While we are thrilled with this license, we’re far more excited to be working with a team as forward-thinking and passionate as Ipplex. They’ve built a range of technologies which form a perfect complement to our own and together we’re actively working on a number of applications which will set new standards within the mobile market.

The power of this partnership is nowhere better evidenced than with LookTel, an Augmented Reality application for the visually impaired, which Ipplex is launching this week at CTIA Wireless. Not surprisingly, LookTel is a finalist in CTIA’s Emerging Technology (E-Tech) Awards, in the Healthcare/Public Safety/Transportation Category. In our opinion, nothing else comes close to having the same kind of potential impact on the market as LookTel.

The application itself is meritorious on a purely humanitarian basis. With 345 million visually impaired people globally and 11 million in the US alone (according to the WHO), plus millions of elderly – LookTel stands to make a direct, positive impact on the lives of a huge portion of the human race. By harnessing the incredible power afforded by various technologies within the mobile industry, including smartphones and our recognition technologies, LookTel allows us to take a significant step toward making society more inclusive of everyone. Smartphones don’t just allow us to manage emails and log-on to Facebook, they augment the senses we use to interact with our world. LookTel now does that for the visually impaired, by using image recognition capabilities to act as the “eyes” for those whose own eyesight can’t, and by using augmented reality to make the entire application simple, intuitive and as natural as possible.

LookTel also further proves the point we’ve been making for quite some time – relying on location as the basis for mobile phone user interaction is, in most cases, very limiting. Location is quite useful for navigation, but secondary to the type of data mobile phone users need in many situations. LookTel’s augmented reality uses true image recognition, not location, to determine what is in the phone’s field of vision. Other apps on the market use some variant of geo-location data to determine what the phone is pointing at relative to its location – this is completely limited. Aside from not accounting for real time environmental changes, it’s useless in recognizing what’s actually in front of you. You can’t point a location-based AR app at a twenty dollar bill and have it tell you anything meaningful. You can, however, point LookTel at a street corner and have it tell you exactly, precisely where you are.

LookTel is merely the first augmented reality application we will produce in partnership with Ipplex. We’re combining our collective technologies to build commerce, healthcare and industrial apps which will have the same kind of impact in their respective sectors that LookTel is making for the visually impaired.

We are proud to be in partnership with a team who not only stand at the forefront of technological development, but who understand the importance of applying its power to help others. Together we will create commercially standard-setting applications – and we’ll continue to find ways of harnessing the power of mobile technology for the betterment of humanity.

Watch the demo and you’ll see for yourself. And while doing so, take a moment to be grateful that you can – and you’ll better understand why LookTel is such an important development.

To read our press release about the unveiling of LookTel and our partnership with Ipplex, please click here.

dwm
Image Credit: LookTel/Ipplex

We see an increasing number of competitors in this sector — mostly companies attempting to use bar code scanners or some form of QR codes or other odd, unattractive symbols. The problem with every one of these is that no matter how clever the symbol, ultimately they are very ugly and they alter and ruin all the efforts put into brand creativity and advertising. They’re also completely unnecessary. Besides the fact that nearly all of these infringe upon our patents, our technology consistently achieves over 96% accuracy recognizing any naked image – without the need for adulterating symbols or embedded watermarks. Again and again, ours is proven the best choice for both retailers and consumers.   In Japan — where QR codes originated and are ubiquitous — we’re now constantly being approached by people telling us they no longer want to use them and much prefer the flexibility and results we can provide.

All of this has taken us to the point where we felt it time to start reaching out directly to consumers, as more and more of them are downloading our applications and using our technology every day. We’ve therefore added this blog into our site — and integrated Facebook, Twitter, RSS feed and Share This options — to better serve our customers and consumers. We’ll be using these social media outlets to keep the dialogue open and flowing in both directions — most importantly, to ensure we provide the best service we can. We believe every mobile phone should be a Discovery Device ™ and with your help and ideas we’ll continue creating, learning and growing our technology and our apps to answer your needs. I invite everyone to connect with us and let us know what we can do with our technologies to make your life better.

All the best,

dwm

President & CEO

Image Credit: Paul Rumohr, www.prpic.com