Design and HP- Boosting sales in tough times
Posted by Jeffrey on Nov 6, 2008
In a recent Bloomberg article, HP is focusing on design to help it widen its lead over 2nd place Dell in terms of sales of computers. With an eye to Apple, it has started producing machines in a variety of colors and materials that challenge previous wisdom that computers are “boring beige boxes.”
Taking a page from one of its competitors is nothing new in the PC business but HP is aiming to deliver “lighter, more stylish laptops at prices that beat or match those of Dell. With little to separate the machines’ performance, design may be the tipping point.” As Roger Kay president of researcher Endpoint Technologies Associates Inc. in Wayland, Massachusetts explains, “They’re not charging a premium for design — they’re just doing great design.”
What is really interesting is the way HP is introducing design to its line-up. Since the company started to understand that design is a differentiator, they have made “cultural shifts” in order to foster this type of thinking within the ranks. In an early meeting with designers, PC chief Todd Bradley told employees that PCs should be an “object of desire and possession” and that designers had permission to explore form and function not just cut costs. “Not only did they have the permission to be creative and design beautiful products, it was a mandate,” said Bradley, 49. “We made design a very visible priority.”
The team even has a different physical environment in which to work reflecting the increased focus on design with frosted glass Hermann Miller partitions rather than the grey cubes housing workers in the rest of the company.
The team is challenged to think about all aspects of the value chain, not only the end product. For instance, the company is re-thinking its shipping process, slimming down the amount of packaging used not only to cut costs and get more units on a skid but using less polystyrene is better for the environment. In looking at the way colors and designs are laid down on the laptop cases the company switched to a process called imprinting which is used in car detailing and fuses the designs right onto the material. This has improved the yield of units coming off the assembly line to 90% from 60%. In fact HP is working with BestBuy to offer special edition notebooks to target groups such as students, gamers and women.
This focus on design is estimated in a recent Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. report to help boost sales 6% over its rivals in the coming year as customers in challenging times become more discerning in their PC purchases. Not one to be outdone, Dell has introduced new colors to its laptop line and is rumoured to be completely revamping its line-up within the year.
Millennials and Music
Posted by Jeffrey on Mar 5, 2008
I was at a conference recently (called The Millennials - the generation roughly born from 1982 to 2001) and the most notable session in the morning was chaired by Alan Cross whose “Ongoing History of New Music” really was influential in giving me a new appreciation of how popular music forms around trends and influences. The topic of the session was “Connecting to a New Generation of Music Consumers.” The session focused around how they consume music and other content. On the panel was Jodie Ferneyhough - MD, Universal Music Publishing; Dave Kines- Manager, Music Partnerships, Rogers Media; Daniel Ewing - EVP, Ticketmaster; Dave Jaworski - CEO, Passalong Networks.Alan Cross posed the first question “How will the Millenniums consumer music?” The response from the panel revolved around how these consumers had access to many devices (phones, iPods, computers etc.) and wanted their content to be more mobile, just like they are. Furthermore, they have also shown that they will not be content to wait for content and wanted it faster than previous generations. The conversation turned to convenience and not only getting the content ‘whenever, where-ever,’ but how this generation appears to want to purchase ‘a-la-acarte’ instead of getting a CD with ‘one or two tracks’ they like.
The next question from Alan brought me back to my youth in that he asked “What happened to broad consensus in music?” It seemed to me that back then, there were a few stragglers who liked country or jazz or new wave, but at a certain time everyone liked Kiss or Cheap Trick and God forbid if you didn’t… One of the panelist mentioned that maybe the format imposed this type of restriction on behavior, but now consumers could customize their playlists so it didn’t seem as relevant today.
But if this is true, what happens to the ’social experience’ of music? The listening party; the ‘tribal experience’ of belonging to the ‘metal heads’ or ‘new wavers?’ Are we really programming to a listenership of ‘one?’ How then could the industry market to this group? One theory was that it had to be an ‘experience’ that was the actual thing being sold, not just the recorded music and perhaps the expectations of selling millions of copies of a track were not based in this new reality.
This led to a lively discussion on the question of whether music is still a unifying force for this generation. Given the prevalence of protest songs of the 60s and 70s and the rebellion songs of the late 70s and early 80s is this generation still expressing themselves through music? Sounds like the jury is still out on this one as there were several theories floated ranging from expression in different ways (rather than writing songs, Millennials were actually joining NGOs and going to Africa) to a thought that the songs were out there, but we weren’t seeing them.
