TECHNOLOGY REPORT

Google research has announced they may have reached a significant milestone in image recognition.   In a demonstration and paper they’ll present today at an imaging conference Google will:

…. begin with an unnamed, untagged picture of a landmark, enter its web address into the recognition engine, and poof — the computer identifies and names it: “Recognized Landmark: Acropolis, Athens, Greece.” Thanks computer.

Although they explain this is not a new Google project, the implications of a very robust computerized imaging are very significant.   I’m not clear how this research intersects or relates to the facial recognition work of Riya and other companies, but as *hundreds of billions* of images pour onto the web from all over the world and as artificial intelligence systems such as the autonomous self driving vehicles of the Darpa challenge evolve, image recognition is certainly a very key element of the innovations that are driving computing forward.

Human information processing is primarily driven by visual interpretations and cues, so this may be considered something of an Artificial Intelligence milestone.

Some of the mystery surrounding the condition of Apple CEO and founder Steve Jobs ended tonight.   Jobs is recovering from a liver transplant he had in Tennessee about two months ago and is expected back at work at Apple soon.    The WSJ reports:

Steve Jobs, who has been on medical leave from Apple Inc. since January to treat an undisclosed medical condition, received a liver transplant in Tennessee about two months ago. The chief executive has been recovering well and is expected to return to work on schedule later this month, though he may work part-time initially.

Mr. Jobs didn’t respond to an email requesting comment. “Steve continues to look forward to returning at the end of June, and there’s nothing further to say,” said Apple spokeswoman Katie Cotton.

Tomorrow’s Apple stock may surge Monday on this news as there has been widespread speculation that Jobs would not be able to return to Apple at full strength where that now appears to be a distinct possibility.   Under Jobs leadership Apple effectively resurrected itself as a viable technology company after nearly imploding under the pressure of cheap, massive PC sales in the 1990s.     Yet thanks to the iPOD, iPHONE, and other Apple gadgets the company has enjoyed a huge resurgence in popularity, prestige, and most importantly for investors….stock price.

Perhaps we’ve written too much here about the microblogging / messaging service Twitter, but I remain convinced that Twitter (and also Facebook with her many new users) represent a mainstreaming of social networking that is a very important development in the evolution of the internet.     People, not technology, are the key to understanding why the internet is so important and no better example is the election in Iran and how Twitter is being used – in spite of massive Iranian Government censorship – to bring news to the outside world and spread messages in the country as well.   CNN Reports that the US State Department is actively encouraging Twitter to maintain uninterrupted services in the hopes of keeping up the flow of uncensored (and often anti-Government) information.  CNN’s Anderson Cooper Reports.

This is not to suggest that Twitter’s offering unbiased reporting of the situation.  On the contrary much of the Twitter buzz is anti-Government and in favor of the opposition candidate and a freeer, more open Iran.   Many Twitter rumors are false as well, but the point is that we’re seeing the service used in a profoundly important and significant way.  More importantly Twitter in Iran is playing a key role as one of the few uncensored outlets.

You can always count on Henry Blodget of  Silicon Alley Insider for provocative industry analysis and today’s post is no exception where he  insists that the TV industry will be suffering the same fate as the print industry in 5-10 years.

I think Blodget offers some good basic trends to watch in the TV market but I’m not as pessimistic because we are certain to see more “convergence power” in the TV sector than we did with print.   Never underestimate the power of luddites and technophobes to influence and even drive TV marketing to some extent, and there are many of them left who have no desire to jump on the computing bandwagon.

This group alone will remain a large market for some time – certainly more than five years.   Also, as celebrities increasingly interact with viewers in multiple venues and niche markets develop to cater to every interest I think TV has as long way to go, though I certainly agree with Blodget that changes are coming and only the flexible and clever may survive.

I think this point in his article is excellent and very true:

As with print-based media, Internet-based distribution generates only a tiny fraction of the revenue and profit that today’s incumbent cable, broadcast, and satellite distribution models do.  As Internet-based distribution gains steam, therefore, most TV industry incumbents will no longer be able to support their existing cost structures.

He predicts the following:

The best content creators will do just fine. Video storytelling won’t go away.  Compared to the people who produced Battlestar Galactica, the Sopranos, and West Wing, etc., the folks who post to YouTube generally suck at it.  So great content creators won’t have to worry about them.

The lousy content creators will disappear. No big loss.  And no big change.

The cable companies will become dumb pipes, and they’ll get disintermediated. We won’t need Brian Roberts to negotiate a deal with the Tennis Channel for us (or, rather, to prevent us from getting the Tennis Channel because of some contract dispute).  We’ll just go direct.

The phone companies will remain dumb pipes.

The wireless companies will become dumber pipes.

The competition between the multiple dumb pipes will eventually, we pray, result in lower prices for consumers for the only thing we will really need: Ubiquitous high-speed Internet access.

Box and device companies will remain box and device companies. Unless Apple somehow creates a new global chokepoint via the iPhone.

Networks that produce live news, sports, and entertainment will offer the content direct to consumers. But they’ll no longer get paid big carriage fees from cable companies.

A few clever online aggregators–YouTube? Hulu? Cable companies? Netflix?–will create nice video portals and build powerful new businesses.   At these portals, you’ll be able to sign up to watch anything in the world on any device you want.  You’ll be able choose among multiple subscription models (monthly, a la carte).  You’ll also have a basic “what’s on” option in case you just want to watch TV.

Some of the most interesting marketing issues of all time are now shaking out in terms of online distribution and advertising.     Literally since the birth of mass media, we’ve come to expect content from heavily capitalized outlets with major advertising programs.    As Blodget notes this *must* change because online distribution and advertising are both very cheap compared to legacy media alternatives.    What will be left when the fat is stripped away?    We can’t know yet, but I have a hunch as consumers we’ll be at least as happy, entertained, and well informed as we are now (though that may not be saying all that much!).

Time magazine has a feature about the rise of Twitter as a major growing social routine as well as an impending huge force in American business and culture.    Readers here know I’m already in something of an argument here at Technology Report with the most excellent Jeremiah Owyang of Forresters about this topic after his keynote at the Twitter 140 conference suggesting Twitter is simply enjoying the early buzz from a hype cycle that will relegate the service to obscurity soon.

Not so, say I and I think Steven Johnson of Time would agree.   He’s summed up an important aspect of Twitter very well:

I think there is something even more profound in what has happened to Twitter over the past two years, something that says more about the culture that has embraced and expanded Twitter at such extraordinary speed. Yes, the breakfast-status updates turned out to be more interesting than we thought. But the key development with Twitter is how we’ve jury-rigged the system to do things that its creators never dreamed of.

In short, the most fascinating thing about Twitter is not what it’s doing to us. It’s what we’re doing to it.

A particularly intriguing aspect of Twitter is that in the purely technical sense it’s not really anything all that spectacular.    What makes it special is that it’s changing the way people behave with respect to technology, opening the tech window for many who have been waiting for applications that allow them to express themselves without the bother of blogging, gaming, or interacting with the stereotypical onliners who tend to skew “highly technical” and “young”.