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Telefonica Seeks Social Media Mojo With Twitter And Layar Integration

Ingrid Lunden — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 15:54:45 +0000

Telefonica (NYSE: TEF), the multinational operator with mobile networks spanning across Europe and Latin America, is now fully focused on squeezing more revenue out of its substantial assets. After a month in which it formed a new business unit, Telefonica Digital, to further this strategy, the operator is rolling out more details on developments. This week, it has announced mobile content deals with social media giant Twitter and augmented reality startup Layar.

Twitter has now integrated APIs from Telefonica’s operator in the UK, O2, which let users on the O2 network send photos to Twitter through the phone’s MMS service. Once taking a picture, users can now send those pictures directly to their Twitter accounts by associating their mobile number with their account (through the Twitter account settings) and then sending the photos to a specific short code, the not-very-catchy 86444. These calls are charged at O2′s normal MMS rate.

This development will probably be most important to those on the O2 network who love to tweet but do not have fancy smartphones. That’s because on smartphones, there are already apps that allow users to post images to Twitter — for example the Instagram app for iOS and Android, and Twitter’s own apps. Some, like Apple (NSDQ: AAPL), are even integrating Twitter directly into the native OS. However, users on other devices who had wanted to post photos from their handsets would have potentially had to pay a cumbersome visit Twitter’s mobile web site. That would have likely been a gating factor for many.

As such, this is one more step in Twitter’s strategy to make itself more accessible on mobile: Twitter already had deals in place with operators to enable SMS-based tweet posting, and many also offer an option in which users get free texts with any direct messages and @ mentions from other Twitter users.

For Telefonica, it will potentially mean more revenues from MMS traffic as well as more stickiness: getting users to reach for their handsets to post pictures rather than, say, waiting until they return home to sideload them through the PC.

Jose Valles, the head of Telefonica’s developer platform BlueVia, said in the release that the plan is to extend the Twitter MMS integration to other operators in the Telefonica footprint.

The Layar news, meanwhile, looks like it is less about direct consumer services, and more about a bigger project in the area of commercializing visual recognition technology. Layar, which offers an augmented reality platform and app that it says is currently installed by 10 million users, is partnering with Telefonica I+D, the operator’s R&D lab, to bring together the two companies’ visual search products.

Telefonica will be using Layar’s technology as part of its “IRIS” project, “to develop a service that provides information related to an object just by taking a picture of it,” according to the release. That service, which works on products, posters, logos and other images, can potentially be used for advertising and other kinds of marketing — something that other A/R companies like String are already exploring.

While Telefonica has yet to roll out anything commercial based on the Layar partnership, you can bet that this is what they are gearing up to do, too.

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Augmented Reality Finds a Place to Fit: Shopping!

Kevin C. Tofel — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 16:45:19 +0000

For years, we’ve been hearing about the potential for augmented reality (AR), a technology that combines the physical world with virtual overlays. More than two and half years ago, research firm Gartner dubbed AR as one of its top 10 disruptive technologies for 2008 to 2012, for example. We’re over the hump of that hype cycle, but AR hasn’t yet gone mainstream and likely won’t for 5 to 10 years because it’s still a solution in search of problem.

Two recent AR implementations show promise, however, by adding value and actually demonstrating how useful the technology can be. One is Converse’s Sampler application for Apple iOS devices. From practically any location, you can shop for Converse sneakers using this free software. “OK,” you say, “I’ve been able to do that for years, and not just for sneakers.” You’d be correct, but this app leverages AR beyond simple browsing for shoes: you can actually see how a virtual sneaker looks on your foot. How? The software superimposes Converse sneakers over the live image of your feet, captured from an iPhone’s camera sensor.

ImmediaC, a web and augmented reality software designer, has taken a less mobile approach, but it’s certainly just as useful. The company developed a web application called TryOnBathingSuit that superimposes bathing suits on a user’s image to show how they might look, right from the privacy of their own home. The entire experience is gesture-driven and reminds me of the navigation with Microsoft’s Xbox Kinect I showed on video last month. In fact, I could easily see advertisers leverage Kinect’s infrared scanner and camera for personalized shopping experiences like this. Until that happens, it will be up to developers to enable this, much as RichRelevance did last year when it offered a virtual dressing room application for online clothier Tobi.com.

Watch this video for free on GigaOM

Applications such as these actually give me more hope for augmented reality than I had earlier this year. Aside from some excellent location-based AR apps such as Layar and Lookator, most implementations to date have shown off AR’s capabilities more than the value brought by such technology. I wish this technology was available when I bought a pair of glasses in 2007; since I can’t see without glasses, it’s not possible to see how new frames look. As a result, I had to take pictures of myself in various frames and then view them while wearing my old glasses. Talk about old-school tech!

