hamner

I imagine there would be some overhead (e.g. each user transmitting a certain user-specific pattern every 1/2 second, and each AP transmitting a certain AP-specific pattern every 1/2 second), to calibrate the location of each user in AP-space. Fundamentally I think all the calculations involved would be fast linear algebra operations that could be done in hardware on the order of microseconds.

The white paper is non-technical, but I think this is the gist:

Currently, if you have multiple users and 1 access point (AP), the users split the bandwidth. Multiple APs and multiple users on the same channel results in split bandwidth as well, since the APs operate independently and interfere with each other.

This proposal uses N APs for N users on the same channel, allowing for full bidirectional use of the channel bandwidth by each user. To send data to N users simultaneously, a central server receives the data, and calculates the signal to send to each AP such that the user receives only the clean signal meant for him post interference. This requires precise localization of the user in AP space, presumably done by having the user transmit a certain pattern at the particular frequency, and measuring the result at each of the channels.

For the N users to transmit simultaneously to the N APs, the data center can take each of the incoming signals from the N APs along with the localization of the users in AP space, and apply linear algebra to unmix the signals into a signal from each user.

I imagine this adds some overhead to each channel in order to maintain precise localizations of each user in AP space.

Hopefully this will improve on the algorithms they have in Lion (which seemed to work ever-so slightly better than OpenCV's face detection and work poorly on profile views).

A lot of the comments below are criticizing "irrational investors" that were "duped" or the product as "vaporware."

This is not the case. Color had a very talented team attempting to attack multiple technically challenging problems, that remain unsolved today.

The first is the discovery of your implicit social network, as defined by your virtual and real-world interactions with others. Facebook currently uses this to determine what information is shown in your News Feed and make friend recommendations, but is not using it to its potential. Google Buzz tried to do this directly via your emails and flopped partly since it did not account for the privacy implications. The ability to transform people's natural interactions into strong recommendations of what they should pay attention to and who should meet each other is still an open problem.

The second is the mapping of real-world events (initially defined by the pictures and people) onto the virtual world. There is potentially a lot of value, both to participants and outsiders, to say (1) who came to real world events, (2) how they interacted, and (3) what happened, while properly dealing with the corresponding ethical implications.

For both of these to work, Color needed a viral social product to gain data and users. They failed on product/market side, especially because they did not have enough focus on "what is the experience we want our users to have the first time they launch the application?" The opportunity remains open, for Color to redeem itself, for the big players to improve their products, or for a new startup to come along and show the world how it's done.

Great non-technical overview. What early-stage startups are working on these types of problems?

Agree completely, had just copied the quote and was about to paste it to say the same thing. When we consider all the BS patents that have been rubber-stamped by the PTO, this is a very scary proposal.

First paragraph doesn't make since - if there are 5 flips, there are 2^5=32 possible outcomes. If the "odds are low that even one person in the audience guessed it" then I'd expect less than 16 people to be in the audience. However, "about a dozen people" did guess it, implying that the audience is in the hundreds (there are >10 "random" looking sequences of the 32).

Phone carriers already have this data, and Facebook does as well every time you access their website over standard methods

I love this, a beautiful example of disruptive innovation:

-Authors get up to 70%, as opposed to 5-15% -Far less trees are killed

-Eliminates the role of the publisher / physical distribution channel, which claimed the lion's share of the profits without adding creative value

-Marginal cost of distributing an extra book is on the order of cents

I've not read a hardcover book since getting a Kindle.

This is yet another example of an absolutely ridiculous patent lawsuit, where companies that lose in the marketplace sue successful ones, costing both the companies and general public money and providing a disincentive for innovation.

What can we do to prevent this from happening in the future? (preferably by making software patents go away).

If nothing else works, how about reductio ad absurdum. Let's go through recent sci-fi/academic literature, file patents for anything technologically feasible that has a high probability of hitting the marketplace in the next 5-10 years, and then troll away until Congress acts.

By extension, you also will always end up at ... Existence Sense Organism Biology Natural_science Science Knowledge Fact Information Finite_set Mathematics Quantity Property_(philosophy) Modern_philosophy