Evolution
Robotics ViPR visual search technology is coming to the iPhone this
June. ViPR allows to take a photo of any movie, CD or book, send it to
a server, and automagically get an email back loaded with
information and links pointing to YouTube videos or iTunes Music Store
links. It will also be deployed in Japan on KDDI's au camera phones
this Spring. As you will see in the iPhone demo after the jump, it
works incredibly well, even when the object is partially occluded:
It seems like the perfect software for the laziest people in the
world, but it's one of those "oh wow" things that will make everyone
smile when using it.
Breakthrough Visual Search Engine for Mobile Phones Takes Off Big in Japan
Pasadena, CA & Tokyo, Japan - April 17, 2008 - Evolution Robotics
Inc., a leading robotics technology company, in partnership with Bandai
Networks Co. Ltd, Japan's leading mobile content provider, announced
today that KDDI Corporation is including the "ER Search" visual search
engine on its new Spring 2008 "au™" line of camera phones, and has made
it available for download for any KDDI customer with a prior "au"
camera phone. This launch marks a dramatic expansion in the market for
mobile visual search, which will enable millions of consumers in Japan
alone to do online searches by taking pictures of everyday objects with
their camera phone.
The deployment of this technology in the mass market also opens up
an entirely new range of categories of services for mobile marketing,
which is already projected to grow to $24 Billion worldwide by 2013.
(Source: ABI Research)
ER Search is a mobile search engine operated by Bandai Networks and
powered by Evolution Robotics' ViPR visual pattern recognition system.
It works essentially like using a traditional search engine, but
without having to type any text or go through complicated menus.
Instead, users simply snap a picture of something they're interested in
and immediately get back relevant content, all in the palm of the hands.
As an example, KDDI customers will be able to take a picture of a
music CD that would return links relating to the artist, hear clips
from the album and purchase songs to download on their phone. If they
are shopping for wine in a store, they can take a picture of the wine
label and get expert reviews and recommendations on the spot. Or, if
they are browsing through a catalog and see an item they'd like to buy,
they can order it immediately by snapping a picture of the item on the
page.
"ER Search is an entirely new way for connecting consumers with
content and companies," said Satoshi Oshita, CEO of Bandai Networks.
"Because ER Search runs on mobile phones, searches happen when and
where the customer is, as soon as they see something that they're
interested in. Additionally, the fact that a customer simply has to
click a picture of a product or advertisement, makes the search process
far easier and immediate than anything that has been available before."
"We are very pleased to be working with Bandai Networks and are
excited to see the momentum building in the Japanese market," said
Paolo Pirjanian, President and CEO of Evolution Robotics. "Our mission
is to take aerospace-grade technologies and make them affordable for
mass market applications, and ER Search is a great example. We see this
as just the start of a growing market for visual search in Asia and
other parts of the globe and are actively working with our partners to
expand the range of services that can benefit consumers and companies
alike."
Bandai Networks had already deployed ER Search on over one million
phones in Japan in 2007. With this deployment with KDDI, the number of
users with access to ER Search will expand by millions more in a very
short time, making it even more compelling for companies and
advertisers to participate in the service.
About ViPR
The ViPR technology easily supports user-generated content so that
users can take new pictures of objects, images, videos or even
locations and tag them with links and content to expand the database.
That content will then show up in the results returned to other users
who take similar pictures, thus creating a robust world-wide visual
database for communities to develop and access. (A video demonstration
of Evolution Robotics' visual search technology running on Apple's
iPhone can be seen at: http://www.youtube.com/user/EvolutionRobotics)
ER Search's versatility rests in Evolution Robotics' breakthrough
ViPR visual recognition technology. ViPR is able to learn new objects
and images on the fly (such as the cover art on a music CD), without
the need for any special encoding such as barcodes or watermarks. Just
as significant, ViPR performs well on low cost components such as the
cameras used on most mobile phones today, even when lighting and other
visual conditions are poor.
For the music search application alone, Bandai Networks has over
150,000 music CD covers already indexed in their database. Other mobile
marketing and mobile commerce applications include providing content
and links for print ads, book covers, DVDs, product packaging, movie
posters, retail displays, business signs, etc. Even animation,
streaming video or images from live TV can be supported.
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