S'pore tech goes to imbX

Officially opened on Tuesday, the imbX (Infocomm Media Business Exchange) 2009 is a platform where ICT companies, their technologies and users meet at the signature CommunicAsia tradeshow.

The annual event comprises a conference and exhibition showfloor. Under the imbX banner, there is also EnterpriseIT, BroadcastAsia and InteractiveDME.

Caption by: Vivian Yeo
Photo credit: Konrad Foo

Local technologies get air-time on the showfloor. Two units of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*Star)--the Institute for Infocomm Research and Exploit Technologies--showcased 12 new technologies that are in the development or near-commercialization stage.

Shown in this picture is a prototype of the Scalable Multimedia Platform (SMP), which is a "world-first" technology that allows multimedia content to be encoded only once and be made available on various platforms--from mobile devices to a large-format high-definition TV. According to Tham Jo Yew, group leader of audio video processing at A*Star's Signal Processing Department, the SMP was developed by a team of eight over the last two years and is fully-compliant with ISO/IEC multimedia standards such as H.264/MPEG-4 AVC and AAC. This means the technology also is backward-compatible with existing devices in the market.

Caption by: Vivian Yeo
Photo credit: Konrad Foo

Tham, also the organization's project manager for next-generation content for IPTV, said potential applications include home entertainment, where a user can record a video using the SMP home server and watch it on various platforms. Other potential uses are security surveillance (mobile patrol) and multiparty videoconferencing.

Caption by: Vivian Yeo
Photo credit: Konrad Foo

The iTwin is a USB device that looks like conjoined identical twins. IT enables secure Internet file access between two PCs. When plugged into two different machines, it looks exactly like two PCs joined by a cable, only that there are no wires. When paired, the 'twins' initiate and store a randomly-generated 256-bit encryption key that protects communication between the two machines. Access can be disabled via SMS.

The iTwin was showcased at the CES earlier this year and is set to make its commercial debut at the end of this year.

Caption by: Vivian Yeo
Photo credit: Konrad Foo

Showcased here is the Ultra-Wideband Localisation System, which is used to track the position of a moving object with just one single reference reader. The system has an accuracy of 10cm or better, said Pankaj Sharma, senior research officer for radio frequency and optical at A*Star.

Holding the device that carries the UWB tag, Sharma told ZDNet Asia that it could be fixed onto a fireman helmet, for instance, but could also be contained within a credit-card form factor. Other applications include patient tracking, indoor robot navigation, smart trolleys in supermarkets and smart audio-visual museum guides.

Caption by: Vivian Yeo
Photo credit: Konrad Foo

A*Star researchers also began developing a gender recognition system in September 2008, which the agency hopes can eventually be used in embedded systems for digital signages and advertising. Currently, the system taps on the Feret (Facial Recognition Technology) database while the development team of six builds up a local database.

Lawrence Chen, senior research officer for next-generation content for IPTV at A*Star's Computer Vision & Image Understanding Department, said the team hopes to have a substantial local database by this October, following which commercialization may take place.

Caption by: Vivian Yeo
Photo credit: Konrad Foo

As the Feret database is skewed toward a Caucasian population, the accuracy is limited. Here, ZDNet Asia's senior journalist Vivian Yeo (distinctly a member of the female species) is classified by the system as a male. The team, said Chen, hopes to eventually deliver an accuracy rate of 97 percent in line with global facial recognition systems.

Caption by: Vivian Yeo
Photo credit: Konrad Foo

KnowleSuite is A*Star's answer to knowledge management and office productivity. Included in its toolkit is KnowleFinder, which promises very targeted search based on pre-configured perimeters, such as sources to crawl. The agency has partnered entities such as the National University of Singapore and is also working with local hospitals and some companies.

Caption by: Vivian Yeo
Photo credit: Konrad Foo

Over at the pavilion of Singapore's Infocomm Development Authority, visitors were treated to potential applications with the advent of pervasive, ultra-fast broadband access under the country's next-generation national broadband network (NBN) project.

Shown here is an office setting, where various applications can be mapped onto real-time video streaming. In particular, the screen on the top right shows technology that identifies persons in a queue, and can advise the estimated number of people in a queue as well as the average waiting time.

Caption by: Vivian Yeo
Photo credit: Konrad Foo

MediaOnline Solutions' director Dennis So demonstrates the relative ease of resizing an image or application on an interactive touchscreen display panel. On such digital signages, multiple videos can be streamed all at once, and a user can choose to bring to the fore any content by touching the window and enlarging them by pulling his or her hands away from each other.

Caption by: Vivian Yeo
Photo credit: Konrad Foo

Here, So highlights an advertising display created for Korean automaker Hyundai's showrooms in Korea around two years ago. Besides a rotating and 3D menu that offers more information about the car models, viewers can select different images and zoom in at will, and simultaneously view video clips.

Caption by: Vivian Yeo
Photo credit: Konrad Foo

Without physically inspecting a car, prospective buyers can view detailed and close-up images of various parts of it.

Caption by: Vivian Yeo
Photo credit: Konrad Foo

Playware Studios Asia's chief creative director Siddharth Jain explains the 4Di (four-dimensional interaction)--a multitouch interactive display surface that will soon be launched in Singapore's Canberra Primary School as part of the FutureSchools program. In a lab, up to 45 students can simultaneously learn in a real-time game setting through 14 wall-sized displays such as the one shown. Another 45 can log into the company's Web-based learning system, and also participate in the same game via avatars.

Microsoft's Surface computing will also be incorporated into the school's program, but at a later date.

Caption by: Vivian Yeo
Photo credit: Konrad Foo

Students can also tap on devices like the one Jain is holding, to control characters and for teachers, to change new conditions into the environment, such as introducing the element of rain.

Caption by: Vivian Yeo
Photo credit: Konrad Foo