AVISG Tecnology for Multimodal Interaction explained

When demonstrating the AVISG tecnology for mobile multimodal web interaction (see videos here) customers tell us about how can it be possible, how to synchronize real time voice and mobile web if mobile browsers are not AJAX enabled. The others concern is about the possibility of reusing their IVR/ASR/TTS. Basically the answers are: YES, Solaiemes AVISG can synchronize real time voice and web content with only xhtml capable devices and AVISG can use whatever pre-existing IVR or using cloud IVR's. But in order to explain better our technology and advantadge we just prepared a ppt product sheet to help architects of partners and final customers understand how AVISG can be combined with their offers or cover their needs.

We submitted our entry :-) Mobile User Experince Awards

We just submitted our entry to the MEX2009 (Mobile User Experience Awards Event).
In spite of most of entries are about mobile applications, our entry is about our AVISG platform, trying to improve usability from the network side, and make it compatible with as many devices as possible, not only for high-tier smartphone users. With AVISG whatever web/wap site become multimodal and could browsed using the voice.
You can rate our entry and comment. As usual, whatever feedback and suggestions more than welcomed.

Equality in Mobility User Experience, Is it a dream? No, it is a Right

Hi, 2 weeks ago we talk about a "mobile cloud" alternative to "mobile applications", today we want to show with a real demo how it is possible to provide very good user experience for mobile solutions in mid-tier devices, and it means to deliver "mobility value" for everybody. In this video we compare our network based solution with iPhone and a 3G device (not smartphone) and create for both the same multimodal experience based on browsing, voice call, Solaiemes AVISG usability platform and IVR/ASR/TTS SaaS capabilities from 3rd parties.



Obviously, smartphones have computing advantadges, larger display, touch, etc...but we must take in count that powerful 17" laptops are far away more capable than 9" netbooks and netbooks are beoming now (using browser as cloud based applications enabler) the perfect machine for most of use cases. This is the point we want to evangelize as new trend of mobility, common devices are enough for very rich experiences. Carriers, suppliers, content providers should work together to improve user experience for all mobile subscribers, Solaiemes in pushing for that :-)
feedback welcome

Mobile cloud capabilities VS mobile applications

Lately, there is some "buzz" about 2 debates, initially independent but finally related. First one is related to the innovating capabilities around "the voice" in mobile and web services, and the other one is about the mobile application trend.
When discussing the topic of using "voice" to enhance user experience in mobile services people inmediately think in adding ASR/TTS capabilities to the handsets. This aproach in our opinion has 2 weaknesses: a) you are restricting "rich user experience" capabilities only to smartphones and it means reducing the critical mass of potential users and b) ASR/TTS capabilities as mobile app are far away less capable than server based. For navigate the mobile menu, address book, etc, could be ok, but not to be used in complex multimodal browsing by users using a "close to natural language".
The internet trend is reducing device capacities (less HD storage, slower processor, small display, RAM memory reduced) and using a common interface well known (the browser) to run most of "applications" needed in the cloud. (it took time but finally the Richard Ellison prediction comes true once the "network availability, bandwidth and prices are ok").
A lot of services can be offered as a service, using network infrastructure and making really simple launching services, because nothing to install at computer, no compatibility issues, etc. Companies with successful offering capacities or frameworks in the cloud include Amazon (EC2), SalesForce.com, Voxeo, Google, etc...
In the other hand, mobility, the trend is just the opposite, identifying "rich user experience" with high tier smartphones (iPhone, Windows Mobile, Symbian, RIM, Palm, Android) and downloadable application from mobile stores. Why ????
If the mid tier devices are capable enough, with normal mobile enablers (voice, video, sms, browsing and ptt) properly combined you can create amazing use cases, and the price plans are becoming flat rate, we think mobility trend may align the personal computing trend as soon as possible.
If you can send live video to the web from a low tier 3G device why using an external application only available for smartphones?
If you can use your voice to browse you mobile banking site or google search combining voice call + browser using cloud services (Voxeo cloud IVR/ASR/TTS in this case using CCXML/VXML), why installing a thick client only available to few smartphone devices ?
Even being aware of amazing success of Apple Store, and next to be launched by RIM and Microsoft and Android, we encourage people to think about making things easier, and providing best mobile user experience to the big masses. We believe in the Henry Ford approach, give most of people the chance of becoming drivers, we want to deliver the "rich mobile user experience and capabilities" to everybody, not depending on choosing the expensive handsets. Is that disruptive?

