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We are still in the process of adding some confirmed speakers and we're now planning the panels. 68 of the confirmed talks and speakers can be found below.

We only plan two 30 minute panels. One panel will be entitled "US National Broadband Plan" and we already have some great panelists lined up. Details of which will start to appear onsite later this week. The other panel is something new and somewhat risky from a production standpoint; an "open panel". The idea is to not set a topic nor panelists and to do both live, using the audience.

Please help spread the word by adding a banner (here) to your website/blog.

Regards,

Lee S Dryburgh (Founder)

PS The hotel has only reserved 400 room nights for the event (we used more last year) and the cut off date is soon (to get the 159.00 rather than 239.00 room rate). Details here, online booking here

Confirmed Talks (So Far)

• Adam Broitman, Circ.us, " The Information in Everything: The Augmented Future of Communications"
• Albert Hwang, PhedHex.com, "Spatial Computing: Designing an Interface for our Bodies"
• Amber Case, CyborgCamp, "Solid to Liquid to Air: Cyborg Anthropology and the Future of the Interface"
• Anders Sundelin, CIP Professional Services, "Beyond Squeezing Lemons: The Future of Collaborative Business Models"
• Andreas Constantinou, Vision Mobile, "Open is the New Closed: How Google and Nokia use Open Source to Further Commercial Agendas"
• Anselm Hook, MakerLab, "Who Will Own Our Augmented Reality?"
• Anton Yudin, Digital Worlds Institute, "The Wizard is Us: Symbiogenesis by Networking Part 2"
• Arturo Sinclair, Digital Worlds Institute, "The Wizard is Us: Symbiogenesis by Networking Part 1"
• Assaf Biderman, MIT, "What Can Cities be Like When Everything Talks"
• Barak Hachamov, My6sense, "The 6th Sense Accelerator: When Mobile Meets Intuition"
• Ben Newhouse, Yelp, "Sci-Fi to Sci-Fact: How Computer Vision Will Change AR and the World"
• Benoit Shillings, Myriad Group AG, "Evolution of Mobile Applications: Role of WebKit and High-End Browsers"
• Blake Callens, Zugara, "Bridging the Gap Between Desktop and Mobile Augmented Reality"
• Brian Harris, New Mexico Attorney General, "Yesterday's Wire for Tomorrow's Apps?"
• Brian Selzer, Ogmento, "Mobile Augmented Reality: The World Is Your Playground"
• Bruno Uzzan, Total Immersion, "AR Today and Tomorrow"
• Christine Perey, PEREY Research & Consulting, "Generating Revenues with Mobile AR: The Ecosystem, Business Models and Metrics"
• Clark Dodsworth, Osage Associates Consulting, "Context Is King: AR, Salience, and the Constant Next Scenario"
• Craig Walker, Google, "Awaiting"
• Cullen Jennings, Cisco, "Identity for Global Communication"
• Dan Miller, Opus Research, "Recombinant Communications Manifesto: Piecing Together the Disaggregated Infrastructure"
• Dana Farbo, Acrossair, "A View to a Future; Beyond the Hype of Mobile Augmented Reality Applications"
• David Burgess, Kestrel Signal Processing, "A Telephone System for the Next Three Billion"
• David Marimon, Telefonica, "Visual Recognition, the Future of Mobile AR browsers"
• Dawn Nafus, Intel, "An Anthropologist's Eye for the Tech Guy: Emerging Market Opportunities in a Post-BRIC World"
• Deborah Estrin, UCLA Computer Science Department, "Participatory Sensing"
• Di-Ann Eisnor, Wazw, "Navigation Rising! A Deep Look at Live Mapping and Augmented Reality in the Car"
