Open Intelligence / Web 3X (Social + Mobile)

Third Eye, a new free Android game from Viewdle, uses a combination of augmented reality and facial recognition technology to make a whole new kind of mobile game.

Basically, everybody is either a Vampire or a Slayer and this "relic"--the Third Eye--can tell you which category you fall into by reading your "faceprint." You might be familiar with Viewdle's other Android app, SocialCamera, which uses facial recognition to automatically tag photos of your friends. The objective of the first part of Third Eye is to build your army and establish alliances. The second and third parts, which will come out later this year, pits your assembled clans against one another in all-out war.

Next, you'll want to start recruiting people for your army. Third Eye uses the same facial algorithm on your friends (or random strangers, if you're bold) to identify if they are a vampire or a slayer. You simply hold your phone up toward their face and the app will scan it to determine their fate. If they're a slayer and you're a vampire, you can either "Feed" aka suck their blood or "Ghoulify" and make them join your army.

The idea of a making payments via your mobile has been a slow adoption in Canada, mainly due to the lack of devices with NFC capabilities. A report last week noted that 10% of Canadians currently use a “mobile wallet” to pay for select items and bank via their cellphone, but 40% are interested in using it in the “future”. The Big 3 carriers (Rogers, Bell and TELUS) joined together to create Zoompass, Visa and MasterCard are conducting trials and a mobile payment trial is underway in Montreal called “MoneyCell”. So the ability to pay by your phone will become second nature over the next year to two years in Canada. PayPal Canada recently hired Leger Marketing to conduct a survey to see how comfortable Canadians were with the idea of a “digital wallet”. PayPal noted that they have “always provided digital wallet functionality” and 1,512 Canadians took the online survey between May 9th – May 12th. The survey revealed that 34% would rather carry a mobile phone to make a payment than a pocket full of change. 36% stated they would make mobile payments that range in all price points, such as an iPod ($272.30) or a latte ($5.50). 38% believe that paying from a mobile device is more convenient.

How would you feel about an iPhone app that claimed to be able to tell if that mole on your arm was not looking too healthy? That’s the claim of Skin Scan, an iPhone medical app available now on the Apple App Store. The startups has secured €50,000 Euro in seed funding from Seedmoney.

E-readers are outpacing tablets by a rapidly widening margin, Pew said in a new study. After a brief amount of parity for the second half of the year, e-readers doubled from just over six percent ownership in the US last November to 12 percent this May. Outside of a brief spurt during the holidays, the growth of the iPad and other tablets kept the same pace and rose from five percent to eight in the same period.

Overlap between the two was significant: three percent had both. Nine percent of Americans have just an e-reader and no tablet, where only five percent have just a tablet.

In spite of the adoption, either category still trails well behind others, Pew says. Thanks to about ten years of Apple's own efforts with the iPod, 44 percent of the US has an MP3 player. More than half have a computer or a DVR, and 83 percent have cellphones. Notebook PCs are now virtually on par with desktops for popularity with just one point of difference between the two.

Craig Mod dreams of a different sort of book: Imagine a future where instead of lending someone a book, you lend them your bookmarks. Where your notes, annotations and references are synchronized across platforms and applications. Where your bookmarks belong to you, and a record of every book you read is saved and stored securely, no matter how or where you read it. Kevin Kelly envisions how the publishing industry will adapt. Alexis Madrigal explores how the New York Public Library has moved beyond books, existing now as a social network with three million active users.

Zoosh is a new technology that brings NFC-like payments to any phone with a speaker — i.e. every smartphone on the market.

Using the almost-inaudible 20,000KHz range — which almost every cell phone speaker is capable of — Zoosh technology can then send data to a receiving microphone. The end point can either be a point of sale — a shop, a ticket machine — or it can be another mobile phone. Apparently the technology has been successfully used in noisy environments — and it’s also fairly safe to assume that a technology like Zoosh would be designed to incorporate as much redundancy and error checking as possible.

Narrate, the company behind Zoosh, envisions two main use cases for its ultrasonic payment system. The first is just like Google Wallet: for $30 — a third of the price of NFC hardware — Narrate says that points of sale can be upgraded to accept Zoosh payments.

Not long ago, we reported on a prototype thin, flexible smartphone known as the Paperphone. While it isn't actually made out of paper, the success of a research project at North Carolina State University indicates that phones in the future could be. Scientists there have been able to deposit conductive nanocoatings onto textiles, meaning that items such as pieces of paper or clothing could ultimately be used as electronic devices.

smart fabrics.

"Research like this has potential health and monitoring applications since we could potentially create a uniform with cloth sensors embedded in the actual material that could track heart rate, body temperature, movement and more in real time," said Dr. Jesse Jur, NCSU assistant professor of textile engineering, chemistry and science, and lead author of a paper on the technology. "To do this now, you would need to stick a bunch of wires throughout the fabric - which would make it bulky and uncomfortable."

