Technology in Communications

Experimenting with podcasting

2007-02-07T12:19:00.000-08:00

I spent a few minutes, literally, in our Podcasting studio here at Townhall.com, and was playing around with an idea for a short podcast.

Check it out here.

Basically, the music came from www.podsafeaudio.com. I listened to a few clips until I found one with the energy level I thought would best work with a news podcast.

Then, I brought the audio into Adobe Audition, and repeated the clip a few times to make it the length I wanted. This particular "techno" style beat is better suited for looping, but if you have a guitar riff, or other type that is edited correctly, you should be able to loop as well. I chose to leave the audio playing softly in the background, again to provide some energy.

Step two, I cranked up our nice high-end studio mike, and recorded an intro and some other words right into the computer. If you have a USB microphone, the process shouldn't be all that different. I was then able to increase the volume on my voice recording, and balance out the audio on the background music.

Lastly, I saved the mix down as a stereo MP3. So, what do you think?

LinkedIn has a new Chief Executive

2007-02-05T09:45:00.000-08:00

Wallstreet Journal had a story buried on the last page of the B section on LinkedIn's expansion plans and the naming of Dan Nye, previously with Advent Software, as their new Chief Executive.

Reid Hoffman, the LinkedIn co-founder, will give up his position as CEO, while staying as chairman and president of products.

This is a good sign for LinkedIn. It shows they are maturing, and Hoffman is showing the ability to step aside and let someone with more experience take a leadership role at the company.

I use LinkedIn a lot, and highly recomend it.

Live Blogging: Online Strategies for Grassroots Advocacy

2007-01-30T07:27:00.001-08:00

Updates below as the morning goes along. ***

I'm spending the morning today at the US Chambe of Commerce at the "Online Strategies for Grassroots Advocacy" workshop being put up by our friends at Adfero Group. (http://www.adferogroup.com/)

I'll be live blogging my own notes as each speaker shares their strategies, tips, and techniques for using social networking, and viral marketing for grassroots advocacy.

Right now, Chris Kelly, Vice President of Corp. Development at Facebook.com is speaking about how Facebook has been a tool for political or advocacy campaigns.

Whats important:

User Control
Authenticity: Ability to interact with others as themselves
Accesability: Facebook is becoming part of people's daily life.

Their users are encouraged to connect with a group.

9:25AM: The next speaker is Tim Fullerton from Oxfam America, and International relief organization.

He answers the qestion, "Why use social networks?"

Inexpensive way to reach and engage a broader audience (low cost)
People like to feel they are part of a community
your supporters are using it, and so are their friends.
...I didn't catch the last one.

He is showcasing the Oxfam MySpace page. They are embeding videos, and they have had more than 1000 people sign up for emails from their sign up box in MySpace!! Wow.

From experience, Tim says MySpace doesn't seem to be effective for fund-raising. The other panelists seem to agree.

They are using Flickr.com to post pictures that link back to their main website. This is specially effective when you have pictures of a celebrity, since it will be higher on the search frequency. An interesting and valuable tip.

Tim gives some tips on where to begin:

Pick one social network site that works best for your work
Promote to your supporters
Update, update, update (at least once a week, if not more!)
Be patient.

9:34AM: Jamie Riehle, from Lycos.com is next on the panel.

He's going to talk some about web 2.0, about what lycos is doing, and provide 5 tips for your organization to best use the web to support your message.

In case you have been wondering what Web 2.0 is, its basicly a web site that grows and improves as a direct result of user's contributions and participation. Usually, it entails the use of technologies like Ajax, RSS, and video embeding. But, the key factor is the user interaction and involvement in the key features of a website.

9:44AM: He's showing a video from "CitySessions" to demonstrate Lycos Cinema. Lycos can host your organization's PSA or other video, and it could be a good way to drive traffic back to your website at no cost.

Five Tips for Winning in a Web World:

Identify your audience. Who are you trying to reach and what do you want them to do?
Use viral friendly content. Photos, wallpaper, SHORT videos, songs, or audio, quizzes, anything that makes it easy to share your message.
Keep it fresh. Update. Staleness will kill your social networking program or campaign.
Re-circulate your own traffic, and utilize a number of different sites. Link, link link...send people around your whole netowkr.
Easy of use, high level of ineractivity, build your site to be easy to navigate and get around. Usability.

He's done...now the panel is going to answer questions from the moderator. (I won't write the names, just share the tips and ideas that come out...)

A messaging tools must NOT turn into a spamming tool. Any messaging system has to be carefull about not being to aggresive.

The key is to find people of like-mind, and work to form them into a group.

Take pictures and videos of your offline events (videos: fun and edgy), and upload it to a MySpace profile, Facebook, or Flickr.

Manage the campaign. You have to keep going back to the people that came by your social network page, visit their profiles and their pages, and leave comments on their pages. This brings in their friends, and is a sort of "link farming" to increase awareness and visibility of your campaign.

