowalla for that. At least Gowalla is trying something new, and at this point, it looks like a necessary step for staying alive in the location market.

Images courtesy of TechCrunch

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Vobile’s new TVSync tech uses your phone’s camera to track your TV

Gowalla looks for relevance as a local travel guide