Paul Melcher is the founder of Kaptur and Managing Director of Melcher System, a consultancy for visual technology firms. He is an entrepreneur, advisor, and consultant with a rich background in visual tech, content licensing, business strategy, and technology with more than 20 years experience in developing world-renowned photo-based companies with already two successful exits.
The battle is on. The forces of truth against forces of deception. With visual AI making it easier to fake visual content, its credibility is at stake. And with it, the income of thousands upon thousands of people worldwide who depend on the credibility of visuals to thrive: Newspapers, magazines,Continue Reading
It’s been ten years since Instagram launched and not long after, the selfie. It has taken the same amount of time for visual recognition to understand how to read our faces. If anything, 2019 has been the year where faces have taken center stage of visual tech, for good and bad… AllContinue Reading
It made a giant noise as it caught everyone by surprise — $230 million investment in a company providing photo services. After Adobe’s $800 million purchase of French microstock photo company Fotolia, Pond 5’s $64 million investment and Shutterstock’s $76.5 million IPO, it is the highest figures ever seen investedContinue Reading
While the release of this person does not exist by three researchers created a massive wave of buzz, it never went beyond curiosity. When Ivan Braun and his team launched Generated Photos, the interest changed to concern and apprehension. Generating human portraits via AI was no longer a research paper but a real,Continue Reading
Depending on who you ask, photo prints are up, or down. Depending on where you look, DSLRs are dead, or not. If you ask VC’s consumer photo apps are out, if you ask developers, they are a hot item. The only certitude, one all seem to agree on is thatContinue Reading
The real strength of deepfakes or alternate images is not that they falsify the truth – we have been able to that since the birth of photography but rather, thanks to social media, that they are completely dissociated from their original creators and thus their intent. When the Soviet governmentContinue Reading
After all, it’s not about a specific connection, nor is it about one particular talk or presentation. It is neither about any particular individual that you catch up with or meet for the first time. The real value of the LDV Vision Summit, instead, is the sum of it all.Continue Reading
The LDV Vision Summit, with its mixture of passionate visual tech entrepreneurs, scientists, researchers, professors, journalists, and investors is right around the corner (May22-23). As a sneak peek and respecting our now well-established tradition, we touched base with some of the scheduled speakers. The biggest challenge for online clothing retailers isContinue Reading
In 2015, we interviewed the CEO of then little known visual search company Visenze. Four years later, after raising $20 million in a series C and announcing a deal with Samsung, we caught with Oliver Tan to see how things have changed for his company, the technology involved, the marketplaceContinue Reading
As the year comes to a close, it is an excellent time to review the emerging visual tech trends ( and failures) and predict those that will have a significant impact in 2019 and beyond. Without further notice and in no particular order, here they are: Eyes in your house :Continue Reading