So amongst the music execs, there is not a whole lot of consensus, although they did agree that the model of selling hardcopy tracks is in transition and the eventual ‘replacement’ for this model is still not certain. Now where is my copy of Live at Budokan
Search- is interface the new battleground?
Posted by Jeffrey on Feb 19, 2008
I was thinking recently about all the work being done around “natural language” search with several startups (notably powerset.com and textdigger.com) looking to make everyone’s search experience less frustrating. Let’s face it; despite all the work going into algorythms behind the scene, I don’t think that search today is significantly different than 5 years ago.You type in your word combos into the box and hope and pray that something relevant comes back in the first 10 entries on the page. Or you can repeat with a slightly different boolean combo. And still hope and pray…
But maybe its not simply in the initial search terms that determine how successful the search for information will be. Maybe if we acknowledge that its really really hard to get back the results we want on the first try, that the way to develop a better search experience is how you engage with the results to refine that search.
That’s why I was interested in Quintura and more recently in silobreaker.com. In each case they look at related items in a search visually in order to expose connections to the key search term. Don’t think an item is related? Just get rid of it either by clicking the ‘x’ or in the case of silobreaker, dragging it to the trash.
It makes refining the search more intuitive but also exposes linkages between items by proximity and size. Which helps you understand what the internet google Quintura/Silobreaker thinks of you.
Note: Another visual search engine was launched in Beta called SearchMe. Techcrunch covers it here
Nintendo Wii - Looking for Innovation
Posted by Jeffrey on Dec 30, 2007
Nintendo has quite a reputation in the gaming industry as video games have been this company’s forte for a long time. Although in the period leading up to the launch of the Wii you wouldn’t know that this company was once a giant in the gaming business. They were suffering from a distinct lack of buzz as other competitors spent more to drive the core gaming experience.Nintendo is currently in the lead in the $30B game business (and correspondingly still generating a huge amount of buzz). This rather recent development was not anticipated by the other players in the industry: Microsoft and Sony bet on a continuation of better graphics and more processing power to sway core gamers over to their platform.
What made the Wii innovative is their intention to move beyond core gamers to casual gamers, which makes up a far greater sized pie. But first a few stats:
- Nintendo has already sold 13MM of their devices so far (at the end of 2007) and expects to sell 35MM or more by 2012
- In its first month on the market in the US (it launched on November 19th, 2006) retail market watcher NPD said the Wii sold 476,000 units, compared to 197,000 PS3s (launched on November 17th, 2006). It even came close to the X-box 360 which sold 511,000 in the whole month!
- Amazon.com sold Nintendo Wii systems at approximately 17 per second when they were in stock
Here is a sales comparison:
As you can see it appears that the X-box sales have leveled off (have they gone to the Wii?) 
So what happened to the gaming market? As the leading edge moved to move the bar higher and higher on high-res graphics and detailed gameplay, the number of gamers that wanted a less intense (but still engaging) experience was growing. Whether for time reasons (no time to learn detailed combinations/ controllers) or intimidation (I don’t want to feel lame in front of highly accomplished players) the market was less visible (and vocal) than the core gamer community. And here is where it is really difficult to guess what was going to happen.
By listening to their core community, both Microsoft and Sony built some of the most advanced technology to deliver a superb gaming experience to their customers. Problem was that there was this growing (but less vocal) customer group playing Bejewelled and Tetris that felt disengaged from the core. This is where the Wii, with its intuitive gyroscopically controlled gameplay could succeed.
It really lowered the bar on console gaming, bringing casual games that did not require significant effort to understand (uhhh, bowling?) to a larger audience. (They also did a fantastic job at viral marketing. Because the Wii was new and different, it automatically attracted people that wanted to find out what made it tick). All of which drove Nintendo to increase production three times in 2007 . Still the devices are hard to get a hold of…
…Leading to the fact that we are in 2008 (almost 18 months after launch) and I still can’t get a copy of Guitar Hero for Wii!
Joost is interesting and it is like some other things you may have seen.
Posted by Jeffrey on Apr 18, 2007
In the Wednesday Keynote Joost CTO Dirk-Willem van Gulik explained a bit about their service. Joost mostly behaves like normal TV. You can “channel up, channel down; volume up, volume down” (as described by a well known Cable Exec.)We can look at the screen to get an overall view of the service.
