Google has acquired a seven-year-old company that develops facial-recognition technology for images and video, though the Web-search giant didn’t say what it plans to do with it.

The company, called Pittsburgh Pattern Recognition, or PittPatt, is run by three “image analysis” and “pattern recognition” specialists with PhD’s from Carnegie Mellon University, according to its site. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.

A statement on PittPatt’s site said on Friday that “computer vision technology is already at the core of many existing products” at Google, including Image Search, YouTube and Picasa, “so it’s a natural fit to join Google and bring the benefits of our research and technology to a wider audience. We will continue to tap the potential of computer vision in applications that range from simple photo organization to complex video and mobile applications.”

A Google spokesman said PittPatt developed “innovative technology” in the area of computer vision and that its research “can benefit our users in many ways,” without elaborating.

Regarding face recognition, the spokesman said, “We’ve said that we won’t add face recognition to our apps or product features unless we have strong privacy protections in place, and that’s still the case.”

Google has said it built facial recognition technology for smartphones into a product known as Google Goggles, but withheld it. “As far as I know, it’s the only technology that Google built and after looking at it, we decided to stop,” said Google Chairman Eric Schmidt last month at a conference. “People could use this stuff in a very, very bad way as well as in a good way.”

During its annual developer conference in May, Google showed off something called “Virtual Camera Operator,” which uses computer-vision technology to stabilize mobile video chats by following a person’s head movements and to determine who is speaking during a multi-person video conference so that the camera would automatically focus on the speaker.

It also recently launched Google+, a social network that lets people share and store photos, among other things. Rival Facebook has face-recognition technology to identify people in photos, which has raised concerns from privacy advocates. The technology, first introduced last year, was designed to help Facebook users easily identify and mark, or “tag,” friends in photos as they upload them to the social-networking site.

“If for any reason someone doesn’t want their name to be suggested” for tagging, “they can disable the feature in their Privacy Settings,” Facebook has said.

PittPatt’s software “accurately counts the number of people viewed by a video camera” and “it can automatically generate reports measuring the presence and movement of people over extended periods of time,” according to a cached version of its website.

Some of the “practical applications” of the technology include measuring “the effectiveness of digital signage, advertising, kiosks and narrowcasting”; “customer traffic flow,” or gathering “insight into customer behavior and shopping patterns; “security-related matters” such as being able to send alerts when the PittPatt software detects a face that isn’t in its database.

PittPatt offered a tool for people to “integrate face finding and tracking into your own product,” and in 2007 it partnered with General Electric to develop an “intelligent security camera system,” the site said. The GE system “will obtain high resolution facial imagery using a motorized pan-tilt-zoom camera that will track and zoom in on faces that enter the field of view,” according to the site.

When people feel like shopping, they are increasingly pulling out iPads and other tablets, so much so that shopping on tablets could someday outpace shopping on smartphones and even computers.

That is the conclusion of a report by Forrester Research that is to be published Monday, based on a joint survey with Bizrate Insights. Even though just 9 percent of shoppers own tablets, sales from tablets already account for 20 percent of mobile e-commerce sales, the report said, and 60 percent of tablet owners have used them to shop.

“Everyone thinks that mobile phones and mobile commerce are the next big things, and I think what this data shows is it’s probably actually tablets,” said Sucharita Mulpuru, an e-commerce analyst at Forrester who co-wrote the report. “We have always capped e-commerce at 10 to 15 percent of total retail sales, but this potentially has the capability of really expanding e-commerce much beyond that.”

Tablets offer retailers and shoppers something that cellphones and computers cannot — the experience of flipping through a print catalog, with big photos and rich imagery — and with shorter load times than many Web sites.

For instance, TheFind’s Catalogue for the iPad, which includes retailers like Crate & Barrel and Sephora, lets people flip through pages. Gilt’s Jetsetter app for travel uses the iPad’s accelerometer and gyroscope to show resorts from different angles. Retailers can send personalized catalogs to customers’ tablets based on their interests and purchase history, Ms. Mulpuru said.

For retailers, these types of features give them a chance to show off their products instead of competing solely on price with dozens of other retailers accessible with a Google search and a click. For shoppers, 80 percent of whom use their tablets in the living room, they make online shopping a leisurely experience in a way it hasn’t been since e-commerce came along.

