Nokia's CTO Talks Embedded Cell Phone Projectors
Thursday, November 30, 2006
Nokia World: Fancy a 100GB mobile phone with a built-in projector?
What will mobile phones be like in 2010? Ask Tero Ojanpera, Nokia's chief technology officer, who did the final keynote speech at the Nokia World conference today. And he's not short of ideas:
1. "A navigation device in 2010 will be similar to the N95, but it will deduce information from your calendar, then input the navigation and take you to the place you need to go."
2. "If you're a journalist, you'll be documenting an event like this with your 10-megapixel camera, and you will be taking videos with your HDTV-quality video camera that's embedded in your mobile device."
3. "Say you're starving for your Latte. Your devices finds the various coffee machines for you, sends the parameters of your Latte over the Internet, so that when you walk to that machine, your Latte has been brewed."
But the most interesting idea he floated during his speech was of phones with 100GB of internal memory, containing every single item of media you own - music, films, photos, documents and so on.
"Your whole media will be indexed and there for you to take with you," said Ojanpera, before getting back on a futurology tip. "If you come to Amsterdam, you might film some tulip fields in HDTV video, and then later go to a friend's house and show those videos projected onto the wall, using the projector that's been integrated within your device. All of this will be possible within three years."
"Imagine you want to go to the Van Gogh museum, so you locate it using your device, and then browse through the internet the opening times, and some reviews that people have posted. Once you get there, next to the paintings you can touch tacks with your Near Field Communication-enabled phone to initiate a service that connects back to the internet, and fetches information about the painting, and perhaps reviews by other visitors."
There was also something about sensors embedded in your shoes detecting that it's raining, so sending a message to your phone to direct you to the nearest bus stop, but I think he was getting carried away by this point. I liked another idea though, which Nokia is apparently already doing, of porting internet servers into mobile phone, so your phone can itself act as a server.
"It enables the mobile device not only to access the Internet, but to be accessed," said Ojanpera. "You could store all your documents and pictures that you would like to share in that tiny server, and somebody else can access them if you allow it. This will fundamentally change the information architecture of the internet. And this is happening today. We have put the server into open source, and it is starting to spread."
Labels: Mobile Phone, Mobile TV, PicoP
posted by Ben @ 9:38 AM,
,
Some Thoughts
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Icuiti's latest: the VR920 headset
Here's another VR-type headset from Icuiti...it's really interesting to see what other companies are doing in the head-worn display space.
Although it's still to be determined whether this product will be a winner, it's pretty clear to me that the appeal of this product is potentially limited to a relatively small niche market of 'ubergamers'.
Now there are just a handful of comments on the Engadget post for this item so far (link above) -- but you can see that the initial responses basically make fun of the product as if it's something from Star Trek.
So, what can be learned from this?
Maybe a couple of things. The category of headworn displays still has a 'geek stigma' associated with it. While the form-factors and feature sets of products like this are improving, they seem unable to flip the switch that ignites the fascination of the real mass market.
So, what's missing here? Well, super hardcore PC gamers, who would probably be the target market for a product like this, are a relatively small portion of the population. They may not worry about people making Star Trek jokes about them if a device like this really improves their gaming experience -- and maybe this product really would do just that.
But let's face it. In order to become a mass market phenomenon, the entire paradigm of wearable displays as we've known them will probably need a total revolution.
These displays are for sitting in your gaming chair, hooking up to your PC, and going for as close to full-on virtual reality as we can get. The question is, how many people really want to do that? Is the interest level in that activity high in the world out there, generally speaking?
I'm not necessarily convinced of that...yet. I think VR will eventually become compelling for the mainstream market. We can indeed see some pretty exciting precursors in virtuality sites like Second Life and other massively multiplayer online games.
But even if there's no flaw in the design or form-factor of devices like this one, there may just not be the willingness to engage in the types of applications that really leverage the advantages of a display like this. Think about it this way -- most uber hardcore gamers already have pretty expensive widescreen LCD displays to go with their Alienware PCs. In reality, a small, comparatively low-resolution screen that's amplified my magnifying glasses may be a less optimal viewing experience than just continuing to game on with the display they already own.
Now, theoretically the real world is blocked out providing greater immersion in the game world, and the head tracking capability described here could be a big value-add. But I'm not sure if the whole premise isn't slightly off -- or maybe just too early yet.
And yet, there's continuous interest and ongoing pursuit of new and innovative head-worn display solutions, from numerous companies. It seems to be generally accepted that one day, one of these displays will hit the target and ignite a fire of demand in the mainstream -- or at least generate some significant sales.
Without going into too much detail, what I can tell you is that the Color Eyewear displays from Microvision will take a different angle from what you've seen coming from other companies...
Labels: Color Eyewear, Virtual Reality
posted by Ben @ 9:06 PM,
,
...Beautiful Morning
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Here's what it looked like this morning behind our house...
Being from Boston, I'm pretty well used to massive blizzards. This was the first time that I can remember abandoning my car somewhere in order to make it home, though.
Supposedly this kind of snowstorm is a once-in-a-decade type event up here in the Seattle area. Pretty amazing!
posted by Ben @ 1:15 PM,
,
Google: 'iPod will hold all the world's TV in 12 years'
Google: 'iPod will hold all the world's TV in 12 years'
The future of music inspires the future of mobileIf the storage is not on the client device side but instead on a massive server somewhere, and the client device simply streams the content from the server in real-time via high-speed wireless networks, we can imagine this scenario of an iPod with immediate access to all the world's video much sooner than 10 or 12 years out.
By Jo Best
Published: Monday 27 November 2006
The idea of fitting your entire music collection into a single device the size of a packet of cigarettes might have seemed outlandish 15 years ago. But that was before the iPod. Now, one Google exec is predicting the iPod will lead a further media transformation of similar magnitude in the coming decade.
Speaking at the FT World Communications Conference, Nikesh Arora, Google's VP of European operations, told delegates that, in the coming years, the plummeting price of storage and its increasing volume-to-size ratio will give iPods almost unlimited potential to hold music and video.
Arora said, by 2012, iPods could launch at similar prices to those on sale now and yet be capable of holding a whole year's worth of video releases. Around 10 years down the line that could be expanded, creating iPods that can hold all the music ever sold commercially.
He said: "In 12 years, why not an iPod that can carry any video ever produced?" The Google exec said tech is now pursuing a price volume game - searching for the price point at which content will take off for the mainstream.
He added: "It's clearly begun happening," citing iTunes' 99 cent per song download model.
And, Arora believes, mobile is likely to follow the same path. "Mobile is not going to be a different thing," he added - and if the mobile industry is to capitalise on the growth of content, it would be wise to ape the development of the internet.
He said: "The mobile industry has to go through the same phases the internet has gone through... Mobile will have the same learning curve. It would be somewhat foolish to leapfrog the stages the internet went through.
"But before they get there, they will need to satisfy the basic things people are used to doing on the internet."
In 12 years, why not an iPod that can carry any video ever produced?
As a result, the Google VP believes, there will be greater convergence between mobile and internet, as consumers expect to be able to access traditional web content and services on the mobile platform.
