Feng-GUI

Master Geeks Hagai and Mel

2009-05-27T22:58:00.000-07:00

Hagai Cohen and prof. Mel Rosenberg are true master geeks.
Check out their two projects A compressor flute organ and a land skiing vehicle.
These guys are old school hard core! A true inspiration for us; the next generation.

Feng-GUI maintenance 24th May

2009-05-17T09:15:00.000-07:00

Dear Customers and Users,

Please be informed that essential maintenance has been scheduled on the Feng-GUI services infrastructure on:
Sunday 24th May between 8.00 and 10.00 GMT+2.

During this time our Engineers will work to minimize any disruption to the Feng-GUI services, nevertheless please be aware that the planned maintenance is taking place.

This upgrade includes:
* Enhancing the Dashboard usability.
* Adding User and Account APIs to the Web Services.

Best regards,
Feng-GUI Support

Put your ear on the View Finder

2009-05-17T03:49:00.000-07:00

Alexey Klimov (Алексей Климов) , photography expert and researcher, is using Feng-GUI to identify aesthetics in Synaesthesia photos, taken “from his ear” !

Feng-GUI have kindly given me possibility to analyze my exhibition photos.
I have use Feng-GUI to automatically search for pictures who most pleased the viewers. Almost all from them have shown a similar arrangement of zones of attention (hetamap). Thus, that the photographer style can be calculated without the aid of man-critics.

Synaesthesia - for some people letters are colored, numbers have a personality and when they hear music they see colourful images.
Synaesthesia explained at BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7545888.stm

"I have started to photograph when I was eight-year old. It was the time of a black-and-white film and a house “red room” photo laboratory.
Since then I make at least one shot daily. I have read many books of known photo masters. I studied at art school.
But I have chosen other trade. The photo became my hobbies. Surprisingly, but my academic classical photos bored the viewers.

All has changed, when my wife has presented to me a mobile phone with the built in camera.
I began to photograph "from an ear" during telephone conversations. I aimed on hearing. Sight and all academic knowledge had a rest during such photographing. The man gets used to all. In three years I consider it natural to put the view-finder not my an eye, but to my ear. From hundred shots one turns out adequately. Such perfect shots it was typed on the whole photo-exhibition.”

Alexey Klimov Synaesthesia exhibition photos
http://www.foto3x4.narod.ru/Sinestes.html
http://foto3x4.narod.ru/Muzey.html

Today I have developed ability "to photograph from an ear" to level of regular " view-finder photographing". Viewers began to speak about photographer's style. Experts began to speak about mixture of feelings (Synesthesia). The doctor of neurosurgery marks effect of dreams: when our eyes are closed we have dreams, just like babies. After all, when we dream, hearing is not blocked as sight.

Unexpectedly, I have found out Feng-GUI which helps me to automatically analyze my photos. Using Feng-GUI I have found a way to select the photos which most please the viewers. Now my Feng-GUI tested photos are printed in several Russian magazines. Photos which I take "from the ear" began to be attractive.

We like to see ourselves in group photo. If we don't find out ourselves in a photo then we value it as a documentary or art one.
When we see people in photo, the first thing that comes to our mind is 'Do I know them?' and the second is 'Who are they?'
The city life has accustomed us to see thousand strangers every day.
Our brain doesn’t store flashing persons in long–term memory to protect itself against overload.
And this habit is transferred also to taking photo.
Moreover, we distinguish people in our dreams on familiar or strangers, though we can’t remember their features and details after waking up.
For one thing, could you describe their ears, nose, eyes and lips if it was required to make an identikit for criminal investigation? :)

And still most of us, while having got a city intelligent habit 'don’t examine', 'don’t stare at stranger' and so on, remained wild animals in a our souls, and we expect everything of each stranger.
That’s why we learned to monitor life space about us by off–center vision, and using hearing and tactile perception in transport.
So how we can portray this point of view in photo?
Right in this manner, off–center vision–like.
You have to construct a shot so that the spectator didn’t look at an unfamiliar portrait, and was mown, intuitively listened, or even sniffed it.
So he didn’t stare at the person, like he’s looking at a monkey behind glass.
And the mathematics, 'queen of all sciences', allows to make it.

The first impression of a man is the strongest.
It is a wonder why nature and society together have developed this special first glance for creating a first impression of a stranger.
We do not stare straight at a person at the first encounter (unless we work in an HR department).
However, quick glances at the face, peripheral, panoramic view of a stranger's position in the interior, the elevated attention to information from all our senses — this is what provides the very first impression.
How to convey the first impression with a photo?
Especially, if the model is in fact well familiar to you?
The viewer does not have the intuitive barriers against staring at the monitor or the pages of a photo album.
The viewer can shamelessly eye a stranger's photo, feeling secure.