The EPG on the left shows a fairly standard line-up which includes My Channels. However you can watch shows like a TV as well scrub back and forth like a PVR. Also since there are content objects you can tune into at any time it also behaves like VOD.
The area at the top displays the content owner’s information and what’s really interesting is that after you click and an overlay comes up the resulting overlay is writable by anyone. Anyone can write, can interact with content or just display it as an overly to sit on top of the content. What this means to content owners I think is still up for debate.
One of the issues they have been struggling with is one which is familiar to all of us-How do you find content? The list just keeps gets longer and longer as more content is added to the network. This is something which they will be spending significant resources on over the next few months as they gear up for a major release in the summer timeframe.
The bottom has a search box anyone can expose on their own site. Every piece of content has own URL and users can comment on parts of the video.
You can save a list as a channel (“Smart Channel”), which you can share with friends.
On the right there is displayed MyJoost where when you click, you see an overlay of widgets on top of video. Once again there are APIs for this and you can pin the widgets to the screen. There are almost limitless applications that can interact with viewers and content.
Interview with Amazon’s Jeff Bezon
Posted by Jeffrey on Apr 17, 2007
Jeff Bezos was one of the keynote speakers at the Web2.0 conference and in his eagerly anticipated talk he took the opportunity to highlight some of their initiatives to grow to the next level by providing outside businesses access to their world-class systems and technology. This approach would have seemed completely backwards about 5 years ago. Why provide potential competitors access to key technological assets and speed their time to market? Jeff tried to outline some of their thinking by kicking off his talk using their Amazon S3 internet-enabled file storage system; the same system they use internally for their e-commerce site Amazon.com.Amazon S3 has grown from about 800m objects stored in the system in July 2006 to over 5 Billion objects today. To illustrate some of the benefits of using the service, Bezos put the site Blueorigin (his effort to build a space vehicle) and all the video for the site on S3 so that they didn’t have to worry about scaling. This ended up being a prescient move as the traffic spiked when someone posted the site on Digg.
In fact on that day in January after getting Dugg, the website and media objects on S3 responded to 3 million requests. There were countless downloads of the video leading to transfer of 758Gb of data in one day. They did this without a contract or any sales contact; it was all done self serve by filling out some forms on the site. And the best part of it was that for all of January it cost $304 dollars, with most of the charges coming for that one day!
On S3s busiest day they were serving 1 billion requests per day and almost 16k requests/ second. Interestingly enough users include a company we may be familiar with; Microsoft. Secondlife and Powerset are also among the users.
Another example of what Amazon is working on with their services involves a service called EC2 (EC2 stands for Elastic Cloud.) If for instance your business needed to process many media files from avi to mp4, you could use their EC2 service to process all these files, which traditionally has been a very processor intensive task.
What would happen is that the raw media files stored in S3 pass messages to a queue service in EC2. EC2 finds a pointer in S3 to that avi file and starts the processing into an mp4.
To maintain quality control when the queue grows long, the EC2 can spawn new EC2s to clone itself to increase throughput of the service. So in effect you have an on-demand virtual server environment, which you only have to pay for when used. After processing the objects the virtual servers are redeployed to other tasks so your business does not have to pay for all those processors 24/7. You can use what they call “pay-per-drink” pricing in order to only use what you need at that time.
But a key question is how did Amazon get from a bookstore to an infrastructure provider? They took learnings from how to scale and deliver Amazon.com to other applications. Once they had this knowledge, they realized that they could then leverage this and open up this on a pay-per use basis so that companies didn’t have to reinvent the wheel every time they wanted to create an application or business.
The question then comes to mind whether Amazon is ‘traditional’ Web2.0 business? They have grown up alongside other trailblazing Web 1.0 companies but in contrast to the newer Web2.0 companies, they also have many hard offline assets including huge warehouses. But even thought they have 10 million ft2 of fulfillment space they are trying to again leverage their processes and infrastructure to outside players to create an ecosystem.
They reason that physical movement of goods won’t go away in next few years. So they will take the high cost services that businesses up to now have been forced to build or partner to get and allow businesses to exploit Amazon’s fulfillment network. You could think of this as the ‘programmable warehouse.’
