TwinTechs

Twin Technologies, Inc. a long-time Adobe Partner and recent First Quarter Winner of Adobe’s LiveCycle Partner Solution Showcase in San Jose, CA, is proud to announce that we are now the first company to have a solution formally endorsed by Adobe as a Partner Solution.  The DigiNodes^TM Digital Asset Review (DAR) Solution (f.k.a. the Digital Media Review Commenting and Approval (DMRCA) Solution), has won this distinguished honor based on its exceptional handling of in-line video commenting and review as a direct answer to requests by multimedia professionals to improve collaboration and editing of video content.

Building on the solid foundation of Adobe LiveCycle ES2, DigiNodes^TM DAR takes the concept of a managed review workflow and fuses it with Twin Technologies’ proprietary DigiNodes^TM technology to create a powerful video commenting system that allows content creators and creative teams the ability to gather comments from stakeholders on digital media assets with frame-by-frame accuracy.  The DigiNodes^TM DAR interface is intuitive and user-friendly; frame-by-frame commenting is as easy as a clicking a mouse and typing the comment.  This level of usability allows video editors to be able to focus on their content and not the controls.

The ability to control the workflow between collaborators, and the robust auditing system assures that videos are edited and reviewed in the proper organizational hierarchy.  DigiNodes^TM DAR keeps all the commentary on a separate track from the original video itself assuring that multiple revisions do not impact the quality of the original video.  DigiNodes^TM DAR also saves time and processing power through its use of server-side transcoding and features enhanced security features as well for protecting your video asset.

DigiNodes^TM and the DAR package allow an organization to drastically increase the efficiency of their creative teams and get their message/products to market much faster by:

• Shortening edit process workflow times

• Accelerating collaboration efficiencies

• Provide transparency and visibility into the creative process

• Providing detailed audit trails

• Identifying process bottlenecks

• Improving security over traditional workflow methods

• Integrating with existing Digital Asset Management (DAM) tools such as Adobe’s Creative Suite

The DigiNodes^TM DAR Package Delivers:

• Server side transcoding for single click review initiation by creative team of their media files.

• Direct integration with CS5 tools.

• Support complex comment and approval routing

• Dashboard tools for real-time visibility into the workflow processes

• In-line editing; now you can keep comments within the context of the story

• Separate storage of media and comments blended together server side to create a single stream.

• Server-side watermarking of the stream for additional security

• DigiNodes^TM coupled with the appropriate player allows complete security for the digital asset.

• Digital content is delivered as a live stream which means the asset is never stored on the client’s device.

Simply contact our sales team for more information: David Ladd, SVP Sales or phone: 518.391.2663

Twin Technologies was recently selected as a winner of Adobe’s LiveCycle Partner Solution Showcase in San Jose, CA for the 1st Quarter of 2010. Nine solutions were presented by partners to a panel of Adobe judges. Twin entered in two LiveCycle-based business solutions:

• The JumpStart: Human Capital Applications Solution – a best-practice implementation of the HCA Solution Accelerator that has been able to realize a 958% ROI in only 1 year after implementation, based on improvements in Human Resource on-boarding and off-boarding systems.

• The Digital Media Review, Commenting and Approval (DMRCA) Solution – which fuses Twin’s proprietary DigiNodes video-streaming technology into LiveCycle’s Review, Commenting and Approval (RCA) LiveCycle building block using the new Adobe Mosaic Tiles technology to create a powerful new video-editing tool that allows frame-by-frame review and commenting ability.

Kevin Okragly Presenting DMRCA

And the winner is . . . the DMRCA Solution! The video editing possibilities that DMRCA provides are endless, and it directly answers the requests by multi-media organizations of all sizes for a robust and intuitive video review and commenting system.

The solution will now be a standard product in Adobe’s repository and a featured LiveCycle product to present to customers for 2010. DMRCA is now looking to make a splash on the main stage of Adobe’s MAX Conference 2010.

• Learn more about DigiNodes, the heart of the DMRCA solution here: Twin Technologies: DigiNodes

• Watch the video about the LiveCycle Showcase on Adobe Television: Adobe TV: LiveCycle Showcase

• To learn more about LiveCycle, Adobe’s powerful Enterprise-Application Architecture, visit: LiveCycle

• To learn more about Adobe’s MAX check out the homepage at: Adobe Max

Boston.com featured Twin Technologies Customer Paragon Lake in a recent article covering the start-up trend toward developing software solutions that allow retailers to customize apparel and jewelry for customers.  These services are aimed at consumer base who is comfortable purchasing made-to-order items online.

Paragon Lake enlisted Twin to help them create a Virtual Display Case, an online jewelry platform, so customers could help choose, design, and view their selections online before they buy them.  These reduces the amount of inventory retailers need to keep on hand, allows customers to choose and see exactly what they are ordering, and improves the manufacturing process by organizing the workflow between artists and designers.

Twin Technologies’ start-up assistance program gives companies like Paragon Lake technical and business consulting expertise so they can get products to market quickly and start making money.   For Paragon Lake, the Virtual Display Case makes them more agile than traditional retailers, which potentially gives them an edge in a sluggish economy.

Twin Technologies’ Gus Holcomb spoke at the first ever InsideRIA conference this week in San Francisco.  Java engineers interested in learning how to program iPhone apps came to hear his presentation.  

Gus says people are often intimidated by programming for the iPhone  because the language is weird and while there are a number of tools you can use, selecting the right one for what you want to do can be tricky.  Gus talked about what makes the iPhone  language different,  the language features you need to know about.  By using the right tools, what might initially look daunting, gets a lot easier when you look at how to link objects together.  

Gus showed two code examples… enough to get people to get out and start working on it, so they knew enough to start getting their programs out.   Since the audience was already fluent in Java, Gus used Java to prove concepts that appear tricky on the surface so he could relate them to familiar material.  

Look for Gus’ lunch and learn on iPhone development coming this fall!

Principal, Experience Design Will Evans spoke on Emergent Social Search Experience during a panel discussion at the Enterprise Search Summit in NYC on May 12

The social web is all the rage, but does “social” work for the enterprise? Like water cooler wisdom, social search can help surface information workers might not know exists. Search inside and outside the enterprise is becoming social. Will discussed the evolution of social search, how crowd wisdom is evolving search interfaces, and what the enterprise can learn from these developments.

Will’s expertise helps Twin Technologies clients learn strategies, explore solutions, and build the skill sets you need to make your content not only searchable but findable and actionable. Enterprise search is not just about locating masses of information, it is about enabling employees to more effectively perform their jobs.

You can catch up with Will at the Enterprise Search Summit West in San Jose this November.

Senior Vice President and Managing Partner Robi Sen launched his blog series, Building Higher Performance RIAs for Smart Phones today on InsideRIA. The series will address the challenges of optimizing software for mobile platforms.

Today’s smart phones are not only used for making calls, taking pictures, and listening to music; now people are using their phones to do business, build presentations, make quick edits to important files, and even surf the web.

Yet contrary to what the commercials would have you believe, few smart phones provide a web experience equivalent even to a netbook. In large part this is because web application developers rarely consider the memory and CPU constraints of smart phones. At the same time, an increasing number of people are using their smart phones as a secondary or even primary method for accessing the web (http://www.theiphoneblog.com/2009/03/02/iphone-mobile-browser-share-67/). This becomes problematic because most websites are slow to download, hard to navigate for mobile users, and, most importantly, often take a long time to render, which is driving more and more mobile users away from the interactivity and power that Rich Internet Applications promise to deliver. The answer to this dilemma is that developers need to create RIAs, generally using AJAX, that are specifically designed and optimized for mobile phone users. In this series of blog posts, we are going to look at how to make applications that are not only rich and powerful, but respond quickly and offer users the experience they have come to expect from the web.

Leveraging its digital media and RIA expertise, Twin Technologies is creating web applications for the mobile platform.  These are optimized for use on mobile devices and offer the  functionality of desktop software and the agility of RIAs so users can access the material they need whenever they need it.

Building The Next Generation of Online Learning Platforms

A distance learning system is possible that is fundamentally different from other e-learning platforms available today. While most e-learning sites cater to corporate professionals and learning institutions, this platform can provide a means for the general internet user to create and participate in learning activities in a meaningful way. By providing flexible tools such as interactive video streaming and charting, workflow creation for lab exercises and guided self-study, a quiz creation and proctoring module and interactive presentations, instructors can create diverse courseware geared at fellow hobbyists, crafters, home schoolers and study groups. An easy to use online management system can allow quick and easy creation of content, while an online marketplace provides revenue for courseware creators.

A Conduit of Knowledge
In most self-study and homeschooling environments, the chief barrier to success is  lack of meaningful instruction. Most available courseware  is limited in scope or expensive. Even when appropriate materials can be found, often a lack of mentoring prevents students from getting past difficulties in the learning process. Those who have the ability to provide this mentoring often cannot afford to invest the time or money required, or a channel may not exist for their mentoring to reach those that need it. A conduit of knowledge is needed to bridge the gap and bring mentors and students together.

The new e-learning platform provides this conduit. For a yearly fee and a percentage of revenue, mentors have access to an online toolset that allows the creation of locations, classes and courses. Courses are the overall content unit offered to students as part of a searchable and categorized marketplace where they can shop for mentoring and instruction. Students will be able to reserve space or immediately purchase access to a course depending on whether a course is offered only during certain times, as limited enrollment or on an ongoing basis, . Courses may have prerequisites that can consist of any other course offered in the marketplace as determined by the instructor.

Courses are taught on one or more locations, which are online areas containing a set of tools. Locations are the settings for classes, which are an individual unit of work that a student is led through. Classes may occur only at certain times if live instruction is given or on an ongoing basis if guided self-study is provided. Instructors and students may communicate in forums or privately between classes to provide feedback and preparation for other classes. Instructors may choose which students are aware of or may attend each class according to course level or individual selection.

Students attending a class access a location, a page consisting of a set of tools. A tool may be a presentation or lecture, a video or live video conference, a project workflow, a live chart, chat, or live or recorded audio. Tools in a location connect with each other and interact. Tools also provide an interactive interface according to the settings the instructor chooses.

A Yoga instructor might choose to add a project workflow, live audio, video, live video and chat to a location. Students participating in a class may hear music, general instruction and question/answer sessions via live audio while being led through a series of videos showing correct form using the project workflow. Students that have questions use the chat interface to communicate with the instructor. The instructor can view the student in real-time and provide feedback via audio or chat. This allows each student to work on their form using the instruction provided in the videos while receiving instant interactive feedback.

Students can save the live chat, audio or video if allowed by the instructor, or can take notes that are preserved in the lesson. Instructors can create template web pages, articles, links and downloadable files to be available in the reference library linked to a course, allowing easy access to recommended resources.

Courses or individual classes may be private, group instruction or guided self-study. Guided self-study uses project workflows and self-auditing quizzes to guide students through study of a subject. A programming instructor may design a course that consists of several guided self-study classes interspersed with group instruction. Private instruction could be made available by the instructor as part of a course or on a premium basis.

Students pay for fee-based courses by credit card and can use the card to reserve a place in the class if set by the instructor. Free classes may be reserved by students on a first-come or instructor-chosen basis depending on the settings for a class or course. Courses can be open or closed, so students may or may not be able to take individual classes without taking the complete course. This flexibility creates a conduit through which diverse groups of instructors and students may exchange knowledge.

A Self-enhancing Strategy
Content on the platform will also be aimed at improving instructors’ skills and use of the tools provided. Instructors will receive one hundred percent of revenue for courses offered on courseware creation and site usage, creating an additional source of mentoring and revenue for instructors. The modular design of the tools allows instructors to create customized tools and locations that can be offered free or at a premium to other instructors.

Courses may be offered by one or more instructors and are rated by students on completion. Instructors can use this rating to offer guest instructor services for courses, as well as attract other instructors to offer classes in a course. By choosing a highly rated course as a prerequisite, students taking the high-rated course will see information about other courses they may wish to participate in. Students may also make their course lists public and receive credits for each referral that may be used toward other courses. The marketplace becomes a collaborative space that helps new students navigate the selection of courses while helping instructors find students and revenue sources.

David Ladd, Nic Tunney, and Audrey Hubbard report high levels of traffic and interest in the Twin Technologies booth #2608 at FOSE this week. Reporters from the Technical Times stopped by to talk about Twin Technologies’ JumpStart: Workforce Management, which is up for a Best in Show Award.

FOSE, which focuses on technology for government applications, brings together the top innovators in the government space. This year’s trends center around integration of services, developing self-service options, cutting cost, and improving efficiency. Twin Technologies Government Solutions systems integration and RIA services offer creative and proven methods of meeting these goals. With over 25 sign-ups for LiveCycle training and more than ten leads on Day One, it’s clear that Twin Technologies solutions resonate with a government agency audience.

To accommodate the growth in our government division, Twin Technologies has recently opened an office in the Washington DC area.  To meet the neighbors, we’ve joined ranks with two local technology councils:

The Northern Virginia Technology Council (NVTC) which links the local technology community with over 1100 member companies.  Twin Technologies anticipates diving into the networking and educational events.

The Greater Baltimore Technology Council devotes itself to building and growing the region’s technology community also.  Twin Technologies plans to network with other local companies to connect with the Baltimore business community.

Our new local DC area address is:
Twin Technologies
2010 Corporate Ridge
McLean, VA 22102

Twin Techs senior consultant Kevin Okragly made his video blog debut on Adobe’s Devnet. You can find out more about the DDC Adobe Solutions Accelerator works and admire this joint project between Twin Techs and Adobe here.

For specifics on implementation, a technical overview and to catch Kevin in action, check this out:

High Level Overview of DDC Workflow

Configuration and Administration of the DDC Framework

DDC Process Review

DDC Installation