• Donovan Jones, Counterpath, "CounterPath Launch"
• Elad Barkan, Bzeek, "The Future of Mobile Networks: Offloading Congested Mobile Networks with a Software-Only Approach"
• Eric Klinker, BitTorrent, "The Future of P2P"
• Erik Bovee, Mobilizy, "Applying WWW Best Practices to AR"
• Erik Lagerway, Canpages Inc., "The New Standard in Communications?"
• Ge Wang, Smule/Stanford, "Awaiting"
• Georges Penalver, France Telecom-Orange, "Awaiting"
• Hartmut Neven, Google, "Searches Originating Inside and Outside of your Head"
• Ivan Franco, Ydreams, "Advancing AR - Beyond Labels"
• Jan Linden, Global IP Solutions, "Mobile Video Communication - iPhone & Android Lead the Way"
• Jason Kolb, Cisco, "A Glimpse Into the Future if XMPP and Wave are Successful"
• Joe Burton, Cisco, "Ubiquitous Collaboration: The Next Wave of Productivity?"
• John du Pre Gauntt, Media Dojo, "Story as Software"
• John Hagel, Deloitte Touche, "Infrastructure Shift: The Long-Term Challenge of Change"
• John Havens, Porter Novelli, "Augmented Reality and Corporate Communications: The Implications of the Outernet on Commerce and Culture"
• John Swords, Circ.us, "Augmented Reality You Have Not Seen Yet"
• Jonathan Rosenberg, Skype, "Social Sharing 2.0: The Rise of Real-Time"
• Jose de Castro, Voxeo, "Beyond Voice - Designing an Open Communications Platform"
• JP Rangaswami, British Telecom, "Awaiting"
• Keith Lofstrom, Server Sky, "Orbiting Data Centers for Global Connectivity"
• Kristian Simsarian, IDEO, "From Distraction to Real Life, Humanizing our Mobile Future"
• Marc Smith, ConnectedAction, "Mapping Mobile Social Networks with NodeXL: Finding Key Users, Groups, and Locations"
• Mark Anderson, Bordertown Labs, "Building Mobile Augmented Reality Applications with 3DAR"
• Mark Rolston, Frog Design, "Strange Days. How the Computing Experience is Turning Inside Out"
• Martin Geddes, BT, "Cloud Communications (and How to Destroy a $700bn Industry for Fun and Profit)"
• Michael Zirngibl, Ringio, "Ringio Launch"
• Moray Rumney, Agilent, "Macro Trends and Predictions in Mobile Broadband"
• Oren Michels, Mashery, "Disruption and Death: Telephony, Open Platform and Network APIs"
• Pamela Kerwin, Geovector, "Advancing the Business of AR, A Practical, Commercial Solution"
• Peter Meier, Metaio, "Junaio and the Unifeye SDK Mobile Development Platform"
• Phil Wolff, Reef9 Media, "Walk and Talk: Augmenting Conversation"
• Piers Finlayson, MetaSwitch, "Bring Your Own Wireless: How Smart Mobile Phones are Revolutionizing Wireline Customers"
• Richard Bennett, ITIF, "Internet Gone Mobile"
• Richard Whitt, Google, "Our National Broadband Plan: The End of the Beginning?"
• Rob Spence, Onscreen Director, "Eyeborg - Terminator Lives"
• Robert Rice, Neogence Enterprises, "Future Vision: Decade of Ubiquity (Augmented Reality 2010-2020)"
• Shai Berger, Fonolo, "Customer Experience in the Call Center: Can the Leaks in the Pipeline be Fixed?"
• Steve Hoffman, ThinkHuge, "The Future of Augmented Reality"
• Tim Sears, Waggener Edstrom, "iPhone Geolocation Augmented Reality for the DIYer"
• Tom Katis, RebelVox, "Everything You Think You Know About High Performance Military Communications is Wrong"
• Tony Fernandes, The UE Group, "User Experience: A Possible Roadblock to AR Adoption"
• Troy Davis, Cloudvox, "Towards Painless, Free, Open Phone Data"
• Usman Haque, Pachube/Connected Environments, "What's Wrong With 'Reality'?"