How to convey to the viewer the anxiety that he would experience if he met in person the man in the photo?

About the author
Alexey Klimov, a resident of the city of Oryol, is the author of over fifty publications on digital photography in magazines “Computerra”, "Home Computer" and “Hard and Soft”. Candidate of technical sciences, associate professor, Ph.D at Oryol State Technical University
http://www.computerra.ru/Authors/793/offline.html
http://www.computerra.ru/magazine/357229/

JSON joins the services supported formats

2009-04-30T14:11:00.000-07:00

This one is for you AJAX lovers out there.
Feng-GUI web services now supports JSON (JavaScript Object Notation).

You may find the JSON end point at http://service.feng-gui.com/json/api.ashx

Note: Only registered customers can access the web services.

Lost in Conversion?

2009-02-26T10:20:00.000-08:00

Lost in Conversion? Unleash the power of web analytics to improve conversion rates.

Web analytics and conversion optimization is probably the biggest untapped opportunity within online marketing, particularly in a time of economic downturn.

Within this GarageGeeks session, you be exposed to best practices and new developments in measurability, user behavior analysis and proven conversion rate tactics.

Conversion is the New Black!
Itai Levitan, Co-CEO and Daniel Waisberg, Head of Web Analytics, easynet search marketing http://www.easynet.co.il

Google Analytics & Website Optimizer an Overview
Nir Bar-Lev, Head of Analysis Products, EMEA at Google

From Porn to AI in 20 slides.
Rafael Mizrahi, http://www.Feng-GUI.com

Reveal the mystery of what visitors are doing inside your webpage
Dr. Tal Schwartz, Founder and CEO, ClickTale
http://www.clicktale.com

NuConomy - next generation personalization and advertising platform based on advanced user level Analytics.
http://www.NuConomy.com

Session Summary
Itai Levitan of easynet search marketing.

- Mingle and Mangal

The event will take place on Thursday, March 12th, 20:00, at the GarageGeeks HQ (Hapeled 40, Holon).

Digital Innovators Summit

2009-02-05T14:01:00.000-08:00

Feng-GUI is invited by the 'New Media' Sector at the Israel Export Institute to present at the Digital Innovators Summit, Berlin.
We will be presenting at the "Innovative Companies: Analytics and Ad Management" Panel, with Microsoft Advertising and ClickTale.

VDZ, the Association of German Magazine Publishers, along with
www.emediasf.com and CeBIT are hosting the "Digital Innovators Summit" which bring together dynamic companies to present their digital media concepts and offerings.
The conference will be held on March 3-4, 2009 at the Deutsche Telekom Conference Center, Franzo"sische Strase 33a-c, 10117 Berlin, Germany.

Feng-GUI welcome the "Digital Innovators Summit" participants.
You can access the Dashboard using the Feng-GUI XNIP-Code (as username/password) found at the summit program.

January 2009 reviews

2009-01-29T01:46:00.000-08:00

Feng-GUI reviews: January 2009

The Acagamic - Top Ten Eye Tracking Blogs

Er. Krushna Chandra Muni15 must have web developer tools for beginners

Michaela Cernescu, Website design – Find out if your Website is meeting its usability requirements

Red Spider - What do visitors see when they come to your website?

CoolCreation - Cheap Website Design

My SEO Books blog http://myseobooks.com/2009/01/09/a-simulator-eye-tracking-to-test-its-interfaces-2/
http://myseobooks.com/2009/01/09/interview-with-rafael-mizrahi-feng-gui/

Real Virtual Skater project at

Engadget, MAKE Magazine and UberGizmo

Real Virtual Skater

2009-01-20T07:54:00.000-08:00

Another release is behind us, so this is time for some geeky stuff.
We took a real skateboard and converted it into a game controller .
Taking a real skateboard + a Wii remote and using it to control and "ride" the game "Tony Hawk Pro Skater" (THPS)

http://www.feng-gui.com/thps/

more projects at the projects page
http://www.feng-gui.com/research.htm

Slip me some skin, Bro!

2009-01-08T11:23:00.000-08:00

Feng-GUI free attention heatmap service now includes skin detection.
Skin and Face detection have an important role in human visual attention.
It was already demonstrated in eye tracking sessions that face and skin are the first and the second spots that people tends to look at.

Checking “skin detection” will employ a combination of skin models and statistics to identify skin hue color in your image.

Do not use it unless you know that there is skin in the image.

original image

attention heatmap with no skin detection

attention heatmap with skin detection

Feng-GUI attention heatmap accuracy

2009-01-05T01:24:00.000-08:00

We’ve been asked several times about the accuracy of Feng-GUI attention heatmap and why is it not reaching 100%.
Feng-GUI attention heatmap algorithm, which we call the ViewFinder , is a composition of algorithms aggregating over 30 years of research. Research from the fields of neuro-science studies, visual attention, statistics of eye-tracking sessions, perception and cognition of humans.
We improve the ViewFinder algorithm in order to achieve the highest accuracy, but is it possible to get to 100% ?

