Archive for January, 2010
Dwell presents | The Bathroom Reinvented: Universal Design in Public Bathrooms | Part 1 | by Gary Nadeau from gary nadeau on Vimeo.
Fans of “Queen,” may know that “Radio GaGa,” is one of the songs on their 1991 album. It is thought to be a commentary on video killing off radio. But Radio GaGa is also said to be a radio station in Romania, a radio program in Australia, a Macintosh computer program and more. But most significantly, music producer Rob Fusari is said to have referenced it to come up with the name, “Lady GaGa,” whose original name is Stefanie Germanotta. By now only the most secluded hermits have no idea about Lady GaGa. And just for the record, it isn’t a bad thing to be a secluded hermit.
While her outfits and antics may turn heads for being outrageous, Lady GaGa is probably laughing all the way to the online bank as a superstar of the digital music age. Almost all of her chart-topping music has arrived at consumers ears via downloads. Her earnings come, not so much from album sales as from being streamed across the World Wide Web. Sources say she has had more than 321 million plays on MySpace. The Web brings fans who attend concerts who buy merchandise and so it goes all the way to this Sunday’s Grammy Awards where Lady GaGa is among the performers.
To make it in the music business today, an artist has to stand out in more ways than one. So the plastic bubble dress, the bird’s nest hairstyles, the strange makeup all go toward creating what Seth Godin might call the “Purple Cow,” a truly remarkable and unforgettable image. That’s not to say Lady GaGa doesn’t have the musical chops. She taught herself to play the piano by ear at four years-old. She eschewed the vaunted Juilliard School of Music to attend a private Catholic school where she was teased for being different. If they could see her now – they can!!!
It may be hard to believe that among the first LEDs in the marketplace was the HP-35 calculator marketed by the Hewlett-Packard Company in 1972. It is said that the bulk of the cost for that product was the red LED. Nowadays, it’s the blue LED that seems to be everywhere, and its brightness has been a major source of “discussion.” Until Shuji Nakamura buckled down and developed a process for it, the blue light may have been special but as an LED, it was practically impossible. Once it became a possibility, product designers everywhere stepped into the blue light. Then all of a sudden consumers complained that such excessive brightness was causing eyestrain, headaches, disturbed sleep and probably even cold feet.
Beyond its brightness, the LED is said to be ten times more energy efficient than incandescent bulbs. It also lasts about 20 years, which means that the age-old question about how many people it takes to change a light bulb could be – none, because the bulbs don’t need to be changed. At least they don’t need to be changed that frequently and who knows, two decades in the digital age is long enough for some entirely new technology to come along. Regardless, it is widely believed that this is the dawning of the age of LEDs replacing incandescent and compact fluorescent for all your lighting needs.
The problem so far is that consumers are reluctant to embrace the LED due to its high cost. Beyond its unnatural brightness, an LED bulb at your neighborhood home improvement store costs around $20. This of course confirms suspicions that home improvement leads to checking account deterioration. But costs are coming down and corporations with 24/7 operations are discovering that LEDs can cut their energy bills. Plus rumors are that incandescent bulbs will be phased out. Bright future everyone.
The people at Intel think that analytics is somewhat like a party. They’re speculating that each behavior is worth a certain number of points and that party success can be measured on a point system. Sitting in the corner might be worth just a few points, whereas intense mingling with lots of personal exchanges could be worth more. It isn’t clear how many points they would allocate to wild dancing. Similarly with metrics, where once the number of clicks and double clicks mattered, the folks at Intel believe those factors aren’t enough to show the level of clicker engagement. All of this matters to Intel because it’s known for being inside things rather than being on store shelves. Consequently, they have arrived at the point system for ad placement decisions.
Beyond their party and points analogy, even as a certain Tablet PC is getting all the buzz, Intel is pushing awareness of their Light Peak technology. Faster than the super-speed USB 3.0, Light Peak will allow you to download an entire Blu-ray movie in less than 30 seconds. Not quite the speed of light but that’s probably coming soon. Now with Sony and Nokia interested in Light Peak, they believe it will be in PCs by this time next year. What the half billion connected world citizens want is interconnectivity, say the Intel folks. And they’re ready to deliver.
Meanwhile, their rivals at AMD are raving about their latest Eyefinity technology that allows computers to be hooked up to several screens for multiple displays. With “surround-sight,” a user can view up to six applications without clicking around, which is thought to be a bit of a time waster. Additionally, they’re truly psyched about their entire line of Vision technology in three versions – one for ordinary CDs and DVDs, another for Blu-ray and yet another for those who plan to edit movies. Plus their technology is in some of the world’s largest supercomputers. And who would have even been thinking supercomputers if not for Seymour Cray?