Google has already begun to exploit the union by expanding its ad sales business to the world of mobile, after signing deals with operators in Asia and Europe.
The search giant's CEO believes advertising will eventually go on to play a greater role in the mobile industry: eventually doing away with subscriptions in favour of users agreeing to watch targeted advertising.
On the mobile side, you can't argue with these points. It's particularly acute for Google to advocate for web-style open standards on mobile platforms since they could potentially leverage their business into mobile in a spectacularly profitable way -- but the mobile operators are the gatekeepers and have disproportionate power to determine the customer experience in the mobile space. These operators clearly see the value of mobile search and advertising and will either try to navigate around Google to claim that revenue all for themselves, or partner with Google directly as KDDI in Japan has -- since it stands to reason that this is what their users would prefer as a mobile search engine/advertiser.
It's my belief that the dimension of location will allow Google or other mobile advertisers to most effectively target users in the mobile domain. We can conceive of the idea of 'branded space', wherein a person walks through a given area and accesses virtual billboards, coupons and other types of product offerings. While the beginnings of this type of location-enabled 'm-commerce' are establishing themselves in Japan and South Korea, it's pretty wide open here in the US.
It's clear to me that Color Eyewear offers a huge value to these mobile players, since the idea of 'branded space' requires a see-through information overlay on the real world. Holding up a mobile phone to see what new offers come your way as you walk through town is only the earliest approximation of what will be possible looking out a little ways.
Thanks to River_Traveler98.
Labels: Color Eyewear, Mobile Phone, Mobile TV
posted by Ben @ 9:45 AM,
,
Amazing Night
Monday, November 27, 2006
The Seattle area got hit with a surprise blizzard tonight during rush hour -- I took this photo on my walk after the road home was blocked by numerous stalled cars. Fortunately for me, I was able to get my car to a parking lot near a Starbucks. I left it there, got a triple mocha and set off on a pretty epic hike home.
As luck would have it, I had brought my parka to work for the first time this year. This proved to be an excellent decision.
It was absolutely wild to see the snow pounding down, and all the cars either stuck, stalled or unfortunately crashed. Hiking up and down the hills between work and home, watching the snow fall and watching out for the traffic was a memorable experience. When I got home, my wife and kids were at our neighbor's house, playing with their boys out in the snow. Pretty great.
Nights like tonight you remember for a long time (with fondness, as I was able to avoid any accidents)...and they make the value proposition of a big SUV with traction control pretty inescapable!
posted by Ben @ 10:13 PM,
,
Anonymous Said...
Here's a really great comment from my recent post about Color Eyewear that I'd like to do my best to answer...
As someone who's been on the edge on investing in MVIS for quite some time, I'm also interested to know just how good the core technology is, as in does it blow everything else out of the water? Living in Europe, I obviously haven't been able to see any prototypes for myself.
There must be a big difference between what Microvision and companies like eMagin are doing. They're basically just using tiny LCD screens, right? The question is, will Microvision's Color Eyewear provide a viewing experience comparable to or even transcending television? The resolution would have to be HD, not to forget great contrast and field of vision.
I'd just like to have some kind of an idea of where Color Eyewear in its present form stands, qualitatively, when compared to other ways of getting information into the human visual cortex. Also, what can we expect in the future, say the next five years?
Thanks for this question. There are some big differences between what Microvision is doing and what every other display company is doing. The most fundamental being that we are scanning beams of light temporally and spatially to create a virtual image. There is no screen with our technology, just beams of light that are moving at very fast speeds and appear to create a persistent image on your field of view.
At the heart of our technology across all of our product initiatives is the Integrated Photonics Module, which is a tiny projector engine that contains red, green and blue lasers, electronics, optics and a MEMS scanner in an ultra-thin package. The same IPM components and packaging (with some amount of reconfiguring) can be leveraged across the MicroHUD (automotive and aerospace head-up display), PicoP (embedded or accessory full-color ultra-miniature projector) and Color Eyewear (lightweight fashion eyewear with embedded display) product lines.
So, the IPM is key to our strategy and to our competitive advantage. Every other display technology has a physical, fixed-pixel substrate that is so big by so tall and takes up real estate in the real world. As the mobile phone has eclipsed and subsumed all other forms of consumer electronics, the need is becoming acute to deliver a big screen experience without compromising the small, thin, pocketable form-factors that really drive demand for new models of cell phones.
Now there are technologies that unfurl displays from inside a tube, and there are other things like this that we pay close attention to. But we feel that the ultra-miniature laser projector is the most elegant way to get big experiences into super-compact form-factors. And there is strong market pull for our solutions that tells us we're on the right track.
Another key to our competitive advantage is that we use spectrally pure lasers. Lasers can be bright enough for viewing in all ambient lighting conditions, unlike LCDs, and they enable us to display an extremely wide color gamut.
As I mentioned in my prior post, we intend to couple our IPM with a new optical design that will allow us to assemble lightweight, fashionable eyewear with an integrated, embedded display engine, in both see-through and immersive configurations.
We believe that technical and performance specs are extremely important to creating a valuable user experience -- and just as important are the ergonomic, fashion and usability concerns that have inhibited adoption of other forms of wearable displays. We'll meet these concerns head on by innovating and taking into account the real-world needs of customers, whether they be videogamers or cell phone users, or industrial workers. The focus will always be on usability and having a holistic view of the user experience of the entire product -- the union between the eyewear hardware and the content/application software infrastructure.
Over the coming weeks, we'll unveil our newest IPM design at CES in Las Vegas. At the same time, we're also working on a contract for the government that is bringing us closer to a see-through display solution with a form-factor of a pair of fashion eyewear.
Looking out over the next five years, we expect to have Color Eyewear successfully launched across a variety of segments, in a variety of configurations. We also expect the same IPM that powers Color Eyewear to power head-up displays in a variety of cars and for our PicoP personal projector to be designed into mobile phones by the leading handset OEMs.
Now, a lot of work has to be done to get us there, and there are no guarantees of success in any high-tech endeavour. But we feel a lot of confidence about the path we're on and about the value we can bring to anyone who needs a big display in a compact form-factor.
Labels: Color Eyewear, MicroHUD, Mobile Phone, PicoP
posted by Ben @ 5:39 PM,
,
A New Look
As I'm sure you've noticed, MVIS Blog has a new look. I hadn't updated the basic template since I started this site back in 2004, and I thought it was time for a change.
I'm adding a sidebar with links to some of my favorite industry sites (more to come soon), and the comments will now appear in a pop-up window rather than at the end of posts.
I'm noticing a little bit of weirdness with things not displaying properly. The site currently looks great in Firefox but is missing items in IE, like the Archives, Terms of Use and other stuff. So I'm hoping to get that resolved in the near term.
Anyway, what do you guys think of the new look?
Edit: Hey, looks like it's working now in IE as well.
posted by Ben @ 12:14 PM,
,
Exciting News
Sunday, November 26, 2006
Hey everyone,
Last week I was promoted to Product Manager, Color Eyewear. I'll be leading cross-functional teams to bring Color Eyewear to market, ensuring synergy between our government wearable display programs and our commercial display platforms, and working to lay the groundwork for successful launches of Color Eyewear across a variety of targeted markets.
