In my report US court rules HP shareholders can’t sue Mike Lynch on 28th Nov, Mike Lynch had told me to expect news from his Invoke fund soon. Today Lynch has announced an investment rumoured to be between $5-$9m in Cambridge-based Neurence. You can read more in the FT Lynch fund sees future in app that merges real and virtual worlds.
Neurence is described as a ‘social augmented reality’ app. Indeed it has echoes of what Lynch has done in the past where he combines the power of visuals with his unstructured search background. So you point your smartphone at something, it works out what it is and then tells you something you need to know. So the example is pointing your smartphone at a packet of crisps and by reference to data in the cloud, it tells you how many calories are in it. Substitute Google Glasses for a smartphone and the world is your oyster.
As you know, we believe that we are on the cusp of the era of wearable computing. Augmented reality will one of the key ingredients of making that happen; making it really useful. I can imagine going shopping and my camera recognising an item I am about to buy and telling me I could buy it cheaper elsewhere. Maybe even a doctor looking at an X ray scan and getting an immediate diagnosis.
As my memory fails, the app I’d really like is an instant face recognisition at cocktail parties. Then instant data feedback on the person. Oh what embarrassment that would save me! I could then say “Oh hello John. How is your company BigComputing going? We last met in Aug 2012 at Sally’s party. How's your new wife Sarah?”.