Will new technologies affect the way we shop this holiday season?

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Though many people will be doing all their holiday shopping via the Internet, a lot more will be enduring the crowds to get those early bargains—and many of them will be carrying their cellular phones. Everyone with a smartphone or tablet will be able to use certain apps to make their holiday shopping a better experience. These apps vary wildly from offering great gift ideas to scanning in-store barcodes to compare prices. Here, then, are just a few of the many ways technology will influence how we shop this holiday season.

Mobile Apps

If you own a smartphone or a tablet, you’re in luck when it comes to simplifying your shopping experience this year. Specifically designed apps provide many services to the hectic shopper, from being able to quickly find items, to comparing a product’s price across the board. One app even allows you to take a picture of the item, and it will search the Internet to find you the best price and availability.

Smartphone Marketing

Another interesting trend this season is in the strategies taken by marketers to catch us even when we’re not tied to our computers. Smartphone marketing could be the next big step in reaching consumers, and this holiday season will basically be the beta test. Many marketing agencies have set out to contact shoppers while they’re waiting in long lines, and offering big deals and discounts in “mobile-only” purchases.

Economical Technology Trends

This season we’ll be using technology in ways we hadn’t even dreamed of 5 years ago—shopping with a tablet in hand and phone strapped to our ear. And the good news is, with the economy’s outlook, the technology itself is in a billion-dollar battle to generate top quality products for the least amount. So the consumer wins in a way, if they have the means to purchase anything at all this holiday season.

Of course not all of us will be camped out in front of our computers making our holiday purchases this year. Many will have their smartphones and tablets at the ready to do battle against shop and shopper alike. But as technology gives us greater freedom as consumers to purchase wisely, we must also acknowledge the way the tech itself is in that continuous battle for our hard earned cash. And, in this economy, the machines, gadgets and gizmos that offer the most value, will be the ones to beat.

Say Happy Birthday to the Original Microprocessor

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The Intel 4004 arrived on the scene in 1971 and was the first CPU on a single chip! This week marks its birthday and we want so say a quick thank you to the microprocessor that has transformed computing forever. A CPU, or central processing unit, is basically the brain of a computer. Every bit of information input or output by the computer goes through the CPU. So you can imagine the impact made by the invention of such a little yet powerful CPU. Generations of CPUs born from the Intel 4004 have been, and continue to be, an integral part of our everyday lives.

The Intel 4004 was originally created for a calculator, but it quickly led to technological leaps in computing. Many common devices would not exist if it weren’t for the powerful CPUs born from the Intel 4004. These devices include laptops, streetlights, and cell phones. The Intel 4004 quite literally grandfathered many modern technologies. Check out this article showing the evolution of technology due to the CPU.

We can’t acknowledge the Intel 4004 without introducing the engineers responsible for developing it. Federico Faggin, Ted Hoff, and Stan Mazor made up the team responsible for the design and development of the Intel 4004. It’s easy to lose sight of the humble origins of today’s technological world, but the Intel 4004 reminds us of how far we have come.

So take a moment to appreciate the little microprocessor that grandfathered the technological world of today.

Help Your IT Department: Help Yourself

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It is inevitable that you will need to solicit the assistance of your IT service provider. They’re a busy bunch, helping lots of people with frustrating problems. It’s not an effortless job. When you ask for their help, there are a few important things to remember. Namely, they are not mind readers. Provide as much important information in your initial request. Help them, help you. Here are a few steps to make your experience and theirs more streamlined and pleasant.

Write an Informative Email Subject Line
IT technicians receive frequent requests on a variety of issues – some are extremely urgent such as “I have a virus that destroying my documents”; while others are can withstand a 1-2 hour response delay, for example: “My monitor has a pinkish tinge.”  It helps the technician if you include a subject line containing the basics of the issue, which helps them determine the priority level.  A good example of a subject line is “Installed __ got error __”, which helps them to know instantly what your problem is with the computer.  A vague subject line without a meaningful description of the problem won’t help them solve your issue.

Details, Details, Details
It is important that you include a detailed description including as much information as possible. Please include your OS, any steps you took, and any error messages. Error messages might not mean anything to you, but to an expert they are a source of useful information.

Be Frank
Your IT provider is likely to be busy most of the time, so while details are important, when communicating your issue be sure to keep unnecessary information to a minimum. Simply record the essential information and send the message along. Too much needless detail can delay how soon the problem is resolved and add to your frustrations.

In the end, you are all busy people and your IT services provider wants to help you quickly and efficiently. Help them do so by following the tips above!

