Tech news outside the mainstream
Uncommon news and information with a technical twist and some topics that are a bit out there. Enjoy...
Here's a great idea for the taking, the magnification card or Mag Card. In the extra space above the magnetic strip, during manufacturing process, create a clear magnification lens out of the card plastic or mold it into the card meld the surface so it doesn't pop out when flexed. The benefit being no need for a reading glass to see your bill or glance over a menu.
Great idea? Well it's here for anyone to develop and patent. I hold a design patent and several copyrights on other products. And after going through the patent process a couple of times, I've learned that if you're not going to make it your life's work and defended it into possible bankruptcy, it's really not worth doing.
The Mag Card has great potential and I'd just like to have one built into my debit card. I'm hoping someone runs with this idea and makes the world a better place (leave the lawyers out of the loop).
The Mag Card was hatched in the early hours of the morning involving the perfect combination of alcohol, an attractive waitresses and a bar tab the size of a federal invoice. If you decide to manufacture and end up making millions, throw a little this way.
TechCrunch has a great article on the growth of enterprise software featuring a 3 trillion dollar opportunity, but it's bigger than that and there's so much room for small business and start ups. In short, mobile collaboration for your workforce with direct integration to product partners and stakeholders is the only model to develop for, anything else would be a disservice to your client.
Just five years ago, we wouldn’t have imagined that a farmer or construction worker could be an information worker. But with products like Farmlogs, Planet Labs and Airware in farming and agriculture, and PlanGrid or Skycatch in construction, all new demographics of the workforce are being supported by information technology. And this is just the beginning. As every employee on the planet is enabled by a smartphone, the addressable market for enterprise software grows from about half a billion people to the billions of workers leveraging mobile devices to do their jobs.
Every job is software-enabled, every industry is digitized. Read more at TechCrunch.com
How can you conduct business if you can't speak the same language? Skype Translator will enable the global exchange of information and help your business build international relationships. Skype is about to add a translation tool to their VoIP app that will allow face to face real time translation. I've been wondering how to break into the Chinese market and for 2 cents per minute, less than half that with a subscription, I see endless possibilities.
Microsoft is coming out with the desktop app by the end of this summer and has also removed the signup requirement. This is another big win for Microsoft. Add this app to your Surface Pro and your are truly ready for the world. Take a closer look at Skype Translator here.
Global transactions for small businesses are the next big thing. These are very exciting times for entrepreneurs.
Introducing the Intel Compute Stick. It transforms any HDMI TV or monitor into a full computer. All you need is a wireless keyboard and mouse and you’re all set. When you combined the use of cloud applications and storage, what do you need the rest of the box for?
It comes equipped to go with Windows 8.1, Intel's Atom Quad-core processor, 2gb ram, 32gb storage, built-in WiFi, a USB port and a Micro SD card slot.
Perfect for gaming in the family room, replacing a projector or turning your old TV a smart device. You can pickup the Compute Stick for about $150.
Upgrades I'd like to see in the next version: Make it the size of a pen with the ability to write, a holographic display that will work in daylight and a flawless speech recognition system. Still this very cool, bravo Intel.
Spoiler Alert - If you haven't seen the final episode of MadMen, read no more. MadMen was weekly TV series that ran on AMC and just came to a brilliant concluding episode. I found the show intriguing on multiple levels. First as a period piece into the advertising industry roots of the 50's to 70's. The characters were well formed and wisely engineered into an almost historic account of advertising growth as it was woven into American culture. The final episode tied it together with a twist I didn't see coming until the classic Coke ad brought it home.
Don Draper's smile while chanting as the new dawn arose could have been that he finally found peace, or was it that he just got the idea for one of the best ad campaigns in history. The next scene was the 1971 "I'd like to buy the world a Coke" commercial. Brilliantly written, directed and executed. (standing ovation). Through the course of the series the ad firm grows into a multi-million dollar empire. What's ironic now is that there is a new dawn in advertising again. The ad firms and TV stations that got rich during the MadMen period a now seeing a seismic shift in the platform, welcome the internet. The dawn is over but the sun hasn't full risen. The day hasn't even begun to warm yet. It'll be interesting to see how history and culture remember this segment of our development, who'll be the next Don Draper's and just how technology will evolve.
