Smart Economy

Smart Sustainability Showcase for Toronto and Canada

From: Walter Derzko

Sent: Friday, July 11, 2008 12:19 AM

To: undisclosed list

Subject: re Smart Sustainability ShowCase for Toronto and Canada.

Importance: High

Dear Colleagues

I’d like to plant an idea with you – after speaking with a number of designers and vendors, I’m exploring the idea for a sustainability showcase that would feature theme based exhibits with smart technologies from Canadian and international sources-the best from Ontario, nationally and from around the world.

The launch would be 2010, The timing for this seems right.  The target audience would be Canadian business, consumers and school children

I’m writing a book on smart technologies and this would be a logical extension of the concept.

Two years ago I talked to Samantha Sannella and Poala Polletto at the Design Exchange (DX) in Toronto and with several people at the Ont Science Center.  Both groups expressed interest but said that we would need to find sponsors for the project

My business model for this would be three pronged -vendor based revenue, corporate based sponsor revenue and municipality based sponsorship ie city of Toronto or Mississauga and possibly the province of Ontario who may wish to promote sustainable manufacturing.

This concept would be a Canadian, in fact a North American first.

I have a list of 150 potential vendors, and designers from around the world who are working on smart technologies that we can start to approach.

The exhibits would be theme based, --the sustainable kitchen, the sustainable office, the sustainable retail shelf, the sustainable workspace, the sustainable community, the sustainable city etc and would be updated with new technologies every 3-5 years and have a 1-5 year forward focus. (what's commercially available now or in the very near future.

For other exhibits, there can be a regional or national focus ie smart sustainable technology from the UK, Finland, Germany (Fraunhofer Inst), China, Ukraine, Russia, or Singapore, Hong Kong etc

Corporate sponsors might include: Walmart, Rona, Home Deport, Canadian Tire, Loblaws, Sears, Imperial Oil, the banks (RBC, TD, RBC BMO) etc.

The Sustainability Showcase could be housed in a physical location, or it could tour from location to location around the city or province or be mobile ( on a bus the way the Japanese and Korean do- a display bus turned into a demo center that tours from school to school or to fairs and exhibitions.

OCAD students and staff and Beal senior fellows could play a hand in designing exhibit spaces and sourcing new vendors and sustainable technologies.

Several other revenue opportunities could spin off from this as well

Here’s just a few examples of what can be showcased

1) Environmentally sensible packaging such as Mercury-Absorbant NanoSponge packaging for broken compact fluorescent lamps (CFL's) http://smarteconomy.typepad.com/smart_economy/2008/06/mercury-absorba.html

2) Concrete Wood (from the example I mentioned June 2 at OCAD, when Bob Logan was bemoaning the lack of durability of pressboard shelving from Ikea.  See Concrete Wood from lodgepole pine trees destroyed by pine beetles (kills two birds with one stone) http://smarteconomy.typepad.com/smart_economy/2007/11/concrete-wood.html

3) End of Traditional Heating and Air conditioning Thin-film version of Active Building Envelope (ABE) systems could make conventional air conditioning and heating equipment obsolete http://smarteconomy.typepad.com/smart_economy/2006/07/thinfilm_versio.html

4) OLEDs New High efficiency flat light source OLEDs > Almost any surface in a home, whether flat or curved, could become a light source: walls, curtains, ceilings, cabinets, shelves or tables.  Http://smarteconomy.typepad.com/smart_economy/2006/04/new_high_effici.html

Lots more like these

For anyone who is interested in exploring the idea of a Smart Sustainability Showcase for Toronto, we are having a meeting on Tuesday July 22 at 11 am at the Ontario College of Art & Design (OCAD), Beal Institute for Strategic Creativity, room 600, 6th floor , 100 McCaul St, Toronto just south of the Ont Art Gallery.

Please RSVP, so we know how many people are coming

I have had some positive feedback from several organizations, & I’d like to push the concept forward

I'm sending this nationally and internationally in  case you are aware of any designers, vendors, manufacturers or research centers who have interesting cutting edge smart sustainable technology to showcase.