New Speakers and Sponsors Added

Last week I'd said:

...I see a migration of value away from basic [telecom] services ever more towards interfaces, ones far more agile, "air like", fluid and rendered on the fly according to social circumstances and precise Cartesian coordinates.

As a response I was sent a link this Curious Displays video. It helps to conceptualize the "air like" direction I was referring to. As a result Julia Tsao is being added to the conference schedule.

I'm also pleased to announce that the opening back to back keynotes on day one has now been finalized with the addition of JP Rangaswami (Chief Scientist, British Telecom and Chairman, Ribbit). JP was invited because of his decision to acquire the 2008 lanyard sponsor (Ribbit) in the months following the event for 105 million USD. I was recently speaking with JP and had said that people were asking what BT is doing with Ribbit, i.e. why the purchase, does it still seem a good decision two years later and where is it going? The subsequent purchase of the 2009 lanyard sponsor (JaJah) for 207 million USD by Telefonica has only served to underline interest. People are wonding if acquisitions of nimble communication innovators (i.e. "core eComm") for huge sums by major carriers is beneficial and if so, why and should we expect more of it? I'm looking forward to JP sharing his answers and his vision with the eComm audience next month.

I'm pleased to announce new sponsors again. Our friends at Skype have taken a Platinum sponsorship position. Skype's unwaivering support the past year has been much needed by the community. RebelVox and Ringio have kindly taken lunch sponsorships. Others interested in sponsoring should complete this form. We're still slightly short of necessary sponsor revenue to break-even (my time is gratis to the community). It would be very easy to get sponsors if we let the companies set the content and send their marketing VP etc. But we don't. In fact a major phone manufactuer wanted to buy a keynote day opening position. The proposal was turned down on content grounds. This reminds me what Andreas Constantinou (VisionMobile) put on his feedback form last year:

"Much more attention to detail on the format and facilities and much better at getting together thought leaders rather than people with impressive titles"

Principles are great but they don't cover costs.

So please help spread the word in order to keep the event "pure" and thought-leadership driven rather than slipping towards the tradeshow direction. At a minimum this means email at least ten people who may have interest. Tomorrow I'll send another update with a list of the scheduled talks (so far).

Thanks!

Lee

PS The hotel has only reserved 400 room nights for the event (we used more last year) and the cut off date is soon (to get the 159.00 rather than 239.00 room rate). Details here, online booking here

The schedule is now full. In fact, there is a double-digit waiting list of accepted talk proposals. It filled a blistering speed; it even caught me off guard. What amazed me this time around was few people had not heard of the conference and many had been eagerly planning to get on for sometime. Day 3 which is a special day this time around (mobile augmented reality) is now a 12 hour day and there are still great proposals to be added.

I'm not prepared to extend days 1 and 2 beyond 9 hours each; we're approaching audience exhaustion levels and must have planned social networking opportunities.

Another extraordinary fact is that ticket sales are up 75% on last year. This is particularly great since there are no marketing and sales people. It's a lean setup, primarily focused on research and content. I rely on word-of-mouth marketing. (Register before regular pricing kicks-in soon)

At the end of last week the very first sponsors were added: Voxeo (Platinum), Global IP Solutions (Gold) and MetaSwitch (Gold). I'd expect by the end of this week more sponsorship opportunities to be taken. Lanyards have already been taken by a privately held company, one not wishing for acquisition (my guess). This will break the nice run we had - the debut America 2008 lanyard sponsor Ribbit was acquired months after for 105 million by BT; America 2009 lanyard sponsor JaJah was acquired months after for 207 million by Telefonica.

Anyway, by attending you'll be part of an extraordinary three-day conversation. A conversation that will help you and your company grasp more accurately - and critically, much more quickly than any other possible means - the challenges, technologies, key people and opportunities ahead in the emergent communications space.

