IT trailblazers go in search of dragons

Nine Tiles proposes circuit-switched ATM for voice and video data

The credit crunch has significantly reduced the ability of fledgling IT companies to convert an innovative idea into a commercial reality.

This year’s 10th Cambridge Enterprise Conference at Cambridge University showcased several examples of ground-breaking technologies in dire need of funding. These ranged from a plug that downloads content to a mobile device via fixed broadband without needing a PC, to an online statistics service designed to make journalists and civil servants look well informed.

Cronto
Making online banking secure is an ongoing challenge, but software maker Cronto believes that customers can use mobile phone cameras to make sure that web transactions are protected against malware and online scammers.

The startup software developer has created a mobile applet that takes a picture of a visual cryptogram or 2D barcode presented on the PC screen to verify the details of the transaction.

“Some banks in Germany already use visual verification such as optical interfaces and optical readers to do the same thing, but the customer needs a card and a separate device,” said Cronto chief executive Igor Drokov. “Taking a picture is more intuitive and you can use any VGA camera phone.”

Cronto’s visual transaction signing technology is being tested by Commerzbank in Germany, which has reported 100 per cent user acceptance, said Drokov. The cost of the technology can be absorbed by the bank, or charged per transaction or an annual per-user fixed fee.

“Similar types of SMS transaction cost about 6p each, and we will aim to be competitive,” said Drokov. The company is looking for additional investment to help fund manufacturing and supply.

Timetric SIS
Inkling Software has developed an online statistics service and data analytics tool that is being trialled by the Guardian web site. Its Timetric Statistical Information Service (SIS) allows journalists to pull statistical and financial data from a variety of publicly available sources, such as the Office of National Statistics, the Federal Reserve, and the European Central Bank, which are tracked daily by the software.

Inkling is based in the Cambridge Enterprise Laboratory at the University of Cambridge, the result of a collaboration between three academics with backgrounds in computational physics, ontology design and data representation.

“We aggregate data from public and government sources, or allow subscribers to upload their own, so they do not have to update their own spreadsheets,” said Andrew Walkingshaw, one of the company’s co-founders.

Available as a subscription delivered over Amazon Web Services, Timetric is aimed primarily at media and government organisations, but could be adapted for use as a business intelligence tool for finance companies or any firm.

“It could be adapted to report real-time data from embedded sensors, for example, delivering information on power usage from smart meters,” said Walkingshaw.

Having survived on angel funding, Inkling Software is now trying to raise a further £500,000 to expand its current headcount of three and attract customers and business partners.

The RatPlug
Tapping into the ongoing popularity of all things iPhone, the RatPlug from startup Ominplug Technologies is a USB charger that automatically uploads and downloads multimedia content to and from mobile devices without the need for a PC, while simultaneously charging the device’s battery.

It uses wired or wireless connections to an existing broadband router to transmit content according to preferences configured and retained in individual profiles stored within the device. It uses 15W-60W of electricity, far less than if content were downloaded via a PC, said Omniplug founder Jeremy Penston.

“Transmitting large, rich media files using mobile broadband costs too much,” he said. Penston has invested about £100,000 of his own money so far, and is n ow looking to fund manufacturing capability. “We need more capital to scale the business,” he said.

The basic RatPlug with Ethernet connection costs £50; a Wi-Fi model is £70 and a version that supports power line networking is £100.

Nine Tiles
Nine Tiles is the brainchild of John Grant, who believes he can re-energise circuit-switched ATM to improve the delivery of live video over the internet. ATM was used extensively before the IP became the protocol of choice for LANs, WANs and telecoms networks.

Though the technology offered relatively low bandwidth (155Mbit/s), it had the advantage of better quality of service for voice and video traffic, because it uses variable rather than fixed-sized data packets.

“Because ATM is circuit switched, it uses much less power than current software,” says Grant. “ATM is better [than IP] for video distribution, videoconferencing and remote collaboration applications in many fields, including medicine.”

Grant has applied for a patent, and is “getting close to chasing venture capital funding”.

Meanwhile, ATM is the focus of an ITU study group looking at future network technologies able to transmit data in ways that packet-switched IP networks cannot. “It will be sold as part of network equipment. We are not going to build a factory, but will license to telecommunications equipment suppliers,” said Grant.