I'm thankful for this opportunity and want each of you to know that I will work diligently to ensure that Microvision leverages our rapidly developing and unique wearable display platform into many exciting high-volume opportunities.
We believe that the combination of our Integrated Photonics Module with our proprietary ultra-thin optical designs will yield breakthrough eyewear displays that will allow us to address multiple large and growing market segments. We expect to provide inexpensive, high-performance Color Eyewear that makes a real difference in people's lives and enhances the value and usability of digital services across a variety of industries.
Stay tuned...!
Labels: Color Eyewear, IPM
posted by Ben @ 6:42 PM,
,
Notice Of Special Meeting of Stockholders
Form 14A
Dear Microvision Shareholder:For additional information on the Special Meeting of Stockholders, click the link above for the full Form 14A.
The Special Meeting of Shareholders of Microvision, Inc. (the "Company"), will be held at the Redmond Inn, 17601 Redmond Way, Redmond, Washington 98052 on January 18, 2007 at 9:00 a.m. for the following purposes:
1. To approve an amendment to the Company's Certificate of Incorporation to increase the number of authorized shares of common stock; and
2. To conduct any other business that may properly come before the meeting and any adjournment or postponement of the meeting.
Details of the business to be conducted at the meeting are more fully described in the accompanying Proxy Statement. Please read it carefully before casting your vote.
If you were a shareholder of record on November 27, 2006, you will be entitled to vote on the above matters. A list of shareholders as of the record date will be available for shareholder inspection at the headquarters of the Company, 6222 185 th Avenue NE, Redmond, Washington 98052, during ordinary business hours, from January 8, 2007 to the date of our Special Meeting. The list also will be available for inspection at the Special Meeting.
PROPOSAL:
AMENDMENT TO THE COMPANY'S CERTIFICATE OF INCORPORATION
The Company's Certificate of Incorporation currently permits the Company to issue up to an aggregate of 98,000,000 shares of capital stock, consisting of 73,000,000 shares of common stock and 25,000,000 shares of preferred stock. On October 24, 2006, the Company's Board of Directors unanimously approved an amendment to the Company's Certificate of Incorporation to permit the Company to issue up to an aggregate of 150,000,000 shares of capital stock, consisting of 125,000,000 shares of common stock and 25,000,000 shares of preferred stock. The text of the proposed amendment is set forth below.
As of November 21, 2006, there were approximately 42,967,000 shares of the Company's common stock issued and outstanding and approximately 25,602,000 shares of common stock reserved for future issuance under the Company's outstanding options, warrants and convertible securities. Thus, approximately 4,431,000 authorized shares of common stock currently remain available for issuance.
The Board of Directors would like to increase the number of authorized shares of common stock to provide the Company with flexibility to issue shares of common stock for general corporate purposes, which could include, among other uses, financings, strategic partnering arrangements, equity incentive plans, acquisitions of assets or businesses, stock splits or stock dividends. The availability of additional authorized shares of common stock would allow the Company to accomplish these goals, and other business and financial objectives, in the future without stockholder approval, except as may be required in particular cases by the Company's charter documents, applicable law or the rules of any stock exchange or other system on which the Company's securities may then be listed. In addition to the more traditional uses described above, the Company could issue shares of its stock as a defense against efforts to obtain control of the Company. The Board of Directors does not intend or view the increase in authorized shares of stock as an anti-takeover measure, nor is the Company aware of any proposed or contemplated transaction of this type.
If this proposal is approved, the newly authorized shares of common stock would have the same rights as the presently authorized shares, including the right to cast one vote per share of common stock. Although the authorization of additional shares would not, in itself, have any effect on the rights of any holder of the Company's common stock, the future issuance of additional shares of common stock (other than a stock split or dividend) would have the effect of diluting the voting rights and could have the effect of diluting earnings per share and book value per share of existing stockholders. If this proposal is not approved, the Company would be limited in its ability to respond quickly to opportunities to engage in various transactions involving issuances of common stock, such as financings, strategic partnering arrangements, equity incentive plans and acquisitions of assets or businesses.
If approved, the first paragraph of Article IV of the Company's Certificate of Incorporation will be amended to read in its entirety as follows:
"The total number of shares of capital stock which this corporation shall have the authority to issue is one hundred fifty million (150,000,000) shares, consisting of (i) one hundred twenty five million (125,000,000) shares of common stock, $.001 par value ("Common Stock") and (ii) twenty five million (25,000,000) shares of preferred stock, $.001 par value ("Preferred Stock")."
Approval of this amendment to the Certificate of Incorporation requires approval by a majority of the outstanding shares of Common Stock. As a result, abstention and broker non-votes will have the same effect as a vote against the proposal. Holders of shares of the Company's common stock do not have appraisal rights under Delaware law or under the governing documents of the Company in connection with this solicitation.
THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS RECOMMENDS A VOTE "FOR" THE APPROVAL OF THE AMENDMENT TO THE COMPANY'S CERTIFICATE OF INCORPORATION.
OTHER BUSINESS
We know of no other matters to be voted on at the Special Meeting or any adjournment or postponement of the meeting. If, however, other matters are presented for a vote at the meeting, the proxy holders (the individuals designated on the proxy card) will vote your shares according to their judgment on those matters.
Labels: Board of Directors
posted by Ben @ 6:32 PM,
,
The Future of Cell Phones
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
The Future of Cell Phones
Nokia's head of R&D discusses technology that could shape the look, feel, and function of mobile devices in the next few years.
By Kate Greene
The face of the phone is going to change, according to Bob Iannucci, head of the Nokia Research Center (NRC), in Helsinki, Finland. The NRC is hard at work, along with other branches of Nokia, on software and hardware for future cell phones.
While your current model might seem like the digital version of a Swiss Army knife, Iannucci sees lots of room for improvement. Novel displays and myriad coordinated radios could make your cell phone a lot more entertaining and useful.
Last week, Nokia announced a new research lab and collaboration with Stanford University. Technology Review caught up with Iannucci in Palo Alto, CA, to ask him how Nokia's research is pushing mobile devices forward.
Technology Review: Your job, as the head of Nokia's research center, is to imagine the mobile devices of the future and to use existing and future technology to make it happen. From this standpoint, what new technology do you predict could be in phones five years from now?
Bob Iannucci: One of the things that we're intrigued with is the potential for what nanoscience and nanotechnology can bring to phones. Here's an example: right now, we're very close to having 8 radios and 11 antennas in a cell phone. In a couple of years that'll be commonplace. Now the question is, as a manufacturer of phones, how do we simplify 8 radios and 11 antennas? Well, the holy grail of simplifying radios is software-defined radio, where a radio, controlled by software, uses a broadband antenna to access a wide range of frequencies, instead of a single band. We're looking at material-science solutions on the antenna side to make software-defined radio happen.
TR: Like what?