You would simply hook into Amazon’s system and send a message that they should expect to receive items you will send over for storage in their warehouse. And the cost? Only 45 cents per cubic foot of storage per month. Then you can send a message to pick those things and Amazon would send them to an address you specify.
So they look at the future of Web2.0 a bit differently; they don’t just look at what will be the big disruptors, but they also put dollars into what they think won’t change. Interestingly, they feel they can build a strategy around what won’t change rather than what might.
Apple TV installation- A Non-Apple acolyte’s perspective
Posted by Jeffrey on Mar 24, 2007
Forget all the comments about backwards operating systems (PCs) and elegant simple to use interfaces (Mac); I wanted to see for myself if this extremely well-hyped device could do all the stuff that it was supposedly able to do. Things such as levitate objects, create food (”Earl Grey tea hot”; the Enterprise PC had to be Mac-based, no?) and other feats of magic.Seriously this device had to live up to a lot of hype, not the least of which involved super-easy setup and use. I actually used Macs off and on over the years, from the Mac Classic back in 1991 to PowerMacs in the mid-90s to even a super-powered (at the time) G3 to do video editing and other tasks around 2000. I have also had a bunch of PCs as well (seems like everyone was using them.. and still is). My latest PC is about 5 years old and is in need of replacement, but now I am seriously thinking about going to a Mac. But that’s another story, for another post.
This is about my installation experience with the AppleTV box. When I heard that they were creating this product back in 2005 I thought that this would be a fantastic addition to a home entertainment system. I mean think of it; the ability to play all that stuff that is locked up on your computer without having to physically bring it down to wherever your TV was sitting seemed pretty attractive. I thought that they’d announce it at MacWorld in ‘06 but there was no mention of a product that people had started to call iTV. So still had to wait, and wait and wait.
So when it was announced along with the iPhone I thought that it would be a great opportunity to try finally get to try out something that would make this type of whole home “cross-platform” media experience a reality.
I confess that I was not quite as well informed about the requirements for the product as I thought. In fact (cue the inspirational music) I thought that I could just bring it home and hook it up to the flat panel in the basement with the many cables I have on hand from other devices/installations that I have put in over the past few years. Turns out that after I unboxed the unit, (kill the music), I realized that the only video connections were HDMI (not a chance) and Component. Crap; I didn’t have any of those cables on hand.
So it sat for a day uninstalled and unloved on the shelf on top of my Satelite box waiting for me to go out and get the component cable. Home depot to the rescue. So brought the cable back, hooked it all up to the flat panel and then tried to insert the power cable. Guess what? Due to some sort of manufacturing problem, the cable doesn’t properly seat in the unit. It just falls out. So I had to resort to good old painters tape to hold the cable to the unit so at least I could do the setup.
Don’t try this at home kids
After taping the cable temporarily, I looked in the box for the remote and nearly had to tear the damn box apart to get it out. This remote is so tiny that for sure it will get lost on the coffee table or eaten by a hungry animal out looking for snacks inbetween the cushions.
Finally getting the remote out allows you to choose the language, and pick the resolution. Weird but none of the higher res options work for this monitor, even though it does support higher resolutions. I’m going to to worry about that later….
The tricky part was trying to get it to find the iTunes client running on the network. I had this running but apparently there is an option in the Firewall section to share iTunes that has to be enabled or it won’t find the AppleTV box. (Good to know; I found this on the Apple site.)
But the box does find the network and I can put in the WEP key (slowly using the remote and picking each character one by one), so it does go out and find a short teaser version for Feature Films and TV. [Note that I am in Canada which sucks from an iTunes perspective as we are a third world country when it comes to getting video. The short answer is that we really have nothing, except some trailers and some music videos. Get with the picture Apple/Studios and let us get the content that we want!]
So finally got everything to synch after fooling around a bit with the menus and content looks surprisingly good. There still are some jagged edges and some blockiness in the blacks but in my opinion I only notice this because I am comparing it to higher resolution video. I really like the way I can access the video podcasts on this device to check out the previews for all the upcoming movies, so I can at least pretend that I know what’s going on and delude myself that I’ll actually have time to see them when they come out.
So overall, not a bad user experience for installing what could be a really complicated device. I think Apple has done a few things right: limit the number of options in setup (so as not to confuse the user); use wireless to synch content from the PC as well as connect to the iTunes service for the most up-to-date previews of shows and films (too bad we can’t see them here); made the user interface really simple with a few clicks of the (too small) remote.
