How Amazon will benefit with its Fire phone

Amazon Fire Phone

On reading the news about  Amazon’s Fire Phone and its 3D camera, a couple of thoughts flashed through my mind — like reverse image search and its potential. But the most interesting thought was the key function of the device, to search for products on Amazon’s online store, just by shooting a photo of something you want to buy.

First let’s discuss Amazon’s (late) entry into the highly competitive smartphone business. With giants like Samsung, Microsoft-Nokia and Sony, not to mention the numerous Chinese brands, what chance does Amazon have in the  smart phone market? It cannot score on pricing alone.

To answer that, one has to be reminded about the premise for Amazon tablets and wands. These hardware devices are like miniature Trojan horses – nice looking on the outside, low priced, with the real stuff on the inside. The real reason for Amazon to launch Kindle Fire tablets was to sell more e-books, music, movies and TV shows. The loss made from selling low-priced tablets would be offset by profits from content.

It will be the same with the Amazon Fire Phone.

Amazon wants you to use this smartphone to buy products from its online store. But haven’t we heard this before?

The real reason why people bought Apple’s iPhone and the iPod was iTunes and its amazing catalog of content. Steve Jobs went to great lengths to get all the music, movies and TV shows in one place, on the iTunes store — and he made it real simple (and quite affordable) for us to access this content. The other attraction was the App Store, though there were few apps when the first version of the iPhone was launched.

Well, with the Fire phone, Amazon wants to simplify the shopping experience, and make it less time-consuming. So if you want to buy, say the same pair of flip flops as you friend, just get a 3D picture of it with the Fire phone, and send it to the Amazon site.

At the back-end, the site will use reverse image search technology (or humans) to find a match and make suggestions. You will then need to select the product and confirm the purchase.

Very neat!

Speaking of reverse image search technology (using pictures to search pictures). It has been around for sometime, though I doubt many people use it to search images on search engines.

Google offers reverse image search and you can read more about this here: https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/1325808?hl=en

And there are companies like TinEye Services that offer image recognition technology: http://services.tineye.com/

Amazon’s image recognition system is call FireFly.

So instead of typing keywords to search images, just upload an image that suggests what you are looking for — and the search engine will find similar images.

Great for high school projects!

 

 

CeBIT India reaches out to small and medium companies

I’m glad that CeBIT India is not just another conference with speakers and topics — it goes beyond that.

On attending a press conference in Bangalore this week, I learnt that CeBIT India wants to be a platform to promote industry, innovation, and Indian talent.

The story on the partnership between CeBIT India, IESA and MAIT appeared in many publications. Sujith John and Shilpa Phadnis of the Times of India wrote a very aspiration type story, ‘CeBIT hopes to bring tech biggies to Bangalore’. But yes, we will see speakers of that caliber at CeBIT India. It is my job to ensure that (with the support of my A-team).

Now coming to this week’s announcement about the partnership between MAIT and IESA.

CeBIT signed an MoU with IESA (Indian Electronics Semiconductor Association) and MAIT (Manufacturers Association of Information Technology) this week to promote the ESDM (Electronics System Design and Manufacturing) sector in India. And how exactly will it be doing this?

Well you see, both bodies have a number of members from companies of all sizes. Some of these companies are start-ups or so small, that they would not be able to fund themselves for individual partnership at CeBIT. But by coming in through MAIT or IESA, they are getting an opportunity to present themselves to the world, through the CeBIT platform — at a very low cost.

So essentially, they will be part of the MAIT or IESA pavilion at CeBIT — showcasing their innovation to international businesses that are visiting CeBIT. That’s a pure B2B opportunity!

Rahul Gupta, Chairman, SME Chapter, MAIT also heads a company called Smile Security and Surveillance Pvt. Ltd (http://SSSL.co.in). His company is participating at CeBIT through MAIT.

Gupta says: “I feel that this is a very big opportunity for a small SME company like me to showcase myself to the world — at a very special rate — through MAIT”.

I feel that CeBIT India needs to look at more such “clusters” and theme based pavilions to get more companies to come and participate in the Expo at CeBIT India (November 12 – 14, 2014, Bangalore International Exhibition Center).

http://www.cebit-india.com

 

I’m back on TechWow!

After a long Hiatus of almost two months, I am back to posting on this blog!

I am sorry to disappoint all my followers, but allow me to explain.

There has been an exciting career change for me — I just joined the CeBIT Team in India and now manage CeBIT Global Conferences India.

I am responsible for the Conference Program, conference architecture, speakers, topics, tracks etc.

That’s a lot of work to be done and the expectations are really high. So CeBIT India will be the largest project in my 20 year career!

Please visit http://www.cebit-india.com and also participate in our social media activities on Facebook, Twitter etc.

And if you want to visit CeBIT in India — or speak at CeBIT India, you will find all the details on the CeBIT India site.

We are opening the Call for Speakers next week, here: http://www.cebit-india.com/callforspeakers

Hope to see all my followers at CeBIT India — Nov 12 – 14, 2014 Bangalore International Exhibition Center

Warm regards

Brian Pereira

brian@hmf-india.com