When the Risdall Marketing Group held a seminar on Social Media Marketing, the attendance far outstripped any other seminar in a series of seminars. It would seem that business leaders are hungry for information on this “new” thing called “social media,” which is thought to be so influential in the lives of the 30 and under consumer group. But some “experts” on social media marketing believe that while the world needs to embrace social media as a business strategy, there is an even greater need to deal with the misconceptions of social media that have been floating around.
First of all social media are not marketing media. Otherwise it probably wouldn’t be called “social” media. Social media are mostly about communicating. Buzz is created when members share knowledge about products they like. As a result social media do not necessarily attract new customers. This means it isn’t easy to calculate ROI from social media statistics. Ultimately, these experts believe it’s not so much about how effective any individual business is with its fans but rather about the fans effectiveness in attracting other fans. As it is said in propositional logic circles, just because A is equal to B doesn’t mean that B is also equal to A.
These same aforementioned experts affirm that if you don’t market your products you will go out of business but at the same time, you don’t buy a car because you see an ad or a tweet about it. You buy a car when you’re ready and able to afford it. And you choose your car based on a combination of what your friends say, what you’ve s seen in the ads and what you think will make you look hot. Though, that last one is mostly an assumption. Ultimately, social media should be just one part of your marketing strategy rather than the thing that replaces all other marketing. But if you’re Steve Jobs, none of this applies to your company’s products.
Perhaps it’ll be called the iSlate?
Perhaps Apple’s attorney’s have confirmed it’s existence?
Read more at CNET
The story in the New York Times is compelling for everyone with a credit card. A 60 year old professor who once had his identity stolen was skeptical of online transactions. Then his mobile phone provider, T-mobile decided that they would charge an extra fee to customers who insisted on paying their bills the old fashioned way. The professor took a deep breath and decided to go the digital route, even as T-mobile caved in to customer complaints and reversed its old-school penalty fee. The professor didn’t go back. He would stay in the digital age.
Eventually, the professor would move further into the online world, signing up for bank cards to increase savings. Then noting an opportunity to increase frequent-flier miles, there he was again, signing up for an American-Express business account. Incidentally, there are about 1.5 billion credit cards in circulation today with the majority belonging to Americans. Regardless, when the professor logged in to his account, someone else’s information appeared. Every transaction plus all sorts of personal information about the other customer filled up his screen. If he so wished, he could change the billing address and add extra card users. Not a good thing if you’re the other person.
Being an honest man, the professor reported the incident to the American Express customer service center in India. But it would be several weeks and numerous calls before the problem was solved. Not very good customer service, especially if your credit card life is open to a complete stranger who can make changes. It may or may not have been an isolated incident because everyone makes mistakes. But if businesses really want to keep their customers, shouldn’t they be paying closer attention? True customer service here would have the first line staff saying – OMG, we have a problem, let’s fix it now.
Should the car of the future look like the car of the past? Only you can decide when you pull out your debit card for your next vehicle purchase – who uses checkbooks anymore? Whatever you decide, it seems the folks at Future Vehicle Technologies are banking on an outside-the boxy-car of the future. After designing their first prototype, the “alé,” which (allegedly) tested at 92 mpg on gasoline alone, they are now on to the next big thing. And that would be the “eVaro,” a hybrid that gets between 122 - 325 mpg with a top speed of 135mph and can go from zero to 60 in five seconds – allegedly.
“FVT has always believed that significant fuel economy improvements can be made without sacrificing performance. Fuel-efficient cars don’t have to be slow, ugly or unimaginative,” say the folks in charge. Their car has three wheels which is thought to optimize aerodynamics and allow a more artistic design. Just in case the question arises, they want everyone to know that three wheels doesn’t mean it’s “tippy.” It actually whips around those corners more easily than its distant cousins on four wheels. They’re also planning a four wheel design, just in case.
And why haven’t you seen one of these “series” hybrid cars dashing through your neighborhood? Well, that’s probably because it’s not in production yet. They’re still in the R & D phase and soliciting investments to get the car on the ground – minimum investment is $10,000. For those not paying attention in science classes, a series hybrid is a car that uses an electric motor to drive it, with a small gas motor to “top-up the battery pack.” The other kind of hybrid is “parallel.” Most of all, let’s address the big concern here. You’re driving around and you want to drive through Culver’s or DQ. You’ll be happy to know that the canopy opens up “like an electric sunroof.”