Please spread the word. Maybe pass along some key points, for example it's the only industry event which:

• Focuses on communications innovation
• Straddles telecom, mobile and Internet communications (which is ever more critical as the demarcation lines erode, increasing both challenges and opportunities)
  
• Takes a multi-disciplinary approach (a telecom exec can be followed by say an anthropologist; all pre-designed to help you brainstorm new ideas and company innovation)
• Sets a very high content bar, ignores job titles and is "brains to play" rather than "pay to play" (thus it attracts the most innovative sponsors and you don't have to sit being force-fed tradeshow style industry brochureware)
• Promotes honest and intelligently driven conversations (rather than political/sponsor agendas, orchestrated by event marketeers)
• Helped pioneer what some are now calling the "conference 2.0" format (very short, marketing free short speaking slots without the gloss and fluff)
• Knows your time and attention is valuable
  

Remember that the event is a free 10 minute shuttle ride from San Francisco Airport. The venue is very comfortable and is perfect for conversations that go on late into the evening. However the hotel has only reserved 400 room nights for the event (we used more last year) and the cut off date is in 14 days (to get the 159.00 rather than 239.00 room rate). Hotel details here, so I'd act quick (online booking including group discount here).

There is a lot of exciting news on many fronts but I'll save that for future posts starting later this week. In the meantime please do help spread the word. Together we'll build the communications innovation community, bigger, better and stronger.

Regards,

Lee S Dryburgh (Founder)

Today the "two month drive" started. As of today until the event itself, efforts will be made daily to drive attendee numbers, garner sponsors and to recruit press (as well as prominent bloggers).

I'm pleased to say that things are starting from a good position. Ticket sales are up 50% on last year. There has been significant tier one press interest. I've also got the suspicion that there may be a higher sponsor count this year than in previous years going by sponsor inquiry numbers recently. All good signs that we are going to have a larger conference this year by all means of measurement. In terms of attendee numbers I think the 30% year on year growth rate will repeat.

In terms of content some really stunningly interesting pieces are coming together. I'm quite reluctant to pitch, but I feel compelled to share the opinion that if your in the communications industry, it's a must gathering to stay ahead, know what's next, foster new ideas and creativity and to network with the very best in the industry. ROI is very easy.

Please participate in the following ways:

• Register whilst things are cheaper
• Submit a speaking proposal
  
• Get your company engaged as a sponsor
• If you're press, claim a pass
• If you're a prominent blogger, claim a pass

I'm looking forward to what the communications innovation community can pull together for the third Emerging Communications Conference & Awards, America.

Please help spread the word and help create the best communications innovation event.

The Alpha Call for Speakers PDF can still be downloaded here (PDF format). Please do answer all questions if submitting. Please don't send ANY marketing blurb. 

BELOW IS AN EMAIL I SENT EARLIER TODAY ON THE CONFERENCE UPDATE MAILING LIST (SUBSCRIBE ON CONFERENCE HOMEPAGE). I THOUGHT IT WOULD BE A GOOD IDEA TO COPY IT HERE.

Summary for those with zero time: mobile AR is ushering in a decade of development and opportunity analogous to the introduction of GSM or the first consumer web browser at the start of the 1990s. If you attend the Emerging Communications Conference & Awards April 19-21, you can get into the co-located, Augmented Reality Conference, free of charge. This will be the world's first commercial augmented reality event.


For those with a little more time, let me explain:

In the 1990s two major transformative technologies took hold. The cellular telephone and the web browser. I believe that we're yet again on the cusp of such a decade long transformation.

Using the web broswer for analogy I believe we've stepped firmly onto Gopher territory now. Mosaic is less than two years away. Using the mobile analogy instead, the first GSM call has just been made. The first text message is around a year away.

Unfortunately though, the label for the technology conjures up associations steeped in academia. That label is "augmented reality" (AR) which I'll take a loose definition on of "technology for overlaying and infusing the physical world with digital media, information and experiences"; or as Network World put it "a new interactive relationship between mobile users and their surroundings". Gone are the ridiculously large backpacks and head-up displays. Instead successful first-generation services are now pouring out on cutting-edge smart phones (iPhone 3GS and certain Android based models, currently). It's also coming tantalizingly close to being available on "Matrix-style" glasses at consumer price point.

