Strength comes from experience. kelwinR+D has been actively engaged in research and development since 1985, always embracing the very latest thinking of the time and taking it in innovative and sometimes radical new directions.
Proven in the field. It's one thing to originate great new ideas but it's another when those ideas are proven in the field. Most of the research conducted by kelwinR+D has found its way into highly polished products.
Reuters / CabTV / 2005
Innovative research and development that put the very latest Reuters broadcast news into the back of London taxi cabs.
This unique system was groundbreaking on many fronts: It showed the very latest broadcast news whilst not requiring a constant signal (useful when driving through a tunnel or in areas of poor signal reception). The whole system was also designed to be robustly fault tolerant to minimise any necessity for the taxi cab to return to base.
Advertising could be scheduled in sophisticated ways (including by time and date) and viewing figures logged and reported back to base, again remotely.
CabTV was developed using one of kelwinR+D's own programming languages and used our Altered State user interface library.
The First Interactive Real Estate
Marketing System in the UK / 2000
kelwinR+D designed and developed the first interactive real estate property marketing system in the United Kingdom. This included an extensive range of interactive kiosks, desktop consultancy systems and e-mailable virtual tours.
The kiosks, designed to be operated through shop-front windows, allowed passers-by to search for suitable properties, take interactive virtual tours and even leave their contact details.
The e-mailable viewer offered compelling virtual walk-through tours, floor plans and descriptions in a compact and easily emailed file.
These interactive real estate marketing systems were developed using one of kelwinR+D's own programming languages.
MotionPicture™ / 2000/2003
Animated still-image technology to bring photographs to life. This technology included super-smooth motion-panoramics that were especially suited to property marketing. The technology was so smooth in its operation, people commented on its superiority to Apple's QuickTimeVR.
Interactive eBook for IBM / 1992
kelwinR+D has been at the forefront of e-book technology from the very earliest days. Initial research began in 1986 on the Apple II platform. This developed into a fully fledged e-book development environment in 1992 when IBM approached us for an interactive tutorial to accompany the IBM Personal System/1 computer.
This interactive e-book for the IBM Personal System/1 comprised over a hundred pages of richly formatted text and animated graphics. It guided users step by step through setting up their new PC and even setting up a workplace. The text contained hyperlinks to related pages allowing users to surf the interactive book with ease. This may seem unremarkable by today's standards, but back then, before the World Wide Web, this was pioneering stuff.
Many of the lessons learned from these developments have fed directly into our groundbreaking HyperActive™ e-publishing technology.
Classic Scrabble / 1992
kelwinR+D developed a highly sophisticated version of Scrabble, the world's favorite word game, as part of the IBM Family Pack for the IBM Personal System/1.
Classic Scrabble contained many innovative features including different game-play styles, timed games, customised dictionaries and other features appealing to Scrabble addicts the world over.
Classic Scrabble also contained a substantial interactive tutorial powered by kelwinR+D's HyperGuide e-book reader, also from 1992. Both were developed using kelwinR+D's X/direct™ windowing graphical user interface (see below).
Personal Golf / 1991
Smell the fresh air as you tee off for an 18-hole round of golf. And with Personal Golf, you didn't even need to leave the comfort of your own armchair to do it. kelwinR+D's golf simulation from 1991 recreated the whole experience on the IBM Personal System/1 computer.
Personal Golf was developed using kelwinR+D's X/direct™ windowing graphical user interface (see below). Personal Golf also won an IBM Leonardo da Vinci Award.
X/direct™ Window GUI for IBM DOS / 1990
In 1990, Windows was still in its infancy and DOS was still popular. kelwinR+D developed an advanced graphical user interface (GUI) for IBM DOS. But X/direct™ was more than just a pretty face. Beneath the surface was a radically new way of programming based on the principle of direct code execution (hence the name which, coincidentally, was years before Microsoft named one of their own products DirectX). This proved to be immensely successful and simplified the coding of complex applications.
The visual styling of X/direct certainly met with approval. Virgin Games commented that "Microsoft should make Windows look more like this" (which they did coincidentally five years later) while a senior Director at IBM Europe commented "The quality of the graphics! I love the layout".
PC Operating System with Advanced Memory Management,
Distributed Processing and Document Storage Architecture / 1989
The 1980s was an exciting and fertile time for Operating Systems research and development with many radically new and innovative ideas.
kelwinR+D worked at the forefront with an Operating System code-named 'N' for the i386 platform. Amongst myriad impressive features and functionality, its true innovation was in its advanced memory management and document storage architecture. These have still not been fully surpassed, even today.
Window GUI for 8 Bit Computers / 1985
kelwinR+D's successful research and development into user interface design is founded on many years of experience. This mouse controlled graphical user interface (GUI) for 8 bit processors was developed before Windows existed. Several applications were also developed for this GUI including a spreadsheet and painting application.
It may not look much now, but remember this was from the very dawn of the graphical user interface, a time before Windows when the best a PC could manage was a DOS 'C>' prompt on a black screen.
Window GUI for 8 Bit Computers / 1985
An earlier mouse controlled graphical user interface (GUI) also for 8 bit processors. This was quite primitive by today's standards, but it marked kelwinR+D's first forays into graphical user interface design and development in 1985.
It's interesting to note the 3D perspective ikon arrangement at the bottom of the screen which bears an uncanny resemblance to Apple's Mac OSX some twenty years later!
OLAP (Online Analytical Processing) / 1997
kelwinR+D's advanced Online Analytical Processing system (OLAP) was designed to run complex data models on vast databases, pipelining multiple search queries and efficiently manipulating and combining the results in sophisticated ways. This was invaluable for leveraging maximum value from data that was otherwise locked away within databases.
In tests at a major oil exploration company it outperformed the world leading competition by producing its results on a comparable model over twenty times more rapidly and to greater precision.
Advanced Relational Database / 1988
In 1988, kelwinR+D conducted extensive research into maximising the operating performance of complex relational databases. The result was a sophisticated relational database with features above and beyond anything else available at the time.
CO² Cryptography / 2002
An industrial-strength cryptographic system leveraging the full power of 2,336-bit encryption keys.
ELSA / 1985
Factory floor production software for an industrial instrumentation company. ELSA produced precision measuring instruments used in chemical and engineering plants the world over. ELSA was a complex system comprising 1Mb of software which was huge for its time.
According to the company's Managing Director, this system saved the factory from closure saving the many production jobs.
Argus / 1986
An automated volumetric measurement system for Scottish & Newcastle Breweries for compliance with Inland Revenue requirements.
Advanced Signal Processing / 1996
In 1996, kelwinR+D conducted research into digital signal processing. This research culminated in a radically innovative signal processing paradigm which remains confidential.