BI: At Chalmers University, in Sweden, researchers have demonstrated, using carbon-nanotube technology, a tunable radio-frequency cavity that, in just the first version, can tune in between two and three gigahertz, picking up multiple bands. So now the idea of taking the antenna and running it through a tunable carbon-nanotube filter into an analog/digital converter might be a key enabler to actually making software-defined radio work. That's breakthrough thinking. That could be an enabler to making that 8 radio, 11 antenna thing a whole lot simpler.
TR: How would this affect the average mobile-phone user?
BI: It boils down to simplicity in cost. If we can drive down the cost by simplifying the guts inside the phone without compromising the functionality, then that's big. And software-defined radio could also enable cognitive-radio capabilities, where two devices dynamically create the best wireless channel for transferring data. This would make it possible to transfer a movie from your PC to your phone in two seconds. The idea is that the radios in my PC and phone realize when they're close to each other because the signal strength is high. So we can use very weak signals because we're only covering a short distance. We can reduce power, increase the bandwidth, but not create a tremendous amount of interference because we're only transmitting at low power. And the radio's smart enough to figure all that out.
TR: Nokia recently announced a new short-range wireless technology called Wibree. It's like Bluetooth, which is used for headsets, but Wibree uses less power. How else is it different from Bluetooth?
BI: It's the same radio-frequency hardware, the same antenna, and the same baseband processing as Bluetooth. The only difference is, there are a few changes in the digital logic. So the cost of adding Wibree to a Bluetooth chip set is a few cents, and a person has both capabilities in their phone.
TR: Why would someone want Wibree on his or her phone?
BI: Wibree is designed for short-range communication, and it could enable a phone to act like a node in wireless-sensor networks. The phone would have more power and processing capabilities than the other sensors, so as well as collecting information about the environment, like pictures or location information, it could also aggregate data from nearby sensors, process it, and send information to other sensors and phones via Wibree and cellular or Wi-Fi networks.
TR: When do you think we'll start to see the fruits of this sensor-network research?
BI: There are a couple of companies that have come out of the early work, and there are other companies that are starting to spring up, so I think there are going to be real commercial applications very soon--within the next year.
TR: What do you see as something new in user designs in the next couple of years?
BI: Making the shapes that we're familiar with more adaptable. For instance, the buttons could go away and get replaced with other things so that the device adapts more to the application, instead of trying to funnel every function through a zero-through-nine keypad. It's really pretty intriguing. What a user sees when he or she looks at the face of a phone is going to change in two years. It won't look like it looks right now.
TR: What about the display? At TR, we've covered research on projection technology for phones (see "High-Definition TV from Your Cell Phone"). That could really change how people share information from phones.
BI: It hasn't escaped our notice. There are a couple technologies that exist today that could be used in large-format displays that you can carry around. Why is that important? Because most of the world's information is authored for a 1,024-by-768 screen, and we've got to deliver an equivalent experience if we want to make the claim that we've really brought the mobile Internet to life.
TR: How soon do you think projectors could be available in mobile devices?
BI: The technology is close; we're looking at it. Believe me, I'm number one in the queue to get mine. Just imagine, as a business traveler, being able to open up your phone in a hotel room and have real-time video conferencing with the image projected on the wall and stereo sound. We're not far.
Labels: Mobile Phone, Mobile TV, PicoP
posted by Ben @ 5:50 PM,
,
Augmented Reality: Hyperlinking to the Real World
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Augmented Reality: Hyperlinking to the Real World
By John P. Mello Jr.
TechNewsWorld
11/21/06 9:14 AM PT
"In the future, we will not be getting information principally or exclusively through looking at a computer screen, but by looking at something that's in the real world and a display that's integrated with that," Henry Fuchs, a computer science professor at the University of North Carolina, told TechNewsWorld.
Virtual reality has been a rich vein of computer science for fiction writers and movie makers, but its less heralded cousin, augmented reality (AR), may have a greater influence over how we lead our daily lives in the future.
AR overlays the virtual world on the real world in real time. While virtual reality attempts to insulate itself from the real world, augmented reality extends the virtual world into the real one.
The Fat Yellow Line
A common use of AR is in TV sports, such as the yellow line marking a first down in football games, visible to TV viewers but not to players or fans at the game. So, too, is the use of "blue screen" technology to project advertisements on backstops behind batters at baseball games.
"In the future, we will not be getting information principally or exclusively through looking at a computer screen, but by looking at something that's in the real world and a display that's integrated with that," Henry Fuchs, a computer science professor at the University of North Carolina, told TechNewsWorld.
"What augmented reality will do is unify the real world with the computer display of it," he added.
Although the computer science community has maintained its interest in virtual reality over the years, AR's road to development has been a rocky one.
"Virtual reality has made some progress in game applications and virtual design, but augmented reality is entirely different," Rolf R. Hainich, author of The End of Hardware: A Novel Approach to Augmented Reality, told TechNewsWorld.
"It hasn't made progress," he continued. "People abandoned the field years ago. It's just recently that it's been rediscovered."
Hyperlinking the Real World
Part of that rediscovery may be related to the rapid development of the cell phone, which is considered a very promising area for AR technology, as a team of researchers at Nokia (NYSE: NOK) demonstrated last month at the fifth International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality in Santa Barbara, Calif.
The team from Nokia's Mobile Augmented Reality Applications (MARA) project has created a prototype phone that actually makes objects in the real world hyperlink to information on the Internet .
Using the phone's built in camera, a user can highlight objects on the mobile phone's LCD and pull in additional information about them from the Internet.
Moreover, by altering the orientation of the phone, the display will toggle between live view and satellite map view. In map view, nearby real world objects are highlighted for convenient reference.
Mobiles Ripe For AR
Cell phones appear to be ripe for early AR applications, according to Steven K. Feiner, a computer science professor at Columbia University.
Not only are cell phones becoming cheaper and more powerful, he noted, but they combine hardware components that support AR applications, such as digital cameras, global positioning (GPS) sensors, and wireless Internet connections.
"AR applications for cell phones are near-term," he told TechNewsWorld. "If you know where you are with things like GPS , you can do a quite decent job of adding additional information.
"GPS, at least the kind that normally gets put into cell phones, is not amazingly accurate," he observed. "We're looking at being off by many, many meters."
No More Guidebooks
However, he continued, when using the camera in the phone and a database of geocoded imagery, the GPS readings can be corrected to produce a more accurate indication of a user's location.
"That enables you to overlay information on what you're seeing in a very precise way," he said. "If I'm a tourist, I can walk around and see the hours for a museum, a restaurant's menu or historical information about a building without having to pull out any of a variety of guidebooks and look things up in them."
Although much of the technology exists to make many AR applications a reality, other factors will determine when and if AR products will reach consumers, according to Feiner.
"The availability of a lot of these technologies depends less on technology decisions than marketing decisions," he maintained, "decisions made by people with MBAs rather than technologists."
Labels: Augmented Reality, Color Eyewear, Mobile Phone, Mobile TV, Virtual Reality
posted by Ben @ 5:34 PM,
,
Hyperlinking Reality via Phones
Monday, November 20, 2006
Hyperlinking Reality via Phones
Nokia researchers are working on a system that allows physical objects to be identified and connected to the Internet through mobile-phone screens.