AR combines mobile computing, ubiquitous computing, semantic and metadata, contextualized media, and locative/geospatial content. This represents a paradigm shift reaching the scale of the Internet itself.

Gartner Research expects AR to be used by more than 30% of the mobile workforce by 2014. According to Gartner's definition it will cause a major change in the "accepted way of doing things," including business models, industry dynamics, processes, revenue streams, and consumer behavior. Nearly every industry will be impacted; advertising, architecture, tourism, conferencing, entertainment, education, military, emergency services, healthcare, productivity, manufacturing, business, publishing, navigation, governance, financial services and so on. It will fundamentally change the way people interact with computers, the world around us, and each other.

I'm not sure what will pull ahead first in terms of user cases, but as an example I think it's clear that AR for home shopping will be a success as it allows consumers to "see" what could be in the comfort of their own home (and with the ability to purchase the products they've previewed right within the mobile AR app). Probably "green-tech" AR apps are a solid first bet too. But then again, could you imagine someone speculating how the web browser could be used commercially, circa 1991?

There are still friction points, for example Apple have not yet opened up their camera API to developers for the analysis of live-streaming. However it's expected though that Apple will change their position in the short-medium term.

It was clear that AR was flying out of the hands of academia, into business and into our lives during the European version of the Emerging Communications Conference & Awards (eComm) last October.

Mark Rolston of frog Design, who won the Most Visionary Speaker Award with his talk Evolving from Mobile Devices to the Ubiquitous Digital Life made three statements during the course of his presentation which resonated deeply with me:

"our spaces are becoming the computer" - Mark Rolston
"our things are becoming the computer" - Mark Rolston
"we are becoming the computer" - Mark Rolston

The video of which will be made available online in the coming weeks.

In the presentation before Mark Rolston, Claire Boonstra gave a demo of Layer , an augmented reality browser. Layar was proving that business can be done now, i.e. developers are making money out of Layar. Layar won the Communications Application Award. Incidentally Google Wave won the Communications Technology Award and the area that I'm most excited about is combining the communication protocols Wave, regular XMPP (it forms part of the Wave standards) and Augmented Reality. I'm hoping that leading communication innovators such as Voxeo, if they aren't' already, pour some man-hours into that space.

I'll stop there for now by giving a quote from Vernor Vine at the start of ISMAR 2009:

"Imagine an environment where most physical objects know where they are, what they are, and can, (in principle) network with any other object. With this infrastructure, reality becomes its own database. Multiple consensual virtual environments are possible, each oriented to the needs of its constituency... the physical world becomes much more like a software construct. The possibilities are both scary and wondrous."

To make this happen at the expected world-class level and provide free seats to eComm attendees - if you're in the field of AR I need your support - email me with any suggestions or offers, thanks! (use lee.dryburgh@eComm.ec). There are speaking slots left for both the Augmented Reality Conference (around 50% are left) and for the Emerging Communications Conference & Awards, America 2010 (around 35% are left).

If you're connected in the AR community please do reach out to your friends and colleagues and make them aware. By bringing together the strong and influential communications innovation community of ecomm together in the same vicinity as the AR community, extra special things will happen this year.

If you're interested in purchasing ticket for eComm, the "friends" rate runs out today; it's intended for people who already know the event and who are prepared to purchase tickets in advance of speakers being announced. But not to worry otherwise as it's a super early bird rate after that. (register here)

Regards

Lee

I'm pleased to announce that the call for speakers for the forthcoming America 2010 is now open.

It's with pleasure that I announce the dates and location for the Emerging Communications (eComm) Conference and Awards, America 2010.

It will run at the San Francisco Airport Marriott, April 19-21, 2010. Expect the event website to appear, registration to open and the formal call for speakers to be issued within the next two weeks.