Web Focused, How the Face of Business is Changing

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Have you noticed how the face of business has turned online. In the past getting your name out as a business was easy, hire an ad agency, get a billboard, simple. Now with the volume of companies competing online it’s becoming more difficult for businesses to stand out. When everything was more local, many businesses were the only option for customers to get what they need, so customers would come to them, all they had to do was be open. Now, with all the options open to people, companies have to reevaluate the way they sell. They have to give potential customers a reason to choose them from the endless choices. Having a strong online presence is an excellent way to do this, here are a few ways.

Becoming Mobile

Many people carry a mobile device so they can access their email and remain on top of their business and personal life even when on the go. Business have the option of creating an independent mobile site that retains the look they achieve on their regular site while making life easier for people accessing their site on a mobile device. This not only shows the consumer that you are aware of their busy life and but that you are current and knowledgeable about the way the world works.

Social Sites

At first social sites were just that, social, websites to connect people in a social way. Myspace was a great example of that, with its highly customizable interface. Then Facebook came out, its a lot more utilitarian and accessible, the look appealed to businesses. Now virtually every business you find has a Facebook page, sharing content related to their industry and creating a fun playful dialog with prospective clients. Now that Google recently unveiled their business pages the future of social sites is all business. Here is a great walk-though for setting up a Google business page.

On-line Education

Providing something educational for prospective clients is a great strategy to develop trust. A couple of ways companies can do this is through webinars and blogs. You have probably noticed the growing popularity of blogs. Companies can stand out from their competitors by showing their extensive knowledge in their field with on-line education.

Most people like to visit a local shop where the owner works behind the counter. This is still available to us but that shop probably has an online presence even if it’s a small one. It can’t be denied that businesses are not just street facing but Web facing as well. Being open to the changing face of business will make you a more informed consumer and/or business owner.  Read this article to learn some great reasons for creating an on-line presence.

The 2011 PhotoPlus Expo: Ideas for the Shutterbug Who Wants It All

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The PhotoPlus Expo was held over the final weekend of October in New York City.  Hundreds of diverse exhibitors came together to showcase the cutting edge of photo and design technology.  Everything from cameras and lenses to printers and photo bags were represented.  While the expo was geared toward industry professionals, novices stood to learn a lot from the show.  Below are a few of our favorite innovations we found at PhotoPlus 2011.

Sony DEV-3 and DEV-5 3D Binoculars

The new Sony DEV-3 and DEV-5 3D Binoculars are out of this world with their amazing photographic and video potential. Of the two the DEV-5 is more advanced, but only the DEV-3 was on display. Both of them have incredible multifunctional capabilities and can be used as 3D binoculars, a 7MP camera or a 1080i video recorder. The DEV-5’s optical zoom capacity is an astounding 20X! One of the stumbling blocks, however, is the high price tag of $2,000. The DEV-3 model has 10X zoom and costs $1400.  But for people that are searching for a high quality multimedia digital camera, these binoculars are worth considering!

Gorillapod Micro 250 and 350

Joby is known for selling its line of bendy camera tripods. At their booth they displayed a new take on their tripod, the Gorillapod Micro. This new mini-tripod is stiff and can fold neatly under a camera without adding significant weight or bulk. They also come in a variety of sizes. Now you will be able to catch all those wonderful shots because you will never be without a tripod.

Wacom Cintiq 24HD Pen Display

Here’s a 24-inch display ideal for professional photographers and designers alike. However, for the more “well-off” hobbyist who aims to generate exacting edits to pictures and designs, it may be worth the price tag. The Wacom Cintiq 24HD Display retails for right around $2,600.  Still, they’re in such high demand, that they’re fairly tough to come by.  The display is known for its extraordinary responsiveness and exacting detail, great for anyone working in 3D design, animation, game development, industrial design and visual effects who is no longer willing to compromise with regards to image quality.

As a novice or professional, it’s always beneficial to keep up with cutting-edge technologies. We’re able to only showcase many of the incredible products that were displayed at the Expo. Check out the other cutting edge gadgets like state-of-the-art jackets, lighting, camera bags and gear here.

The Connectivity of Devices

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We have mentioned many times before about how society has become more connected, with others and with the world as a whole. Device connectivity may make how we live much easier by preventing breaks in our work. For example, if you are working on a document at work and want to continue on the commute home,  simply send it to your smartphone and use a voice transcription app to continue your work in the car. Connectivity presents us with an interesting future. Here is Microsoft’s take on the subject. This future might not be far off and it makes me contemplate, what types of devices, apps, or combination of the two are paving the way for a future like this? Here are a few.

iControl

iControl is a home security and energy management product that Comcast recently unveiled. With this product, people can control the thermostat in their homes, turn lights on and off, and monitor their homes with live streaming video. Various components interact to give individuals full control over their homes when away.