That viral growth is deserved, too. Turntable.fm is arguably the most interesting social startup to emerge in a long time. Inventing a new subgenre, ‘social listening’, the site revels in something humans have enjoyed for millennia: shared experiences around music. If you haven’t tried it yet, here’s how it works: You can only sign up if a friend of yours on Facebook is already signed up. Once you’re in, the site lets you DJ, playing songs in an on-screen ‘nightclub’. Others come to listen to you in your ‘room’ and can join you on the decks if they choose. Multiple DJs (up to five) play a song each in turn and everyone else in the room gets to vote on the current DJ’s choice. If your choice gets voted up, you get a point. If it gets voted down by too many people it’s ditched for the next DJ’s choice.

when DJs demonstrate that they’re listening to each other by playing off each others’ track selections, there’s a commonality that transcends… individual achievements. Social games that offer the promise of individual success may be missing out on the uniqueness of shared experiences capable of creating shared surprise and pleasure. As when tracks flow well, as when it’s clear that DJs are not just picking their own favorites but show that they’re paying attention to each other, as when a “good” stretch of DJing attracts newcomers to the room, and so on.

A new way for media companies to interact with their audiences: Earlier this week, we experimented with setting up our own The Next Web room (you can often find TNW staff spinning tunes in there). One tweet brought in a crowded room and it was fun for us to be able to play music with our readers. Music is a brilliant bonding tool and being able to have direct group chat with readers can help media companies get to know their audience better, and vice versa. I even got teased with knowledge of a stealth startup over the chat function yesterday – so maybe we’ll get a few news tips this way too!

Their solution to competing with their larger (more supermarkets) competitor was to create virtual stores using large wall spaces in subway stations that are full-size photos of their supermarket products. Customers use thei smartphones to scan QRcodes to a virtual shopping cart. Once the order is complete, the items are delivered directly to them after they arrive at their homes. Homeplus: Virtual Subway Store (WeLoveViral) More than ten thousand customers visited the online store using their smartphones. New registered members rose by 76% and online sales rose 130%. This marketing and sales technique increased their sales without increasing retail store space. And, it made shopping more convenient for busy people. Thanks to Megan O’Neill for the pointer to this great mobile story.

Online video is exploding, with annual user growth of more than 45 percent. Mobile-device time spent increased 28 percent last year — with average smartphone time spent doubling. And social networks are now used by 90 percent of U.S. Internet users — for an average of more than four hours a month.

Every venture capitalist, Web publisher, and digital marketer is hyper-aware of these three trends.

What replaces the declining searchable Web is a new and “fully connected” digital life. You may have heard this before. After all, the promise of the Web was to connect pages with hyperlinks. Well, this time, “connected” means much more. It means the Web connects us, as people, to each one of the individuals online; and those connections, ultimately, extend from one of us to all of us.

Program doesn't require coupons or NFC chips; discounts appear on Amex statements after a purchase

Computerworld - American Express Thursday announced the national rollout of mobile payment system that pairs its Amex credit card with a user's smartphone-based Foursquare profile to offer discounts for retail purchases. The discounts, initially available from retailers H&M and Sports Authority, are credited to a user's Amex card within three to five days of a purchase, the company said, adding that no coupons, smartphone codes or NFC smartphone chips are needed. Foursquare, a mobile platform that uses GPS technology, currently has more than 10 million subscribers who use the service as a social network to share their location with friends. The joint effort requires that cardholders register with Amex to link their card to their Foursquare profile.

SAS Airlines begins distributing NFC stickers for frequent flyers' mobile phones; Help Alert solution supports mobile-phone app for student and staff safety; Sony Ericsson selects NXP's NFC solution for its Android-based smartphones; Isle of Wight Festival guests sport contactless wristbands; U.K. mental-health facility deploys AeroScout's patient- and staff-safety solution; Secura Key offers updated card-ordering guide, intros Web training; Libelium adds new sensor board to Smart Cities solution.

“Wireless sensor networks are the enabling technology for key applications in defense, health care, home and industrial automation and energy management. Technology leaders have recognized this fact and are providing high end application solutions for their customers based on advanced WSN technology. The Millennial Net Energy Management System which includes LEM energy sub meters, wireless pneumatic thermostats and numerous other devices allow for monitoring and control of commercial, public and light industrial buildings of several hundred thousand square feet with unprecedented scalability and reliability, leading to substantial energy savings and ROIs of around 1 year,” said Dieter Schill, President and CEO of Millennial Net.

This gateway connects the networked devices to existing Building Management System via BACnet or communicates with hosted internet-based application for monitoring and control. The devices are designed to work with legacy HVAC systems, fixtures, and appliances, making it unnecessary to upgrade HVAC equipment to save energy. Energy savings are achieved by improved compliance and energy policy enforcement.

The global optical networking (ON) market will reach revenues of $20 billion by 2016, as the sector pulls itself out of the economic downturn, predicts Ovum in a new forecast. However, the independent telecoms analyst warns that although the global market will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6% from 2010 to 2016, not all of the regions will see strong growth. Ian Redpath, Ovum analyst and author of the forecast, said that "increasing bandwidth from residential broadband networks, mobile networks, and enterprises is the key driver of the growth. Carriers are investing in access networks and mobile long term evolution (LTE) rollouts are beginning to gain momentum. The ON market is also reaching a watershed moment in terms of technology. Networks based on 40G and 100G wavelengths are now poised for mass-market deployment.

