Samir Mehta drives new digital home technology

Keetli products help consumers save, store and streamline personal media

NEW YORK: US technology innovator Samir Mehta, who in the late ’90s bootstrapped 4th Pass to create software that would prevent hackers from stealing source code, is now taking a step ahead with the launch of Keetli.

4th Pass, which he sold out to Motorola in 2002, was essentially to create Java-coded wireless Internet application software for cell phones, but Keetli will give Mehta a slice in the digital home market.

His new company has a team of engineers from Hyderabad and core designers from Silicon Valley working together on building a high-definition TV (HDTV) digital media hub codenamed Saiph, which is paired with a sleek palm-sized touchscreen-enabled media tablet codenamed Chara.

Saiph and Chara will allow people to save, store and streamline personal media. Mehta is targeting a tough market, and it comes during a time when we have a digital data explosion of sorts.

But Keetli is hoping to nip off a decent chunk of the market by offering a “complete personal HD content solution.”

Mehta’s product will allow people to sift through a galaxy of digital home movies and photos, share them with friends and family and resize content on the fly.

Mehta said this time he was going for a completely consumer market. “It is all about how a user can get the best experience when it comes to figuring out how to manage and really get the best out of the personal content they create. I am going to market with a complete solution made up of hardware and software stack designed and fine-tuned for HD content,” he said.

“People take hundreds of pictures with digital cameras, film videos with HD camcorders and what do they do with this content strewn in different hard drives? What happens when the technology and format changes? I am going after making and sharing personal content so easy that if I take a picture of my son here in the US it will show up instantly on my dad’s TV in India,” Mehta said.

The US-based tech innovator said by using his soon-to-be-released Chara tablets, families spread across the globe could share pictures and videos on high-definition TV — and bypass the vagaries of connecting to the Internet.

Mehta’s product will also lets users create video-clips without getting bogged down with video formats.  Saiph supports injection of content directly from HD camcorders, digital cameras and personal computers and Smartphones.

On the other hand, Chara’s touchscreen lets users edit and create video clips. It has built-in security and access controls and data is always encrypted before it’s stored to prevent unauthorised access.

The Chara tablet has Google-like search capabilities and allows users to sift through piles of digital archives to find a particular wedding photo or holiday video.

Mehta said he was planning to launch the product in four phases. “We are going to start with North America next Christmas, then launch the product in Europe, take it to South East Asia next with a focus on Korea and Japan, and then launch it in the big markets of India and China.” He said the price would be decided upon closer to the launch.   

Indian software engineers are working on the new digital media technology along with Californian software and industrial designers. “The reason to go to India is not only about cost. People in India are very hungry. They want to end up making things that go from where you are to the next level,” said Mehta.

His founding team has attracted talent from Sony, Sun Microsystems and Lockheed Martin. It has filed over 25 patents and has substantial geek credibility.