March 11th, 2010
Still in its infancy, augmented reality technology is quickly becoming an integral aspect of some marketing campaigns.
Adidas’ new line of sneakers comes with an augmented reality (AR) barcode on the tongue of the shoe. When held up to a webcam, the sneaker triggers a celebrity-filled virtual game world and becomes the actual controller for the video games. The December issue of Esquire magazine had an AR barcode on its cover and contained links to interactive content and ads. (Brandweek, 2/15/10)
As the technology improves and new capabilities are created, more companies will recognize the importance of offering interactivity in advertising. Expect this technology to become ubiquitous.
Eric Zavolinsky
Tags: Augmented Reality
Posted in Internet, Marketing, media | No Comments »
March 10th, 2010
Twenty-five utilities in the U.S. now provide customers with data related to their neighbors’ energy usage. According to the utilities, the implied social pressure has lowered energy consumption between two and three percent. Meanwhile, in Spain, a highly effective debt collector is using public embarrassment to get people to pay up. He wears a tuxedo and approaches debtors at their table in restaurants, while they are surrounded by friends, or he walks into their offices and casually talks to them. (The Week, 2/12/10; Christian Science Monitor, 2/12/10)
In Spain, social pressure is working where the legal system has not, and implied social pressure is working in the U.S. where extensive educational programs have not.
Ken Hey
Posted in Energy | No Comments »
March 9th, 2010
China’s high-speed rail ambitions aren’t just all talk, and there is more in service than just the oft-cited Maglev train from Shanghai’s airport.
In February, China opened a 505 km (313 mile) high-speed rail line between the nation’s important interior city of Xian and the major eastern rail-hub city of Zhengzhou. Trains travel 330 kph (205 mph) and cut the travel time from six hours to less than two. China has also opened a 664 mile (comparable to a Boston to Southern Virginia trip) high-speed line from the southern export city Guangzhou to the major interior city Wuhan, which makes the trip in just over three hours, less time than it takes for Acela to travel from Boston to New York. (China Daily, 2/6/10; New York Times, 1/13/10)
These ambitions and early successes lead us to ask several questions: 1) What companies benefit from China’s full-speed-ahead plans to build a massive high-speed rail network? 2) Where does China’s plans and capabilities leave the U.S. in terms of fast, efficient and reliable transportation infrastructure? 3) What are the social implications of this increasing mobility in China, a place of limited mobility just a few years ago?
Michael Hines
Tags: Railroad
Posted in China | No Comments »
March 8th, 2010
For the first time ever, engineers from around the world, including 131 organizations from 23 countries, cooperated online and assessed the damage situation following Haiti’s earthquake disaster. They tagged 10,797 heavily damaged and collapsed buildings. In fact, public viewing of satellite imagery through Microsoft’s Virtual Earth product tagged 4,391 buildings in one day. (Engineering News-Record, 2/15/10)
The social networking of engineers and organizations could be useful in accessing engineering talent globally, much the way “solution sites” such as Innocentive access global scientists for specific challenges. Although tagging and describing destroyed structures may be rather simplistic, increasingly sophisticated engineering work will be available on a remote basis.
Charles Hess
Tags: Haiti
Posted in Internet | No Comments »
March 5th, 2010
Despite the ballooning prevalence of digital media, it is traditional journalists at traditional news outlets that uncover and report most of the “news.”
A recent study found that 95 percent of news stories that offer new information (facts not already reported elsewhere) come from traditional media – 60 percent of which is represented by newspapers. In the study, which used Baltimore as a test city, only 4 percent of new news made its premiere on a digital-only outlet. (Los Angeles Times, 1/11/10)
There are risks and consequences for the loss of traditional journalism. Most blog news sites are uninterested in actually covering news.
Michael Hines
Tags: Newspapers
Posted in Internet, media | No Comments »
March 3rd, 2010
People are starting to get desperate and angry at what they perceive to be inequalities in the system and that anger is beginning to manifest itself in action.
Terry Hoskins of Moscow (OH) owed $160,000 on his $350,000 home when the RiverHills Bank began foreclosure proceedings on his house. He recently received a $170,000 offer from someone to pay off the house, but the bank refused the offer, saying it could get more money selling the home in foreclosure. About a month ago, Hoskins used a bulldozer to level the home he had built, saying he did it to “make the banks think twice before they try to take someone’s home, and if they are going to take it wrongly, the end result will be them tearing their house down like I did mine.” (WLWT, 2/19/10)
Thankfully, Hoskins didn’t go the route of A. Joseph Stack III, who flew his plane into an office building housing IRS workers, partly because of the “unthinkable atrocities” committed by big business and the government bailouts that followed, but the take away is similar. Some people are angry and taking what they perceive to be the serving of justice into their own hands.
Eric Zavolinsky
Tags: Anger, Populism
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
February 26th, 2010
For teens, a sense of support and connectedness is paramount to active digital lives.
The Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project reported that only 8 percent of online teens have embraced Twitter. This contrasts with the overall increase in social network use of those aged 12-17 that went from 55 percent in 2006 to 65 percent in 2008 to 73 percent today. A study from FJ Metrics found that Twitters growth has slowed and only 17 percent of users updated their account in December – an all time low. (Dallas Morning News, 2/5/10; Brandweek, 2/8/10)
One 17-year-old in the article said “teenagers like to talk, and 140 characters are just not enough”. It appears that community is critically important to this cohort and that the mass “shout out” is not what many teens are looking for in their digital experience.
Charles Hess
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
February 24th, 2010
In a blind taste test at festivities to celebrate the Scottish “Burn’s Night” holiday, a Taiwanese whisky, Kavalan, beat out the Scottish and English whiskies sampled. (South China Morning Post, 1/26/10)
It’s not just a global Brain Trade (of advance manufacturing and high-tech goods and services); artisan and craft products are being made around the world and judged “authentic” by connoisseurs. Make sure your alumni club has this whisky in stock!
Michael Hines
Posted in Brain Trade, World War III | No Comments »
February 18th, 2010
Britain’s Civil Aviation Authority is in a legal spat with a local police department that used an aerial drone. Their dispute belies the fact that the drone helped police catch a car thief last week. (BBC News, 2/16/10)
How long until American police departments seek to use unmanned aerial vehicles as part of routine police work, and what will be the public’s response on the privacy front? Nevermind, the U.S. can’t afford it…
Michael Hines
Tags: Privacy, UAVs
Posted in State and Local Governments | No Comments »
February 11th, 2010
Is Hal, the infamous take-control computer in “2001: A Space Odyssey” taking over the stock exchange? It’s clear someone’s yielding control to something with unknown capabilities.
The New York Stock Exchange fined Credit Suisse $150,000 for failing to supervise one of its trading algorithms after the program halted traffic at five different trading posts on the NYSE and delayed the day’s closing at the posts for nearly half an hour. It was the first time the stock exchange has disciplined a firm for algorithm infractions. (Wall Street Journal, 1/13/10)
Algorithms are becoming more prevalent as companies attempt to understand and manipulate the tremendous amounts of available data. Wall Street firms have been leading the charge, creating algorithms in order to gain a trading advantage. These algorithms trigger automatic trading actions and reactions that can have a chaotic market impact creating instability and unforeseen consequences. While this time it was only a delayed closing, Credit Suisse’s “algorithm gone wild” is likely to be the first of many unseen risks to come from dependence on computer formulas.
Eric Zavolinsky
Tags: Credit Suisse
Posted in Algorithms | No Comments »
