The elevator pitch is a key skill to have, to people's eyes from wandering...
As a result, I have started putting down in words everything that I have learned about what makes an elevator pitch effective. This includes a primer entitled Elevator Pitch 101 as well as a number of related essays...
Explanation
We’ve created applications that can be controlled using a dance pad instead of the keyboard or mouse. We have StepMail which allows you to read, delete and flag your email and StepPhoto which allows you to organize your photos. Using these applications is fun, helps reduce RSI, and gets you up out of your chair.
Sorry to hear my P5E board doesn't support DDR3 RAM... but who cares about geekspeak... it's still a smoking fast system.
I managed to run out of 2GB of memory with Flight Simulator X though... what a pig.
Apparently building a new PC and creating a video qualifies for a reward. I should have taped my experience... 6 hours of cursing, dropped screws, band-aids, and XP still took 45 minutes to install (same as my old PC).
It’s finally done! The “Max Builds a PC series” wraps up with the build process from start to finish. I had a lot of fun throughout this entire series starting with debating and choosing the parts with all of you all the way to the time I spent in the studio putting it all together. My only regret is that I have to give this 5.9 rated PC away rather than keeping it for myself……… Oh yes, you read that right: this got a 5.9 rating from Windows Vista’s experience rating system!
Page 3 - Max Builds a PC: The Final How-To Video and WINNER! | Posts | Channel 8
I'll probably cough up $50 for another 2GB of RAM. Glad I got the 8800 GT... if you're buying a new PC for anything but email & web surfing, get a good video card.
I recently upgraded to a more powerful "beast" of a computer to play the latest Flight Simulator X and for checking my email (and maybe some work too). I'm a bit rough at assembling systems (the last one I built was in '99) but I managed to figure out how to put the pieces together without bending too much, and in only 8-10 tries. With no smoke, and only a few reversed cables, I think my warranty is still good.
I'm still trying to figure out why I need to deal with standoffs, motherboard mounting screws, and those stupid connectors for power switches, reset buttons, and LEDs. There has got to be an easier way. This stuff has been the same since the 80s.
The other thing that killed me were the rebate forms. I kept asking myself why I'm wasting a half-hour of my life filling out an $8 rebate form and going to the different web sites for registration.
One thing I liked, since I don't have front-facing audio jacks... this stuff is magic.
Another thing I liked... the Asus Nvidia 8800 GT... this is the real beast.
I did have to upgrade the motherboard BIOS and video card drivers from Nvidia to get the system stable.
Now I can see cars driving in FSX... for the price of a couple of hours of real flying time.
Now if I can only figure out how to stop an uncontrolled helicopter spin.
Well, looks like my wiimote just became obsolete. Worst $45 I ever spent.
A neuro-headset which interprets the interaction of neurons in the brain will go on sale later this year.
"It picks up electrical activity from the brain and sends wireless signals to a computer," said Tan Le, president of US/Australian firm Emotiv.
"It allows the user to manipulate a game or virtual environment naturally and intuitively," she added.
BBC NEWS | Technology | Brain control headset for gamers
Actually, it seems to use a similar technology, a gyroscope, to detect movement and facial expressions. The one difference?
"Communication between human and machine has always been limited to conscious interaction, with non-conscious communication -- expression, intuition, perception -- reserved solely for the human realm. At Emotiv, we believe that future communication between human and machine will not be limited to the conscious communication that exists today. Users will demand that non-conscious communication play a much more significant role."
Though the thing looks a bit like an 80's headset with tentacles, it still sounds incredible.
The 80s is probably where they got their design idea...
"I honestly believe that the next big leap in immersive technology will be very much like Brainstorm." - Douglas Trumbull, Brainstorm
But why gaming? Why not just turning off the lights in your house, or changing the channel on the TV, or programming your Tivo?
More info on the Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) technology.
It looks like controlling a computer with your brain has been around since the mid-90's. From Wikipedia:
"in experiments beginning in the mid-1990s, Niels Birbaumer of the University of Tübingen in Germany used EEG recordings of slow cortical potential to give paralysed patients limited control over a computer cursor."
Of course, it took months of training to write 100 characters an hour, so it didn't work very well.
Looks like my light switch idea was already tested with good results, albeit in the virtual world.
"In 2000, for example, research by Jessica Bayliss at the University of Rochester showed that volunteers wearing virtual reality helmets could control elements in a virtual world using their P300 EEG readings, including turning lights on and off and bringing a mock-up car to a stop."