“The element of discovery is missing online, because most people go to Google, and Google isn’t about discovering something online, it’s about typing something into a search box,” Ms. Mulpuru said. “This is much closer to the actual physical browsing experience.”

Forty percent of tablet owners use their tablets instead of their personal computers when both are available, Forrester found. And though more people are shopping on smartphones, they use them mostly for comparing prices and receiving mobile coupons, and get frustrated by the small screen when browsing items or entering billing information. A majority, particularly young people, prefer shopping on tablets, the report said.

Still, retailers have been slow to catch on. The average retailer has spent just $14,000 developing shopping tools for tablets, which Forrester calls “anemic.” And though Forrester expects that a third of adults will own tablets by 2015, the majority of people will not own the devices.

Half of Africa's one billion population has a mobile phone – and not just for talking. The power of telephony is forging a new enterprise culture, from banking to agriculture to healthcare.

Mobile phones in Uganda's capital, Kampala: 10 million people across the country own a phone. Photograph: Yousef Eldin

Earlier this month, on a short bus ride through the centre of Kampala, I decided to carry out an informal survey. Passing through the Ugandan capital's colourful and chaotic streets, I would attempt to count the signs of the use of mobile phones in evidence around me. These included phone shops and kiosks, street-corner airtime vendors and giant billboard ads, as well as people actually using their mobile phones: a girl in school uniform writing a text message as she hurried along the street, a businessman calmly making a call from the back of a motorcycle taxi swerving through heavy rush-hour traffic. Not only were half of the passengers on my bus occupied with their handsets, our driver was too, thumbing at his keypad as he ferried us to our final destination. After five minutes, I lost count and retired with a sore neck. There was more evidence here than I could put a number on.

My survey underlined a simple fact: Africa has experienced an incredible boom in mobile phone use over the past decade. In 1998, there were fewer than four million mobiles on the continent. Today, there are more than 500 million. In Uganda alone, 10 million people, or about 30% of the population, own a mobile phone, and that number is growing rapidly every year. For Ugandans, these ubiquitous devices are more than just a handy way of communicating on the fly: they are a way of life.

It may seem unlikely, given its track record in technological development, but Africa is at the centre of a mobile revolution. In the west, we have been adapting mobile phones to be more like our computers: the smartphone could be described as a PC for your pocket. In Africa, where a billion people use only 4% of the world's electricity, many cannot afford to charge a computer, let alone buy one. This has led phone users and developers to be more resourceful, and African mobiles are being used to do things that the developed world is only now beginning to pick up on.

The most dramatic example of this is mobile banking. Four years ago, in neighbouring Kenya, the mobile network Safaricom introduced a service called M-Pesa which allows users to store money on their mobiles. If you want to pay a utilities bill or send money to a friend, you simply dispatch the amount by text and the recipient converts it into cash at their local M-Pesa office. It is cheap, easy to use and, for millions of Africans unable to access a bank account or afford the hefty charges of using one, nothing short of revolutionary.

Safaricom didn't invent mobile banking: it existed previously in countries such as Norway and Japan, but on a small scale and with nothing like the seismic effect it had in Kenya. The established banks weren't happy at first – they tried to shut down M-Pesa soon after it started – but now they are getting in on the game, and it is estimated that by 2015 global mobile transactions will exceed one trillion dollars. According to California-based mobile-banking innovator Carol Realini, executive chairman of Obopay: "Africa is the Silicon Valley of banking. The future of banking is being defined here… It's going to change the world."

The mobile banking phenomenon spread quickly to other countries in the developing world. Uganda's largest telecom company, MTN Uganda, created its own version, MobileMoney, in March 2009. Within a year, 600,000 Ugandans had signed up. Now, thanks to aggressive recruitment drives to win more subscribers – MTN agents trolling the streets for new customers are known as "foot soldiers" – the service has more than 1.6 million users.