In the meantime please interact with us by email:

• Suggest topics to cover suggestions@eComm.ec (please keep in mind the tagline "What's Next in Telecom, Mobile & Internet Communications")
• Express interest in speaking ahead of the formal call for speakers proposals@eComm.ec
• Find out more about sponsor and promotional opportunities sponsorships@eComm.ec

The American event was moved from March to April owing to the success of the debut European show held a few weeks ago. As a result, the European show will now run every October and by moving the American event April, we achieve optimal calendar spacing between events.

I'm excited about this event and I look forward to the communications innovation community once again throwing it's weight behind it.

In my "personal life" I've been growing steadily frustrated at the lack of Internet bandwidth available. At least for me, even the most elementary exchanges of media are now hampered.

Take for example photo sharing. I find with a modern DSLR it's typical to use 2 gig of memory for still images on a family day out. On returning home, it's still a pain to upload that 2 gig (for backup and sharing). Yet globally speaking and certainly in comparison to my many friends in the USA, I'm lucky having 20 meg symmetric FTTH (26 EUR/38 USD) in Ljubljana where I've been residing the past year. So if I'm struggling and that's with personal usage, I can't imagine the pain and limitations others are experiencing.

If we go from sharing/backing up photos to doing likewise with video, it's like the world has ground to a halt. The best size I can get each camcorder tape is 12 gig (1080i, HDV). It's pretty impossible to share nor backup online. Even if i upload it, I find that pretty much every potential family recipient are on much slower connections and with insane capped usage (like 1-2 gigs/month).

I'd accepted that sharing/backing up the DSLR photos was a pain, that sharing of modern camcorder footage (i.e. 1080i or 1080p) is near impossible and bought a fairly cheap "snap-and-share-life" type of device, a Canon IXUS 110 IS. It fits in your shirt-pocket, takes reasonable photos and records pretty nice looking video at 720p. But I find a typical day out with that in my pocket, I eat up around 3 gig. Again not easy to backup/share due to bandwidth.

When traveling I find the issue of bandwidth to be so bad, 80% of my activities are curtailed. Take tonight for example. The Crowne Plaza that I'm staying at has an arrangement with SwissCom to provide WiFi, as do a number of European hotels I've stayed at over the past few years. I paid the unbelievable price of 88 EUR (130 USD) for 7 days of "business class" Internet. It said unlimited data and indicated high speed. Once past the paywall it popped up a counter showing I had a 256 meg (!) upload limit which would have been a deal-breaker as the file I needed to upload tonight is 1.2 gig. Added to that the transfer speed is around 150 kbps. Far too slow and no chance I can do online backups either.

Now if I turn from personal usage to required Internet usage around eComm. Each event has generated around 260 gig of video (22-25 HDV tapes) and 24 gig of audio (WAV). There is simply no way to transfer this today over the Internet. For professional processing (colour correction, lighting etc) and then uploading of the videos, they therefore have to be physically posted on a hard drive to the video person (who is in the States).

After the European show in the Netherlands I posted a small 2.5" drive to him. Following the advice of TNT I never added tracking. The hard drive never arrived. So I went out last week, purchased another, filled it with t he 260 gig of event videos and reposted this time withtracking. As you can see above, although TNT charged more than double for the postage including tracking facility and their site makes a large fanfare of tracking, entering the code simply returns the far from helpful message "Message not found (in main memory)". Right now I'm not appreciating the " upgraded" track and trace being advertised by TNT nor their "sure we can" service mark.

My conclusion is the debut Europe 2009 show videos will be delayed further as a result. There is certainly a degree of irony when the "Emerging Communications" conference videos can not be posted online due to lack of bandwidth and even when the postal service is used twice to carry the bits, it fails both times. It's clear to me that my personal Internet usage is very problematic due to bandwidth constraints but for "business use" I'm pretty stuck, relying on the slow and fairly unreliable postal service.

I can't be the only person feeling increasing bandwidth pains?

A majority of the slides are now already up and the rest will be put up over the course of this week at http://www.slideshare.net/ecommconf