Rating: Speed, View, Action!
To follow on some research I have been doing on the visual mobile search market I discovered a Swedish imaging software company that focuses on wireless devices called Scalado. Scalado provides mobile imaging solutions and touts a mission to make imaging on phones efficient by solving performance issues such as memory and CPU requirements.
I questioned Scalado – not so much on the solution but on its impact on the visual search and wireless environment. Here are five questions with Magnus Inglelsten, VP Marketing at Scalado.
Bena: What is currently wrong with taking a picture on a mobile device?
MAGNUS: As a phenomena, it is fantastic and great. But the fact is that a mobile camera phone is a multi media device, i.e. a multimedia computer in a shrunken and simplified format, means that all the functions such as the camera and image processing is not optimised like it is in a Digital still camera, where all DSP and chips are designed for one thing only. This means quality and speed are not yet there, neither are the extensive imaging features.
Bena: So how does SpeedView fix it?
MAGNUS: SpeedView is very much about adding information to the image already in the sensor or when saving the image, that makes it possible to browse, view, zoom and pan the image virtually, instantly without any waiting time. Scalado believe that the image gallery is the window to all imaging. It is about how easy you can find a particular image that makes you print, upload, share or send the image and this is really what mobile imaging and connectivity is all about... getting the photos off the device.
Bena: What are the benefits in the business space?
MAGNUS: Camera phones in the business space in general, I think are about the fact that an image paints 1000 words. It makes it efficient to explain, show, document many things and share with colleagues, customers and prospects. In most forms of commerce when trading you usually want to view the goods before you buy. If you can zoom and pan into the finer details of a high-res photo, you should be able to make decisions using the mobile, and not necessarily need to be there in person... perhaps also an argument here for helping to reduce the environmental impact of business travel. Solutions for instant viewing of high res images, being on the device or on a server is what Scalado can offer and the solutions are unique.
Bena: Will this assist third party offers or services from image recognition to picture search?
MAGNUS: Interestingly, the photo gallery is the entry point to all imaging. Imaging being... the editing of images, creating effects, sending to friends as e-mail, MMS, picture mail, sharing, blogging, uploading to social network sites like FaceBook and any other weird and wonderful sites that are out there - all this is irrespective of the image being on the device or somewhere else, where the cameraphone is essentially the remote control.
Nowadays, it's the user experience that is key. Identifying images on a server with slow up and down time, frustrating log-ins and far too many key pressings will keep people away, so this is a new area of focus for Scalado.
At the moment, it seems that everybody else has been thinking hard about how to get images off the device, but at Scalado we have been thinking about how to access all the worlds images from the device, and have come up with a nice application to access, browse and view images on web servers, as fast as if they were on the device. The Scalado SpeedView(tm) offers the user the capability and experience to access images on a web server as well as on the phone itself. With all these images both user generated and from the web, the problem then is - how to find the image you want? Image sorting and search is certainly an issue that many brains are occupied with at the moment. If the phone is equipped with GPS or base station info, images can be tagged with location, and used with applications such as Sho-zu and the Flickr map. This is great for other people who are looking for photos, but even better if the photos are categorized with the content. Personally, if I like a photo of a person or a special car model, I do not really care if the photo is shot in LA or Lincoln.
For people photos, face recognition technologies may come in handy and add another means of detecting and sorting the content. What if there is a 'cat detector' in the image server that would display all photos with a cat in, if you would ask for it? But for most people, keeping order using a dynamic tagging system in the phone or server, would be great, and simply using time (date, week, month), place (GPS or base station data), or a simple one click sorting when the picture is taken, makes your images also add tags like Work, Family, Holidays, My hobby, etc, that is pre-defined by your personal tastes. So whenever you want to find a photo in the future, you may actually find that you have many great ways to find an image!
Bena: How important will taking images on the mobile phone be for the enterprise market moving forward?
MAGNUS: Well, the enterprise market has a very diverse set of requirements, but certainly there is a segment that would need convenient ways to produce and convey images. Real estate, Insurance issues (e.g. car accidents), buying and selling at auctions, inspecting and reporting, police... the more you think about it, the more cases you will come up with. It is a learning curve, and people will need to get used to camera phones being able to do the job. A year or two ago they weren't up to the job, but today's 2-5 megapixel, Carl zeiss lenses etc, they certainly are! But also, even the enterprise user likes an easy to use and an attractive user experience and this market must not be underestimated. Perhaps, it will be required to create targeted attractive applications to suit the varying needs of different jobs and enterprise markets!
