Technology Trends

Three months ago, I told you about a Boston-based company, Skyhook Wireless, which is using Wi-Fi networks to provide location-based services (LBS). But this solution relies on a static database of access points updated once a year. Now, a New-York-based start-up company, Navizon, offers a better solution, with its peer-to-peer wireless positioning system which relies on dynamic databases always up-to-date. Users need a free piece of software and a GPS device or a WiFi and/or Cellular enabled Pocket PC PDA. When you’re walking or driving, you’re able to get your exact location in real time, and companies can send you messages about a restaurant of a film opening near the place where you are. The beauty of this plan is that the company doesn’t need any support from big telcos or Wi-Fi providers. The company, which started the service last week in New York, Toronto and Miami, expects to be profitable soon.

Here is how the Peer-to-Peer “Software Only GPS” system works (Credit: Navizon).

“Software Only GPS”? Navigating without GPS? What does this mean? Here is Navizon’s answer.

Since Navizon knows the EXACT geographic locations of Wireless Access Points and Cellular Communications Towers in a specified city or neighborhood it’s able to use the Wireless Networking (WiFi 802.11) and/or Cellular Phone capabilities (or both) that are present within a similarly equipped Pocket PC device, to accurately determine your exact Latitude and Longitude on planet Earth (so let’s hope that’s the planet you’re on!) and then uses this positioning date to inform your Personal GPS Navigation Programs and other Location Based Software Applications on your Pocket PC.

The process is not totally automatic: you need to synchronize your PDA with the Navizon servers. Here is how this works (Credit: Navizon).

As I mentioned above, Navizon’s software is free for individuals. But the company plans to sell access to its databases to other companies. For example, a company giving restaurant ratings could access Navizon servers and give you the name of the best Japanese restaurant in your neighborhood. You also can think that taxi companies or delivering pizzas could track and optimize their fleets.

Of course, these applications will exist only if Navizon reaches a critical mass of users.

But the company doesn’t need to wait for big telcos and doesn’t need large investments. Contrary to Skyhook who relies on people to circle a city to check for updates, Navizon’s users will update the city landscape in real time. And Cyril Houri, who founded the company with own money, told me that he thinks that Navizon can be profitable in a near future.

Will this idea work? Will you download and use this software? Time will tell, but the concept itself is brilliant.

[Disclaimer: I met Cyril Houri once, but I have absolutely no financial ties with him or his company.]

Sources: Roland Piquepaille; Navizon web site

Related stories can be found in the following categories.

• Innovation
  


• Networking
  


• P2P
  


• Social Networks
  


• Wireless
  

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This week, the cover story of BusinessWeek, “The Power Of Us,” reminds us that “mass collaboration on the Internet is shaking up business.” The long article covers all the new Internet technologies we are using today, from free phone calls using Skype to file-sharing, blogs, wikis and social networking services. As says Howard Rheingold, author of Smart Mobs, a mix of different technologies such as the Web, mobile devices, and the feedback system on eBay “may make some new economic system possible.” In other words, these new Net technologies are creating a new world, where “the economic role of social behavior is increasing.” The whole BusinessWeek article is worth reading, but I want to focus here on InnoCentive, a web-based community matching 80,000 independent scientists (the “solvers”) to relevant R&D challenges facing leading companies (the “seekers”) from around the globe. Read more…

First, here is how some traditional companies are adopting these new tools to face this world of changes.

Traditional companies, from Procter & Gamble Co. to Dow Chemical Co., are beginning to flock to the virtual commons, too. The potential benefits are enormous. If companies can open themselves up to contributions from enthusiastic customers and partners, that should help them create products and services faster, with fewer duds — and at far lower cost, with far less risk. LEGO Group uses the Net to identify and rally its most enthusiastic customers to help it design and market more effectively. Eli Lilly & Co., Hewlett-Packard Co., and others are running “prediction markets” that extract collective wisdom from online crowds, which help gauge whether the government will approve a drug or how well a product will sell.

And here is Rheingold’s vision of this phenomenon.

Howard Rheingold, author of Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution, sees a common thread in such disparate innovations as the Internet, mobile devices, and the feedback system on eBay, where buyers and sellers rate each other on each transaction. He thinks they’re the underpinnings of a new economic order. “These are like the stock companies and liability insurance that made capitalism possible,” suggests Rheingold, who’s also helping lead the Cooperation Project, a network of academics and businesses trying to map the new landscape. “They may make some new economic system possible.”

Now, let’s focus on InnoCentive.

Back in 2001, the management of Eli Lilly decided to see if thousands of researchers around the world, and available via the Web, could help its own scientists to find new ideas. And it decided to invest a few million dollars in a young startup company, InnoCentive, short for “Innovation Incentive.” Eli Lilly was soon followed by PG, Dow, DuPont, Boeing and more than 30 other large companies.

Here is how this collaborative technology works. Imagine that you are a company needing to find an answer to a problem that your own teams have not solved. You, as a “seeker,” contact InnoCentive which will post your challenge on the Web, with all the guarantees of anonymity of course. And Innocentive will post the challenge on the Net. Its network of 80,000 independent self-selected “solvers” living in more than 170 countries, will then try to solve this problem.

After a solution is evaluated and accepted, the “solver” will receive an award ranging from $10,000 to $100,000.

If you’re a chemist, here is the list of current chemistry challenges you can solve. For example, if you find “a method to sequester menthol in a flexible sheet” before September 20, 2005, and if your solution is approved, you will earn $50,000.

And if you’re a biologist, you can look at the biology challenges. Imagine you have a good idea to find new “approaches for non-surfactant based laundry detergents.” Submit your proposal before June 24, 2005, and you might have a chance to get $20,000.

Here is a pointer to a list of recent winning solvers.

BusinessWeek confirms that this system is really successful.

More than a third of the two dozen requests P&G has submitted to InnoCentive’s network have yielded solutions, for which the company paid upwards of $5,000 apiece. By using InnoCentive and other ways of reaching independent talent, P&G has boosted the number of new products derived from outside to 35%, from 20% three years ago. As a result, sales per R&D person are ahead some 40%.

So, if you’re an expert in biotechnology or petrochemicals, you might want to join the InnoCentive network. And if you win an award, please drop me a note…

Sources: Robert D. Hof, BusinessWeek Magazine, June 20, 2005 Issue; and various websites

Related stories can be found in the following categories.

• Biotechnology
  
  
• Chemistry
  
  
• Innovation
  
  
• P2P
  
  
• Smart Mobs
  
  
• Social Networks