Desperate to send an email, but don't have access to the internet?
Fret not. Just use your mobile phone camera.
Bangalore-based HP Labs, one of seven global research & development units of computer major Hewlett-Packard, is almost ready with a technology that would convert any mobile with a camera into an unusual emailing device.
"We are putting the technology to test. We plan to roll it out shortly," Sudhir Dixit, director of HP Labs India, told DNA Money.
The technology would use high-end image processing to faciliate this. "It is all about making effective use of a mobile phone and a piece of paper," Dixit said.
And with that , the paper will have come a full circle - from being ubiquitous to being ditched by paperless offices to being back in the reckoning.
So how does one send an email using good ol' paper? The technology is forehead-slapping simplicity: first write it anywhere, not necessarily on a piece of paper, including the email address of the recipient.
Next, photograph the text using the camera on the mobile phone.
A caveat: the software application that HP Labs is developing has to be loaded on the mobile.
The application will process the email image, convert it into normal text mail and send it to the addressee.
How did HP Labs discover the need for this killer app?
"We find PC penetration and internet usage in India to be abysmally low. We found that people are also averse to using a keyboard and a mouse. They use paper everyday and the PC has not changed the way the paper is used. Local language content is also a key hurdle. There is not much content available in local language and for whatever is available, the keyboard is not very useful. But, at the same time, they are 600 million mobiles in India," Dixit said.
HP Labs then started working on surmounting these hurdles and launched a project called 'Big Bet' in November last year.
As a part of this, research teams at the lab have come out with eight technologies that would bridge the IT divide and make effective use of the devices users already own, apart from a PC.
"Normally, people carry a piece of paper and a mobile phone in their pocket. Our task was to combine both. In this process, we have developed this email technology," Dixit said.
Though the commercial aspects of the technology are still to be worked out, Dixit said, there are available in the market today to popularise of.
The company has announced a technology called SiteonMobile, which has also been developed as part of its Big Bet project. This is aimed at making the internet content and services available to the masses even from low-end mobile phones without having to use a smartphone.
This involves combining voice and SMS on low-end phones. Portal owners will have to create a 'tasklet' through a rendering tool to make their portals available on any mobile, and sought through an SMS.
"The mobile phone user will send an SMS to access a particular portal. By making his portal ready through the tasklet, the portal owner will be able to send his portal and contents to the mobile user irrespective of the make of the mobile," he said.
HP Labs is primarily targeting this technology at the small and medium business enterprises seeking to attract consumers. "We can apply the same technology to an online ticket booking portal. In this, the mobile user will feed his details in the required fields by talking into the phone. He can also feed the credit card number and authenticate it separately for making the payments. The tickets will be booked as if he is doing so on the internet using a PC," Dixit said.
The teams at the lab are currently engaged in combining the power of a mobile and a TV. "The roll out of this technology will take some more time," he said.
But from where did they get the idea to connect the masses withe the internet? In July last year, the researchers of HP Labs India were brainstorming to come up with a technology that would increase the internet penetration in India. With this simple theme the 17 member team of researchers supported by dozens of software developers threw the floor open for ideas. To the surprise of the leaders, there were some 60 ideas ranging from designing new hardware top variety of simple ideas to take the internet to masses.
But, the researchers, with an average age of 35 years and experience of working across the world, were not amused. They were keen on technologies that are practical and quickly applicable in an emerging market like India.
"Considering the demographics of India, we need to have a technology that would be useful to shopkeepers, housewives and also the grand parents. If we develop a new hardware, it automatically means that the people will have to carry another gadget in their pockets. That does not make much sense," Dixit said. Then the issue was also about the affordability and the population having a mobile device in their pockets, the issue was to look at maximising the use of the existing gadget than making the people buy another hardware piece.
The brainstorming, field surveys, informal surveys, opining gathering and prototyping continues for 4 months. It was in November last that the team finally decided to make better use of what people already have with them - a mobile and a piece of paper.
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