For now, it’s not technology holding back adoption, because smartphones and other mobile devices are more than capable of enhancing the real world with virtual add-ons. The problem appears to be one of finding appealing uses to spur adoption of augmented reality solutions. Previewing virtual clothes and sneakers on our real bodies, however, just might be the application to help AR hit its stride.

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Layar Augments Reality With $14M in New Funding

Kevin C. Tofel — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 20:30:19 +0000

Layar, creator of a mobile augmented reality (AR) platform, today announced a $14 million funding round led by Intel Capital. The Layar platform combines the location functionality and integrated camera built into many smartphones; users can view their actual surroundings through the camera, but the view is supplemented with additional visuals and data.

Although Layar emerged as a downloadable app / browser first for Google Android and later for Apple’s iPhone, calling Layar an app is incomplete. Layar is also a platform that supports informational layers of virtual data. Think of these layers like those on Google Maps: You can view or hide the traffic layer, for example. Developers can build their own layers for the Layar platform to show pictures taken nearby or where the closest ATM is.

Earlier this morning, I spoke with Layar co-founder, Maarten Lens-FitzGerald to get a sense for how the new funding will be used. “We have three main plans,” he told me over the phone. “First, we want to upgrade our infrastructure and ensure we have a good organization in place. Second, we’re looking at creating a new interface to the world. For example, how does a bookmark work in augmented reality?”

That’s an interesting aspect, which gave me pause, because unlike the traffic data atop Google Maps, Layar isn’t just about finding information. It’s meant to provide “impactful augmented reality experiences for people’s everyday lives,” Lens-FitzGerald told me. The way users interact with that experience is still maturing because the interface is unlike any other currently in use today, which leads to the third planned funding use: “We want to add more core capabilities to the Layar platform,” said Lens-FitzGerald, which will require additional user experience research.

Prior to speaking with Lens-FitzGerald, I was still scratching my head over the real value of augmented reality experiences, mainly because I didn’t have a sense for Layar’s platform delivering not just information, but an experience. In fact, I’ve been wondering for some time if consumers understand what value AR can bring to mobile. But a key example from one of the more than 1,500 available AR layers provided me with an “a-ha!”moment.

“At Stanford University, you can use Layar to see a virtual archway that no longer exists on the campus because it was destroyed in the earthquake of 1906, ” Lens-FitzGerald explained. Indeed, the ability to view long-gone points of interest in tandem with the physical world of today is powerful and opens up a world of possibilities. There will be plenty of hardware to experience that world; Layar expects 1.2 billion AR-capable handsets in consumer hands by 2013 will be able to leverage its platform.

Based in Amsterdam, Layar was founded in June 2009 and received $3.4 million in Series A funding from Sunstone Capital and Prime Technology Ventures this past February.

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Report: The Rise of Mobile Health Apps

Jody Ranck — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 07:00:04 +0000

Though still a somewhat loosely defined term, mobile health (mHealth) examines the structural and behavioral changes that occur as new technologies advance our health care system worldwide. We are in the early stages of a disruptive period in the health care industry, and mHealth is playing a significant role in that transition. This report examines the growth of mHealth specifically in the context of mobile health apps, from the medical arena’s use of the iPad to smartphone apps that combat chronic diseases and aging. And with research on the role of social networks in health outcomes growing by the day, the next generation of mHealth apps promises to bring further insights into the effects of social media on health outcomes. A number of challenges — sustaining viable business models, the specter of FDA regulation, and cost issues — exist in the space, but partnerships between employers, retailers and technology developers will continue to combat them and provide new innovation architecture in health care. With the help of this new generation of apps, health care, and indeed, our perception of wellness overall, will change dramatically. Companies mentioned in this report include Apple, mPedigree, Orange, Vodafone, Voxiva, Skyscape, Research in Motion, Google, Intel, Nike, Adidas, Philips, Twitter, Hope Labs, Virgin, Discovery Health, Telefonica I+D, Layar and Kendall & Son Solutions.

Shopping Matters When it Comes to Location-Based Apps

Laurie Lamberth — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 07:00:11 +0000

Location-based shopping services (LBS) have made many headlines recently, and studies have shown that users actually like receiving ads and offers well-targeted to their interests. Couple that with an influx of Tier 1 venture capital and the show-stopping Facebook Places, with which several startups have already joined forces, and it’s no wonder LBS is suddenly such a hot topic in the mobile sector. That doesn’t necessarily mean LBS shopping apps will be easy to implement. A number of challenges — privacy concerns, scaling issues and check-in integrity among them — provide a potential barrier to widespread adoption. This note examines both the drivers and inhibitors for making location-based shopping services a mainstream phenomenon, and includes focused profiles of Facebook, Twitter, Google, Loopt, Foursquare, BrightKite, Whrrl, Gowalla, Plancast, Groupon, AisleBuyer, Bizness Apps, Offeretti, ShopAlerts, Shopkick, Bakodo, Stickybits, Yelp!, Geodelic Sherpa, WHERE, MyTown, InCrowd, SCVNGR, Waze and Layar.

