Marc Blumenfeld thought he was just being friendly when
he offered to wire up a webcam to help a neighbor keep tabs on the total
renovations of his house. The next thing you know, it changed his life. Blumenfeld's innocent little
favor put him on the path to found DigitalXtractions, a
Rochester-based startup company that will soon begin full production on a
state-of-the-art Internet camera. The camera, Blumenfeld says, is
unique because it is both wireless and self-powered, allowing it to operate
in more locations for longer periods of time. DigitalXtractions currently has about two dozen
test cameras in the field, including several at job sites of local
contractors and two placed by the Rochester Police Department. The company has also struck a deal with Pictometry
International Inc. of Henrietta, developer of a pioneering system for
capturing, mapping and analyzing aerial digital images. Pictometry will be
a reseller of DigitalXtractions products and services to its
clients, which are typically cities, counties, states and the federal
government. (Pictometry is a logical partner: The neighbor for whom
Blumenfeld did the monitoring favor is Richard Kaplan, Pictometry's
chairman and CEO.) The returns so far have been extremely positive.
"People are calling and saying, 'When can I get one?'" Blumenfeld
says. The real money-making is not so much in the sale of the
cameras, but in the service supporting it. Customers of the camera will pay
$60 a month to cover both hosting and cellular transmission fees, as well
as software and storage. The use of the cellular infrastructure, Blumenfeld
believes, is one part of what makes the camera unique. Existing Web cameras
typically feed their images back to a nearby computer, which takes precious
time. Use of cellular infrastructure means DigitalXtractions
customers are getting real-time images. The company has also focused on power sources and is
offering customers cameras that work on solar power or a special type of
battery. "If there is no loss of a charge, if we can get
unlimited power, we can put this on goat trails in Afghanistan,"
says Blumenfeld, the former Webmaster at the Democrat and Chronicle and an
experienced Internet integration consultant. Funded by Blumenfeld's own
savings and an investment from a local developer, DigitalXtractions
now employs eight people, but expects to grow as sales ramp up. In addition to the money, Blumenfeld says he benefited
dramatically from a brief stay in Rochester Institute of Technology's
high-tech Venture Creations incubator. That relationship allowed the
company access to faculty and promising students as it sought to engineer
the best product. Next up: work on a camera that will allow for pan, tilt
and zoom, as well as a higher-resolution camera module. Pictometry introduced the availability of DigitalXtractions
cameras this fall as part of a "strategic advantage" suite for
use by Pictometry customers in the public safety field. The idea is to integrate real-time video into
Pictometry's fast-growing and massive libraries of aerial digital still
images. For example, consider a fire department on its way to a call in the
middle of the night. Commanders could use Pictometry's system to identify
the nearest location of a fire hydrant, then click
on real-time imagery to decide where to establish a command center. Other technologies in the strategic advantage suite
include software for pinpointing the source of gunfire and for mapping the
location of responding vehicles, said Dan Pennacchia, chief marketing
officer of Pictometry. The offering of the cameras is "so police and fire
can know what's going on when they are not at the scene," Pennacchia
said. "His unique camera allows you portability." The suite would be offered at an additional cost for
customers. BRAND@DemocratandChronicle.com Copyright 2005 Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.
provided pending permission | 