Let us answer by asking a question:
How accurate is the "Magic Wand" in Photoshop? (also referred as the “Fuzzy select” in Gimp)

The Magic Wand tool is designed to select areas of the image by finding edges of image segments.

Part of the answer to accuracy can be found at the "image segmentation and boundary detection" benchmark conducted by Berkley.
It’s a 1000 photos test suite for algorithms that try to find the boundaries of elements inside pictures.
In the test suite results you can see how real people and computer algorithms, marked the boundaries of segments inside photos and how accurate they are.
The current score is:
Real people: 79%
Machines algorithms: 70%

original image

edge detection algorithm

edge detection by human

http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/Research/Projects/CS/vision/grouping/segbench/
results:
http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/Research/Projects/CS/vision/grouping/segbench/bench/html/algorithms.html

You can see that edge detection algorithms are not 100% accurate and will never be considering the hardware used be personal computers.
To solve this limitation, GIMP supports six different selection tools. In order of appearance in the tool box they are: rectangle, ellipse, free, fuzzy, bezier, and intelligent.
Each tool has its advantages and disadvantages--no one tool is clearly superior to the others. In general, a combination of tools proves to be the optimal strategy for complex selection tasks.

We conducted a comparison benchmark between Feng-GUI results and eye-tracking results of 40 people, 90 images, 15 seconds per image.
http://www.feng-gui.com/faq.htm#quality
Comparing the regions of interests (ROI) in the images, results with more than 70% of similarities.
If you compare Feng-GUI results to random groups of 10 people (out of the 40 people), for 5 seconds, the similarities go over 80%.

To enable designers and advertisers integrate Feng-GUI’s attention heatmap into their work process, we keep on improving the ViewFinder algorithm while maintaining two important requirements: Accuracy as well as Speed.

happy new year!

November reviews 2008

2008-12-16T23:18:00.000-08:00

33 Free Tools to Make Your Website Better
http://onehalfamazing.com/2008/11/33-free-tools-to-make-your-website-better/
http://www.grokdotcom.com/2008/11/13/33-free-tools-to-make-your-website-better/
http://noelbellen.blogspot.com/2008/11/33-free-tools-to-make-your-website.html

Search Engine Journal
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/check-your-site-usability-with-these-fun-tools/8042/
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticleHomePage&art_aid=95106

Web Resources Depot

5 Sitepoint - Ways to Get Usability Testing on the Cheap

DownloadTube: Heatmap Simulation With The Free Feng-GUI Web Based Service

Diva Geek Designs: YES! The best Webdesign Tools Online

Julius Design

Teletext is dead, Creative OverDose

SOAP joins the supported formats

2008-11-25T10:42:00.000-08:00

We are glad to announce that SOAP format joins the supported formats of Feng-GUI web services.

http://www.feng-gui.com/services/
http://www.feng-gui.com/services/soap.htm

coming up next, JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) ...

October 2008 reviews

2008-11-12T12:30:00.000-08:00

October 2008 reviews.
and Mashable web design toolbox.
http://mashable.com/2008/11/05/web-design-toolbox/

frankwatching.com

wwwhatsnew.com

desarrolloweb.com

www.webpagedesign.com.au

www.tecnologiadiaria.com/

thanks!

is your website ready for the 5 seconds attention span challenge

2008-11-04T13:17:00.000-08:00

After decades of TV, Radio, Magazines and now Internet, we find ourselves in a society overwhelmed by information begging for attention. As a result of that we have a world with an attention span now shorter than a goldfish’s. How is the media and specially the web facing that? And how can we take advantage on way the human mind works?

read the wonderful post by Mauricio Duque at snap2objects

Thanks!Mao

Feng-GUI review at KillerStartups

2008-10-31T01:45:00.000-07:00

Feng-GUI website got reviewed in KillerStartups blog

IPO? Get VC $? Be Bought?
feel free to vote and comment.

Optimizing AdSense using Feng-GUI heatmap

2008-09-24T22:49:00.000-07:00

Alex Barbadosa, frmo http://www.lessnau.com the AdSense blog, twits that

I changed the position of www.riojob.com.br Adsense on my CRT and jumped from 0.5% to 3.50%. Establish in-www.feng gui.com (Heat Map) evolving ...

optimize your AdSense location and style using Feng-GUI heatmap.

API documentation preview

2008-09-24T11:56:00.001-07:00

We recently posted a preliminary and small version of documentation for Feng-GUI Services API.
We are very eager to receive feedback from members of the Beta community as they access this documentation over the next several weeks so we can use that feedback to improve our first API version to be released in October.

The API documentation can be found at
http://service.feng-gui.com/api.htm

The API is implemented as XML over HTTP (XML-RPC).
Send an XML Request and receives an XML response.
The XML-RPC Server Endpoint URL is:
http://service.feng-gui.com/xmlrpc/api.ashx
The Server Endpoint also contains automatic documentation of the API.

The guest credentials are:
username:guest
password:guest

Right now, the service API methods are partially-functional and your images appears at Feng-GUI.com MRU list.

Feng-GUI Web API services

2008-08-07T09:39:00.000-07:00

Coming Soon ...
Over the last months we are working on a new platform that will enable you to use Feng-GUI attention and attraction technologies through web services.

Members of the Private Beta group will have access to the specifications draft of the API and benefit the option to ask for changes and modifications before we finish the implementation.

Feng-GUI open web Application Programming Interface (API for short) means that anyone (well, right now, only members of the Beta program) can write their own program to integrate Feng-GUI technologies and services in new and different ways. For example, you could automate usability testing, Optimize your Ad placement , create a Photoshop plugin, etc'.

The Photographer's Guide to the Eye

2008-07-10T04:47:00.001-07:00

What science is learning about how we see can help you take more compelling pictures.
If you are a photographer that wish to understand what stands behind Feng-GUI attention maps and how to use them. This article is for you.

Mark Mainz/courtesy of Getty Images and Global Action for Children

eye tracking

Feng-GUI attention heatmap

http://www.popphoto.com/popularphotographyfeatures/5422/the-photographers-guide-to-the-eye.html

Percentage of Web Page Text Read

2008-06-15T03:41:00.000-07:00

useit.com

on How Little Do Users Read?
by Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox, May 6, 2008:

On the average Web page, users have time to read at most 28% of the words during an average visit; 20% is more likely.

read the whole article at http://www.useit.com/alertbox/percent-text-read.html

Russia, Google, and the New World Order

2008-06-09T14:25:00.000-07:00

Dmitry Paranyushkin, co founder of Way to Russia wrote two great reviews on Feng-GUI while playing some conspiracy games with heatmaps.

Also, I've always wondered why the map of the world is made the way it is – America to the left, Russia to the right... After checking it out in Feng GUI I found out that there are three centers of power in this world, according to the map: USA, China, and Africa:

Google patents media layout analysis

2008-06-01T06:11:00.000-07:00

Google just published two patent applications. US2008/0107337 is “Methods and Systems for Analyzing Data in Media Material Having Layout” and US2008/0107338 is “Media Material Analysis of Continuing Article Portions”. You can view them at USPTO.

Both inventions, to which Google is the assignee, pertain to figuring out what’s important and what’s not on Web pages. Companies that scan hard copy and convert those images to machine-readable ASCII use some tricks but a great deal of brute force to figure out what’s information and what’s advertising or other dross.

thanks to Stephen Arnold for the information.

Brain Scanner Can Tell What You're Looking At

2008-06-01T02:03:00.000-07:00

Scientists have developed a computer model that predicts the brain patterns elicited by looking at different images -- a possible first step on the path to mind reading.

Image: University of California at Berkeley
read more at http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/03/mri_vision

Sergey Brin at GarageGeeks

2008-05-17T15:33:00.001-07:00

The GarageGeeks and Yossi Vardi invite you to a special garage party event: "GarageGeeks hosting Google"
Sergey Brin, Co-founder and President of Technology at Google,

And
Meir Brand / Country Director, Israel
Yoelle Maarek / Director of Haifa R&D Center
Yossi Matias / Director of Tel-Aviv R&D Center
Riki Drori / Country Marketing Manager, Israel

The event will take place on Thursday May 15th, 21:30, Garage HQ (Hapeled 40, Holon).

Reflections

http://thenextweb.org/2008/05/17/sergey-brin-about-the-israeli-start-up-scene-video/

http://hitech.themarker.com

http://www.globes.co.il/news/article.aspx?did=1000342562&fid=594

http://www.nrg.co.il/online/16/ART1/734/327.html

http://news.walla.co.il/?w=//1282861

DisrupTV convention

2008-05-15T01:17:00.000-07:00

Feng-GUI for Videos will be demonstrate at DisrupTV convention (23 May). We will show how to predict people's attention in videos, commercials, and games.

Disrupt.TV is an un-conference intents to bring together Israeli and global Technology, content and creative talents that are taking part in creating the future of TV and media for sharing knowledge, exploring the opportunities and to spark new ideas about how TV and Video will change us and we will change TV.
It is aimed for people who are in the conjunction of Media, Content, Creative and Technology.