By Kate Greene
MIT Technology Review
A Nokia research project could one day make it easier to navigate the real world by superimposing virtual information on an image of your surroundings. The new software, called Mobile Augmented Reality Applications (MARA), is designed to identify objects viewed on the screen of a camera phone.
The Nokia research team has demonstrated a prototype phone equipped with MARA software and the appropriate hardware: a global positioning system (GPS), an accelerometer, and a compass. The souped-up phone is able to identify restaurants, hotels, and landmarks and provide Web links and basic information about these objects on the phone's screen. In addition, says David Murphy, an engineer at Nokia Research Center, in Helsinki, Finland, who works on the project, the system can also be used to find nearby friends who have phones with GPS and the appropriate software.
The field of augmented reality, in which supplementary information from a computer or the Internet is overlaid onto the real world, has been the topic of science fiction and serious academic and military study for years. Historically, augmented-reality systems have required small backpacks with computing and networking hardware that stream information onto a visual display. But in recent years, researchers have been experimenting with more consumer-friendly ways to augment reality.
Mobile phones, in particular, are an appealing gateway to the virtual world. Their computing capabilities have increased substantially, and a growing number are GPS-enabled and can access high-speed data networks.
For the MARA project, Murphy and Nokia researcher Markus Kähäri outfitted a Nokia 6680 mobile device with a box containing extra hardware: a GPS sensor to determine the location of the phone, a three-access accelerometer to determine the orientation of the phone's camera (which could be directed at a building or the ground, for instance), and a compass .
Once the phone is in camera mode and capturing a video stream, Murphy explains, MARA pulls together the information from the three sensors to pinpoint the location and orientation of the phone. The software then scours a database of objects--which can be loaded onto a phone or can be accessed through a network connection--to determine which object would be visible to the camera. Once visibility is determined, MARA highlights the objects and provides extra information and hyperlinks if available. So, if a nearby restaurant is in the database and within view, the software could display the menu and wait time, and by clicking on the hyperlink, you could visit the restaurant's website.
This capability becomes particularly compelling when people, as well as buildings, are incorporated into the database. If you have a GPS sensor in your mobile device and elect to share your location, Murphy says, people could "click on you to link to your blog." He adds, "You could go to a football match and be able to see information on the players, or ball movement, or tactics by looking at the field with your device."
MARA has an additional feature, says Murphy. To access a satellite view of your location and nearby landmarks, simply point the phone's camera at the ground. The software infers the orientation and displays the map.
Murphy notes that the Nokia project is similar to a commercially available application in Japan by a company called Geovector. The Geovector software lets a person search for businesses near his or her location, and then it provides a series of arrows to direct him or her to, say, a coffee shop. But, Murphy says, the application does not annotate a scene on a mobile screen like MARA does. This see-through annotation makes it possible to view objects on the phone that are purely virtual, he says, like an information marker in the middle of a pavilion, or a work of virtual art overlaid on the side of a building.
Salil Pradan, the chief technologist of RFID at Hewlett Packard (HP), based in Palo Alto, CA, is encouraged that Nokia, a major phone manufacturer, is putting effort into research such as MARA. Pradan worked on a similar mobile-phone project at HP called Websign that began about six years ago but is no longer active. "We always believed that this kind of augmented reality with a cell phone is the way to move forward," he says. "I'm glad to see people like Nokia getting into that space."
Pradan says that the truly interesting applications will arise when the technology is opened up to software developers outside of Nokia so they can modify it to fit their needs.
Letting developers play with a commercial version of technology based on MARA could be feasible, says Murphy. After all, he says, the programming tools are already available for creating location-based applications that use GPS in the Nokia Series60 platform. "Hypothetically, if orientation and heading sensors were also to be embedded in the platform, one could imagine they could be made available to developers in a similar manner," he says.
However, at this time, Nokia has no plans to transform MARA into a commercial product. "Creating a prototype and creating a product are very different things," says Murphy. Some of the challenges are technical: minimizing power consumption in a phone with multiple sensors, and extended use of the camera. And some of the challenges are logistical: addressing privacy issues, and deciding the number and type of objects to maintain in the object database.
If the research did make it into a Nokia product, it would be exciting to see how people would use it, Murphy says. "There are so many possibilities engendered by bringing the Internet to the real world--making people linkable," he says. "It's hard to know what would be done with the technology if it were available."
Labels: Augmented Reality, Color Eyewear, Mobile Phone, Virtual Reality
posted by Ben @ 1:28 PM,
,
A New Platform for Social Computing: Cell Phones
Thursday, November 16, 2006
A New Platform for Social Computing: Cell Phones
Cellular carriers are allowing their customers to share software, services, and content from independent companies. Finally.
By Wade Roush
Over the last year, Verizon, Sprint, Cingular, and other carriers have begun to make their decks -- and, perhaps even more important, their billing systems -- accessible to outside companies. The result: just as the explosion in online services began with the emergence of the nonproprietary World Wide Web in the mid-1990s, a new generation of startups is giving cellular subscribers more ways to use their phones' computing capabilities.
And the timing couldn't be better. The Internet is now overflowing with user-generated content -- photos, videos, blogs, wikis, garage-band music. As it becomes easier to transmit this content over cellular networks, the phone -- arguably the first social machine -- is helping to make the "social computing" revolution mobile.
"There are two trends happening here: on the one hand, we have this explosion of user-generated content, and on the other hand we have the mobile operators deploying and diffusing a payment infrastructure," says Mark Donovan, senior analyst at M:Metrics, a Seattle firm that monitors mobile commerce. "Big players like Verizon are embracing partners who sell stuff 'off-deck,' which means I can now purchase content without having to go through the carrier's deck."
That's opened up niches for services such as Rabble, a mobile blogging service, and New York-based Thumbplay, recently rated by market research firm Hitwise as the most popular U.S. retailer of ringtones, games, wallpaper, and other content for cell phones. Customers who pay $9.99 per month for Thumbplay's subscription service go to its website to select content, which is then sent to their phones over the cellular network. So far, Thumbplay has won permission from Cingular, T-Mobile, Sprint, Nextel, and Boost to charge customers through their billing systems; in return, the carriers take a cut of Thumbplay's subscription revenue. Furthermore, many of Thumbplay's ringtones come from independent musicians, rather than the big record labels.
Q121, too, is counting on amateur and user-generated content to drive use of its network. So far, its 50,000 members, mostly in their teens and early twenties, use it primarily to exchange music files, a large number of which were recorded and mixed by the users themselves. Q121 provides an "express signup" page for artists and bands who'd like others to hear their songs or use clips as ringtones. "It's a great jumping-off point for artists creating and distributing their own content," says Stollman. "We encourage that kind of viral marketing activity."
By opening up their networks and billing systems to outside parties, the cellular carriers are recognizing -- and realizing they can profit from -- the desire among users to put their phones to new uses, such as media sharing, says M:Metrics' Donovan. "The areas where we have seen the largest growth [in mobile-phone usage] center around creating, connecting, and sharing -- people taking pictures, capturing video, sending those files to the Web, and chatting through instant-messaging," he says. "Mobile subscribers shouldn't merely be treated as passive consumers."
