Section: Dissemination

Industrial transfers

Throughout 2008, in accordance with the goals of the Institute, the ACES group spent a great deal of time and effort on seeking to transfer its research results on ambient computing to potential users. We sought out and negotiated with representatives of end-users in advertising and the urban construction industries. Our motivation stems from our observation that producing innovative research results, even those protected by patents, is no longer sufficient for a modern research team. It is essential to convince industry that solutions are robust, scalable and most importantly, address a problem that real users are faced with.

This research approach necessitates the development of several prototypes that are tested in real environments. It also necessitates a continuous technology watch to ensure the validity of submitted patents, as well as verification of existing patents and research reports. Although this activity is, traditionally, unusual for a research team, it becomes inevitable if results are to have a real impact in the ambient computing applications currently being deployed.

Our technology transfer efforts have been successful as a part of ACES group created a start-up company called SenseYou last july. Its main business is based on the exploitation of INRIA patents and software dedicated to contextual information systems. In the same time ACES members continue their efforts in order to identifiy industrial partners able to exploit the potential indusrial transfert behind their new ideas about "physical coupled objects" and their application in security area. To do that, ACES group built a big prototype to emulate an airport boarding room. This prototype was demontrated during the big show, "La ville européenne des sciences" in "Le Grand Palais" Paris, last november. More details about this prototype can be found in a video: Ubi-Check", Michel Banâtre, Paul Couderc, Fabien Allard, Mathieu Bécus, INRIA Dircom-Multiédia, November 2008.