Will finally carriers detect the PoC opportunities?

After several posts talking about us, new products, mentions, come back to evangelist task :-)
Carriers are worried about still 80% voice and 20% data mobile revenue not being balanced (and even the difference is wider if taking in count SMS is carried to CS - voice domain).
At the same time most markets are mature in terms of subscribers reaching 90-120% market penetration (more than 1 linea per citizen) and the ARPU is being stable around 28-40 € in most western countries.
Some promising technologies as PoC (push over cellular, mainly push-to-talk) have been delayed, shyly launches, or discarded due to voice and sms canibalization fears. Carriers are having a too mucha conservative approach, they are more focused about risk avoidance than boosting new ARPU increasing opportunities.
Please, start seeing PoC as SMS. SMS is not seeing only as mobile to mobile use case, and a lot of mobile to machine (sms to tv-screen, ring-tones download payment, voting, etc) and machine to mobile (alerts, m-banking alerts, marketing, headline news distribution, etc).
Why not using PoC with the same approach with push-to-talk? A lot of mobile to server and server to mobile can be used for raising marketing budgets of companies, increasing the non-final subscribers revenues, and enablig new on subscription based services. Being even more ambitious push-to-talk could be the first step for affordable man-machine interaction to browse news, services, etc, defeating the usability barrier of mid-tier devices (small display, limited keypad).
Hope we can find soon carriers realizing of PoC potential and proactively launching PoC to mass market.

Sneaking through a hole in a walled garden

I live in Madrid, it is a beautiful city and the capital of Spain. It is a nice place to live with lot of public gardens where all citizens can enjoy. But this has not always been so. Take as an example the Retiro (http://www.esmadrid.com/monograficos/retiro/es/monografico.html). It was conceived as a rest place for kings and their kindred around the end of XVII century. Only in the early XIX century, some citizens where allowed to walk inside certain parts of it, and only if they commit to certain "good manners". It was only in the last century when this park was open to the public. And becoming a public garden, allowing all citizens to enjoy it, walking, bicycling, etc., was how it got to realize its full potential. By now, you should be asking what has to do all of this with mobile technologies. Good, let me put you in context: http://www.theserverside.com/news/thread.tss?thread_id=45821

Ok, I must say that I totally agree with the article from Eugene. And I must say that the problem he points to is no special case of the US, but is a general one also in Europe. Perhaps not so hard, as it is possible to deploy third party applications on most terminals from any carrier (be it J2ME or Symbian). Although, in practical terms this hardly makes a difference as most subscribers are not willing to download any applet :-(

However, it is true that enhancing the browser capabilities in mobile phones, and making them more similar to what we expect to have on a normal laptop will ease the deployment of mobile applications. This is already happening, as most mobiles include nowadays browsers with capabilities close to those of their PC counterparts. But this will be boosted with the iPhone coming out, including a full featured Safari browser. This will allow to have full web style applications on the phones with AJAX interfaces, including all multimedia elements, also with proven good development frameworks, like those built around J2EE, and allowing to easily integrate with all the IT infraestructure in most corporations. This in turn will reduce development and operational costs of mobile applications.

This looks nice, as it may allow application developers to slip through a hole in the carriers walled garden. However, this is not the end of the story, there is still one important element: usability. And this puts the challenge once again on the application developers side. I mean, having web style applications in the phone is nice. But you cannot expect all subscribers to use those applications in the same way they use web desktop applications. So, new user interaction paradigms must be developed: involving touch screens, multimodal interfaces where the user can navigate through voice and get the result in the mobile browser, and why not, even navigation through gestures (ok, I know, I know, I should get a Wii and forget about all this ;-)

Towards an all IP model?