Labels: Mobile Phone
posted by Ben @ 8:21 AM,
,
Microvision Signs Offshore Engineering Development Center Agreement with NeST
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Microvision Signs Offshore Engineering Development Center Agreement with NeST
REDMOND, Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 15, 2006--Microvision (NASDAQ:MVIS), the global leader in light scanning technologies for display and imaging products, announced today that it has entered into an agreement with Network Systems & Technologies (P) Ltd (NeST), a NeST group company, for establishing an offshore development center initially for the engineering design and development of the Company's laser barcode scanner product. Under the agreement, the NeST engineering team will work as an extension of the Microvision product development team in Redmond, Washington on product enhancements and cost reduction.
"The NeST offshore development center should enable us to achieve several important goals consistent with our business strategy," said Sid Madhavan, Vice President of Engineering. "First, we expect quicker response to our customers' requests for feature enhancements and stronger cost position. Second, the relationship with NeST allows us to maintain the focus in engineering on our Integrated Photonics Module (IPM(TM)) platform activities targeted towards high volume products such as miniature laser projectors and heads-up displays for automobiles and airplanes. The NeST software, electronics and mechanical teams will complement our engineering teams to enable round-the-clock development on our barcode scanner and future products. NeST has a strong history of delivering quality products to companies like GE, Hitachi, Toshiba and Mitsubishi and we are very pleased to be working with them."
Mr. N Jehangir, Vice Chairman and Managing Director of the NeST Group stated, "Our world-class competencies in engineering and manufacturing coupled with process orientation and Six Sigma culture will help Microvision attain reduced time to market at an optimal cost."
Added Mr. Sasi Kumar, who is heading the software division of NeST in Trivandrum, India, "NeST's software division, being focused on leading edge product development, is delighted to add yet another technology innovator to our client list and we are excited about this relationship with Microvision."
About Microvision www.microvision.com
Headquartered in Redmond, Wash., Microvision Inc. is the world leader in the development of high-resolution displays and imaging systems based on the company's proprietary silicon micro-mirror technology. The company's technology has applications in a broad range of consumer, medical, industrial, professional and military products.
About NeST www.nestsoftware.com
NeST, an International Corporate group of over 25 companies employing more than 2000 people worldwide, has a global export business turnover in excess of $200 million. The Group has a strong presence in futuristic Computer & Communication technology areas like Networking, Fiber Optics, RF & Microwave and Software. NeST has many hardware and software facilities spread across Trivandrum, Cochin, Bangalore and Mysore in India and in the USA. All of these units are ISO 9001 certified. The software units of the group operating at Trivandrum and Cochin are assessed at CMM Level 5. Apart from the software development facility in India, the Group has setup a number of world class manufacturing facilities and has established worldwide operations with offices which provides onsite consulting and development services in the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan, United Kingdom & Qatar.
Forward-Looking Statements Disclaimer
Certain statements contained in this release, including those relating to expected results, plans for product development, future cost reductions, future product benefits, as well as statements containing words like "expects," and other similar expressions, are forward-looking statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected in the company's forward-looking statements include the following: our ability to raise additional capital when needed; risks related to Lumera's business and the market for its equity, market acceptance of our technologies and products; our financial and technical resources relative to those of our competitors; our ability to keep up with rapid technological change; our dependence on the defense industry and a limited number of government development contracts; government regulation of our technologies; our ability to enforce our intellectual property rights and protect our proprietary technologies; the ability to obtain additional contract awards; the timing of commercial product launches and delays in product development; the ability to achieve key technical milestones in key products; dependence on third parties to develop, manufacture, sell and market our products; potential product liability claims and other risk factors identified from time to time in the company's SEC reports, including the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the SEC. Except as expressly required by the federal securities laws, we undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, changes in circumstances or any other reason.
Labels: PicoP
posted by Ben @ 7:42 AM,
,
Microvision, Inc. Prices $7.9 Million Public Offering of Common Stock
Monday, November 13, 2006
Microvision, Inc. Prices $7.9 Million Public Offering of Common Stock
REDMOND, Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 13, 2006--Microvision, Inc. (NASDAQ:MVIS) announced today the pricing of its public offering of 3,317,567 shares of its common stock at a price of $2.39 per share of common stock before underwriting discounts and commissions. Gross proceeds before underwriter fees and offering expenses are expected to be approximately $7.9 million.
MDB Capital Group LLC is acting as the sole underwriter of the offering.
This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any of the securities described herein, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction. A prospectus supplement relating to these securities has been filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The offering of the shares of common stock may be made only by means of the prospectus supplement and related prospectus, copies of which will be available from MDB Capital Group LLC, 401 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 1020, Santa Monica, California 90401 or by calling MDB Capital Group at 310-526-5000.
About Microvision: www.microvision.com
Headquartered in Redmond, Wash., Microvision Inc. is the global leader in the development of high-resolution displays and imaging systems based on the company's proprietary silicon micro-mirror technology. The company's technology has applications in a broad range of military, medical, industrial, professional and consumer products.
Forward-Looking Statements Disclaimer
Certain statements contained in this release, including those relating to the closing of proposed financing, as well as statements containing words like "expects," are forward-looking statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected in the company's forward-looking statements include the following: capital market risks, our ability to raise additional capital when needed; market acceptance of our technologies and products; our financial and technical resources relative to those of our competitors; our ability to keep up with rapid technological change; our dependence on the defense industry and a limited number of government development contracts; government regulation of our technologies; our ability to enforce our intellectual property rights and protect our proprietary technologies; the ability to obtain additional contract awards; the timing of commercial product launches and delays in product development; the ability to achieve key technical milestones in key products; dependence on third parties to develop, manufacture, sell and market our products; potential product liability claims, risks related to Lumera's business and the market for its equity and other risk factors identified from time to time in the company's SEC reports and other filings, including the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the SEC. Except as expressly required by the federal securities laws, we undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, changes in circumstances or any other reason.
posted by Ben @ 7:38 AM,
,
NOKIA: The future of TV will be personal
Friday, November 10, 2006
NOKIA: The future of TV will be personal
Nokia commissioned report from the London School of Economics gives valuable insights into the impact of mobility on television
London, UK - Personalisation and interactivity will be the key drivers of mobile TV ccording to a new report commissioned by Nokia and conducted by Dr Shani Orgad from the London School of Economics. The report, titled 'This Box Was Made For Walking', examines the future impact of mobile TV on the broadcasting and advertising industries.
The report predicts that the introduction and adoption of mobile TV will ultimately give way to a more personal and private TV experience than that of traditional broadcast TV, with big implications for users, content providers and advertisers. Users will be able to receive content anytime, anywhere, choose what is most relevant to them, and even create and upload their own television content, while content providers and advertisers will be able to tailor their offerings more specifically to the user.
"For mobile TV to become more than just television on the move, it will have to build on existing channels, programmes, and ways of watching television and using the Internet." said Dr Shani Orgad. "Mobile TV will become a multimedia experience with an emphasis on personalisation, interactivity and user-generated content."