I also have hooked up our Media Center PC to this flat panel and will try to get that back online in the next few days… but not really a fair comparison as the AppleTV is a purpose built unit and the MCPC is more of a PC with the TV client grafted on. But I think that the AppleTV unit looks waaaay better anyway.
Update: Last week I finally got the power cable to stay in the socket; basically by shoving it in waaay to hard for my comfort level. So now I am just waiting for Apple to sign more content in Canada…. (still waiting…)
How the web (2.0) is influencing us.
Posted by Jeffrey on Mar 2, 2007
This is a brilliant video, under 5 minutes, on how blogs, wikis, web feeds, social networking sites, and folksonomies are revolutionizing our culture .Both for the technical person who understands it and also for the digital neophyte / newbie who needs to get a taste for how the web is transforming itself and impacting the way we click to learn and share knowledge. Fast paced, great soundtrack and super thoughts!
Refilling Dog Bowl: For Potty-Mouth Pets
Posted by Jeffrey on Aug 29, 2006
The Refilling Dog Bowl is a pretty good sight gag, and it actually has a practical purpose. Place a 2-liter bottle of water (or your pet’s favorite beverage) in the tank and it will automatically keep that mini-loo full of fresh fluids.
Just make sure your kids know it’s the dog’s bowl and not theirs. Made of glazed ceramic just like the real thing, the $15 bowl is just over 10 inches high, so only the tiniest wee ones will be tempted to wee here.
BlackBerry addict? - Hotel offers detox
Posted by Jeffrey on Jun 9, 2006
CHICAGO (Reuters) - BlackBerry addicts have a crack at freedom when they check into one Chicago hotel: the manager will put the communications devices and others like them under lock and key for guests who want a break.Rick Ueno, general manager of the Sheraton Chicago Hotel, said the program which began on Wednesday grew out of his own personal BlackBerry addiction. His one-step recovery was switching to a regular cell phone.
“I was really addicted to my BlackBerry. I had an obsession with e-mail,” he told Reuters. “Morning and night. There came a time when I didn’t think it was healthy … I quit cold turkey.”
He believes guests might want to try the same thing for a day or two anyway, so they can concentrate on meetings, business and socializing while at the hotel.
Ueno said he would take personal charge of any BlackBerrys or related devices guests want to surrender and place them in his office locked up until their return is requested. There is no charge.
“I run a hotel with over 900 employees and thousands of guests. I think I’m more effective. I feel better. I sleep better. My family likes it,” he said of his post-BlackBerry life.
The popular hand-held devices, sometimes called “CrackBerries” because users become so reliant on them, are made by Canadian-based Research In Motion Ltd..
Tamagotchis seek second wave of virtual pet owners
Posted by Jeffrey on Apr 21, 2006
TOKYO (Reuters) - With straps loaded with tamagotchis around their necks, siblings Takumi and Ayaka Mochizuki traveled an hour to a Tokyo store so their virtual pets could interact with a giant tamagotchi that was on tour.“I love feeding my tamagotchi,” said Takumi, 5, looking disappointed because he didn’t have enough virtual money to buy anything for his “3-year-old” pet at the royal market, which is accessible only via the giant tamagotchi.
“I really messed up,” he said.
Ten years after the small egg-shaped devices first became a global fad, the digital pets have found homes again with a new generation of young children, who peer into the tiny screens several times a day to feed them, play with them and clean them.
Unlike the original, which suddenly disappeared after a brief run, Japanese toymaker Bandai Co., a unit of Namco Bandai Holdings Inc., is hoping a richer world of characters and cautious marketing will give it the staying power that its creators had always envisioned.
“We’ve always wanted to try to revive the tamagotchi because the craze ended so fast,” said Takeiuchi Hongo, Bandai’s 51-year-old chief tamagotchi officer, admitting that the company was caught off guard when the toy became a sudden phenomenon in the 1990s, particularly among high school girls and young women.
The latest versions in Japan, launched in 2004 and priced at about $25, come with communications capabilities so tamagotchis can meet each other and play games through an infrared sensor.
The pets can grow into adults that hold down jobs and even get married to someone else’s tamagotchi. Once the couple has babies — always twins so each owner gets a baby — the parents disappear to Planet Tamagotchi, which the children can visit via a personal computer.
