Blinkx IPO News and A Look At AI

Blinkx video search appears to be going public next month. The decision emanates from the Autonomy Group, which intends to exercise an option over their shares in Blinkx. Blinkx just announced the other day a partnership with National Geographic to index their acclaimed documentaries. Blinkx is currently the world's largest video search engine. Their service has endeavored to solve the problem of accessing the vast amount of video on the Web via their unique search capability.

According to this news via Yahoo! the company will be renamed Blinkx PLC. The company shares will be traded on the London Stock Exchange Alternative Investment Market according to Autonomy, which is the company that provides Blinkx's search engine. Autonomy aims to separate its core business from the Blinkx market segment according to the company.

U.K. newspaper The Times has said that by exercising its Blinkx option, Autonomy will end up with a 90 percent stake in the company, and according to their experts this share will be reduced to 10 percent once the IPO shares are divested. Blinkx has accessed more than 7 million hours of video and the estimated value after the company IPO will be between $150 million and $500 million dollars according to financial analysts.

Explaining for Dollars

Pete Cashmore reported on this news yesterday on Mashable, but because of the extremely complicated nature of the technology behind Blinkx, decided to offer $20 and a pony for the first person to explain the technology in simplified terms. I thought our readers might light a more concise and suggestive explanation, and monetizing my acumen has been a life long goal for me. So, I just hope Pete can afford the kind of ponies I like.

The oversimplified description of blinkx for the ontest and those needing just an idea is: “Blinkx combines traditional metadata indexing, voice recognition, semantic coding and search to provide fast and relevant video searches.” The slightly more detailed version also implies the potential of this fascinating service.

Blinkx - A Step Toward AI - The idea of advanced searches.

Blinkx retrieves streams of data from virtually any transmitted source be it terrestrial TV or radio antenna (either digital or analog), cable TV, satellite feeds or Web content and submits the data to the Capture/Index system.

The Capture/Index system analyzes the video and audio and stores the data extracted in metadata tracks that are time stamped, synchronized and saved in association with the digital video file.

The encoding process works simultaneously to synchronize the metadata and the associated digital file. Essentially, the original media carries a metadata code that coincides with the original data.

The heart of the Blinkx analysis and search capability is the CCT or Context Clustering Technology. An oversimplification of this would be to call it a true voice recognition program. The CCT actually listens to the audio media and stores the analytical result in these metadata tracks alongside the digitally encoded data.

The end process of advanced search and playback utilizes the CCT to actually understand the ideas and context behind the spoken (or sung or recited) words. The resultant search is vastly more relevant and faster because the numbers of possibilities are reduced geometrically.

Blinkx is essentially a giant listening post connected to an advanced meta/semantic search engine. The capability of this is obviously not understood by the casual reader or passerby. Imagine the capability to gather multiple signals in this manner, transform them, store them, code them in multiple ways and then replay them in combinations not mentioned as of yet.

Possibilities

If Blinkx had the licenses to do so, they could offer a user the capability to “mix” one video segment however long or short, with virtually any audio track transmitted on Earth. This step would take some doing but I look for someone to offer it in some form eventually, staggering huh? The company makes no such claim, but I bet $100 they could do it, and probably will at some point. Just remember, if they do it after you read this it is MY idea. Blinkx makes no claim to being Hal 9000 either, but understanding and suggestion are the footstool for cognitive intelligence and several companies are playing on the fringes of our Sci-Fi fantasies in similar ways these days.

I am not inclined to speculate on stories and rumor even from Yahoo about an IPO, but it is not inconceivable for investors to make some Dot-com type dividends on this type offering.