Vehicle tracking and recovery remains the major application area for wireless M2M communication in the security industry, using devices that combine GPS with GSM and GPRS technologies. The main markets in terms of units and value include tracking of passenger cars and commercial vehicles. However, there are also several emerging niche markets, such as construction equipment as well as leisure vehicles and boats.

“There is still a significant untapped potential in the residential market segment for monitored alarms,” commented André Malm, senior analyst at Berg Insight. He added that only about 25% of the 30 million alarm systems in Europe are connected to an alarm receiving centre. The latest generation of monitored alarm systems with GSM and GPRS is well adapted to the residential market as many households abandon PSTN services.

Currently NFC is seen as one of the most exciting areas in our industry in terms of revenue generation: projections show up to 700 million NFC-enabled mobile phones will be sold by 2013, according to Jupiter Research. At Nokia, however, we would argue that the industry's current focus on secure NFC may be at the expense of realizing the potential of open NFC. As pioneers in NFC technology, and as a founder of the NFC Forum, Nokia believes that open NFC will have a far greater impact on consumer behavior and the NFC ecosystem than secure NFC will. Open NFC has the potential to spur a vast number of business opportunities for developers, retailers, advertisers, electronics manufacturers and others.

NFC tags, which cost only a few cents, offer huge potential for advertisers, retailers and others to reach, reward and stay in touch with their customers. These tags can be promoted at any location, including a phone retail point, a coffee shop, or even at the local supermarket, with immediate and measurable results.

Open NFC will benefit consumers on a much larger scale and get people familiar with using their device for NFC interactions, before secure NFC reaches a high level of penetration. As more and more NFC phones come to the market in 2011 and 2012, open NFC will change the way consumers interact with each other and open up a host of opportunities for developers both large and small.

Card.io, which was founded by Mike Mettler and Josh Bleecher, has raised $1 million in seed funding.

Card.io is focused on solving a specific part of the mobile payments business — buying things with a credit card on the phone, whether it’s digital goods, like a song, or physical goods from a site like Amazon.

Rather than having to type in the credit card number, users just hold a credit card up to the phone’s camera, which automatically reads the card information and enters the appropriate data.

The global optical networking market is estimated to reach revenues of $20 billion in 2016, according to analyst firm Ovum. The global market is forecast to grow at 6% CAGR between 2010 and 2016, driven by investment from carriers in 40G and 100G networks. This level of growth, however, will vary according to region, with the North American market, for instance, estimated to grow by 12% this year while the Asia-Pacific market is predicted to contract by a further 3.2% in 2011. “Increasing bandwidth from residential broadband networks, mobile networks, and enterprises is the key driver of the growth. Carriers are investing in access networks and mobile long-term evolution (LTE) roll-outs are beginning to gain momentum,” said Ovum analyst Ian Redpath. “The optical networking market is also reaching a watershed moment in terms of technology. Networks based on 40G and 100G wavelengths are now poised for mass-market deployment.”

Of course, oftentimes you don’t really want to tell all of your friends where you are, and even then you may only want them to be able to see your whereabouts for a short while. That’s where Glympse comes in. The service, which is based entirely around ‘sharing your where’ with select friends a few hours at a time, has just raised a $7.5 million Series B funding round led by Menlo Ventures and Ignition Partners.

Say, for example, you were running late for a meeting and wanted your coworkers to have a sense for when you’d be arriving at the office. Instead of having to send a series of text messages (“15 minutes..”, “traffic bad, make that 30 min”, and so on), you could just send a Glympse that let them track your progress on a map. Then, when you arrived, you could turn the Glympse off and the map would stop updating.

So where is Glympse going next? The company isn’t sharing much about its future plans, other than to say that they’re working with partners to integrate the product into “the everyday life experience”. In other words, expect them to move well beyond their own iPhone and Android apps in the near future.

Mobile advertising revenue reached $700 million in the U.S. in 2011, according to Gartner research group. That’s a drop in the ocean compared to Internet ad revenue, which hit $7.3 billion in just the first quarter of 2011, according to figures from the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Concerns about privacy, tracking and the disclosure of personal information could limit the number of people opting in to targeted or local ad mobile campaigns, said Jason Koslofsky, an attorney who specializes in consumer privacy and telecommunications at Arent Fox. Businesses have also been hesitant for these same reasons. “It hurts brands if it looks as though they are generating spam,” Koslofsky said, adding,“companies shouldn’t want to be seen as though they are tracking their users’ every move.”

While 9% of adults in the U.S. said they would use their phones to learn about in-store promotions or event, interest in location-based offers was low, according to a report in February by Forrester Research. Only 6% of adults in the U.S. said that they are interested in receiving location-based retail offers on their mobile phones and only 4% are interested in receiving time-sensitive promotions such as daily specials.