A badly brought up tamagotchi pet could turn into a snake or a thief, but a diligent owner can raise up to 999 generations.
The company’s toy unit expects operating profit in the last business year to March to jump 25.8 percent to about $136 million from a year earlier on a 7.4 percent increase in sales to about $1.5 billion, helped by the popularity of the tamagotchi.
Two years after its debut, the second tamagotchi series topped sales of 20 million units worldwide this month.
Although that is half the original tamagotchi’s sales of 40 million units, Hongo considers the current business to be more stable and consistent.
Hongo readily admits that Bandai was ill-prepared to handle the explosive demand when the traditional Japanese company of fewer than 1,000 employees launched the tamagotchi in 1996, based on an idea by an executive with an insatiable love for pets.
The toy meant for young children was sought after so much that employees were banned from carrying bags with a Bandai logo for fear of theft.
What started as a simple idea for a portable virtual pet turned into a cultural icon of the digital age as countries like China and the Philippines condemned the toy as anti-social and schools around the world banned them.
Bandai couldn’t make enough tamagotchis to meet demand, and by the time they had the capacity to do so, the boom was over.
After a roller-coaster ride, the company ended up with excessive inventory and took a special loss in the business year ended March 1999 as it was forced to restructure.
“We know we can’t make the same mistake twice,” said Hongo, who now has two small children of his own. “We had no strategy back then.”
To demonstrate its resolve and its intention to make tamagotchi a permanent fixture, Bandai named Hongo chief tamagotchi officer in 2004 and conducted extensive market research before relaunch.
The company has avoided splashy advertising, choosing instead to work with publishers on children’s magazine articles featuring tamagotchi. It also carefully paced out launches of new versions and related products as it created a world around the characters.
Bandai’s tamagotchi game for Nintendo Co. Ltd.’s DS portable game machine was the first game created by a company other than Nintendo to sell a million copies in Japan, and sales of a U.S. version showed a solid start.
Bandai also offers a tamagotchi mobile phone game and has plans to begin selling a co-branded tamagotchi phone aimed at children with wireless phone company Willcom Inc., a joint venture between U.S. firm Carlyle Group and Japan’s Kyocera Corp.
According to Yano Research Institute, the electronic toys and girls’ toys segments in Japan are expected to grow slightly in the business year ended March, due almost entirely to tamagotchi-related sales, even though the overall industry is expected to decline a bit to about $8 billion.
“The girls’ toys category is traditionally a tough market because girls have so many interests beyond toys, but the market is being lifted again by innovative products in large part due to the influence of the tamagotchi,” said Rumiko Onuki, a children’s market analyst at Yano Research Institute.
Movie-Goers Getting Smells to Match Scenes
Posted by Jeffrey on Apr 13, 2006
TOKYO - A theater audience in Japan will be sniffing their noses — literally — at a new Hollywood adventure film when it opens here later this month.A new service from a major telecommunications company, NTT Communications Corp., will synchronize seven different smells to parts of “The New World,” starring Colin Farrell.
A floral scent accompanies a love scene, while a mix of peppermint and rosemary is emitted during a tear-jerking scene. Joy is a citrus mix of orange and grapefruit, while anger is enhanced by a herb-like concoction with a hint of eucalyptus and tea tree. The smells waft from special machines under the seats in the back rows of two movie theaters, which create different fragrances by controlling the mix of oils stored in the machines, company spokeswoman Akiko Suzaki said Wednesday.
In “The New World,” which opened in the United States in December, Farrell plays American colonial leader John Smith, who is said to have been saved from execution by North American Indian princess Pocahontas.
Theaters will be able to download from the Internet different scent sequences for other films, Suzaki said.
The company began a similar service for homes in Japan last year. Owners of the $620 home version can download different programs to emit smells to accompany a horoscope reading or work as aromatherapy.
Owners must keep refilling the machine with fragrant liquids. NTT Communications would not disclose how many machines it has sold.
U.S. startups have developed similar technologies before, although at least one company had to shut down during the dot-com bust.
Theaters may ask to jam cell phones
Posted by Jeffrey on Mar 20, 2006
LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - Movie theater owners faced with falling attendance are considering asking federal authorities for permission to jam cell phone reception in an attempt to stop annoying conversations during films, the head of the industry’s trade group said on Tuesday.Industry leaders at the ShoWest conference for theater owners want to find ways to win back crowds.
