Camera of a start-up allows you to take shots before and later will focus

The company's technology allows the focus of an image to be adjusted after it is taken. When viewing a photo taken with a camera Lytro computer screen, you can, for example, click to bring people in the foreground into sharp relief or change focus to the mountains behind them.

But is the technology of Lytro only a neat feature, or is the next big thing in cameras?

Team founder of Silicon Valley startups and investors who have put in 50 million dollars is betting on the latter. The technology has won praise from computer and rave from early users of his prototype camera.

"We see technology companies in all the time, but it is rare that someone comes up with something that is so much of a breakthrough, said Ben Horowitz, co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz, a big investor in Lytro."Is superexciting ".

The Lytro founder and chief executive is Ren Ng, 31. Its success, experts say, was to take the research projects of recent years — that require perhaps 100 digital cameras and hurled a supercomputer — and squeeze the technology in a camera Assistant for the consumer market, this year.

Mr Ng explained the concept in 2006 in his doctoral thesis at Stanford University, who won the contest for the best PhD dissertation in computer science that year in the world of the Association for Computing Machinery. Since then Mr Ng tried to translate the idea into a product that can be brought to the market — and building a team of people to do so.

The camera Lytro data capture more light, from many points of view, it is possible with a traditional camera. That is accomplished with a special sensor called a microlens array that provides the equivalent of many goals in a small space. "That is the heart of the publication," said Pat Hanrahan, a professor at Stanford, who was Director of Mr Ng's thesis but is not involved in Lytro.

But the wealth of raw data only light comes to life with sophisticated software that enables a viewer to pass fire points. This allows you to still photographs to explore, like never before. "Become interactive images, living," said Mr Ng. He believed that a popular use can be families and friends roaming through different perspectives on the images of, say, holidays and parties published on Facebook (Lytro will have a Facebook application).

For a photographer, both amateur and professional, the Lytro means that the technology headaches to focus a shot go away. Richard Koci Hernandez, a photojournalist, said that when he tried a prototype of this year, he immediately recognized the potential impact.

"You just concentrate on image composition, but you don't need to worry about focusing more," says Mr Hern?ndez. "This is something you do later."

"That was the aha! time for me, "said Mr. Hernandez, Assistant Professor of new media at the Graduate School of journalism at the University of California, Berkeley. "This is game-changing."

Mr. Hernandez, who is not affiliated with Lytro, was one of several photographers who tested prototypes. His model, he said, was sheathed in a black plastic shell, so he has not seen his design. But he said it was the size of a standard point-and-shoot camera. Image resolution, he added, was indistinguishable from that of his other point-and-shoots, a Canon and Nikon.

Eliminating any loss of resolution in camera as of Lytro, which is capturing light data from many points of view, is a real step forward, said Shree Nayar, Professor at Columbia University and expert on computer vision. Mr Nayar is familiar with the work of Mr. Ng, but said he had not seen anything that lytro did in more than a year.

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Mature a start-up, working with AmEx

Then Facebook and Google borrowed the concept — and even the term check-ins. Analysts and users wondered if those Internet giants would squash Foursquare as a bug.

So far, apparently, Foursquare is holding the Earth. The company said this week that it had hit 10 million registered users, although I would not say how many of them are active.

And Thursday, Foursquare plans to introduce its partnership biggest until now: a national agreement with American Express to offer discounts to cardholders when they check in on their cell phone at some stores and restaurants.

Foursquare users are accustomed to receive prizes in the form of coupons and merit badges. But bids more substantial, such as those offered to holders of American Express card can bring Foursquare and other location based services further into the mainstream.

These services have been slower to recover between people who do not live in dense urban areas like Manhattan, where the meetings with friends are often just a taxi ride away.

In may, the Pew Research Center found that only 4 percent of American adults use such services to share their location. Companies like Foursquare to offers, as a way to make their offers more attractive for those who may not want to meet after work for a drink, but would be interested to get a deep discount on sneakers.

"In 2010, it was all about check-in," said Noah Elkin, an industry analyst with eMarketer, a mobile advertising and marketing company. "Now, is to check out".

Although Foursquare will not receive any revenue from the deal, American Express, says the promotion will help legitimize the approach of the company and will help attract other more profitable partnerships.

To begin, American Express will offer deals to the authorities and the sports clothing retailer H & M, together with some restaurants in New York, as the barbecue and Union Square Cafe mixed Blue Smoke. For example, buyers who spend $ 75 m & H will receive a $ 10 credit to their American Express accounts. Those who spend $ 50 at Sports Authority will get a reward of $ 20.

Edward p. Gilligan, vice President of American Express, said that the national deployment came after a test run in March South from music and Technology Conference Southwest. On average, those in the program spent more than 20 percent of American Express card holders who do not have access to special offers, Mr. Gilligan said.

"We have always done marketing with merchants to make offerings to our members, how to send offers by direct mail, put the information on sales on the Internet," he said. "But the response rates tend to be low".

The trial version of Foursquare bond brought a higher response rate than anything we're doing, "said Mr. Gilligan.

American Express also hopes that by combining with a start-up that appeals to hip and technologically skilled, it can appeal to a younger clientele.

"We don't tend to tilt under 35," said Mr Gilligan. "Hopefully this will help us to remain relevant to younger customers.

He said the company elected to partner with Foursquare instead of Google or Facebook why Foursquare already has a widely accepted system that rewards the user loyalty.

American Express can work with other companies in the future, said Mr. Gilligan, though he said he was sure that Foursquare would be the focus of the company for a while. "The point is for us to find customers where they are already active," he said.

Dennis Crowley, Executive Director and a founder of Foursquare, attributed his momentum continued in its singular focus on the spot. "When people think about Facebook, think about it as a place to send their friends messages or post updates, not necessarily as a place for check-in," he said. "We are associated with one thing, position, and that really helps."

He also said that the partnership of American Express was a sign that Foursquare, which now has about 21 million dollars from investors and more than 60 employees, was maturing. "We started by offering vouchers for Keys D-Lite and other smaller deals, and now we are introducing offers to the millions that use American Express," he said.

Foursquare is growing faster than similar startups. Gowalla, another check in service based in Austin, TeX., has about a million users, while Loopt, a location service rival mobile, has more than five million.

Google says its latitude service has 10 million active users over the last 30 days, although that includes people who were using on the PC.

Malorie Lucich, Facebook spokesman, declined to say how its location service called places, was faring. In the past, the company said that more than 250 million people were using the mobile application, although it did not offer specifics on location service.

Analysts say the capacity of those services offer customized offers buyers will become more valuable as the daily deal and coupon market becomes more and more cluttered.

"If you look at Groupon and LivingSocial, they put out a lot of offers, but are random," said Madeline k. Aufseeser, a senior analyst at Aite Group, a research and consulting firm focused on the financial services sector. "You could be a man and constantly getting beauty services offered by you."

Collaborations, such as the American Express one, he said, is targeted to merchants because the sites are aimed at those who actually use them. In addition, companies working with Foursquare and American Express will be able to leave the paper coupons or even the need to scan the screen of their phone at a Terminal. The awards will be counted behind the scenes with every shot and the tap.

"There is a whole new industry evolving around to deliver more sophisticated offerings, geographic based," he said. "It's only going to get much more powerful."

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