Contact me by email

----Walter  Derzko; Senior Fellow Beal Institute for Strategic Creativity, OCAD 

© 2005-2008 Walter Derzko -"Changing the world, one idea at a time"©

Expert, Consultant, Keynote Speaker and Lecturer on Emerging Smart Technologies, Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Strategic Foresight, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy

The Smart Technology Blog: The Smart Economy -- Read, enjoy, explore, speculate, comment !!

To arrange for an in house presentation or briefing on smart technology see here

To explore the opportunities and threats of any new smart technology in your industry - Contact Me or explore how we can work together

Smart Waterless Washing Machine by Xeros uses just one cup of water

Virtually waterless washing machine heralds cleaning revolution

Researchers at the University of Leeds have developed a new way of cleaning clothes using less than 2% of the water and energy of a conventional washing machine.  The revolutionary technology will provide alternatives to both domestic washing and dry cleaning, heralding the world's first "virtually waterless"  Washing system.

Xeros, a University of Leeds spin-out, is commercialising the technology with some of the biggest names in the washing and dry-cleaning industries.

see here

Smart luxury mattress only $75K ..more then the down payment on a house 08-060

Italian mattress designer Magniflex has designed a “platinum bed" that will be showcased at the Las Vegas Furniture Market next month, more extravagant than its Gold Mattress, a bed with a 22-karat gold fiber cover.

"Each piece is thermo-regulating, anti-bacterial, odor-proof, and anti-stress, and is customized to fit the comfort levels of the consumer," says Henry Burney, U.S. sales representative for Magniflex.  The bed will retail for approximately $75,000.  Matching platinum pillows sold separately.

What every oligarch will want under the X-mas tree next year.

Smart House For People With Dementia 07-035

A groundbreaking home that uses the latest smart technology to give people with dementia and other serious long-term health conditions greater independence has been showcased for the first time in Bristol in the UK.

The technology, which has been developed by the Bath Institute of Medical Engineering (BIME) in the School for Health at the University of Bath, has been designed to help people readjust to living on their own after a stay in hospital, and aims to reduce the risk of users being readmitted to hospital or going into long term care.

It uses special sensors that can wirelessly 'talk' to devices, such as the cooker (stoves), taps and light switches, in response to the behaviour of the resident. By monitoring movement within the home, the system is able to respond to many different situations without having to contact care staff, often just using simple voice prompts, which could be recorded by family members.

The whole installation is quite unique because it is designed to empower the resident rather than relying on outside help to deal with problems.

What can this smart technology do?

• If the occupant was detected opening the main door at inappropriate times they would be given a prompt to let them know the time and encourage them to go back to bed. If they continued to go out, care staff would be alerted.
• If the occupant got out of bed at night, the bedroom lights would be gently faded up.
• If the occupant got back into bed and left the lights on, the house would wait a couple of minutes and then fade the lights off. The user could turn the lights on and off themselves at any point.
• If the occupant moved around the house when it was dark, appropriate room lights would be turned on to help orientate them and prevent falls.
• If taps were accidentally left on they would be turned off.
• If the cooker (stove or hot plate) was left on the occupant would be prompted to turn it off. This would be done twice but if they didn't respond, or if smoke was detected near the cooker, it would be turned off and care staff alerted.
• Whilst the cooker hot plates were still hot, even if the cooker had been turned off, a small warning sign would be illuminated saying 'Cooker Hot'.
• If the occupant was detected moving around a lot at night, they would be prompted to encourage them to go back to bed. If they continued to behave restlessly care staff would be alerted.
• Care staff would be alerted through the normal warden call system.

..gee..I don't  have dementia (yet) but I could sure use some of these features in my home. Ever think of designing DIY drop-in modules (like lego blocks) for this stuff?

ETA: now demo home....no mention of dsesign or construction costs or maintance costs.

Full story here >> [...]

© 2005-2007

Walter Derzko

Expert, Consultant and Keynote Speaker on Emerging Smart Technologies, Innovation, Strategic Foresight, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy "

The Smart Technology Blog: The Smart Economy -- Read, enjoy, explore, speculate, comment !!

