OREANDA-NEWS. Ricoh Innovations Corporation (“RIC”), a Silicon Valley-based subsidiary of Ricoh Company, Ltd. that develops innovative technologies and creates new businesses for Ricoh, today announced the launch of the Ocutag mobile visual search platform, the first product from its newly formed Visual Services and Solutions Business Unit. The first implementation for this technology has been done with Disney UTV Digital’s new smartphone app in India.

Disney UTV Digital has launched its “UTV Stars” mobile app for smartphones powered with the Ocutag platform. The Augmented Reality feature called Snap Search connects users to their favorite Bollywood stars and allows them to click a snap of a movie poster to provide easy access to customized content like movie trailers, behind the scenes videos, Tweets, pictures and more.

When powered by the Ocutag platform, mobile apps connect users with a variety of related digital media through the simple capture of an image, for easy access to customized multimedia content and other services. The Ocutag platform improves companies’ ability to engage their customers by presenting targeted, highly customizable, actionable information. Any image, including those on TV screens, posters, magazines, catalogs and product packaging, can connect users to digital marketing content such as text, video, purchase options and access to social networks.

The UTV Stars app is the first entertainment app for smartphones in India that provides Bollywood news, gossip, movies and live TV all in one app. Available for Android, iOS and Windows phones, the app provides an instant connect to the world of Bollywood at the touch of a phone. Smartphones are becoming increasingly popular in India, with market research firm IDC forecasting smartphone sales to reach 28 million units in 2013, increasing to 156 million units in 2017. India’s film entertainment industry is the largest in the world in terms of the number of films produced (around 900 annually) and its theatrical admissions (around 3 billion tickets annually), according to Ernst & Young in 2012.