Air Sharing

This app is available on the iPad/iPhone and allows your device to act as an external hard drive. This means you can easily move files to your device, share and access them easily adding mobility to your work habits.

AirPlay

Wirelessly stream music, videos, and photos to Apple TV using Apple’s AirPlay. This allows you to flow easily from your walk, where you were listening to a podcast or audio book, to your home without interrupting your entertainment.

As more gadgets, apps, and software work harmoniously together, I see our day-to-day lives becoming easier and more fluid. Connectivity means that all elements of our lives are more connected. Hopefully this will mean that our tech can stay one step ahead of us and if result in less waiting, I am ready for it… how about you?

Back to the Future Tech: Is 2011 more like 1955?

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In Back to the Future, Marty McFly travels back in time, from 1985 to 30 years earlier, arriving in a suped-up DeLorean to 1955. While in the past, he subsequently messes-up his parent’s first meeting, and must then change history while he attempts to get them together to insure his own existence.  Likewise, in the film’s first sequel, Marty travels through time to assist his children.  In the futuristic vision there are hover boards and flying cars.  Though fanciful, we can see areas where the world we live in mimics much of what’s going on in both films – but are we truly closer to the technology found in Hill Valley in 1955, or in the film’s futuristic sequel?

Certainly there would be flying cars and hover boards by 2011, wouldn’t there?  But we still have our feet firmly on the ground, riding bicycles, skateboards, scooters and driving gas-powered cars.  As we look around us, the computer is the obvious distinction between the present and the past. Yet, if we take a step back, a lot of the technology we employ everyday has existed for decades.  The television was invented in the 1930s, cars had air conditioning and radios by 1940, and films were in color.  If you’ve seen The Wizard of Oz recently, the special effects are still decent — and they’re 80 years old.

Science-Fiction movies made decades ago have influenced and even prophesied many of the tools and machines we use today.  In Total Recall, Arnold is caught bringing a gun through a full-body x-ray screener, very much like the safety measures found in airports today.  Tom Cruise, in Minority Report uses tech very familiar to anyone who’s ever used a touch-screen tablet or seen 3D TV.  In Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, Pan Am flies everyday individuals into space.  Individuals who have $200,000 lying around can board Richard Branson’s similar airship.

Today we can communicate with Jetson-like videophones, talk to the other side of the world on your personal computer for hours – for free. We have such science-fiction movie staples as cloning, genetic engineering, laser surgery and more. Yet are we closer to 1950’s tech or the science fiction dreams of the 2050s? In the mental picture so many of us had about the 21st century, we’re no closer to flying our car to work as Dorothy was to finding her way back to Kansas when she first landed in Oz.

Ultimately, there are advances seen around us everywhere to remind us that the future is occurring now: Video billboards, the internet tracking our every move for our advertising dollars, 3D television, movies that cost $13 for some reason. But here is where the more things change the more they stay the same: Chevrolet is still making convertibles, Universal is still making movies, and you can still watch Back to the Future any time you want — though I’d skip that 2nd one and go straight to the third.

Does Perfectionism Help or Hinder Business

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Do you find yourself agonizing over every little detail? Does it take you 3 times as long to finish a task because you are trying to get it “just right?” If so, you might be a perfectionist? It’s not an uncommon personality trait to see in the business world and it can be an aid to push people to attempt to do their best. In extreme cases, though, it leads to wasted time and resources.  The outcome usually doesn’t justify the immense effort that went into it. If you find yourself in the web of extreme perfectionism, here are a few tips that can lead you out.

Make a Decision and Stick to it
You make good decisions; that is why you’re managing the projects you are working on. So when you make a decision, stick to it. Try not to second-guess yourself – this just wastes time. Who’s to say your fourth or fifth decision will be any better or beneficial? If you start that second-guessing game, it can spiral out of control!

Trus t your Employees
Listen to the input from your employees after you have unveiled your plan. They are great resources and will inform you of what is possible. If they like the plan then it’s probably a good one. Their support will help prevent you from sliding into the second-guessing game that I previously talked about. Another way to prevent wasted time is not to micromanage your workforce. Once you have assigned tasks, take a step back and let them manage those tasks. You hired them for their competence in the first place, right? And before you execute your plan …

Have a Plan B
Sometimes things go wrong, so develop a backup plan. This will keep you more flexible mentally and keep you from being held to the constraints of your first plan. The more flexible you are, the more you’ll be able to handle the “non-perfect” things that happen throughout your plan and your day.

