iPhone to get video memory

QTech Inc, a US-based company that builds technologies to help people remember better, is in the process of adding video and image reminder applications to the reQall memory aid, which has been designed exclusively for iPhone and iPod Touch and is available for free at Apple’s AppStore.

reQall, one of the first applications for iPhone to be released through AppStore, allows users to capture verbal information without having to key it in on their device. Be it a telephone number, an appointment or sending a text message, all one needs to do is say it aloud and reQall archives it all. Currently, the application combines only voice-to-text recordings.

Ashok Vasudevan, co-founder, Qtech, said: “Our idea is to build a Google-like service for personal memory and deliver it to the iPhone user in a simplified manner. We are already in the process of developing the image application, which will be integrated with reQall for iPhone in the next two quarters, while the video application, which is now at the architectural stage, will be introduced sometime next year.”

To create these next versions of the patent-pending reQall memory jogger (the memory jogger springs into action and identifies information designed to maximise memory by shaking the iPhone), Vasudevan said the company will invest $2 million (around Rs 8.8 crore) in its Hyderabad operations over the next year, especially in engineering and product development.

QTech, incorporated in 2005, released its reQall memory aid at a Demo Conference held in the US in January 2007. It has tied up with AppStore, gets 70 per cent revenues from its reQall sales through the store. The pre-revenue company received $4.5-million (Rs 19.8 crore) funding from US-based Edge Holdings. Vasudevan, incidentally, is also the founding partner of the venture capital firm.

Vasudevan said the company hoped to offer reQall as a premium service through annual subscriptions from 2009. “The demand is clearly there and we expect to break-even by the third quarter of next year,” he added.