MobileMoney outlets are everywhere in 2011: the distinctive canary-yellow buildings and kiosks that house them are dotted around not just Kampala but the greater part of the country. The MTN network reaches 85% of Uganda, and MobileMoney is available everywhere MTN has coverage. Many of the villages I travelled through, however minor or remote, had at least one tell-tale splash of yellow.

Mobile phones carry huge economic potential in undeveloped parts of Africa. A 2005 London Business School study found that for every additional 10 mobile phones per 100 people in a developing country, GDP rises by 0.5%. As well as enabling communication and the movement of money, mobile networks can also be used to spread vital information about farming and healthcare to isolated rural areas vulnerable to the effects of drought and disease.

Despite the proliferation of phones in Uganda, however, a digital divide persists. How can information be understood and properly implemented when more than a third of the country's adult population cannot read or write? And can complex and detailed information be managed by anything less than a smartphone, which is beyond the means of most Ugandans?

Read the whole article...

A few weeks ago, Juniper estimated that the transaction value of mobile payments for digital and physical goods, money transfers and NFC transactions will reach a whopping $670 billion by 2015, up from $240 billion this year. Today Gartner is releasing its data report, taking a look at actual users of mobile payments services. Gartner’s research shows that mobile payment users worldwide will surpass 141.1 million in 2011, a 38.2 percent increase from 2010, in which mobile payment users reached 102.1 million. Worldwide mobile payment volume is projected to total $86.1 billion, up 75.9 percent from 2010 volume of $48.9 billion.

While Juniper’s estimates for mobile payments transaction volume were loftier ($240 billion for this year), Gartner analysts claim the mobile payments market is growing slower than expected.

Gartner says that particularly in developing markets, growth in mobile payments is not as strong as expected. Sandy Shen, research director at Gartner, writes, While developing markets have favorable conditions for mobile payments, such as high penetration of mobile devices and low banking penetration, this is no guarantee of success, unless service providers adapt their strategies to local market requirements.

Shen adds that she believes the mass market adoption of NFC payments is at least four years away, with the biggest “hurdle” as changing users behavior from using cash and credit cards to using their mobile phone. And she predicts that in 2011, merchandise purchases from mobile apps like eBay and Amazon will account for 90 percent and 77 percent of all mobile payments transactions in North America and Western Europe, respectively.

In developing markets, Gartner says money transfers and prepaid incentives will drive transaction volumes. In Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa, these two services will account for 54 percent and 32 percent of all transactions in 2011, respectively.

It’s interesting that Gartner doesn’t seem to be too bullish on NFC in the near future. Clearly Google is making a big bet on NFC with the launch of its mobile payments product Google Wallet. And PayPal just announced its integration with NFC for Android phones. Perhaps that leaves more breathing room for innovative companies like Square to continue to disrupt the mobile payments space without adopting NFC technology.

BerlinBundesjustizministerin Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger erwartet nach dem Urteil des Europäischen Gerichtshofs für Menschenrechte (EGMR) zur Meinungsfreiheit von Arbeitnehmern hierzulande eine starke Auseinandersetzung über die Veröffentlichung von Missständen. „Die EGMR-Entscheidung wird die Diskussion in Deutschland beleben, wie man mit Whistleblowing in allen Bereichen umgeht“, sagte Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger dem Handelsblatt.

„Wer Kenntnis von unethischen oder illegalen Zuständen hat und die Entscheidung trifft, solche Zustände öffentlich zu machen, bewegt sich in einem Spannungsfeld", betonte die Justizministerin. Auf der einen Seite gebe es zweifellos Missstände, die an die Öffentlichkeit gehörten, damit sie bekämpft würden - und die nur durch Whistleblowing bekannt werden könnten. „Auf der einen Seite muss sich jeder Arbeitgeber oder Behördenchef auf seine Mitarbeiter verlassen können“, sagte die FDP-Politikerin. Bei der Reform des Beschäftigtendatenschutzes habe sie sich dafür eingesetzt, dass sich Angestellte bei Datenschutzverstößen jederzeit an die Aufsichtsbehörden wenden könnten.

Der Europäische Gerichtshof für Menschenrechte hatte am Donnerstag entschieden, dass die fristlose Kündigung einer Arbeitnehmerin wegen der Veröffentlichung von Missständen bei ihrem Arbeitgeber gegen die Menschenrechtskonvention verstößt.

