Jacob Goldman, Xerox Lab Founder, Is Dead

100% of you would probably not be reading this if it hadn’t been for Dr. Jacob E. Goldman. While he wasn’t inventor of Xerox copiers, Jacob Goldman, a physicist and visionary, made an even more important contribution to your life: …

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Patents suggest ‘indoor location’ the next mobile maps battleground

elizabeth woyke

Globe and Mail Update

Published Thursday, Dec. 22, 2011 3:30PM EST

Last updated Thursday, Dec. 22, 2011 3:32PM EST

Indoor location positioning looks poised to be the next hot mobile service with its ability to enable smarter mobile offers and more accurate local searches. Google has an early lead but an analysis of patent filings points to a number of technology companies fighting for supremacy in this emerging space.

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It has always been difficult to accurately track a person?s location indoors. Since GPS is a satellite-based system, devices require a ?line of sight? to satellites to operate. GPS generally does not function indoors and is particularly weak in large, enclosed spaces like shopping malls, museums and big offices.

One solution is indoor positioning, which works by analyzing radio signals from cellular antennae and/or Wi-Fi hotspots or by tracking a device?s movement through sensors such as gyroscopes and compasses. Google recently brought indoor positioning out of the labs with the late November release of a ?My Location? feature in Google Maps. Google says the feature, which is currently only available on Android phones, can track a user?s location within several meters in select malls and airports.

Though Google was the first to debut indoor positioning, other companies have been developing similar technology for years. A new report from technology research firm Grizzly Analytics rated five companies (Google, Microsoft, Nokia, Qualcomm and Research In Motion) as having ?mature? indoor positioning research. The New York-based firm ranked the companies by the breadth of their research and the number of years they?ve been working on indoor positioning, said founder Bruce Krulwich in an interview.

Of the five leading companies, Mr. Krulwich sees Microsoft and Nokia as the most likely to challenge Google in indoor positioning. He expects Microsoft and Nokia to launch a service sometime in 2012, perhaps tagged to Microsoft?s ?Tango? Windows Phone update. Both companies have significant experience in indoor positioning. Microsoft has researched how to determine location using special radio beacons as well as by analyzing Wi-Fi signal strength. It has also experimented with what Mr. Krulwich calls movement tracking. That involves tracking a device as it moves away from a known location, such as a door to a building (which can be pinpointed via GPS because it is outdoors).

Beyond its research, Microsoft holds granted patents in indoor positioning. Mr. Krulwich counted at least five Microsoft patents related to determining phone location using wireless access points, radio beacons, device movements and other radio signals.

Nokia?s indoor positioning work is equally sophisticated with patents going back to at least 2006. In September 2006, Nokia filed a patent on ?Direction of Arrival? detection. That strategy leverages ultra-wideband (UWB) radio technology to estimate location. In fall 2007, Nokia also filed three patents related to determining location via Wi-Fi signal strength.

Over the years, Nokia has publicized some of its indoor positioning research, such as in this 2009 video and this Nov. 2010 demonstration at its Nokia World show. In April 2011, Nokia released a demo video that shows an integrated outdoor/indoor navigation system. In November, in response to Google?s Google Maps update, Nokia stepped up publicity about its research and revealed it is now using Bluetooth beacons instead of the older ultra-wideband technology.

Given their resources, Mr. Krulwich believes that if Microsoft and Nokia pool their mapping assets, as they have pledged to do in upcoming Windows Phone devices, they could offer the industry?s strongest indoor positioning service. ?Both have made such investments in this area, they would have a leg up if they can get a combined system out to market,? said Mr. Krulwich.

Mr. Krulwich was also struck by the indoor positioning research conducted by wireless chipmaker Qualcomm and BlackBerry maker RIM. Since 2010, Qualcomm has filed at least eight patents related to indoor positioning, including work touching on Wi-Fi hotspot triangulation and motion tracking via sensors. Mr. Krulwich believes Qualcomm is investing in indoor positioning because it plans to incorporate indoor location features in its cellphone chips ? perhaps motion tracking abilities in its sensor processing chips and signal triangulation in its radio frequency (RF) chips.

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Pinterest Is Getting Huge

Experian Hitwise put out a report today looking at how popular online pinboard site Pinterest is getting.

While this is only showing U.S. data, this graph pretty much says it all:

Ok, maybe it doesn?t say it all. Here are some highlights Experian Hitwise shared with us in an email:

• Pinterest recently emerged as one of the top 10 websites within the Hitwise Social Networking & Forums category.
• The invitation only site received nearly 11 million total visits during the week ending December 17, 2011, almost 40 times the number of total visits versus just six months ago (week ending June 18, 2011).
• Pinterest content has something for everyone, but the site is dominated by images featuring home d�cor, crafts, fashion, and food. Not surprisingly, visitors to the site in the 12 rolling weeks ending December 17th skewed female (58%) and between the ages of 25 and 44 (59%).
• Pinterest and the Social Networking & Forums category both receive their highest share of visits from California and Texas. However, the Social Networking category as a whole over-indexes on share of visits from Northeastern states while Pinterest over-indexes on visits from the states in the Northwest and Southeast. This data indicates that Pinterest visitors have a different profile versus their counterparts visiting other social networking sites such as Facebook and YouTube.
• In fact, nine of the top ten over-indexed states for Pinterest visitors also over-index for the Hobbies and Crafts category (versus the online population) which is expected given the abundance of crafts content on the website.
• When comparing the Mosaic USA 2011 types that visit both Pinterest.com and Hobbies and Crafts websites during the 12 weeks ending December 17, 2011, the data shows that Boomers and Boomerangs are the group most likely to visit, particularly the Pinterest website (comprising over 10% of visits). This group of consumers is characterized as baby boomers and young adults who are heavy web users who spend time on house and garden, sports and fitness, and family-oriented websites. This information is useful to companies who wish to target their content to be ?pinned? by Pinterest users.

Clearly Pinterest is going to be one of those sites to watch heading into the New Year.

About Chris Crum
Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003. Follow WebProNews on Facebook or Twitter. Twitter: @CCrum237 StumbleUpon: Crum Google: +Chris Crum

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How to seize opportunity in Brazil

Canada’s tenth-largest trading partner and the fifth most-populous country in the world features a growing technology and resource sector, and a burgeoning middle class.

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Jack Goldman, Founder of Xerox PARC, Dies

Jack Goldman wanted to call Xerox PARC the Xerox Advanced Scientific & Systems Laboratory. We're glad he didn't. (Photo: Xerox)

Jacob ?Jack? Goldman ? the man who founded the lab that pretty much invented the personal computer as we know it ? has died at age 90.

Goldman was the Xerox Chief Scientist who in 1969 proposed that the company create a pure research laboratory that would put Xerox in the same league as IBM and AT&T, whose Yorktown Heights and Bell Labs facilities are now legendary.

The result was Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) ? the birthplace of the graphical user interface, Ethernet, and the laser printer, and object oriented programming.

Goldman died Tuesday from congestive heart failure, the New York Times reports.

Goldman hired physicist George Pake to run PARC, which set up shop in Palo Alto, California in 1970. Working on the East Coast, Goldman championed the lab to Xerox corporate management, keeping it independent from the rest of the company and free to innovate.

?He really enabled the computer scientists who got brought together at PARC to follow their noses and develop the technology,? says Michael Hiltzik, a business columnist with the Los Angeles Times who is the author of Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age. ?He had a more general sense that computer science was going to be an important technology in the near future in 1970 and specifically was going to be a threat to Xerox if it didn?t get its arms around it.?

Goldman made PARC great, in part, by knowing when to recognize good ideas from others. He initially wanted to locate the lab near Yale University, but he let Pake talk him into nestling the lab next to Stanford. He also deferred to Pake on the name of the laboratory, saving history from remembering the great Xerox ASS (Advanced Scientific & Systems) Laboratory.

Xerox recruited Goldman from the Ford Motor Company in 1969, and one of his first jobs was to make sense of Xerox?s disastrous $918 million purchase of now-forgotten computer maker Scientific Data Systems.

The acquisition was a mistake. But it had an upside. It gave Goldman a justification for building PARC as a new R&D lab for the company?s computer division.

Xerox PARC is generally thought of as the place that invented much the cool stuff that Microsoft and Apple made billions ripping off, but Hiltzik has a more charitable take on the PARC?s legacy. ?It wasn?t really reasonable to expect that a corporation like Xerox could shift into this entirely new market and this entirely new technology on the scale that was required? Hiltzik says. ?Everything from its conventional R&D process to its sales process was built around the copier.?

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YouTube Snow Effect Puts Your Videos In The Holiday Spirit

Keeping in line with Google’s Let it snow feature where your results page fogs up when you search the phrase, YouTube now has a little snow button on some of its videos that allows you to populate them with accumulating …

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Motorola Mobility nabs SetJam, a video discovery startup

by Marguerite Reardon December 22, 2011 1:36 PM PST

Motorola Mobility has bought video discovery startup SetJam for an undisclosed sum.

SetJam CEO Ryan Janssen wrote about the acquisition in an email, according to VentureBeat. He didn't disclose financial terms.

"I'm writing to let you know that today SetJam was acquired by Motorola Mobility. We are all very excited about this transition here at SetJam. Motorola and SetJam share the vision of making content delivery, discovery, and consumption seamless across any screen, and as a world leader in video technology, Motorola will provide us with unprecedented levels of reach and distribution."

SetJam, a tiny New York City-based start-up, originated as a Website for finding videos online. It competed with other similar companies including Clicker and SideReel. But more recently the company has been working on personalization technology that can be integrated into connected devices to provide recommendations.

The technology could be a nice fit for Motorola's TV set-top boxes, which are increasing becoming IP-enabled. The SetJam technology could make it easier for people to search for video content on the Web via their TV, so tha they could access shows and movies on Hulu Plus, Netflix, or other online TV video services.

Google is in the process of buying Motorola Mobility, so it will eventually get its hands on this technology as well. Earlier this year, Google said it would pay $12.5 billion for Motorola Mobility. The acquisition is still under regulatory review.

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