Layar Builds Augmented Reality Shooting Game

Liz Gannes — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 17:39:13 +0000

Layar, the augmented reality platform, is trying to foster a new form of content and also bring that content to a wider audience. Doing both is a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem. Usually the Amsterdam-based startup puts its efforts into the distribution side by creating its own applications, signing device partnerships and (coming soon) offering an embedded version of its browser for mobile app developers. But every once in a while Layar has to develop its own augmented reality content to demonstrate what other people might not be imagining or thinking possible yet.

A quick bit of background: Augmented reality is the concept of adding a real-time, interactive overlay to the physical world. It’s moving out of science fiction and into reality with the help of today’s smartphones and their processors, cameras, accelerometers, compass, GPS and screens.

Layar CEO Raimo van der Klein says he sees a transition to visual augmented reality from purely geographical augmented reality happening. So instead of being directed to YouTube videos shot or Tweets posted from your vicinity, you might be able to view and shop in an up-and-coming designer’s virtual store if you load up the Layar app and direct it to the street of a major real-world shopping district that in reality only has big brand name retailers.

What would be even cooler is using augmented reality to play three-dimensional virtual games with our friends that map to the world around us. So Layar has created a demo of a multiplayer game, which it showed off at the Google Zeitgeist conference earlier this month to high praise (at least according to van der Klein). Users compete to shoot down spaceships with lasers, using their own separate phones. They each see the same door, the same ships, even the other person’s laser, and it’s all mapped onto the actual walls and floor and objects in the environment around them. Here’s a video here of how it looks:

As van der Klein describes it:

You start the game if one of the two players shoots at the portal at the wall. When the wall opens spaceships start to fly out. By shooting spaceships points can be earned. Fast spaceships get you more points. After 20 seconds the game ends. We made it short as we were aiming for quick gaming since most people play on the go and don’t have time to play longer.

He also gave a little more detail on the technology behind the game, which Layar plans to release more widely in a few weeks:

The demo makes use of streaming protocols used for IM to create an online multiplayer environment where multiple players can tap into at the same time.

The other is use of sensor fusion technology where the browser analyses all input it gets from all the different sensors. It chooses the most reliable ones to determine the phone’s position.

In this demo, Layar uses markers to help position the 3D grid on top reality as players are indoors and don’t have GPS.

Layar apps have been downloaded 3 million times and have more than 1 million active users per month, according to van der Klein. The company raised $3.4 million in a Series A round earlier this year from Sunstone Capital and Prime Technology Ventures.

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You Look Ridiculous: The Other Augmented Reality Issue

David Klein — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:27:09 +0000

Augmented Reality (AR) is a hot topic in the app stores these days. So, what’s AR? It’s multiple technologies being used simultaneously to provide you with data relevant to your location. This includes your phone’s compass to determine the direction you are facing, GPS to determine your exact location, an Internet connection to gather information about your surroundings, a camera to capture your reality and the screen to augment it with extremely specific data.

The app that gets the most free publicity is Layar for its on-again off-again relationship with Apple’s App Store. Whether or not this app should be allowed in the App Store is the issue people have been harping on for several months now. I think there is a much more urgent AR issue.

You look completely ridiculous when you use it.

Seriously. People take pictures all the time with their mobile phones. It’s a simple, quick task. But using an AR app is confusing and time-consuming. You have to maintain the phone’s direction and camera angle otherwise you lose the details on your screen. Your face is glued to your screen for a longer-than-appropriate time period. We have quickly grown accustomed to people looking down at their phones while walking around town (although some would argue that this is aggravating and dangerous). AR users have taken this awkward behavior to a new high since their phones are at eye level with people walking by.

Below is Layar showing the Drink layer. Note the confusing interface that requires thorough focus to decipher while you are standing on a sidewalk holding your phone in the air.

Here’s Yelp’s easier-to-comprehend (although it can quickly become cluttered) “Monacle” feature. Note: To activate this feature you must shake your phone when on the Nearby tab.

And finally, an innocent AR user begging to be mugged while trying to learn more about his location.

We can all agree that AR is extremely cool. Hopefully it will soon be a useful way to understand your surroundings. But for now these apps feel more like usability and HCI research experiments.

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Augmented Reality: Lots of Promise, Lots of Hurdles

4 Ways for Augmented Reality to Get Past the Hype

Liz Gannes — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 07:59:19 +0000

With 197 million augmented reality-capable smartphones set to be in the global market by 2012, up from nearly 91 million in 2010, the building blocks are falling into place for people to merge digital information with their view of the physical world. But while we’re just getting to the point that normal users can see the promise of augmented reality for themselves, there’s still a long way to go.