Last years we have seen that mobile applications have been closely modelled as Internet Web applications, with some significant differences though. Mainly related to the adaptation to terminal capabilities and to the operator part, and this is a very important one. When talking about Wap instead of Web or IMS applications instead of pure IP applications you get some advantages for sure: better service quality, user identification, billing, etc, but somehow the differences with the pure Internet model may be dragging the success of mobile applications. You can look at success cases in the Internet (Google, YouTube, etc.) that have no real counterparts in the mobile world. So where is the problem?
The problem may reside in two elements:

• Excessive operator dependencies. Although it is nice to have the operator as an intermediate for use identification, billing to the final user, etc, it complicates the technological and business model. The pure internet model is much simpler, and in all success cases they show they really don't need the operator apart from its data carrier service. In fact there are some pure Internet players that are expanding to the mobile world using a pure Internet/Web approach. Google is doing well and using their maps service in a mobile terminal is a very good experience, with the added value that you can use it while you are on the move. Perhaps that is the right approach and for many mobile applications we don't need any operator support and just use the current web browsing capabilities in terminals or J2ME applets.
  
• Lack of adaptation to terminal capabilities and usability of mobile applications. Probably this is the main point and it deserves a complete talking about it. Just two important points: first, in the mobile world with terminals with small screens and without keyboards, ergonomy becomes crucial, and using web applications as in a laptop is probably not a good idea. We still have to see which is the correct model, but probably, multimodal services, that combine several modes of input and output of information are around the correct model. Consider the capability of browsing the web using a mobile terminal through voice commands, and getting the information videographically. Second point: mobile applications model have been driven by terminal vendors, that have decided technological environment and even programming APIs (Symbian, J2ME, etc.). However new players are entering the game, like Apple with their iPhone and the already in-place Windows mobile from Microsoft. They intend to be big players in this game, and for that reason they need to give better accesibility to services, and this will probably will change the landscape in the mobile applications market.
  

is it really a need to browse to get Mobile content/information?

We find everyday how the direct "way to do" translations from pc browser to mobile browser is becoming unsuccesful, the mobile "sites" are not easy to use, users left, carriers complain about how difficult to balance voice and data revenues, and while complaining they are not seeing this could be fixed soon. ("If you shed tears when you miss the sun, you also miss the stars" by R. Tagore).

The first key is rethinking from scratch the concept of mobile content, with small screens, limited keypad and no mouse, how to provide the info should be conceived for mobile, forget about pc-based web content adaptation.

From the web-core infrastructure, it is highly predictable what the user to see when is accessing to an online media, their bank m-CRM, the mobile portal of his carrier to check the bill, etc... why not offering the information with proper reading times, in slides with the best representation format supported by the mobile device (wml, html, XHTML, SVG) ??? The same for mobile marketing, we do not need to browse the catalogues, the catalogues should be personalized as continuous animation.

Solaiemes is working on that, demonstrating this is possible with a common platform for whatever kind of mobile CRMs and content, who want to be the first trying this new mobile-content easy to use ? :-)

(Spanish) Constatamos cada día el fracaso de la navegación web en el móvil, los usarios se quejan de que es incómoda, las operadoras de lo díficil que resulta balancear los ingresos de voz y datos, pero mientras se producen las quejas no se entra a resolver la cuestión, lo cual a día de hoy es resoluble. ("si lloras porque se oculta el sol las lágrimas no te dejarán ver las estrellas", R. Tagore).

Lo primero es asumir que el modelo de contenido móvil hay que rehacerlo desde cero, con pantallas pequeñas, teclado limitado y sin ratón hemos de olvidar la tentación de adaptar los contenidos de internet-pc al móvil. Hemos de concebir otra forma de "entregar" contenido apta para el móvil.

El "corazón" de los sistemas de internet, ya permite almacenar e identificar los hábitos del usuario que conduzcan a una predicibilidad alta de lo que quiere hacer cuando accede a su banca online, a periódicos online, o cualquier crm, así como qué es lo que ojea de un catálogo. ¿Por qué no presentarle lo que quiere como una sucesión de diapositivas con tiempos adecuados de lectura, como una animación?

Solaiemes trabaja en esto, demostrando que una plataforma única es posible adaptarse a muchos tipos de contenido, ¿quién quiere ser el primero "movilizando" de verdad sus canales para usuarios?