“I don’t know what’s going on with consumers that they have to talk on phones in the middle of theaters,” John Fithian, president of the National Association of Theater Owners, told the ShoWest conference in Las Vegas.
Theaters are trying a number of ways to silence cell phones, from sweeps by ushers to funny fake movie trailers urging viewers to shut off phones.
Fithian said owners were considering other steps if that does not work.
“We will actually petition the Federal Communications (Commission) to remove the block” on jamming cell phones, he said.
That may be difficult, since federal law and FCC rules prohibit the use of cell phone jammers.
The industry is broadly trying to increase interest in the movies.
Motion Picture Association of America Chief Executive Dan Glickman told ShoWest that the industry is researching why and when people go to the movies and might consider an advertising campaign to encourage people to go out to the movies, just as the milk industry has succeeded with its Got Milk? campaign.
And a little-bitty thimble of popcorn, please
Posted by Jeffrey on Mar 2, 2006
OTTAWA (Reuters) - Budding Canadian film makers looking for a big break may want to think small — about 2 inches by 2 inches to be exact — organizers of Canada’s first mobile film festival said Wednesday.Mobifest producers are looking for bite-sized films that are up to 60 seconds long and produced for viewing on cellphones and other handheld devices.
“The big picture is that there’s a billion (mobile) phones worldwide and an increasing percentage of them are playing back video,” said Duncan Kennedy, president of Nownow Corp., which is producing the contest. “It’s a new distribution channel for independent film making.”
Similar festivals, for what is dubbed “short attention span theater,” have been launched in Portugal and Asia. Industry executives recently gathered at the Sundance Film Festival to predict the future of the small screen.
Mobifest already has a few entries, including one from U.S. animator Mike Browne, whose “Brokeback Chicken” spoofs Ang Lee’s Oscar favorite “Brokeback Mountain.”
“We see a lot of these submissions being funny,” said Kennedy. “We hope people are going to share these laughs together, and why wouldn’t you want to have a joke in your pocket?”
So-called “pocket films” ideally have limited dialogue, because they are played on phones and often compete with background noise, and have lots of close shots and large text and titles, added Kennedy. His year-old, Toronto-based company produces and distributes made-for-mobile movies under sponsorship and carrier deals.
Sponsored by Palm Canada, Mobifest will accept international submissions through April 30, with winners announced May 17.
Finalists will be picked by online voters, who can view films at www.mobifest.ca. Judges will then determine winners for best Canadian mobile film, best of festival, and best film shot and edited exclusively on a Palm Treo smartphone.
Award-winning films will premiere on Movieola, The Short Film Channel, and screen on Air Canada flights this summer. The festival winner also gets a mobile movie production package worth about C$1,500 ($1,327).
SnackShotz Dog Biscuit Launcher
Posted by Jeffrey on Jan 25, 2006
Gizmodo has a great piece on this useful toy for frustrated dog owners. The Frolic SnackShotz Treat Launcher is a new way to play fetch with your dog. Load up one of the specially designed Discos Flying Dog Treats into this dog biscuit pistol, pull the trigger, and boom! It will launch those babies up to 12 feet. Spot will go nuts when he sees these 100%-edible flying dog treats zipping through the air. The Discos are available in three flavors, too: Beef, Chicken, and Mighty Mint to keep your dog’s breath minty-fresh. The product’s humorously-named parent company, Dogmatic, asserts that this biscuit launcher helps to fight against pet obesity by encouraging your pet to be active. There are no specifics on how many calories each Disco contains, though—so be wary all you calorie-counting dogs. Take a look at the demonstration video of SnackShotz in action
iPod baby stroller
Posted by Jeffrey on Jan 17, 2006
Just when you thought you’d seen every iPod accessory in the known universe, scientists discover a new one. This is the iPod baby stroller. I mean, I guess it could be nice to listen to music when walking your baby, but doesn’t that kind of nix the whole baby bonding thing? Kolcraft has no care for this kind of emotional baggage, because its iBaby stroller (enough with the “i” prefix already people!) comes with a built-in iPod (no mention of which one), iPod mini adapter, holder and speakers. So get that Metallica on your playlist and crank it up for junior next time you’re heading to the playground. I’m sure the other parents will totally appreciate it.