Opportunities are everywhere. Internet growth and online advertising are set to explode. Where will your business be?
Mobile Enterprise is already the next big thing and is only going to get bigger and better with continued improvements in cellular and handheld technology.
Accessing your business from anywhere and conducting business from anywhere is not just productive, it's a competitive edge that small business and entrepreneurs must have. Applications like Stripe that allow taking payments at the point of sale are solid concepts, like a cell phone years from now, we'll wonder how we ever did without.
From the tech start-ups pouring into this arena to corporate giants trying to keep market share, the mobile enterprise industry represents the bleeding edge of tech with a real purpose. Enough of the social kid toys already. If you haven't already, check out Stripe. (A real domain name too, not like SomethingICantRemember.whatever)
I stumbled upon the topic of technology camps and had to delve a little further. First the term 'tech camp' reminded me of some of the sweat shops I've worked in, they could be described as a 'camp', but more I found out there are quite a few tech camps catering to all ages, genders and vocations.
When I think of summer camp, I envision a lake in the mountains where kids roast marsh-mellows, ride canoes, fish and generally relax for a week or two. What's becoming more popular are tech camps for kids ages 6 and up and they're taking classes like programming, audio video engineering, robotics, and app design. I found technology camps not just for kids, but for teachers and executives to tune up with. Instructional design is the way of the new classroom any anyone that's familiar and comfortable with technology is going to be well ahead of the game. (And there's even game development classes.) At the college level there are even more camps to excel or catch up.
Tech camps aren't a new concept, but are growing. Here's and article by Tony Wan from 2013 with a list of popular kids camps. Camps and programs like these may just spark the genius in your child or expand an executive's insight.
Grow your company with premium technology domains. Technology is the fasting growing sector and a definitive part of your future growth. Whether your in the technology sector or realize it's where your organization needs a greater footprint, technology won't be a smaller part of anyone's future. Domain names as marketing channels surpass any other media and yield direct sales and instant analytics. Domain names are digital assets.
We are featuring the following domain names as a package or individually.
I keep an eye on web traffic coming into all of my sites and my clients' sites. Since the World Cup in Rio last summer, I have notice a sharp increase in the volume of traffic from South America. I didn't think much of it at first thinking it might have been stemming from the few posts I made rooting for the Netherlands team, but the numbers from Brazil remained high. Last week I had to take closer notice the volume coming in from Sao Paulo exceeded the what I was receiving from the United States.
In the domain industry there's a lot of discussion about Chinese domain names and the size and potential of China's market. I don't qualify as a player in the industry. There are fish, big fish and whales. On the scale of things, I'd be less than one plankton, just a single celled amoeba eeking out a living. As large as China is, I don't see a lot of traffic emanating from them. Very well could be I don't have the domain names that would attract their attention, but even on client domains that might, I don't see anything that significant from them at all.
Traffic from Sao Paulo was closer to 5 percent above the US traffic volume. Drilling through the analytics, best I could determine is strong interest in technology. Did you know Sao Paulo is the world's 4th largest city? I have heard of Sao Paulo, but had no idea they'd have so much going on and new tech growth. Take a fresh look at Sao Paulo, they're already the next big thing.
Several articles came out about US Marshall's using small aircraft to gather data on all US citizens and that's it. There's no follow up, no more that will come of it and the data mining will continue unabated. Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple said years ago that privacy is dead. And, to my surprise it went with out a fight or even the smallest hint of a protest.
The right to privacy is one of the fundamental rights in the Bill of Rights, actually it's number 6 on the list of 10 rights that were so important they were added to the Constitution. Except for a few articles, from the Wall Street Journal to Fox News, it doesn't even make the nightly news. Is it that people just don't care, is it a trade off for keeping law and order among the masses? Or is this incident just one of the many ways that our freedoms are rapidly eroding? What happens when you act outside of your profile? How many alarm bells ring then?
Read the full article on TechNewsWorld.com.