Official Smart Surface Sdn Bhd Reply regarding the above allegations:
1. Smart Surface has acknowledged NUI all along, the most recent of such acknowledgment was a dedicated entry on the first page published on Jan. 26 prior to the above post by the anonymous (sloopidoopi). Note that many other companies were started by members of NUI community (some of which are among the Founders of this group), few of these mention absolutely no acknowledgment to the NUI work they have benefited from.
http://smart-surface.com/2010/01/smartsurface-tracker-source-code-released-contributing-to-the-open-source-community/
2. Smart Surface is one of the few companies (that is, a for-profit-organization) that opens its source code. More importantly Smart Surface provides the tracker and all developed applications and a detailed SDK free of charge with its hardware. We also provide training to clients free of charge. In contrast, a similar company in Sweden for example sells the tracker for over 2,000 Euro. The founder of that Sweden Company was also previously an active NUI Community member. But they, and almost all surface computing companies, do not offer the source code to public and thus there is no way to know how much of that code was based on NUI Community work. There are many such examples around.
3. Regarding the comments on the first tracking module that we are developing (the comments on the quality control in Japan): as Mr. Homam clarified above, we have, and still trying to, develop a separate tracking module. This is the one that Mr. Faysal was referring to regarding the comments on Quality Control in Japan. We fail to understand why the commentator above (sloopidoopi) has made it a point to ridicule this issue!!! Software Testing is an established procedure governed by Engineering Standards to review outcome requirement, software design, code review, unit testing, system integration, and result validation, which in this specific case involves responsiveness and time-lag, preciseness of touch points, and the likes. The tracker referred to by Mr. Faysal and Mr. Homam has not yet passed these tests according to Japanese Standards for commercialized software. As funding partners, we decided then to expedite the commercialization of the hardware by developing on the existing open source platform (CCV), but under a clear and public recognition of NUI community contribution and under the condition of making the newly developed tracker open to public including its entire source code.
However, the claim that our contribution to the enhanced tracking core is 1% is baseless to an extent that does not necessitate any further comment. The source code is out there for anyone to judge by themselves. If Mr. (sloopidoopi) thinks that “stitching some extra cameras” is a piece of cake, we are left but to wonder why no one else, including himself, has done that in the past and benefited the community?
4. ITEX is a local Malaysian prize and is given to the first application in Malaysia pertaining to certain sciences and does not denote any claim of originality on a global level. Smart Surface deserves that prize and the entire attack against it was stirred by a Malaysian competitor who lost this competition to be the first in Malaysia with a commercially viable surface computer. We will explain this in details below.
5. Since then, we have poured much money and effort into research and the present solutions are far different from that first prototype presented in ITEX. Some of this new technology (such as the IR Frames, including its own tracking module and SDK) has nothing to do with anything presented in NUI community forum.
6. This whole saga involving the attack on SmartSurface, explained below, has been settled by the recognition of our technology by major Malaysian formal entities that wanted to deploy surface computing solutions. They compared everything in the market thoroughly before deciding on SmartSurface. Smart Surface is now supplying MIMOS (Malaysian Institute of Microelectronic Systems), MDeC (Multimedia Corporation - Malaysia), who have became our main clients since, and cooperating with UPM (Malaysia National University), and INFOVALLEY (Asia’s no. 1 medical software developer). Please see our list of clients and projects here:
http://smart-surface.com/about-us/clients/
THESE ARE REPRESENTATIVES OF THE MOST AVANT-GARDE RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS IN THE COUNTRY WITH THE BEST SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS AND ARE NOT “people who have no technical understanding” WHO CAN BE “fooled and dazzled with some Awards and Wikipedia entries”.
HOW ALL THIS WHOLE SAGA STARTED:
7. As pointed by the commentator above, the attacks have started at the first media coverage of Smart Surface by the Lowyet media site linked in his post above. The attack was stirred by an anonymous called himself “stealer”. He then started a thread here in NUI forum dedicated to the attack on Smart Surface.
8. This “stealer” and the other few commentators who “joined” him are representative of a certain company in Malaysia who has a personal grudge against Smart Surface. Two of the co-founders of Smart Surface used to be employed as consultants at that company for the specific reason of working on developing a surface computer (the company is specialized in Kiosk solutions only). They were promised partnership and resources. Soon after, they found that these promises were not going to be kept and the resources they were promised with for development were not going to be given. Add to that some very illegal and irresponsible behavior on the part of that company, such as not paying fees and hacking into personal emails, etc. They consequently broke their ties to that company and joined efforts with us to form Smart Surface Sdn Bhd.
9. Affiliates of that company then took it upon themselves to destroy Mr. Homam and Mr. Faysal efforts. They started with the anonymous comments, and then developed their malicious behavior into anonymously calling some interested parties that approached us, warning them under legal consequences from dealing with us! They claimed that Smart Surface’s co-founders has stolen the design from their past employer!
10. Even though the attacks stirred in the NUI Forum or the Lowyat Media coverage were geared towards accusing us of using open source materials, Mr. “stealer” and CO. has changed direction in their subsequent “anonymous” attacks in a different Media coverage. They started saying that the technology is stolen from another company!! The comments on the following media coverage reveals beyond doubt who these “anonymous” people are:
http://mis-asia.com/news/articles/malaysian-multi-touch-screen-pioneers-win-awards
11. The Media has responded in a reposnsible manner to these unfounded comments by giving an equal opportunity to every company in Malaysia involved in surface computing to present their point of view and provided a dedicated post where every person can give their opinion:
http://mis-asia.com/opinion__and__blogs/bloggers/who-touched-first
Only Smart Surface came forward. No one else did as they clearly prefer unfounded attacks covered by “anonymous-ity”.
12. Regarding the comments on legal action not taken: After several attempts to contact the CEO of that company with no response, we did decide to take things to court against those who have nothing better to do than destroying our reputation. However, there is no way to prove (as in court-acceptable proof) the identity of those “anonymous” people, even though we clearly know who they are. The only way is to get the media organizations they post on to reveal their IP addresses. However, in Common Law that Malaysia follows, a Tort action (to get a court order forcing the media organization to reveal such information) can only be established if a Damage has been proven. Fortunately (!) our reputation and business has been on the rise and there is no damage from these comments that can be proven, except wasting our time!
Finally, surely after you read the above you understand why the matter is sensitive to some of our staff and directors and excuse their somehow firy replies; they know exactly who is behind these attacks without the ability to do much about it because these people are hiding behind “anonymousity”.
On this post, here again we have a (sloopidoopi!) trying to re-start what we thought has been settled by an official recognition of Smart Surface technology by the most prominent institutions in Malaysia.
How more transparent can we be?! Our address is clear, we have a dedicated show room available to anyone who wants to test the technology we provide and see if it is original or not, we provide our source code to everybody to see and judge by themselves, we provide a free SDK and free training with the our hardware, we have been covered by serious media under our real names.
We invite people to come forward with any allegation or concern but with a logical and polite manner. All what we get is a (stealer) & (sloopidoopi) accusing us of being “barking dogs” !!!! We fail to find a way to respond to that, and this response here is a clarification for the other dear readers of NUI Community Forum rather is a reply to those disturbing individuals.
As we pointed above, our reputation is on the rise and our business is growing, not only locally but also overseas. This is not due to “self marketing hype”, rather it is due to excellence, hard work and stable technology, true belief in surface computing potential, and true commitment to knowledge sharing. Most of our serious clients are not end-users, they are software development companies and research institutes that are not willing to pay their dollars to “hobbyists”, they know exactly how to distinguish between what is good and bad.
Please direct any further request of clarification to and we will be glad to reply.