Following up with people is one of the weaknesses of many non-profits. You have to cultivate the relationship, and work at it each level of the relationship. It takes work.

How much time or money do I need to invest? Its fairly easy to re-purpose content. If you already have a blog, you can include it in your Facebook profile using RSS. Facebook will push this content out to your friends network. There are easy ways to get out re-purposed content.

Levaraging your assets, your networks of friends you have recruited, to get your message out.

Use interns. They are usually more tech savy, and its a great way for them to learn, while providing low-cost help to a non-profit.

Blogs form a network online, and are essential to spreading a message.

Reaching out to blogs: Find blogs that will be supportive of your cause. Don't just send press releases, but instead cultivate relationships.

You have to be prepared to lose control when it comes to user generated content, and online advocacy.

The risk or challenge is in the accountability that results from having everything in your past recorded, and can and probably will be brought up. An example that keeps getting mentioned is Allan's "Makaka" incident.

10:00AM: Ok. Most of the answers seem to be re-hashs of what has been said.... I'll ad more notes as I hear noteworthy stuff.

I'm running out of baterries, so I'll try to keep good notes and blog more about it later.

YouTube Steps up to Revver, Share Revenue With Site's Users

2007-01-29T18:25:00.000-08:00

YouTube finaly took a step to prevent Revver from stealing its members. With YouTube's announced decision to share revenue with it's users, it can hopefully maintain its position over the countless of competitors that have cropped up a dime a dozen.

In October 2005, Revver -- which like YouTube offers video clips online -- announced plans to attach advertising to user-submitted videos and give their creators a cut of the profit.

Considering large-audience shows like LonelyGirl15 are based out of Revver because of the revenue sharing, this should have the intended effects--increase quality video products being shared or published through the YouTube video sharing system.

Hurley said that when YouTube started, he and the site's co-founders -- Steve Chen and Jawed Karim -- thought revenue sharing would build a community of users motivated by making money rather a love of videos.
But, he said, as the site has grown, executives have come to see remuneration as a way of improving content.

The Washington Post has the full article.

Technology in Communication Redesign

2007-01-29T14:08:00.000-08:00

As some of you may have noticed, I am doing a redesign of the template. Its a work in progress, but I hope the new look will beter reflect what I hope this blog will be -- a showcase of articles, case studies and personal expertise.

Just an FYI.

Internet Marketing at Pizza Hut Headquarters

2007-01-26T08:45:00.000-08:00

I've been invited to give a workshop or training session on Internet marketing to the state chapter leadership of a national MBA association, NSHMBA.

The event is being held at the Pizza Hut headquarters in Dallas, which should be interestnig. I'm looking forward to doing some networking there. I will be participating in some training myself, as I am also part of NSHMBA and on the board of the Denver chapter.

I keep a Business blog for them, focused on the MBA academic community and the business community in the greater Denver metro area. You can read more of that here.

Communication Consulting in Miami, FL

2007-01-26T07:21:00.000-08:00

I just confirmed a training session in Miami, FL where I will be working with the staff at Great Commission Latin America in improving their internal and external communications processes.

Since it is the middle of the winter, I've decided to bring my lovely bride along, and spend the weekend warming up my bones.

They have requested some help in setting up some tools that will help them stay accountable to internal and external stakeholders, such as ministry partners, donors, staff, and volunteers. I'm thinking that besides the email system I am installing, I'm thinking a blog in English for external stakeholders, with an image gallery and a calendar, and then a Spanish language blog for internal stakeholders and on-the-field volunteers (in Latin America) would be valuable tools. Still evaluating their needs, so I'll have to fine tune my suggestions accordingly.

Which domain to choose for a startup -- a .net or a hyphened .com?

2007-01-24T15:28:00.000-08:00

My recommendations to all my clients has always been and continues to be for the .com domain. There are several technical and usability reasons for these.

Technical: Some servers, when set up properly, will send a user who forgets to type a domain to the .com domain automatically (on browsers that have this capability).

So, for example, if you had mycompany.net, and a user types "mycompany" -- some browsers would be sending these users to a potential competitor.
Usability: .Com is the most common and well-known domain. You don't want to force your customers and users to remember yours because its different.

Unless you manage to secure a STELLAR and MEMORABLE domain, going with the .com works best. Its possible to be successful without a .com domain -- del.icio.us is one example. But, some of this is subject to luck and other factors.
I would not advice using a dash or hyphen.

Usually, the challenge to choosing a domain only comes when the company name is not available in the .com domain. For these cases, I would suggest going with slogan, or catch phrase, that best brands your company.

For example, a missions nonprofit (I've mentioned before) targeting Latin America could not find their domain "www.gcla.com", so they went with "www.reachinglatinos.com."

This is the key for domain selection:

Easy to spell.
Easy to understand over the radio (when you don't know how to spell it). This means no numerals.
Catchy, memorable, or short and easy to remember.
Ads value to the brand.

The corporate initials might be well known internally, but unless you are using it on your marketing collateral, will not ad any value to your brand. Keep it it focused and integrated with larger marketing strategy.