Right now AR is a big load of hype (and why not? it’s super cool), but the market will supposedly be worth anywhere from $350 million to $732 million by 2014, according to projections by ABI Research and Juniper Research, respectively. How do we get there? GigaOM Pro (subscription required) this week has a great report by John du Pre Gauntt on the technical and business challenges and opportunities ahead for consumer AR apps. They include:

Pinpointing Geo: Today’s AR apps depend mostly on location information, but location data is only accurate to 10-20 meters. The most pressing priority, says du Pre Gauntt, is to make geolocation data more granular and optimized. And mobile social networking apps could actually help us get to a mapped globe quicker, writes du Pre Gauntt. “Foursquare and Gowalla have the potential to be foot soldiers for geotagging the world.”

Opening Eyes: The next area of development will be image recognition, something Google is working on with Google Goggles and Nokia with Point and Find. These early systems are often out of their element unless they can depend on scanning formal markers like barcodes. But a barcode experience tends to take the user out of the lens of AR to bring them to a web site or another resource.

The Apple Roadblock: Though AR developers have begged for access, Apple has a lock on the iPhone’s video feed API. As du Pre Gauntt puts it, “Without a public API to access live video in real time from the iPhone’s camera, it is impossible to do effective image analysis of the object in front.” This barrier could foretell an Apple push to innovate image recognition on its own, or it could mean that more open platforms (aka every other smartphone) are able to harness developer enthusiasm to get ahead.

Teaming Up: The hybrid nature of AR means it’s ripe for cooperation. Diving into today’s major AR app categories of navigation, location overlays, geo-information services, and gaming, du Pre Gauntt finds companies like Mobilizy and Lonely Planet, and Layar and Zehnder collaborating on some very cool travel and event apps. But cooperation seems to only make things more complicated; the implementations require both an AR browser and an app or a separately purchased guide.

Feature image courtesy of Flickr wilgengebroed.

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Report: Mobile Augmented Reality Today and Tomorrow

jgauntt1 — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 08:00:10 +0000

Mobile augmented reality (AR) brings computer-generated multimedia into an end-user’s literal field of vision. It merges real-time digital information with the user’s perceptions of his or her immediate physical surroundings. The mobile AR user simultaneously experiences physical reality and digital media consumption. This report looks at the growing mobile AR ecosystem, from the technologies and trends supporting its development to the applications, players, and business models driving innovation. The report includes a forecast for the number of mobile AR–capable devices, summarizes existing revenue forecasts for the nascent market, and leverages three in-depth case studies to demonstrate the intersections between markets, technologies, and companies in emerging applications.

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Layar Augmented Reality Browser Finally Available for iPhone

Darrell Etherington — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 16:00:20 +0000

Late Wednesday, augmented reality (subscription required) app Layar finally hit the App Store. It received a lot of buzz early on in the days of AR on mobile devices, and was released long ago for devices running Google’s Android OS.

The idea behind the browser is that multiple points of interest (POI) are displayed on top of a live feed from your camera. The POI information is drawn from multiple sources, which you can select from using the the menu at the bottom of the app. Each source provides different kinds of information, about transit, for instance, or about general tourist destinations, etc.

Fast Company can barely contain its enthusiasm for the new app, as is evident from the following quote:

The marriage between useful/fun/vital/helpful location-based data offered by Layar, the GPS and digital compass built into the iPhone 3GS (a 3G version is coming, Layar promises), and the legion of developers building new code for the platform give it a good shot at becoming the most popular AR browser on the market, if not a genuine killer app. Especially since it’s free.

While I admit that AR and its various applications are fairly exciting, and something that I’ve keyed in on in the past, I can’t seem to bring myself to apply the term “killer app” to this particular offering from Layar (subscription required). Not that it doesn’t do what it claims to. It does, and it does so for free, as Fast Company points out.

My problem is that it does it without much grace, or flair, or without anything to make it feel particularly well-suited to the iPhone platform. Admittedly, it was an Android app first, and maybe that’s why it doesn’t feel like it necessarily belongs on the iPhone, but I think it’s more than that.

For reference, compare Yelp’s “Monocle” AR feature to Layar’s implementation. Layar features a weird horizon plane grid that seems to be more distracting than anything else. Plus, with the cramped UI which tries to do too much on a single screen, I feel like I’m not actual getting as much usable information as I am with Yelp.

In short, despite the multiple filters it offers, and neat features like having those filters specially selected based on your geographical location, I don’t think I’ll ever be using Layar again. A ho-hum interface, and some odd usability quirks make this app feel like a tech demo that showed up at the party way too late. If you’re looking for usable AR, try Yelp’s Monocle mode, or just sit tight and wait for the next generation of AR apps.

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