CFC student spin-off in search of wireless partners for new interactive system

An Ontario entrepreneur is hoping to line up some heavy-hitting wireless partners to commercialize an interactive technology first developed at the Canadian Film Centre (CFC). Stephen Boyd and new partner Adam Evans have built a technology architecture for interacting with big and small screen content using cell phones and proven off-the-shelf Internet components. The two partners will begin demonstrating the technology to companies this month after arranging with Boyd’s former CFC colleagues to take the system to market. The technology first surfaced as a CFC project titled The Swamp. Created in 2000 and exhibited at both Toronto’s SIGGRAPH and at the German cast01 conference in Bonn this fall, the installation allowed a potentially unlimited number of users to change a film’s soundtrack using either their cell phones or PDAs. Each user controlled a single element of the music, changing it as the narrative unfolded on screen. Boyd says the system doesn’t require any specialized equipment, and runs using standard protocols and Internet architectures to deliver user inputs from device to the servers controlling the presentation. The original CFC project, Boyd says, was intended only as a learning and artistic endeavour. "Right from the outset, the (Swamp team) decided this would be one of the few times where we wouldn’t have to answer to a client, so we’re building a prototype that’s not meant to go to market simply for the purpose of capital-A arts. That was our licence to be pretentious, if you will, and we used it." Now, however, Boyd and Evans foresee a number of commercial applications for interactivity. For example, he is ready to demonstrate an application for movie theatres in which users could play a trivia game using their phones and PDAs to answer questions and win prizes. Or, he says, the same technology could be used during major golf tournaments to track scores and report those on screens on the 19th hole. The advantage of using wireless devices to interact with content is that there’s little capital cost for owners of theatres, restaurants and other establishments, he explains. Unlike current iterations of in-restaurant trivia games, for instance, there’s little fixed capital or maintenance cost when users provide their own input devices. Boyd recognizes that one of the limiting factors to commercial take-up will be the extent to which consumers want to use valuable airtime for entertainment. Even with wireless prices at historical lows, often as little as $0.10 a minute, airtime comes at a premium to fixed access devices. Boyd is hoping to convince potential partners to absorb some of the cost. "That gets into our question as an upstart little company, which is, who do we want to partner with?…If we want to do a version of the movie theatre idea during a Blue Jays game at the SkyDome on the Jumbotron, well, the Blue Jays are owned by Rogers...If you have a Rogers service on your phone, you get a discounted rate – or maybe it’s free as part of their wireless package." To that end, he and Evans are ready to begin demonstrating the technology’s potential. While much of the product is off-the-shelf, Boyd says there’s incentive to partner with him since he understands how people use devices to interact with such content. "There’s no R&D left for us to do; we can do all this right now," he says. "When we do go to show this to people who are interested, we’re not necessarily showing this as a shrink-wrapped, ready-to-go product. We’re saying that, ‘here’s something that, if you want, yes you can use off-the-shelf.’ But, we would rather discus the possibilities for content with interested parties and develop something customized for them. We’re almost doing what you’d call a capabilities presentation."

CFC student spin-off in search of wireless partners for new interactive system

Broadcast | October 3, 2001

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