Fido’s First Cell Phone
Posted by Jeffrey on Dec 6, 2005
Lost dog? As of next March, pet owners will be able to drop the photocopier and staple gun and pick up the phone instead. That’s when PetCell, the first cell phone for dogs, is due to hit pet-store shelves.Hung off Fido’s collar, the PetCell is a bone-shaped cell phone that will let dog owners talk to their best friend over a two-way speaker.
Developed by PetsMobility, the PetCell works with standard cellular networks and has its own number. It automatically answers when the owner punches in a code on their telephone keypad that means, “Lassie, come home!”
The PetCell will ship in early 2006 and will sell for $350 to $400, the company said.
President Cameron Robb said he got the idea for the phone while sharing a hotel room with a colleague at a convention.
“I overheard him talking to his dogs,” said Robb. “I was mimicking and making fun of it, but the reality was his wife was holding the phone down to the dog.”
The ability to track a lost pet has most dog lovers excited. The PetCell has a “call owner” button in case Rover strays. It also includes assisted GPS, or A-GPS, which works indoors, allowing dog owners to map their pup’s coordinates from any web-enabled device or by dialing a voice-enabled call center.
“When dogs disappear, it’s the first 15 minutes that are the most important,” said San Francisco dog trainer Youngblood Harris. “If your dog runs out of the dog park and you don’t see if he went left or right, (PetCell) would make life a lot easier,” Harris said.
The PetCell will also have an option called GeoFence that will alert owners whenever their dog wanders beyond preset parameters, and built-in temperature sensors to indicate if the dog is too hot or cold.
Additionally, the PetCell will support a small wireless camera, an application Robb believes could be useful in search-and-rescue or bomb-squad missions. But for patrons of doggy day care, it may become the canine equivalent of a nanny cam.
While a cell phone for pets may strike some as silly, the economic reality is not. The American Pet Products Manufacturers Association says U.S. pet owners spent an estimated $35.9 billion on their furry friends in 2005.
Sturdy and slobber-resistant, the PetCell isn’t just for dogs. PetsMobility’s parent company, On4 Communications, is simultaneously rolling out models for kids, the elderly and outdoor sports fanatics who enjoy snowboarding and kayaking.
“It’s a rugged, waterproof cell phone with GPS, so there’s a bunch of other markets for that technology besides the pet industry,” Robb said.
One obvious user is left out of this calling plan. At 3 inches long, the PetCell is too unwieldy for your average feline. Although the company is working on further miniaturization, the battery has proven to be a formidable obstacle.
Still, Robb wasn’t ruling it out. He said optimistically, “The kitties will have to wait.”
Unborn Baby IQ
Posted by Jeffrey on Oct 26, 2005
If you’ve been dying to commune with your unborn baby more meticulously, take a note from the Koreans and pick up Daeyang’s new Baby IQ, which will soon be available in the US. Cutely resembling a baby bottle, the point of this product is to amplify the sounds of your baby’s kicks, hiccups and heartbeat so you can “bond with your offspring.”You can even record all this for your baby to listen to once it’s born (supposedly, the prenatal heartbeat soothes newborns). And if you want to go the other way, you can also amplify your voice to talk or sing to your child as well as play music to them. I’d suggest staying away from Marilyn Manson and Cat Stevens. No word on when we’ll actually see it or pricing just yet, but I’m sure expectant parents everywhere are ratcheting up their baby playlists as we speak.
New iPod
Posted by Jeffrey on Oct 17, 2005
Here is the new iPod from Apple: the iPod Nanu.
New gadget to make theft of mobile phones harder
Posted by Jeffrey on Oct 14, 2005
HELSINKI (Reuters) - Finnish scientists have invented a device to make it harder to steal mobile phones and laptops by enabling them to detect changes in their owner’s walking style and then freeze to prevent unauthorized use.The VTT Technical Research Center of Finland said the device, which is has patented but has yet to sell, could prevent millions of portable appliances being stolen every year.
“A device is equipped with sensors that measure certain characteristics of the user’s gait. When the device is used for the first time, these measurements are saved in its memory,” VTT said in a statement.
The gadget would monitor the user’s walking style and check it against the saved information. If the values differ, the user would have to enter a password.
“Compared with passwords and traditional bio-identification, the new method is simple: confirmation of identity takes place as a background process without any need for user’s intervention,” the researchers said.