"We are currently entering a new era in television, that of personal TV and video consumption," said Harri Männistö, Director, Multimedia, Nokia. "This LSE report highlights the opportunities for both broadcasters and advertisers in this new mobile television era."
According to the report, the current trend of user generated content, as seen by the phenomenal growth of YouTube, will be a key feature of mobile TV. As consumers increasingly use their mobile devices to create video content, new broadcast platforms will emerge to distribute this content to other mobile users. The United States television channel, Current TV, is a good indicator of the future with 30% of its programming consisting of user-generated content.
Introducing the five second ad spot
Dr Orgad examined the impact of mobile TV on the advertising industry and predicts new opportunities for the industry as it is able to better target and interact with key audiences. On mobile TV, advertisers will be able to pinpoint their messages to users according to very specific levels not possible with traditional TV and at success rates higher than those of the Internet.
The report also reveals that advertisers are currently experimenting with five and seven second-long ad spots to be better suited to the 'snacking culture' of mobile TV viewing.
What will people watch?
The report predicts that mobile TV programming will be a combination of original content from broadcast television and new content made specifically for mobile.
It is expected that the most popular genres and programmes on mobile TV will be news, entertainment (soaps, reality shows, comedy, animation), sport, music and children's programmes. Moreover, the content will be tailored with the mobile viewer in mind:
* Much shorter and more concise news bulletins
* User interactivity in the plots of reality TV shows and game shows
* Growing importance of user-generated content
* New distribution formats: in China, for instance, the movie Kung Fu Hustle was made into ten segments for mobile TV
New TV content
The mobile TV viewing experience is also likely to see new programme formats emerging. These include:
* Talking heads and close ups - due to the small screen size, broadcasters will need to focus on talking heads, where viewers will be able to watch close-ups and see the details, rather than capturing a wide screen.
* 'Snackable content' - mobile TV content will need to be suitable for 'snacking'.
* Mobisodes - mobisodes are fragmented and small made-for-mobile episodes that cater to bite-sized portions of content on the go.
* Visual spectacle - programmes will need to emphasise visual spectacle over conventional narrative and be image-orientated.
* Local content - content should be relevant for the here-and-now of viewers.
New prime times
Broadcasters are likely to see a new midday prime time with mobile TV according to the report. This is backed up by consumer trials of mobile TV in Europe which revealed heavy usage of mobile TV during the day as well as during the more traditional early morning and late evening prime times.
Labels: Mobile TV
posted by Ben @ 8:58 AM,
,
Computing 2016: What Won't Be Possible?
Thursday, November 09, 2006
Computing, 2016: What Won’t Be Possible?
Computer scientists from academia and companies like I.B.M. and Google discussed topics including social networks, digital imaging, online media and the impact on work and employment. But most talks touched on two broad themes: the impact of computing will go deeper into the sciences and spread more into the social sciences, and policy issues will loom large, as the technology becomes more powerful and more pervasive.
Social networks, noted Jon Kleinberg, a professor at Cornell, are pre-technological creations that sociologists have been analyzing for decades. But with the rise of the Internet, social networks and technology networks are becoming inextricably linked, so that behavior in social networks can be tracked on a scale never before possible.
The new social-and-technology networks that can be studied include e-mail patterns, buying recommendations on commercial Web sites like Amazon, messages and postings on community sites like MySpace and Facebook, and the diffusion of news, opinions, fads, urban myths, products and services over the Internet. Why do some online communities thrive, while others decline and perish? What forces or characteristics determine success? Can they be captured in a computing algorithm?
Future trends in computer imaging and storage will make it possible for a person, wearing a tiny digital device with a microphone and camera, to essentially record his or her life. The potential for communication, media and personal enrichment is striking. Rick Rashid, a computer scientist and head of Microsoft’s research labs, noted that he would like to see a recording of the first steps of his grown son, or listen to a conversation he had with his father many years ago. “I’d like some of that back,” he said. “In the future, that will be possible.”
posted by Ben @ 8:35 PM,
,
Verizon near content deal with YouTube: WSJ
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Verizon near content deal with YouTube: WSJ
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Verizon Communications Inc., the No. 2 U.S. telecommunications company, is in advanced talks with YouTube Inc. to bring the Web site's videos to cellphones and television sets, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.
A deal may give Verizon a marketing edge over its rivals in the wireless and cable industries, furthering the company's efforts to expand into Internet and entertainment services, the Journal reported.
Under the terms being discussed, customers of Verizon Wireless -- Verizon's joint venture with Vodafone Group Plc -- would be able to view some YouTube videos on their cellphones through the carrier's premium V Cast service, the Journal said.
Verizon also would offer YouTube videos as an on-demand feature of a TV service it is launching throughout the nation, according to the paper.
A deal may give Verizon the exclusive right to carry YouTube videos for a limited period of time, one person with knowledge of the discussions told the Journal.
YouTube recently agreed to be bought by Web search leader Google Inc. for $1.65 billion.
posted by Ben @ 8:54 AM,
,
Microvision 3Q 2006 Conference Call Transcript
Friday, November 03, 2006
Microvision 3Q 2006 Earnings Conference Call Transcript.
MVIS Blog is not responsible for transcription errors or omissions.
Jeff Wilson, CFO: I'd like to welcome everyone to Microvision's third quarter 2006 financial results conference call. Participants on today's call include Alexander Tokman, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Todd McIntyre, Senior Vice President, Global Strategic Marketing and Business Development. The information in today's conference call includes forward looking statements, including statements regarding projections of future operations, product applications, development and production, future benefits of contractual arrangements, growth in demand, as well as statements containing words like believe, estimate, expect, anticipate, target, plan, will, could, would, and other similar expressions. These statements are not guarantees of future performance. Actual results could differ materially from the results implied or expressed in the forward looking statement. Additional information concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward looking statements are included in our most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission under the heading 'Risk factors related to the company's business,' and our other reports filed with the Comission from time to time. Except as expressly required by Federal securities laws, we undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, changes in circumstances, or other reasons.
I would now like to turn the call over to Alexander Tokman.
Alexander Tokman, CEO: Thank you, Jeff. Thank you everyone for joining us today, it's an exciting time to be at Microvision. We're completing some key milestones that the company set early this year, and what's even better is that we're hitting them on all cylinders. Since the team has been formed at the end of the second quarter, and we completed formation of our board. There are five things that put a smile on my face these days. These include specifically, the first one, we're making tremendous progress on the roadmap; on proliferating our technology and business roadmap related to Integrated Photonics Module. As a result, we have completed several promising engineering designs that have the size of a small matchbox or smaller that could yield a solution to be embedded in a variety of handsets and other video output devices.
Secondly, we're receiving external validation from our partners. As you know, we have signed several strategic deals that accelerate consumer and automotive products to market. We're going to discuss these in a moment.
Number three, we're trying to do everything we can to maintain and increase the gap between us and the competition. As a result, we're entering into various strategic collaborations to maintain an increased technology gap. Fraunhofer is one of the examples.