To arrange for an in house presentation or briefing on smart technology see here

To explore the opportunities and threats of any new smart technology in your industry - Contact Me or explore how we can work together

.....Strategy without action is a day-dream; action without strategy is a nightmare"- old Japanese proverb

".......Ours is the age that is proud of machines that think and suspicious of men who try to." - H. Mumford Jones

"Without changing our patterns of thought, we will not be able to solve the problems we created with our current pattern of thought."  A. Einstein

"Change is difficult, but complacency and stagnation are showstoppers..." Walter Derzko

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."  - Margaret Mead

P. S. if this is your first visit to my blog, please go to our Welcome page

Smart Elevators, Energy Savings and Opportunity Windows 07-017

The next time you are in New York City, drop into the Marriott Marquis hotel in Times Square and take a ride up the elevators in the newly renovated lobby. Before you get on, you'll notice something different. Instead of a single button to summon the elevator, there's a keypad. You key in the number of the floor you want, and the computer directs you to a particular elevator. At that elevator  you'll will find a group of people headed to your floor and those close to it. When your smart elevator arrives it whisks you express to your floor and next adjacent floors, instead of taking the "traditional milk-run elevator" having to stop at every floor along the way. Elevator rides will change based on traffic. Building managers like it because it saves energy too, because of the overall shorter rides and fewer stops and starts.

This new generation of “smart elevators” called Miconic 10 is made by Schindler Elevator Corporation. All new high-rise buildings in Manhattan will soon have them.

The system is based on a simple fact: when an elevator contains a group of people going to many different floors, each person’s ride becomes longer than if traveling alone. By sorting people into groups headed to nearby floors, each person’s journey becomes — on average — 50 percent faster.

This concept or the Opportunity Window here could be called "Customer Clustering". Most people reading this story will stop here-likely thinking -what a neat and simple idea. or ...."Why didn't I think of that?" Seasoned or serial entrepreneurs will take it a step further, thinking....how can I transfer this concept of customer clustering into my business environment?

Banks started doing this a decade ago by creating single line-ups (cues) that would direct customers to the next free available teller. Previous to this I would always invariably end up in the line where the patron in front of me would have a half hour of banking to do. Government agencies quickly followed suite.

Where else could "customer clustering" be applied?

In my humble opinion airlines have always done a terrible job of boarding passengers. Boarding from back to front makes intuitive sense but there is a much more efficient way of doing it, using customer clustering as the opportunity window concept.

What happens now? Invariably the aisle seat passenger gets settled  into his/her seat before the window passenger makes it to their place. They then have to unbuckle, stand up to let the late passenger into the middle or window seat, all the while, road blocking all the incoming traffic in the aisle.

I've always said that it makes much more sense to board all window seat passengers from the back to the front first, followed by middle seat passengers, followed by all remaining aisle seat passengers, back to front.

Intrigued and interested in learning and applying this type of thinking in your business or organization? We have over 200 such examples of such generic opportunity windows in our Opportunity Clinic Workshops. Call or write for details.

© 2005-2007

Walter Derzko

Expert, Consultant and Keynote Speaker on Emerging Smart Technologies, Innovation, Strategic Foresight, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy "

The Smart Technology Blog: The Smart Economy -- Read, enjoy, explore, speculate, comment !!

To arrange for an in house presentation or briefing on smart technology see here

To explore the opportunities and threats of any new smart technology in your industry - Contact Me or explore how we can work together

.....Strategy without action is a day-dream; action without strategy is a nightmare"- old Japanese proverb

".......Ours is the age that is proud of machines that think and suspicious of men who try to." - H. Mumford Jones

"Without changing our patterns of thought, we will not be able to solve the problems we created with our current pattern of thought."  A. Einstein

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."  - Margaret Mead

P. S. if this is your first visit to my blog, please go to our Welcome page

Network-enabled Smart Objects & Services or the Death of the Traditional Business Model 07-005

Last year I wrote about how EDS is exploring opportuty windows with Network-enabled smart objects and sevices. Jeff Wacker, EDS's inhouse futurist recently asked a thought provoking question at a talk he gave in Toronto in July 2006 ....."Who would benefit by knowing that my package has just passing mile marker number 26 on route 192 ?" (see Smart Technologies need a New Business Model to be Effective)

In a recent newsletter, Harbor Research Inc makes a compelling case for merging product and service development under one techno-umbrella via a new emerging capability called network-enabled Smart Objects

They propose:

"Products and services, (like peanut butter and jam--my analogy,) while complementary, have historically had opposite strategic goals. 