There is a fine line between perfectionism and having a critical eye. It’s important to always strive for the best, but worrying about getting something perfect is detrimental to the project and your mental health. The steps I’ve outlined above will help you to free yourself from the perfectionist mindset, if you find yourself there. Here is a great article about avoiding the pitfalls of perfectionism completely.

The 2011 T3 Gadget Awards – What Did We Learn?

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Everyday, it seems like, a new technological advancement pops up in news-feeds and broadcasts everywhere. In homage to these inventions and innovations, the Technological community all comes together to vote on the most ground breaking of these advances, and the winners are announced at the T3 Gadget Awards Ceremony. Over 960,000 votes were cast this year, and the winners ultimately chosen with the help of a 6 person expert panel.  Listed here are a number of interesting—and sometimes ironic—choices for winners.  Please visit the full list of categories and winners here. 

Ironic Winners

One of the most interesting aspects of the Awards are the categories themselves. They run the gamut of technology, and aren’t completely focused on gadgetry. For example, there’s the Best Retailer award and even the Gadget Personality of the Year award.  It is in this category that one can find an ironic choice: Mark Zuckerberg.  Although his influence on modern communication can’t be ignored, few would debate that he’s got Clooney-like charisma. And then there’s the category of Best Commuting Device in which anything that helps you get from here to there can be included. So, the electric bicycle nominee may appear like an obvious choice. The winner, in fact, was the Amazon Kindle — which makes “getting there” easier, as long as you’re not riding the electric bicycle while reading it!

Influential Winners

Another interesting revelation can be found in the voters’ decision that Twitter is the “Digital Media Service of the Year.”  Sure, Zuckerberg’s got the Personality, but Twitter won the bigger battle. To be sure, the principals of large corporations like Apple, Google and Facebook are probably not crying themselves to sleep because they didn’t win a Gadget gong. It is notable, however, that more votes were generated for Twitter than any other medium by the tech community themselves. Those in-the-know with plenty of influence should be taken very seriously by the tech giants. Quite simply, Facebook can’t rest on its laurels (just look at MySpace for reference).

Surprising Winners

If you were to ask the average passerby which phone would win Phone of the Year, most would probably say the iPhone 4.  Again, though, because a very tech-savvy crowd cast the votes, the votes went to Samsung’s Galaxy S II.  Google won the Tech Brand of the Year, beating out rivals Apple and Facebook.  Although it’s just the “T3 Gadget Awards,” Google is in a far better position among the tech community in terms of brand recognition and perhaps overall importance.

Ultimately, The 2011 T3 Gadget Awards offer an intriguing insight into just how much and how fast technology is evolving.  If you were to go back to the first awards given in 2008, some of the heavy hitters of the time are no longer viable, while some upstarts were just getting their feet on the ground and are huge players today.  Although these awards are given annually, with the speed that some of these items are created, they may want to make it a semi-annual event.

Intel and Toshiba: Energy Monitoring

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Becoming “greener” is a hot topic lately, not only amongst the public but also in high-tech companies. Many businesses are looking into green tech as a way to save energy , save the environment, or to simply save money. One of the primary things you must know when looking into conserving energy is what uses the most energy?

At the CEATEC conference this month in Japan, Toshiba and Intel announced some of their upcoming plans to more easily allow companies to watch their energy usage. In this “Green Age,” it’s no surprise to see major players in the technology world coming forward with big developments that allow more regulation and monitoring of the amount of energy being used. Below are a few of the ecologically-forward changes and additions these two companies announced they will be implementing in 2012.

Intel

PC users will be able to monitor the energy consumption of their PC with the application Intel has developed. With an easy to read dashboard where the data is organized and displayed in graphs, charts, and statistics, you will be able to much more easily see how your computer is using energy.

Toshiba

Toshiba is combining their recently acquired Landish Gyr smart-meter tech with some of their own developments to bring a “smart home” offering to the table. The “smart home” gives people understanding of the energy consumption inside their homes. Toshiba is also creating a variety of cloud technologies for energy monitoring that will be available to many different types of industries including healthcare and city infrastructure.

Japanese technology companies are presently highly dedicated to monitoring energy consumption. That being said, it is interesting that many companies in the US are pulling away from this. Microsoft and Google are just two examples. Microsoft announced in June that they are discontinuing their energy-monitoring service called Hohm. While Google announced it is taking a break from the green game by shutting down Google Powermeter.

We will see what he future holds for the green technology world. It may well head further towards energy monitoring or turn to something else entirely. If you have any ideas or speculation on how technology companies will become greener; please share them with us.