Number four, we're streamlining the operations and managing our business to reduce operating costs continuously. Every week we look for opportunities and are implementing solutions to reduce the operating costs, while maintaining our primary focus of progressing the IPM roadmap, and that will lead to the creation of new markets and new products.
Finally, number 5, we actually started making our customers happy. This is a significant turnaround from last year, and from the first half of this year. We made very visible improvements in our product, specifically the bar code scanner, and the testimonials we get today are 180 degrees apart from what we received last year.
With this, let me focus briefly on Q3 and year-to-date operating results. Our operating results for 3rd quarter and year-to-date include several milestones that will allow us to accelerate our roadmap and commercialization of high-volume products based on the company's IPM module. These milestones include several strategic development contracts with world-leading partners that again, contribute to our goal, accelerating our time-to-market. These contracts also have contributed to rebuilding our revenue backlog for the fourth quarter and beyond. Some of the more notable accomplishments include the following:
We entered into agreement with major global Tier 1 automotive supplier to develop commercial scanned-beam heads-up display for automotive applications; we also entered into a joint development agreement with large Asian consumer electronics manufacturer to develop high-volume design for manufacturing of our proprietary IPM, which is essentially a tiny engine suitable for a variety of display applications. Potential applications as you know, for this platform include cell phone embedded tiny projection displays, ultra-miniature accessory projection displays, as well as the personal Color Eyewear and again, automotive heads-up displays. We were also awarded an almost $6M contract by General Dynamics to develop and deliver full-color, daylight-readable, see-through helmet-mounted displays for US Army. The significant accomplishments of this effort also include the fact that this effort serves strategic need for us and is consistent with the development of IPM and personal Color Eyewear applications.
On product side, we released several connectivity bundles for Flic, which is our laser bar code scanner, to provide cost-effective solutions for the growing mobility market. The software products will allow users of Flic to capture bar codes directly into a variety of business and consumer applications, based on Windows Mobile and Blackberry operating systems.
Finally, we announced a strategic development with Fraunhofer Institute of Photonic Microsystems. This augments our leading position in the MEMS space, and I believe it increases our gap versus the rest of the world. With this, I'm going to stop and I'm going to move on to financial results, and Jeff is going to present those.
Jeff Wilson: [Financial update from 3Q 2006 earnings press release]
Q&A:
Jeff Miller, JMG Capital: Hi guys, great news on the new OEM in Asia, I just have one question on the Lumera stock. It seems like the price has been skyrocketing over the last couple weeks. Correct me if I'm wrong, is there $5M on the notes that LMRA is pledged as collateral to, and if so, does it make sense to sell some of those shares now and lock in a pretty good price?
Jeff Wilson: The face value on the notes is $5.8M. They're due on December 15, and March 15 of next year. There is no provision in the notes for early payment of the notes and the shares are held as collateral and right now we can not sell them.
Jeff Miller: So there's no way you could go back to the noteholders and sell the stock and put it in an escrow account?
Jeff Wilson: We're in regular discussions with the noteholders, but right now there's no provision in the notes for that.
Jeff Miller: OK, thank you.
John Schneller, Knott Partners: Hi, and congratulations on the CM announcement today, that's great news. I was wondering if you could elaborate on what the nuts and bolts are of that agreement and what does this specific contract manufacturer bring to the table, is it that they now will lend OEMs a level of confidence that you guys can produce high-capacity, high-output, high-quality Integrated Photonics Modules to be put in handsets?
Alexander Tokman: That's a good question, John. You're right, that's one of the answers. Credibility is the second necessary component in addition to having a disruptive technology to create new markets, and this announcement gives us additional credibility and makes negotiations with OEMs a lot of easier, because we have an arm behind us that has expertise in producing high-volume products and taking them to market. Why this agreement has been announced in the third name? It's a common practice to establish competitive advantage. Typically, large businesses looking for exciting growth opportunities, do not disclose their intention until they feel that sufficient progress has been made and they're ready to communicate their strategy and go-to-market plan to their customers and shareholders and that's one of the reasons why this is in the third name, based on their request. We, however, attempt to balance this and our partner's interest with our need to keep you informed on our progress. We anticipate that as things progress, more communication and information will come available from our partners, and ourselves.
John Schneller: Would it be fair to ask, who will bear the brunt of the upfront capital costs, the tooling costs, manufacturing line, that kind of thing?
Alexander Tokman: Even though we haven't disclosed any details of the agreement, this agreement is structured such that we can help in terms of reducing our investment, and the investment gets picked up by our manufacturing partner.
Joel from MDB Capital: Alik and Jeff, looks like there's a lot of progress being made. I have a number of questions. Jeff, the issue of the restricted stock that's pledged as collateral on the notes, does that prevent you from marking the value to the current price on the books?
Jeff Wilson: We mark that as an unrealized gain on the books. It doesn't show up on the income statement. It'll be in the comprehensive income statement.
Joel: But it's not on the balance sheet, obviously.
Jeff Wilson: No.
Joel: Alik, you're putting together the right structure for moving the company forward. Obviously, the critical component here is not only the distribution and manufacturing, the footprint that you're working towards in the IPM; I guess my question is, can you give us an update on the actual engineering designs, and the progress of the team to perfect the new footprint? You say you have five designs, which is encouraging. Are they in operational mode, when can you demonstrate the new form factors in actual color operation. Any thoughts?
Alexander Tokman: Joel, we have several promising designs, and one of the reasons we entered into strategic agreement with world-renowned CDM is to ensure the design meets not only our performance criteria, but also the cost and reliability. The latter two components are not something that has been traditionally Microvision's core expertise and that's the reason we're relying on partners to help us to get there faster.
Joel: And obviously, this new partner will help in that regard. But, technologically, do you see any issues now as far as realizing the goal of providing an operational prototype of the new form factor?
Alex: Our progress has been steady and positive throughout the last few months, and all our efforts are focused on CES in January of next year. We expect through this development, through development with our laser manufacturing partner, to produce next generation of Integrated Photonics Module display engine that we can discuss and show, and communicate to the world. So the important milestone will be January of next year when we expect to have a good showing at the Consumer Electronics Show.
Joel: Well, we'll look forward to that, that sounds very exciting! Just a couple of other quick issues, any color on discussions with potential large mobile handset companies that might be interested in integrating the forthcoming IPM?
Alex: Yes, most of the top five world-leading manufacturers of cell phones are interested in what we have to offer, and we're in discussions with a large percentage of these players.
Joel: So it's probably reasonable to conclude we may see some developments either prior to, or maybe at CES, or shortly thereafter with some of these discussions?
Alex: I don't want to provide any guidance on this, because as you know there's a lot of factors that we can't control that determine the ultimate date, but what I can tell you is that we continue to work diligently, we have very solid progress every week. As I mentioned to you, having disruptive technology is not sufficient to be successful in this world; you have to have credibility, and we've been building credibility all year. Building blocks include clear strategy, solid execution, new team, solid financing strategy, and now additional validation, the agreement with this large Asian CDM. So all the blocks are getting put in place, and we expect progress.
Joel: Well, it certainly seems that you're tacking it out on many different fronts, and we'll look forward to seeing continued progress. Thank you very much, gentlemen.