23half's Thrrum Uses Image Recognition For Mobile Marketing

23half Inc., a pioneer of technologies that extend the functionality of camera phones, announced the launch of Thrrum MMS Search.

Thrrum MMS Search brings together visual recognition technologies and
information search in the context of camera phones

Thrrum MMS Search enables camera phone users to find and browse information related to their physical environment using the Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) integrated into their phones.

Users can capture a picture of any text with their camera phone and send the picture as an MMS to m@thrrum.com. Relevant search results are then sent to the users' phones.

The Thrrum MMS Search service is presently in beta and is available free of charge to AT&T wireless subscribers in the United States.

Should Yahoo Be Looking At SnapTell For Mobile Marketing Solution?

SnapTell, a Physical World Connection player, allows brands to turn their DVD covers, logos or any other image into an interactive mobile marketing advertisement.

SnapTell, an image recognition based mobile marketing company, turns any billboard, magazine ad or product packaging into a Physical World Hyperlink. Consumers get valuable information with a snap of their camera phones and marketers get to create a targeted brand conversation in the process.

It's easy. Take a picture of a DVD cover (or any other image in their database) and send to dvd@snaptell.com.

SnapTell's solution today can hold up to 1 million images in the database for recognition. Soon they expect to be able to handle 10 million or more images.

Keep in mind Google acquired image recognition based company NevenVision recently. Microsoft launched their image recognition application called Lincoln.

I am thinking that if Flickr (owned by Yahoo) wanted to become a player in the image recognition space, SnapTell would be a great fit.

Upload the Flickr image database and offer the SnapTell image recognition solution. Does it make Yahoo a mobile marketing player overnight?

Led by CEO Gautam Bhargava, (his last two ventures were acquired by Cisco and Oracle), is turning an everyday camera phone and SnapTell's innovative image recognition technology, into a powerful mobile marketing solution.

Try the SnapTell demo

Until every camera phone can read bar codes and 2d codes are placed on packaging, sometimes the easiest solution is the best.

Kooaba's ooLink Hyperlinks Physical Objects To The Internet

Add Kooaba and their ooLink application to the list of Physical World Connection companies.

Kooaba was founded in November 2006 as a spin-off company from the ETH Zurich, an outstanding science and technology university in Switzerland. Their mission is to simplify access to digital information from mobile devices by hyperlinking objects in the real world.

Kooaba has strong ties to the Computer Vision Lab of the ETH Zurich. Therefore, we are able to embed the latest research into highly innovative products.

ooLink allows publishers to hyperlink their print advertising with digital content. End-users can access the content by sending a picture of the ad to their service.


How does ooLink compare to 2d bar code scanning applications?

Currently, several companies offer solutions which link objects based on 2d-barcodes, which are attached to the object, e.g. to the advertising panel. (An example of such codes are the QR codes.) The advantage of their solution is that no codes are required, since the object itself is recognized.

This has several benefits:

-Users don't need to install a software on their phone.
-The ooLink solution works even if parts are covered (occlusion, see above). If a code is partly covered it is unreadable.
-The codes look often unattractive. With our solution the original design of the ad does not have to be changed.
-The space for the codes can be saved. (Important for advertising in magazines where space savings directly reflect cost savings).