As a result, each function has had to seek out its own distinct strategies.  Intelligent device networking, however, is initiating a blending of the two models.  The salient characteristics of each model are increasingly coming into question as product development and service organizations re-think their roles and functions based on the impact of networking.  Products alone and services alone will rarely provide any appreciable competitive advantage today.  Both are too easily copied.  Success will come to those companies that realize the combined potentials of both by applying them in specific formats that make it nearly impossible for a competitor to invade."....... ( and create brand new-to-the-world, copy-proof  "clustered" business models)

How is this being driven by today's business pressures and  competitive environment?

As I said yesterday, in my post on Open Source Innovation :

1) Because of rising R&D costs and decreased product revenues (due to shorter product life cycles) — companies are finding it increasingly difficult to justify investments in stand-alone, in-house innovation for new products and services.

2) New Business Models (see Crowd-sourced Manufacuring; Buy-what-you-design) are shifting power away from the OEM toward to consumer/designer.

Harbour Research adds the following observations  to the arguement:

3) The U.S. has created the first post-consumer society in which a majority of people have run out of waking hours to consume. Total consumption of all things is dropping towards the 1% growth rate of the population.

4) Instead of a growing demand pulling products through the channel profitably, many product manufacturers are trying to push too much supply through channels, even at losses, thinking perhaps that someday they will make it up on volume.

5) With today's global-glut supply and saturated demand, end-users express their growing power in many ways. Consumers now expect perfect quality goods and services, unconditionally guaranteed forever. All end users want “over choice” in product selection, flexibility in the types and quantity of services available, convenience, user-friendliness in buying, speed in delivery and lower prices.  End customers are steadily getting more of these needs met by more suppliers.

6) Manufacturing technology and methods continue to move towards the make-anything, in-any-quantity-now factory. This will please end-users, but it creates the growing problem of how to market micro-segmented products through traditional commodity channels and mass media.

7) Instead of selling through lots of small, independent agents, distributors and retailers that could be controlled, manufacturers are faced with selling to big chains or cooperative groups that control market share or shelf space and can push the manufacturers around.

8) Progressive manufacturers would like to sell their fragmenting line of goods to more and smaller segments of potential customers which their existing channel intermediaries haven't pursued and may not be geared to serve.

9)  Most product OEMs have enormous services and value added opportunities surrounding them, but the natural effect of their (conventional ) business mode ( and business models) blinds them from objectively seeing these opportunities."

Natural Consequences -( or what I feel is the Death of the Traditional Business Model)

Enter Smart Products and Services........

"By 2010, the Pervasive Internet (the 24/7, everywhere internet (or what I call the xtranet )and Smart Services could drive a total opportunity in the hundreds of billions of dollars for the companies involved in device enablement, device monitoring, and new services driven by device-generated data. The largest opportunity will exist for value-added integrated product and services providers, and thus access to device information will become a de facto part of most service or sales contracts."

Why should an OEM step up to the plate and network-enable its manufactured objects now?

Harbour Research argues:

• "Because in any given market, the first players to do so will own the information feedback loop to the customer, and it will be very hard for competitors to pull customers out of that loop. ( the lock-in factor and opportunity swtiching costs)
• Inside this “information circle,” a whole world of new, attractive, and more profitable services will take shape.
• Because those next-generation services cannot be offered without device information, and because even traditional service relationships will be made vastly more efficient inside the information circle, channel partners can no longer cut an OEM out of the services action.
• In fact, the real-time enterprise turns “disintermediation” completely on its head. When a company decides to make a smart product that sends out its “heartbeat,” the company owns access to that heartbeat, and thus access to the customer. Now, no third party can sell profitable services to the manufacturer’s customer without making some arrangement with the manufacturer for access to the diagnostic or status data coming from the networked product or device."

"With too much supply and not enough demand, product OEMs in virtually all markets are experiencing profit erosion. So, consolidation via acquisition of players at each step in the chain has been the norm for growth and value creation for some time.  Further, the historical approach of most product OEMs has been to aim for the “center” in designing their products and go-to-market architectures, hoping to maximize their access to a somewhat homogeneous set of mainstream customers. However, as suppliers attempt to meet the increasingly diverse and sophisticated requirements of customers, the middle-ground approach to product and market delivery design has been rendered significantly less rewarding—suppliers are finding a broad, central thrust to be less effective in pleasing any group of customers.  Traditional-thinking market participants are, in other words, putting their heads in the sand.