Who's behind this latest innovation? I'm guessing the Fraunhofer Society, the killers of the physical music media and inventors of MP3 have something to do with it.
You’ve seen these tech logos everywhere, but have you ever wondered how they came to be? Did you know that Apple’s original logo was Isaac Newton under an apple tree? Or that Nokia’s original logo was a fish?
Let’s take a look at the origin of tech companies’ logos and how they evolved over time
Neatorama » Blog Archive » The Evolution of Tech Companies’ Logos
Design and Innovation are really similar and complementary terms. Design is "to conceive or fashion in the mind; to invent" while innovation is to improve on a design, or invention, probably through more design. It is an iterative process that happens in waves.
Kind of like job cuts. During times of stress, the first ones to go are R&D. The last person to go is the one who turns off the lights at night and makes the coffee in the morning.
Interesting times are in store for Yahoo after axing 1,000 employees. Someone else did some cold ballpark estimates for the effect the cuts will have on YHOO's stock price & EPS. Apparently the more people they cut, the more operating profit they will have? Sounds a bit flaky and unsustainable to me. Are they going to have the board of directors installing more memory in the servers at Yahoo, or are they just going to outsource everything to Amazon S3?
The entire Yahoo Design Innovation Team, aka yHaus, has been axed en masse, Portfolio.com has confirmed with one of the team's former members.
"Yahoo Design Innovation team has been shut down completely," wrote Doug Fritz, a former full-time staffer for the team, in an email.
Confirmed: Yahoo Design Innovation Team Axed - News Blog - Daily Brief - Portfolio.com
No word on whether they were measuring innovation vs. profit at Yahoo, or the social aspects cutting 1,000 jobs will have on corporate culture. Perhaps this is a poison pill designed to stop any hostile takeover?
One designer posted some really interesting data visualization videos around FAA flight data here. Like living organisms, the planes graphically pour in and out of the US.
Here is a list of a few of web sites of the former Yahoo design innovation team for further inspiration.
http://www.aaronkoblin.com/
http://www.ghost-hack.com/
http://www.bigpixel.com/
http://www.practicalist.com/
http://www.dougfritz.com/
http://jennylc.com/
http://danielmassey.net/
http://recombine.net/
http://interactive.usc.edu/members/adm/
Innovation is quite similar to the creation of life. It is a drastically changing event that impacts everyone around it. Sometimes innovation may even shorten life.
Speaking of life and living, one of my friends sent me photos of their unborn son. This feels to me like looking into a crystal ball and being able to see a life before it sees the world. Incredible stuff...
Like watching the creation of life, being able to watch what is happening in the brain is as incredible. It is still a very mysterious part of our anatomy, though every day technology turns into a Rosetta Stone for translation and decoding of our thoughts and actions into meaning.
One technology that captures my interest is brain single-photon-emission computed tomography (SPECT) 3D imaging. This technology gives psychiatrists and scientists the ability to compare the brains of various subjects and view incredible 3D visualizations of the inner workings of the brain. Picture a cure for brain-related disorders, and perhaps even better-tasting food.
Cardiac MRI provides the ability to look into the inner workings of the heart. Picture longer lives and a healthier brain.
However, with all of the advances in science, there does not yet exist a tool to visualize the soul or even prove that it exists, though fetal imaging gets pretty close to seeing a mother and father's soul combined into a living being.
What does this all have to do with Yahoo cutting its innovation teams? Perhaps it leaves them to go on to more important work than just building a better web site, search engine, or social network, like getting rid of lost baggage or delays at airports, or inventing a way to visualize the soul.
I am a member of a task group studying innovation within our company. This seems to be a prevailing topic as the focus moves from monetizing physical assets (capital goods, real estate, hardware, software) to monetizing innovative ideas (think green, cost reductions and efficiencies, patents, best of breed designs) and ensuring that we keep up with the increasingly fast-moving R&D train of the world, and all of those building cranes.
Canada does have a way to go, though we do have RIMM and our Canadian Space Agency... and CATA.
Canada’s lack of innovation, a 14th place ranking or a D Grade in Innovation, among the 17 OECD nations, is leading to mediocre socio-economic performance compared to other developed countries (Conference Board of Canada)
Source: CATAAlliance Executive Dashboard, February, 2008
Is D a pass?
Some of the focuses of CATA, the Canadian Advanced Technology Alliance, include:
The membership has a noticeable slant towards manufacturers, which is probably because Canada has a large amount of them.
So what is OECD and how do they have the authority to rate our innovative spirit? It's the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development. Since this was written, there are now 30 nations on the list, so maybe Canada's been bumped a bit higher (or lower..)
In the US, a government task group has been created from top executives in the largest corporations to figure out how to quantify and measure innovation. This committee, aptly and verbosely titled Measuring Innovation in the 21st Century Economic Advisory Committee (MI21cEaC would make a good strong password) has Steve Ballmer of Microsoft as one of its members. Other companies with representatives include Wal-Mart, 3M, and IBM.
Oddly enough, Steve Jobs or anyone else from Apple isn't represented.
So why is everyone caring so much about innovation today?
Sounds important. So how do we measure innovation in an IT consulting organization? In the "real world" outside the business, patents and R&D expenditures are used as proxies to measure innovation. One KPI used is R&D / GDP (%). SInce we don't have GDP in our organization, perhaps R&D spend / Total Revenue is a good KPI? For measuring expenses perhaps, but innovation has got to be much more than figuring out how much money is being thrown at a problem.
Inside the business, there should be many ways to measure innovation. Of course, before you can measure you must define. The problem with the term "innovation" is that it has many possible connotations. Invention is the creation of an idea. So is innovation? No. Innovation, from what I understand is an idea that significantly improves on a previous idea (invention) or combines multiple ideas in a unique way, and demonstrates it to others in a repeatable fashion.
For things like this I look to Wikipedia, possibly the most revolutionary innovation since the printed word. Since we're trying to relate this to business & government, I will go with this example.
In economics, business and government policy,- something new - must be substantially different, not an insignificant change. In economics the change must increase value, customer value, or producer value. Innovations are intended to make someone better off, and the succession of many innovations grows the whole economy.
To simply even further, you need to define what "value" is from an economic sense.
Value is...
"the amount (of money or goods or services) that is considered to be a fair equivalent for something else; "he tried to estimate the value of the produce at normal prices" - Free Dictionary
Sounds like apples to oranges... each of them could be priced matched and both are fruits, but some people like apples and some people like oranges. Maybe Total Economic Value provides a better defnition?
"TEV is composed by use values, option values and non-use components. There is not in the literature a single standard categorization nor terminology. Often Total Value is reported as the sum of use value and non-use values or passive values"
Ouch. Maybe not.
How do you increase value through innovation?
Change the world.
Simpify.
I just got approved for the Livestation trial. I'm a bit underwhelmed, since I have 1 channel (Al Jazeera) and a couple radio stations.
The quality is good, but for now I'll stick with Joost.
European Livestation users will have access to the BBC, Bloomberg, Al Jazeera, France 24 in French and English, Euronews, Canal+, Sky News and two BBC Radio stations with the new beta test unveiled today. US users will just get Al Jazeera, France 24 and BBC Radio for now, but Berlucchi was quick to remind me that this is still a technical trial to prove that the technology is working and that there is actually a demand for such an offering.
Lots of unique open-source alternatives.
I am an avid book collector ("hoarder") and I agree that it is much better to pick up a book, to read the spine, look at the dust jacket, the writing font, the photos, the colours; before picking it up and physically measuring the quality of its content by weight and visualizing the content inside.
That doesn't stop me from wanting one of those e-ink e-book readers when they come down in price and have a faster page turning rate.
I think the best type of reader will be like the wiimote or iPod, with various dust jackets, book-style holders, and containers to hold the reader, based on the type of book you are reading. A double-sided reader with two screens and the layout of a book could also mimic the feel of a true book. This type of experience would be immensely closer to the true experience... though it still won't match the real thing.
Fools do not want to accept that the real thing is better than the electronic. In other words, a text does not simplify a book. A book is so much real than a PDF on my hard disk. The experience of reading something you hold in your hands is more aesthetically rewarding: a book is better looking than a flat screen –it has an extra dimension. But to me, the main advantage is that I remember far, far better what I read in a book. My memory solidifies around hard objects, specific books, parts of my library. The classical mnemotechnic originates with the Greeks method of the loci: it consists in attaching memories to physical objects, a stone in a wall, a specific part of a ceiling, etc. You imagine a building & invest some of the locations with things to remember. In Luria’s account of the synesthete who could remember everything in great detail, there is a striking scene. Sh. [the patient-protagonist], has his memory failing him on a small detail because there is a cloud hiding the object to which the memory was attached.
Source: Opacity
Of course, there is something to a book that contains video, 3D virtual reality, links to web pages, music, and an author's commentary to figure out what exactly they were trying to say. Some fools can appreciate this kind of book... I'm one of them.
Yet another useless but amazing application for Lego Mindstorms...
This last version of my LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT Rubik's cube solver can solve ANY cube (no matter how shuffled) in 3'30" minutes maximum.
I adopted on PC a fast algorithm to solve the cube.
Anyone who thought this robot was fake must see!
I was never a big fan of Alpine - their decks seemed really klunky to me, however I know that the quality of the sound that comes out is much better than any dolphin-swimming stereos like the ones I used to have. And my audiophile friends always liked them.
Now it sounds like they have a way to measure the interior space of your car and eq the deck properly.
Audyssey's MultEQ acoustic correction technology to "measure and analyze the entire interior space," after which it combines results with a set of equalization filters to produce the best sound for each environment. As if that weren't impressive enough, the integrated RoadEQ is also there to "compensate for music distorted by vehicle / road noise."
I slightly underestimated the costs of the cancellation of Dakar Rally for one team... by a few million.
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. --Robby Gordon said Monday the cancellation of the Dakar Rally cost him approximately $4.5 million, and he disagreed with the decision not to race at least a portion of the event.
Sports Betting and Gambling Odds Online
''An entry for the Dakar is $12,000 per person, not counting the vehicles,'' he said. ''I think our entries were $360,000 and that's just the entry fees. That's not shipping trucks. That's not flying people there. That's not hotels in Lisbon. It's a big deal, and it's got me completely messed up right now in the head.
What's even more interesting is that all of the infrastructure was setup to race and a course alteration would have been acceptable in lieu of cancellation.
''All of the equipment was there,'' he said. ''All of the teams were there. Television was set up. All of the stuff was done, and Portugal is not a dangerous area to race. It's a safe country, it's a beautiful country, and we had the permits to run on those roads and those trails. Some of it was military proving grounds, and we had what we needed to do to race there.
''Why didn't we go to Morocco and run a few stages in Morocco? ''
One team member is still going to Dakar with supplies intended for a school.
Despres will still be in Dakar on January 20, “I have decided to honour my own humanitarian obligations. I will inaugurate the new school in Dakar and make sure the school materials that I took to Lisbon will reach their intended destination."
Think of a video projector... now translate that to audio. Audio that follows you around when you walk, but doesn't disturb others.
“If you have audio going into a single speaker, it pours into a room like water. It just goes everywhere. Once we have multiple speakers under computer control, we can pre-distort the audio so that it builds up in some areas of the room and cancels itself out in others. We can do computer simulations of how the sound is going to propagate from the individual speaker cones and specify that we want more sound in one region and less sound in another.
Personal Audio Space: The Headphones Experience sans Headphones
First step is to catch up to "state of the art". Second step is to blow right on by.
“The way I like to design research projects,” Droppo says, “is that each phase answers at least one or two questions that we don’t know [the answer to]. While we don’t have anything spectacularly different yet, in the past few months, we’ve been able to catch up to the state of the art, and the real exciting part for me is where we’re taking this in the future.”
The stories about losses around the Dakar Rally cancellation are coming out now...
Duncan Tweedy, 44, who lives in Harrogate, but is formerly from York, said he had spent tens of thousands of pounds and a year of his life preparing for the famous endurance race.
Bikers Dakar Rally Dream Is Shattered (from York Press)
One quote that caught my eye...
"I'm just a small fry here. There are teams here from all over the world - China, Russia - who've spent millions of pounds."
How much did teams spend on Dakar? Perhaps around the $100,000 EUR mark each? More likely much more.
Over 525 teams competed last year. That's only $52 million EUR... but with tourism & media costs it should be much more...
It is ironic to me that one of the most dangerous races in the world was cancelled due to 'safety concerns'. Doesn't bode well for tourism in the region... or sponsorship of the race itself. Seems like really short notice to cancel the event the night before... Why not just cancel the Mauritania stage or put in a detour?
This seems to be more of a political issue than safety. Looking at the Dakar Lingo page...
"Polisario Front - The rally was criticized for crossing through the disputed territory of Western Sahara between Morocco and Mauritania without consulting the Polisario Front, which is considered representative of Sahrawi people."
Looking at a list of security threats to Dakar, perhaps the French government was worried about land mines in the region?
It will be interesting to see what the sports media will fill the space usually reserved for Dakar... and how the Dakar organization will spin this.
The Amaury Sport Association really had no choice but to cancel, considering the danger to both the racers and spectators even after Mauritania had offered up a 3,000 man security force
Source: Racing News: 2008 Dakar Rally Canceled
"The Mauritanian government said the shooting of the French tourists and a separate attack on a military base that left three soldiers dead were isolated incidents and claims of an al-Qaeda plot had not been proved."
I missed the news that Colin McRae had died in a September, 2007 near his Scotland home. Sad times...
This strikes a little too close to home. January 1st I was driving on the 401 near Kingston at 9am. I drove for 20 minutes without seeing a single car on the road. I actually drove for 15 minutes without seeing the road at all. It felt like a war zone, only this was just mother nature and an annual ritual for me. There was about a foot of snow dumped everywhere, and the snowplow drivers must have been too hung over to get the highway plowed because I was doing the plowing in my car... without snow tires.
It took over six hours for what would normally be a 2 hour drive. But we were able to get home eventually, unlike these unfortunate Canadian aid workers who can't get a flight out of Kenya.
"You just had such an eerie feeling of driving down what was supposed to be a highway and what normally during the day is completely jam-packed with people and yet you are seeing no one. All you're seeing is army and police and maybe a few media."
The key difference for us is the worst thing that could happen to us would be ditching the car or spinning out into the guardrail. We saw about 10 cars that were stopped facing the wrong direction on the highway going home. All of them had tow trucks and/or police cars next to them.
The other difference is that the snow caused nothing more than minor annoyance for everyone except those dumb enough to be driving in that weather. In Kenya, a lack of aid to countries like Sudan & Somalia is a life or death situation. Things are not getting better.
Another example (they are so easy to find lately) of unrest in the Eastern Hemisphere is what happened over the last two days in Mirpur, Pakistan. A strike by garment workers caused the city to shut down. Was the strike over wages? Nope. They didn't show up for work for two days to protest and mourn the death of a colleague who allegedly died after being forced to work a night shift while sick. By the account of the factory the employees held management hostage and refused to leave. When the factory workers returned the next day, they found the factory closed and took to the streets.
The woman's family will receive 100,000 rupees (approximately $1620) from the factory for her death. That is over 3 years of minimum wage earnings in Pakistan, though it could be more for a garment worker.
This isn't the first time this has happened.
I went to an Andy Warhol exhibit a couple of years ago at the AGO in Toronto. I was not impressed with the art, and to me it was very commercial and trend-focused or shock-focused to get attention.
I didn't see the art, only canned pop culture meant for marketing.
Now I see why... Andy was a businessman.
The first edition of Hello! appeared on British news-stands in 1988, hastening the fulfilment of Andy Warhol's famous prophecy about everybody having their 15 minutes of fame - a cliché now, but also one of the greatest truisms of the age. (I met Warhol once, at a party in New York for an English rock star. It was clear Warhol had no idea who the rock star was; he had been invited simply to ensure the event would be mentioned in the next day's papers; he had come simply because he had been invited. His eyes were dead, and when I shook his hand it felt like talcumed parchment paper.)
"Making money is art," Warhol said, "and good business is the best art." And who doesn't want to be an artist?
Source: The 20 years that changed my life... and the face of modern Britain - Telegraph
I'm still looking for 15 - 30 minutes of fame...
Excellent story about someone growing up in the late 20th century and the turmoil surrounding his life as he reached middle age.
Here are my predictions of devices and technologies that will become mainstream in 2008 (because I want them).
I received a USB-Hub with Notepad & Mood Light from Microsoft last week. Now, it doesn't actually detect your mood from what I can tell, but it does attract attention. I'm thinking mood-clothes with texting capabilities are the next big thing.
These technologies are sort of fringe, but are probably going to get developed a bit further to something mainstream and maybe even adopted by the general public next year.
These technologies just scare the heck out of me.
Invent something in 2008 with Phidgets.
Light something with LED Shoppe or PhotonLights.
Create art with NewMindSpace.
Get started building your own Optimus Maximus keyboard, for the low, low price of $5,500. (or just buy it above for under $500)
Screenkey Downloads Section - Programmable LCD key switches with multi-colour LED backlighting