Targeted online advertising has left many people slightly creeped out by the many ways strangers collect their online data. But a new study suggests that strangers aren’t the only people who are likely to collect personal information without your notice.

The study, which surveyed more than 1,000 online individuals, found that the percentage of significant others, spouses and parents who admit to digital snooping is significant and — at least among romantic partners — on the rise. It was commissioned by consumer electronics search engine and review site Retrevo.

About 33% of respondents admitted to checking a significant other’s email or call history without their partner’s knowledge at least once. Married couples were even more likely to snoop, with 37% of married respondents admitting the same.

Parents, however, were the worst online snoopers. Thirty-nine percent of mothers and 36% of fathers said they had done some digital snooping (across the board, women were more likely to admit to snooping than men). The majority of parents, 59%, also said that tracking their children’s location with a cell phone service or other device wouldn’t be a problem.

“Consumers may have just as much to fear from people they know than big corporations,” reads the study’s conclusion.

Do these results surprise you? Do you think that there’s ever an excuse for online snooping? Is it right for parents to snoop on their children?

This morning Google made an announcement of magical significance: the Harry Potter eBooks, which are being released for the first time this October, will be available via its Google Books platform. That sounds like it should be a given, but in the case of Potter it isn’t — author J.K. Rowling is selling the books exclusively through Pottermore, a site that she launched with much fanfare last month.

Some reports took this to mean that Potter wouldn’t be making his way to the Kindle (or that end-users would have to deal with clunky workarounds to get the book off of Google Books and onto Amazon’s popular device). Fortunately, that isn’t the case: we’ve received word from an Amazon spokesperson that the company is “working closely with Pottermore to make sure Kindle customers will be able to buy and read J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books.”

That’s important, because even before today’s Google announcement people have questioned if Potter would come to the Kindle. Pottermore is reportedly distributing the books in a DRM-free format, and historically Amazon has only sold its books with DRM. Update: Amazon says that they actually sell lots of Kindle books without DRM, and that the decision is up to the publisher. It’s unclear exactly what Amazon is going to do here, but obviously they’re working something out (and they have a strong incentive to, given that the series has sold 450 million copies in print). One thing to note: Amazon’s statement makes it clear that Potter is coming to the Kindle, but it’s still feasible that there could be different release windows in play.

As for the purchase process itself, it sounds like users will buy the books from Pottermore, then choose which eBook platform they’d like them delivered to.

And while it doesn’t have exclusive rights to the books, Google does have a leg up on Amazon in at least one respect: they’ve been chosen as “the preferred third party payment platform for all purchases made on Pottermore.com” — you’ll be able to pay with either Google Checkout, or your credit card. Given how many people will flock to the site, this could well introduce Google Checkout to a lot of people for the first time.

Finally, Google hints that there will be more coming from its partnership: “Stay tuned for more Pottermore and Google wizardry on the web this summer, leading up to when Pottermore opens.”

Seit dem heutigen Mittwoch haben aufmerksame Verbraucher eine neue Anlaufstelle für Beschwerden von irreführenden Lebensmittelkennzeichnungen: Die Verbraucherzentrale Hessen und die Verbraucherzentrale Bundesverband haben die Webseite Lebensmittelklarheit.de gelauncht. Aufgrund des großen Andrangs von 20.000 Anfragen pro Sekunde brach das Portal kurz nach dem Start zusammen. Ute Bitter, Sprecherin der Verbraucherzentrale Hessen, sprach gegenüber dapd von einem "echten Überlastungsproblem".

 

Das Portal solle schnellstmöglich stabilisiert werden, so Bitter weiter.

Bundesverbraucherministerin Ilse Aigner und die Verbraucherzentralen hatten am Vormittag den Startschuss für die Webseite gegeben. Verbraucher werden darauf dazu aufgerufen, sogenannte "Mogelpackungen" zu melden. Eine Fachredaktion prüft dann die anonym gestellten Fragen zu Aufmachung und Kennzeichnung der Lebensmitteilung und leitet den Fall bei eindeutigen Rechtsverstößen an die Lebensmittelüberwachung weiter. Für den Start wurden rund 20 Produktbeispiele online gestellt. In regelmäßigen Abständen sollen Chats zu wechselnden Themen angeboten werden.

Begleitend zum Internetportal wird es zudem Marktuntersuchungen und Verbraucherbefragungen geben, um die Repräsentativität der im Internet gewonnenen Erkenntnisse zu überprüfen, kündigten die Initiatoren an.

Bereits zum Start wurde Kritik an dem Projekt laut. Industrie und FDP hatten die Webseite als "Internet-Pranger" bezeichnet. Aigner wies dies zurück. "Wir fördern den Dialog, das ist das Gegenteil von Pranger", wird die Bundesverbraucherministerin zitiert. Ihr Ministerium fördert das Portal mit 775.000 Euro im Zweitraum von zwei Jahren.

 

Jeder vierte Jobsuchende nutzt Social Media. Zu diesem Ergebnis kommt der Global Workforce Index, den der Personaldienstleister Kelly Services in regelmäßigen Abständen erstellt. Demnach haben bereits 39 Prozent der Befragten ihren aktuellen Job aufgrund einer Stellenanzeige im Web gefunden. Immerhin noch 16 Prozent entfallen auf die Bundesagentur für Arbeit, auf Platz drei liegen persönlichen Empfehlungen mit 12 Prozent. Print-Anzeigen sinken in der Relevanz.

 

Nur bei sieben Prozent führte die Bewerbung auf eine Anzeige in Printtiteln zum Erfolg. Verblüffend ist, dass gar nicht mal die Jungen den Löwenanteil bei der Social-Media-Jobsuche ausmachen. Es sind die 30- bis 47-Jährigen, die sogenannte Generation X, gefolgt von den 48- bis 65-Jährigen - den Baby Boomern. Erst auf Platz 3 rangieren die 18- bis 29-Jährigen, so ein Ergebnis der Studie.

Das beliebeste Social Network unter Jobsuchenden ist Facebook mit 33 Prozent. Knapp auf Platz 2 liegt LinkedIn mit 32 Prozent. 23 Prozent der Befragten würden andere Webseiten nutzen, zehn Prozent greifen auf Blogs zurück, drei Prozent suchen via Twitter.

 

Interessant: Mehr als ein Viertel der Befragten gab an, sich Sorgen über die von Ihnen über sie geposteten Inhalte in Social Networks zu machen. Rund 28 Prozent glauben aber auch, dass ein aktives Engagement in Social Media der Karriere zuträglich sei. Das mag auch daran liegen, dass rund 30 Prozent der Befragten erklärten, dass ihr Arbeitgeber eine Social-Networking-Policy verfolge.

An der Befragung haben rund 90.000 Personen in 30 US-Bundesstaaten im Zeitraum von Oktober 2010 bis Januar 2011 teilgenommen.

 

 

 

 

The Internet of Things, when real world objects are connected to the Internet, is a trend that we've been actively tracking since early 2009. So far a lot of big technology infrastructure and solutions companies have gotten behind the trend, for the simple reason that they see a huge market opportunity. As more and more 'things' go on the Net, it creates more demand for network infrastructure like sensors and routers. Enter the likes of Cisco and Verizon Wireless. Likewise, more technology solutions will be developed to upload and manage data from real world objects. Enter the likes of IBM and HP.

Cisco has designed an infographic that offers a simple example of how Internet of Things will affect you in your everyday life. It also states that by 2020, there will be 50 billion 'things' connected to the Internet - everything from your body, car, alarm clock and even cows.

There has been some contention about the number of connected things and by when. Cisco's prediction of 50 billion devices by 2020 matches Ericsson CEO Hans Vestberg's prediction earlier this year within a similar time period. However IBM recently put it at 1 trillion connected devices by 2015. Indeed in April 2010, Cisco's own CTO Padmasree Warrior said that by 2013 the number of devices connected to the Internet will reach 1 trillion. So even Cisco doesn't seem to have a consistent prediction.

Regardless, as the infographic below shows, the number of things connected to the Internet has already exceeded the number of people on earth. So this is a big trend - and big business for Cisco and other technology companies.

Infographic via All Things D