Ultimately, the worst of it all for most product OEMs is the fact that the consolidation cycle was for so many markets a 1990s phenomenon – that is, most product OEM markets have consolidated and most product OEMs are so large that the size of acquisition required to move the “equity value meter” is either too costly or, more often, not available.  Bottom line, we’ve run out of things to acquire.  Today’s executives are realizing, “Heavens….. this means I will really have to innovate and grow organically."

© 2005-2007

Walter Derzko

Expert, Consultant and Keynote Speaker on Emerging Smart Technologies, Innovation, Strategic Foresight, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy "

The Smart Economy Bog: Read, enjoy, explore, speculate, comment !!

To arrange for an in house presentation or briefing on smart technology see here

To explore the opportunities and threats of any new smart technology in your industry - Contact Me or explore how we can work together

.....Strategy without action is a day-dream; action without strategy is a nightmare"- old Japanese proverb

".......Ours is the age that is proud of machines that think and suspicious of men who try to." - H. Mumford Jones

"Without changing our patterns of thought, we will not be able to solve the problems we created with our current pattern of thought."  A. Einstein

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."  - Margaret Mead

P. S. if this is your first visit to my blog, please go to our Welcome page

Happy 1st Birthday to the Smart Economy Blog; Announcing a new Web site, Monthly workshops and webinars

Today marks the 1st anniversary of the Smart Economy Blog. We've received many encouraging feedback & emails from our readers over the past year and good suggestions from positive-focused critics for future improvements.

• According to Pingpoat, The Smart Economy Blog is worth  is $1011.17!  per day
• Inbound links: 1085
• Technorati rank: 34,021

So today, I'm announcing a series of new "smart" initiatives that we will be kicking off in October 2006.

The Smart Economy is growing exponentially and so are we, right along with it.

Smart Economy Learning Series-monthly workshops in Toronto

Starting in October 2006, we will be launching a monthly series of one-day workshops on topics that our blog readers say interest them. These include:

• Latest Tools for Advanced Environmental Scanning, Managing Information Overload and Sense-making ( October 12, 2006, BCE Place Toronto) email me asking for a registration form
• Lateral thinking in business  (Date TBA)
• Developing foresight in your business or industry  (Date TBA)
• Resolving conflicts and disputes using lateral thinking (Date TBA)
• The Opportunity Clinic --Scanning your business environment for Opportunities(Date TBA)
• The Idea Lab --Designing smart products and services that will drive business development forward (Date TBA)
• Introduction to Business Development --Tracking emerging technologies as threats or opportunities for your business (Date TBA)
• Technology Assessment for Investment Professionals & High Tech Startups (Date TBA)
• Building a Busines Case for Smart Devices, objects and services (Date TBA)
• Designing winning business modles for Smart Technologies (Date TBA)

Register today, since space will be limited. Past workshops have sold out quickly.

The Smart Economy Web Page

We are finally in the last stages of planning and constructing our new web site for the Smart Economy. Watch out for launch date soon.

The Smart Economy Webinar Series.

Also starting in October 2006, we will host a monthly opportunity for our blog readers to phone in and participate in a "live seminar" which will include power-point slides and a Q&A session, all from the comfort of your PC or laptop. It will be on some current topic related to the smart economy and some rising smart technology that will be coming into prominence soon. This will be a subscription based series.... We will try to keep the price reasonable so that everyone can participate. Subscription information & schedule will be out soon. Watch for announcements.

Thanks again for all your ideas and keep the feedback coming in.

© 2005-2006

Walter Derzko

Expert, Consultant and Keynote Speaker on Emerging Smart Technologies, Innovation, Strategic Foresight,, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy "

To arrange for an in house presentation on smart technology see here

To explore the opportunities and threats of any new smart technology in your industry - Contact Me or explore how we can work together

.....Strategy without action is a day-dream; action without strategy is a nightmare"- old Japanese proverb

.......Ours is the age that is proud of machines that think and suspicious of men who try to. - H. Mumford Jones

"Without changing our patterns of thought, we will not be able to solve the problems we created with our current pattern of thought."  A. Einstein

P. S. if this is your first visit to my blog, please go to our Welcome page

Looking for Feedback on the Smart Economy Blog

Today is a bit of an anniversary for the Smart Economy. Since I started on this blog last Fall (Sept 15th, 2005 to be exact), I've posted 500 entries (this is # 501). We've received over 100 comments online and many more private direct emails. Our daily traffic is growing steadily month by month, as word spreads about The Smart Economy. Many other influential and popular web sites, trend syndication services and blogs now link back to us.

