I am not a huge Microsoft fan, however, I watched this video on TED. Have a watch and I will join you again after the video with some of my thoughts…
For some people that was amazing, for others it was OK. Most of us have seen or used Google Maps which seems to have become the ubiquitous online maps application. However, the video shows stuff that Google have yet to get into. The live streaming video is amazing for several reasons. The one that jumps out to me for businesses, especially shops, would be the ability to give a virtual tour to a prospective customer. Pre-record a video put it up on Bing Maps and everyone can have a greeting from you into your shop any time of the day! Furthering that would be personal shoppers, yes that’s right virtual personal shoppers. I love shopping online, it is fast, efficient, time saving and impersonal! Yes that’s right it is still very impersonal. There is no face to say hello to, there is no warm genuine greeting, nothing. This could bring back personality to shopping. Now I am taking this idea for disabled people, ones who will never get out of their hospital bed due to some disease. They could go shopping, or visit Victoria Falls, Climb a Mountain anything. It may not be exactly like being there in reality but this has got to be better than sitting in a hospital bed!
Enough about the video, I am sure you all have ideas on where you could use this technology. I now want to talk about Microsoft, I don’t normally do this as I am not a fan but here goes. I am getting a distinct impression that Microsoft is forgetting to define itself in today’s market. OK it is still the biggest OS in the market, and everyone is using Microsoft Office however, that is built on legacy alone. They are not being that innovative in the original markets they were in. The OS isn’t mind-blowing, it was a copy! Office isn’t better or more refined it is just even more hard to use. However, I see a future for Microsoft in researching, collating data and coming up with these type of ideas for other more innovative and user friendly companies to use. What I saw in this TED talk video was a Microsoft pulling massive amount of data together from user content like Flickr, to live streaming video, to astronomical mapping collecting that together and presenting it to the world. Was it slick? Maybe. Was it polished? Kind of. Was it ingenious? Yes. It shows they want to think different, they want to try new things and they have the resources to do so. They can show the masses what is out there in technology, they just lack the final ‘Fan’ appeal that other companies seems to get.
Anyway, there are my thoughts, and if you want to talk more or discuss ideas for your website email me david@davidbridle.net.
P.S – That was a complete post without mentioning Apple! Wow!
This video show how the world could learn some great lessons from India’s ability to use its soft power.
There is a fantastic point in this video where he is talking about Indian Restaurants in Britain, which I thought was brilliant. This is what he says:
“Indian restaurants in Britain employ more people than the coal mining, ship building and the iron & steel industries combined. The Empire can strike back!”
No I am not talking about drugs, I mean computer tablets. The idea of a mulitouch screen handheld tablet has been thrown around for years. We get so close to having just that but they never quite make the mark. With the iPhone pushing handheld devices to the next level I do wish Apple would make one.
As a design I still love to scribble on pieces of paper to get an idea going. On the other hand I hate using an eraser or making a mistake when I ink the design. Why hasn’t anyone made a simple iPhone style tablet? I only need it to look at emails, view my calendar, draw designs and maybe go on the internet (with Flash enabled!).
As a techy I love being able to do things like controlling my laptop from another computer, and the iPhone extended this for me when Apple introduced their remote app and Keynote remote. With the recent update to the remote app, now using multi touch gestures you can control your Apple TV.
I am not going to go into the uses for these apps as I guess everyone who has them know how they work. I always had a little problem with both apps. You had tpo connect to the computer when they are both on the same WiFi network. I found this odd when in some conference centre they do not have WiFi so the keynote app becomes useless. Also in most hotels one has to pay for EACH computer, and the iPhone is classified (at least according to them) as a computer. Which means one would have to pay twice to connect both and that doesn’t gurantee you will be able to connect to your computer.
I thought to myself Apple would not do this to their customers. There must be a way of coonecting, and then it struck me, create a WiFi connection from your computer. The iPhone can then connect tot your computer without using the hotels or conference centers WiFi hotspot. Wow I thought, this has to be true, so off I went and tried it all out. It did exactly what I wanted, it gave the iPhone and my Macbook Pro the ability to find each other over a WiFi connection, which is what the App needs. This works for controlling iTunes using the Remote app as well as the Keynote app.
There is one downside to this process, you can’t turn your network connection off so calls and SMS will still be received. If I am wrong on this please let me know how to leave WiFi on and turn off the phone section.
It is a simple process, and if you want to know more please david@davidbridle.net . I am currently attending the NSA convention in Scottsdale, Pheonix. Should be a good learning experience.
I went through a stage awhile back on productivity. I got really into how to be more productive. Obviously I found the GTD process. Which lead me on the a blog post on 43Folders (insert link to post). In a nutshell it was talking about the creative process and how difficult it is to get into The Zone to be creative, whether that is writing, designing,coding etc. Some of the point that I decided to use were to do with emails. The way we has become so demanding of the receiptant and conditioned into replying the instant it arrives. So I put into practice some of the tips, I removed the little red badge from my mail.app icon, I changed the autocheck time to one hour and removed the sound. I suddenly found that I was getting more done without this distraction. I have reached the stage were I don’t even have it open anymore. Great I thought, but the side effect came into play. My iPhone has become my email client! I now check my emails on my iPhone, reply where necessary and if needed will go to my computer application only if I need to send a file. This then moved to my calendar. I now no longer have iCal open.
So now I have only design apps running which my computer seems to love me for and I am not getting distracted by emails. My iPhone is becoming my communications device.
Now that skype have a native app and push notification to follow with the new iPhone update I think skype will only be on my phone. We’ll see what happens when I upgrade the software.
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Posted on February 23rd, 2010 in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »