In it what is in it

What are MEMS?

MicroElectroMechanicalSystems [quite different from memes which we covered earlier]. MEMS rhymes with “hems” if you are into sewing or “Dems” if you are into abbreviated US politics. They are the new wave of highly miniaturized sensors and actuators that bring ‘intelligence’ to many of our portable devices by monitoring and reacting to physical conditions. They are built on silicon wafers, typically in the micrometer or millionth-of-a-meter size range. They often use photolithographic techniques just like integrated circuits. The Nintendo Wii video game system is one example of usage. It relies on MEMS to translate your hand motions to actions on a video screen. Table tennis, golf, archery, skiing, exercising to a virtual instructor and many other activities are available for the Wii, with MEMS as the link between actual and virtual reality. 

The iPad as a new way for children to learn?

First, I want you to see a YouTube video about a 2.5 year old's first encounter with an iPad. Is there any doubt that this device is meant for the newest generation?

A colleague introduced me to Dr. Seuss's ABC on an iPad. Remarkable simplicity: a friendly interactive interface that would draw a child in -- and help her or him to learn to read. The app first came out for the iPhone, and here is the video. But the video really does not do justice to the iPad experience, with the larger screen and a more 'natural' feel than the iPhone for books. At $3.99 it is worth it. Other Seuss favorites are also out, and for Earth Day there is The Lorax that teaches kids about the environment. For older kids, there is Alice (of Wonderland fame) as shown in this somewhat frenetic YouTube video for Alice. 

Using shame for social change

hat shame is a powerful force for creating good behavior is known to every parent. All those "I am sorry"s accompanying returning the other kid's toys or not pulling the cat's tail come from a genuine desire to distance oneself from the bad (when they don't just come from a fear of punishment). Can this same emotion be harnessed to nudge adults into doing 'the right thing'? I recently came across three stories suggesting just how powerful this appeal to the better you can be -- via shame. 

The first story is the more profound one. This is from the Boston Globe, "Bribe Fighter", by Jeremy Kahn. It is about fighting corruption in India in a unique way that harnesses shame.

Is the iPad the first non-personal computer?

onsider the following scenario at home. An iPad on the table in the den where you watch TV, another in the kitchen. American Idol is not really moving, so you pick up the iPad and take a look at the New York Times. Kid comes in and wants to know when the Celtics game will start. You hand her the iPad; she IMs her friend Sally for the answer (rather than check TV Guide on the iPad). Later, in the kitchen you pick up the iPad from the kitchen table to check your Gmail  to see if Bob has sent a reply yet to your question about the car. As you pick it up, you notice that your wife has been doing the Globe's crossword puzzle. No, Bob has not responded. You close Gmail, prop up the iPad to listen to music. It has now become your radio while you make chicken tikka...  You have been using the world's first "casual computer".

Garfield minus Garfield

Subtract Garfield the cat from Garfield the comic strip and what do you get? An insightful look into the not-so-happening life of Jon Arbuckle, Garfield's young "owner". This is the brilliant mirror that Dan Walsh, the subtractor of Garfield, holds up to "everyman". These are existential jokes that bypass the intellect and go straight for the chuckle. With the lasagna-eating supremely self-centered cat gone, many of the panels are sparse, or repeats. But there is always an "aha!" in there. Even Jim Davis, Garfield's creator, is a fan!

Dan Walsh is an IT Project manager from Dublin, Ireland.  He started GarfieldMinusGarfield.net in early 2008. He also has a book now available from Amazon. And yes, the idea has been copied, and there is now also Garfield minus Jon.

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Lala -- the next big thing in music? [Update: Poof! It's gone!]

[Update: If you visit Lala now, you are greeted with the message, "Lala is shutting down. The Lala service will be shut down on May 31st, 2010".  What happened? There are two speculations: 1) Apple bought Lala to shut it down, wiping out potential competition.  2) In June, Apple is going to announce iTunes Live, which will be a reincarnation of Lala branded for Apple. I favor the second explanation  -- and June is not far away. Below you see my original post from March 27, 2010, toting Lala's merits.]

If you haven't yet heard about Lala, the new place to get your music on the web, you will. TechCrunch says, "Lala may have just built the next revolution in digital music". cnet calls it, "the first indispensable online music service since Pandora". Apple bought them in December 2009.

Lala offers 8 million songs (and counting) any of which you can listen to for free by streaming to a web browser. But that's to listen just once. If you want perpetual access to a favorite, you pay just 10 cents for it. The music is streamed without ads and raises the question: why download songs, rather than just hear them when you want? You can make playlists, and since there is no download, there is no hard disk limit as to how many songs 'belong' to you. This browser-centric model works brilliantly for PCs and laptops today using Adobe Flash. Streaming is being worked on for smart phones and is expected soon for iPhones. For today's portable non-web devices like the iPod or Zune, or iPhones, you can still download the MP3 for 89 cents. Visit Lala to learn more.

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Cisco's CRS-3 'foundation' for tomorrow's internet

Cisco's new CRS-3 is being called a game changer -- at least by Cisco. This Carrier Routing System, a 'core router', can pump data at three times the capacity of its predecessor, and 12 times what the competition (Juniper?) can offer. If 322 Terabits per second does not make you gasp, here is the translation of what this throughput speed means:

• The entire printed collection of the Library of Congress could be downloaded in 1 second.
• Ever man, woman and child in China could make a video call, simultaneously.
• The totality of every motion picture ever created could be streamed in less than 4 minutes.

Microsoft's Songsmith for the singer in you

Something cool from... Microsoft? Yes, while we have all been busy praising Apple and Google for innovation, here comes a creative new tool from Microsoft. "Songsmith generates musical accompaniment to match a singer’s voice. Just choose a musical style, sing into your PC’s microphone, and Songsmith will create backing music for you." It's a great concept; one that is appealing all the way from children to would-be musicians who want to experiment -- and you and me who are somewhere in between on the spectrum between the shower and American Idol.

Campbell's soup neuromarketing

Not since the Mock Turtle in Alice in Wonderland sang, “Beautiful Soup, so rich and green, Waiting in a hot tureen!” has the marketing of soup interested me as much as the story about Campbell’s recent redesign of its label. This is tampering with an icon. Lest we forget, this icon fetched $11,766,000 in 2006 – the highest price for one of Andy Warhol’s 26 Campbell’s Soup Series paintings. (You see it on the left here!). 

So what is the fuss about? It is about Campbell’s two-year 1,500 subject study to determine how consumers reacted to soup. Neuromarketing was used with 40 random customers who were videotaped while shopping and in their homes reacting to soup. When the videos were shown back, 

Bert Simons' paper sculpture

I haven't seen anything quite like Bert Simon's paper sculpture. It is at once fragile, light, engaging -- startling in it's delicate realism. The one on the right is "Rozemarijn Lucassen".

The process goes something like this: a digitized image of a person. Then the points are converted to planes, using a 3-D program called Blender. After making the planes, Simons adds texture. Then the 3-D model is converted to 2-D by flattening the texture. Finally, after days of cutting and gluing, the final 3-D paper portrait emerges.

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Salman Khan teaches the world

Here is one person making a difference. I learned of Salman Khan's work when someone forwarded me a link to an audio interview of him by John Udell on IT Conversations, YouTube Teaching as Guerrilla Public Service. Impressive credentials -- Harvard MBA, MS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, BS in Mathematics from MIT, recently a fund portfolio manager, with a past that includes Technical Architect at Scient and Senior Product Manager at Oracle.  But what is even more impressive is Salman Khan's idea of creating videos on YouTube to teach mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology and finance. The non-profit Khan Academy now is the gateway to 1000+ teaching videos! Take mathematics: the topics range from elementary algebra to differential equations, probability and statistics, matrices, trigonometry, linear algebra, calculus and more. The mission is simple, "providing a high quality education to anyone, anywhere". Admirable!

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A Google tool you didn't know about

Well - at least I didn't know about it.  It's Google's free Sketchup software for 3D modeling. There is a Pro version for $495 that we can leave to the pros.

Network World did a nice slideshow of 10 famous buildings modeled with Sketchup and selected from Google's 3D Warehouse.  Click here to see the slideshow.

Brilliant advertising

I first came across the name of this German advertising company in the "The 9th Annual Year in Ideas" issue of The New York Times Magazine. In "The Advertisement That Watches You", the article describes how Jung von Matt created a poster for a Berlin bus shelter that says, "It happens when nobody is watching". Using a camera and face tracking software, when you look at the poster you see a normal, pleasant couple. As you begin to turn away, the image changes to the man raising his fist to hit the cowering woman. A powerful statement against domestic violence! But Jung von Matt has lighter, equally innovative fare. Visit their Ideas section and click on their ads for some engaging treats: the Sparkasse "Walls", the Mercedes Benz" Dreams", to name a couple.

A decade of too many choices?

I am all for product choices, as long as they are real and relevant, presented sensibly. But then there are companies that think that permutational excess qualifies as “shelf space” and that a hundred pre-packaged choices means “richness” rather than lack of clarity. Nike has it right.  Rather than coming up with 7000 shoes and saying “pick the one that you like from the 7000” they offer you some ready-made choices. Then, starting from these, you are invited at NIkeID into the design process to fully customize what you want: the shoe color, the design and so on. But only if you want it!

I think this approach, of limited selection (for the majority) with a jump to full customizability (for a minority), is where we should be headed. With most products, whether software or cars, a balance is needed. Circuit City (remember them?) offered 6.5 million possibilities if you picked all your stereo system choices yourself. Starbucks is offering 87,000 drink combinations and my cable company is talking of 10,000 channels to choose from (up from a 1000!). Let’s listen to the researchers…

Product placement (by the trash!)

Blu Dot, a Minneapolis furniture maker, decided on their first anniversary to do an experiment. They make the "Real Good" chair, a sleek metal affair. Helped by Mono, a marketing agency, they asked, 'What would happen if we left a bunch of Real Good Chairs all over New York, free for the take? Who will grab them? Where will they go? How will they get there? What will their new homes look like?'. Twenty five chairs were left next to trash (!) on the sidewalks of Manhattan and Brooklyn. Half had a hidden GPS to track their subsequent travel, find the new owner and hopefully get an interview.

The results can be found in Blu Dot's film about the experiment. The New York Times Magazine for December 6, 2009 also has an article about this, "A Real Find", by Rob Walker. The "fastest grab" took 10 seconds by a man in his early 30s who "...took it at once, without a pause in his gait or his phone conversation".

The computational effort behind Avatar

Two hundred and thirty million dollars later, James Cameron wants us to see Avatar and we shall surely oblige. The movie is being hailed as a game-changer in 3-D animation. You may wonder at the raw power behind those 17.28 gigabytes per minute when they come flying at you for 166 minutes. Wonder no more. Information Management Newsletters' Jim Ericson lays it all bare in his article, "Processing AVATAR". You will learn how Weta Digital in New Zealand has had 40,000 processors with 104 terabytes of RAM crunch for your viewing pleasure.

"Hire managers of one"

 We use their product Basecamp  for managing our projects and think it's pretty good.  But equally impressive to me is the thinking that is 37signals, the mother ship.  The company is whimsically named after the 37 radio telescope signals that astronomer Paul Horowitz identified as potential messages from an extra terrestrial intelligence.  But what is admirable is the earthly intelligence that has a staff of 17 create products loved by over 3 million customers.  Some of this intelligence can be seen on their blog, where I recently came across the post, Hire managers of one.  Let me quote from it:

"When you’re hiring, seek out people who are managers of one.

What’s that mean? A manager of one is someone who comes up with their own goals and executes them. They don’t need heavy direction. They don’t need daily check-ins. They do what a manager would do — set the tone, assign items, determine what needs to get done, etc. — but they do it by themselves and for themselves.

These people free you from oversight. They set their own direction. When you leave them alone, they surprise you with how much they’ve gotten done. They don’t need a lot of handholding or supervision."

I couldn't agree more.  Click on the link to read the full post.

Play, learn and feed the world

FreeRice is a unique site engaging people of all ages to do good.  Select a subject to play: English Vocabulary, Math, Chemistry, French, etc., and you are asked questions.  You can select a suitable skill level -- children can have fun, as can adults.  For each correct answer 10 grains of rice are donated through the UN World Food Program.  The bowl you see on the right fills up as you progress -- very satisfying!  72 billion grains of rice have been donated so far, since 2007.

It's a lot of fun -- try it.  And for those you know headed for SAT exams, this is great preparation to improve their vocabulary.

 

Power stays

   
So how much would you be willing to pay for art that remains hidden inside a collar? Try seventy dollars, at Wurkin Stiffs.

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And the result is: innovation can be learned!

A six year study of innovation by the Harvard Business School and Brigham Young University has concluded that innovation can be learned. 3000 executives and 500 innovative entrepreneurs were studied.  Five skills were identified that separate folks like Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos from the hoi polloi.  The skills are: associating, questioning, observing, experimenting and discovering. The exciting news is that these skills can be learned.  So, to hone your questioning skills, the recommendation is to take a problem and write down questions about it for 10 minutes a day for 30 days. Over that time, your questions, understanding and approach to solving the problem will evolve.  Intrigued?  Read the article at CNN. 

...and so it goes

What's gone is AOL's logo after ejection of AOL  from Time Warner on December 9.  It has become Aol. -- yes, with the period.  This is their new, "simple, confident logotype, revealed by everchanging images".  Whatever else it might do, it guarantees that every time the logo is used in a sentence, Word and Powerpoint are going to capitalize the next word.  Read more about the logo in Fast Company's article.  Next, go on to watch the video and gasp along with designers' reactions.

Awesomeness vs. Innovation?

Really?  The 21st century imperative of awesomeness (think iPhone) requires displacing a 20th century notion, innovation?  That's what Umair Haque would have you believe in The Awesomeness Manifesto.  Sure, it's a provocative, entertaining post.  But to say that innovation is 'obsolete', 'destroys value' and is unworthy of pursuit is stretching it.  The point could well be: innovation should not be an end in itself; one should shoot for awesomeness. But Umair is not content with that.  He sees innovation as opposing awesomeness, whereas it usually precedes it.  

Take a look at TEDIndia's Pranav Mistry talking about "Sixth Sense" technology to see that "innovation bad, awesomeness good" is just too simplistic a message from Umair.

That said, the Manifesto does a fine job of defining awesomeness.  Here, we see the insight that Umair showed in abundance in his earlier The Generation M Manifesto .  That was as brilliant a definition of today's generation and how it differs from the preceding one that I have seen.