• According to Pingpoat, The Smart Economy Blog is worth is $1011.17!  Per day
• Inbound links: 1085
• Technorati rank: 34,021

I'd like to hear feedback from you --- our blog readers. How can we improve this site?

• what do you enjoy reading about smart technologies?
• what else would you like to see?
• what don't you like? what annoys you?
• what suggestions do you have for future topics?
• what  would you like to see more coverage of?
• do you use RSS? would you subscribe to a Smart Economy RSS  news feed?
• would you like to hear news about the smart economy on your Mp3 player?
• would you like a one-stop-shop to purchase smart technologies?
• would you find road maps for smart technologies useful for your worK?
• would you subscribe to a monthly online seminar (webinar) on smart technology?
• would you find workshops on smart technology topics useful?
• how do you use our information? investment decisions? strategic decisions? alliance decisions? other?

Post your replies or comments in the comments box below or send me a private email

I look forward to hearing from you.

Enjoy the rest of 2006 and 2007 and I hope to see you back here on a regular basis.

All the best !!

Walter Derzko

Smart cleaner device burns fuel with almost zero emissions

Georgia Tech researchers have created a new combustor (combustion chamber where fuel is burned to power an engine or gas turbine) designed to burn fuel in a wide range of devices with next to no emission of nitrogen oxide (NOx) and carbon monoxide (CO), two of the primary causes of air pollution.

The device, originally developed for NASA, has a simpler design than existing state-of-the-art combustors and could be manufactured and maintained at a much lower cost, making it more affordable in everything from jet engines and power plants to home water heaters.

“We must burn fuel to power aircrafts and generate electricity for our homes. The combustion community is working very hard to find ways to burn the fuel completely and derive all of its energy while minimizing emissions,” said Dr. Ben Zinn, Regents’ professor, the David S. Lewis Jr. Chair in Georgia Tech’s Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering and a key collaborator on the project. “Our combustor has an unbelievably simple design, and it would be inexpensive to make and inexpensive to maintain.”

Called the Stagnation Point Reverse Flow Combustor, the Georgia Tech device, originally developed for NASA, significantly reduces NOx and CO emissions in a variety of aircraft engines and gas turbines that burn gaseous or liquid fuels. It burns fuel with NOx emissions below 1 parts per million (ppm) and CO emissions lower than 10 ppm, significantly lower than emissions produced by other combustors.

Georgia Tech’s design eliminates the complexity associated with premixing the fuel and air by injecting the fuel and air separately into the combustor while its shape forces them to mix with one another and with combustion products before ignition occurs.

more

© 2005-2006

Walter Derzko

Expert, Consultant and Guest Speaker on emerging Smart Technologies, Strategic Planning, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy "

To arrange for an inhouse presentation on smart technology see here

To explore the opportunities and threats of any new smart technology in your industry - Contact Me or explore how we can work together

.....Strategy without action is a day-dream; action without strategy is a nightmare"

- old Japanese proverb

P. S. if this is your first visit to my blog, please go to our Welcome page

Smart device blocks unwanted video & still photography; camera neutralizing technology could halt movie piracy and clandestine photography

Problem:

Video movie piracy is a booming billion dollar industry worldwide- a $3 billion-a-year problem by some estimates and endemic in countries like China and Russia. If someone clandestinely videotapes a movie in a theater and then puts it up on the web that day or burns several hundred thousand  copies to sell on the street-then the movie industry has lost a lot of in-theater revenue. Cell phone cameras and digital cameras are small enough and so ubiquitous that the possibility of taking a picture of what you are not supposed to photograph is becoming far more difficult to prevent.

Smart Solution:

Various research teams from around the globe are working to address this problem. Now, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology (GIT) have completed a prototype device that can block digital-camera function in a given area.  Commercial versions of the technology could be used to stymie unwanted use of video or digital picture "still" cameras.

The prototype device, produced by a team in the Interactive and Intelligent Computing division of the Georgia Tech College of Computing (COC), uses off-the-shelf equipment - camera-mounted sensors, lighting equipment, a projector and a computer-to scan for, find and neutralize digital cameras.  The system works by looking for the reflectivity and shape of the image-producing sensors used in digital cameras.

The picture above shows a Georgia Tech camera-neutralizing prototype that could soon be used to stop movie piracy and other forms of unwanted digital-camera photography.  Shown here with the device are, left to right, Jay W. Summet, PhD student, and James R. Clawson, research technician.  Credit: Georgia Tech

Gregory Abowd, an associate professor leading the project, says the new camera-neutralizing technology shows commercial promise in two principal fields - protecting limited areas against clandestine photography or stopping video copying in larger areas such as theaters.

"We're at a point right now where the prototype we have developed could lead to products for markets that have a small, critical area to protect," Abowd said.  "Then we're also looking to do additional research that could increase the protected area for one of our more interesting clients, the motion picture industry."

Impacts

Abowd said the small-area product could:

• prevent espionage photography in government buildings, industrial settings or trade shows.
• be used in business settings-for instance, to stop amateur photography where shopping-mall-Santa pictures are being taken.
• prevent movie copying -- a major application for this camera-blocking technology.

Movie theaters are likely to be a good setting for camera-blocking technology, said Jay Summet, a research assistant who is also working on the prototype.  A camera's image sensor - called a CCD-is retroreflective, which means it sends light back directly to its origin rather than scattering it.

Retroreflections would probably make it relatively easy to detect and identify video cameras in a darkened theater.

How this smart technology works:

The current prototype uses visible light and two cameras to find CCDs, but a future commercial system might use invisible infrared lasers and photo-detecting transistors to scan for contraband cameras.  Once such a system found a suspicious spot, it would feed information on the reflection's properties to a computer for a determination.

"The biggest problem is making sure we don't get false positives from, say, a large shiny earring," said Summet.  "We need to make our system work well enough so that it can find a dot, then test to see if it's reflective, then see if it's retroreflective, and then test to see if it's the right shape."

Once a scanning laser and photodetector located a video camera, the system would flash a thin beam of visible white light directly at the CCD.  This beam - possibly a laser in a commercial version - would overwhelm the target camera with light, rendering recorded video unusable.  Researchers say that energy levels used to neutralize cameras would be low enough to preclude any health risks to the operator.

Still camera neutralization in small areas also shows near-term commercial promise, Abowd said.  Despite ambient light levels far higher than in a theater, still cameras at a trade show or a mall should be fairly easy to detect, he said.  That's because image sensors in most cell phones and digital cameras are placed close to the lens, making them easier to spot than the deeper-set sensors of video cameras.

ETA ? 2-5 years if Abowd's company, DominINC finds venture capital

Camera neutralization's potential has helped bring it under the wing of VentureLab, a Georgia Tech group that assists fledgling companies through the critical feasibility and first-funding phases.  Operating under the name DominINC, Abowd's company has already received a Phase 1 grant from the Georgia Research Alliance (GRA) with VentureLab assistance.

Abowd said that funding availability will likely decide which technology-small- or large-area-will be developed first.  DominINC will apply soon for GRA Phase 2 money, Abowd said.  Those funds would be used to aid anti-piracy product development, as would any funding coming from the film industry.

Other potential funding, from industry and elsewhere, would likely be used to develop anti-espionage small-area applications.

Stephen Fleming, Georgia Tech's chief commercialization officer, said motion-picture groups are actively looking for technology to foil piracy.  Movie distributors might even promote camera-neutralizing systems by refusing to send films to theaters that don't install anti-piracy systems.

There are some caveats, according to Summet. 

• Current camera-neutralizing technology may never work against single-lens-reflex cameras, which use a folding-mirror viewing system that effectively masks its CCD except when a photo is actually being taken. 
• Moreover, anti-digital techniques don't work on conventional film cameras because they have no image sensor.

Good computer analysis will be the heart of effective camera blocking, Summet believes.

"Most of the major work that we have left involves algorithmic development," he said.  "False positives will eliminated by making a system with fast, efficient computing."

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