About using a .net, I would say it only makes sense when it ads value to the brand. For example, if your company provides networking services, or something of that sort. Otherwise, you are faced with the same challenge of users possibly forgetting the domain.

Hope this helps in your brainstorming process as you figure out the best domain for your company.

Using Open Source for Low Cost Small-Business Solutions

2007-01-24T15:24:00.000-08:00

LinkedIn has a new Question & Answers feature, so I thought I would post some of the answers I have shared within my LinkedIn network. Here is one on using free tools for business.

I provide pro-bono consulting for a really small relief charity. This has really forced me to think carefully about the best possible sollution at the lowest cost.

Recently, I was able to set them up with a full list management system, including sign up pages, list segmentation, auto-unsubscribe, subscribe-confirmation rule-based emails, etc. all for free. The software was included on their Linux based web hosting package.

Now days, most hosting services using the CPANEL client admin set up include a huge list of open-source web-based tools that are EASY to install (literally, two or three clicks) and with some technical skills, easy to customize.

They now have a fully functional direct-email tool that cost them $0 beyond what they already paid for hosting. So, while it may not give them profits, it certainly will strengthen their existing constituent and donor relationships, and potentially increase donation revenue.

You can find the full list of available software for free and read more at http://cpanel-host.com/fantastico/ It may not be enterprise level tools, but more than adequate for any small business or non-profit.

Most use databases that are compatible with industry standard MySQL or other databases, making upgrades easy, and customization possible with the right technical skills.

Feel free to post your own questions -- I would be glad to get to them as time permits.

Teens and Social Networks

2007-01-22T18:16:00.000-08:00

Sobering reality of the challenges of parenting:

Researchers continue to document just how deeply social networking Web sites have impacted American youth culture. The latest assessment from the Pew Internet and American Life Project finds that 55% of all American adolescents between the ages of 12 and 17 have a profile on MySpace, Facebook, Xanga or another similar site.

For 15- to 17-year-old girls, that figure rises to 70%, compared to 54% of boys in the same age group. Of those, most teens use these sites to stay in touch with nearby friends (91%) or those whom they don't often see in person (82%). A strong majority (72%) utilize them to make social plans, while just under half (49%) report meeting new friends as a main motivation.

MySpace easily outdistances its competitors as the most popular social networking destination, attracting 85% of those teens who've created a personal profile. It's followed in popularity by Facebook (7%) and Xanga (1%). Other sites, such as Yahoo, Piczo, Gaia Online and Tagged, each garner less than 1% of the remaining social networking pie.

[pewresearch.org, 1/7/07; publications.mediapost.com, 1/8/07 stats]

I'm waiting for the fad to fade, and see what's left behind. There is great value in this technology, and helping teens find their next date is not one of the life-changing uses for tagging, RSS, and social networking.

BusinessWeek Online: Do new media channels affect how existing channels are used?

2006-08-08T07:24:00.000-07:00

Interesting article on a Swiss study on communication options.

A recent Swiss study finds that as the communication options available to us expand, we tend to narrow the uses and audience for each

And the options are growing...

It's one of the surprising recent findings of a study carried out in Switzerland. In the last few years our communication environment has been expanding at a very fast pace. The lone fixed-line telephone has given way to multiple fixed and mobile phones, e-mail,instant messaging (IM), text messaging, voice-over-Internet-protocol(VoIP) free (or near-free) telephony and videoconferencing, and other interactive channels such as blogs and wikis.

This expanded communication environment raises some questions: Are people"specializing" their use of different communication channels? For example, do mobile-phone, fixed-line, and e-mail users differentiate their usage of those tools in terms of content, communication partners,and habits? Are new channels affecting how existing channels are used?

Here is the articles conclusion:

So do new channels affect how existing channels are used? According to Broadbent, yes. Each new channel or media that appears slowly redefines the uses of the older existing media, she suggests: IM is currently redefining usage of short messaging; blogging is redefining the usage of e-mail; VoIP is changing the nature of a phone call. New patterns of communication emerge slowly, stabilize for a period, and then change again when new channels come along.

What role does cost play in shifting usage from one channel to the other?" Cost does play a role, but it's not absolute." She cites as evidence the fact that we use cell phones from home although it's more expensive and we have alternatives available. The cost is off set by convenience: With phone numbers stored in a cell phone's memory, it's more practical to take the device out of our pocket and push a button to place a call.

Even if it is just to call the same four or five people over and over.

technorati tags:media, email, blogging, cell, phone, IM, instant, messaging, VoIp, Communication, e-mail, change, channels

What do you get when you put together social networking and a browser?

2006-08-07T18:33:00.000-07:00

You get Flock, thats what! I just discovered this tool last Friday, at the recommendation of our engineer, and I have been playing around with it over the weekend. So far, I'm impressed. Here is what I find useful so far:

Got all set up with a Flicker account, and I'll be inviting my whole family to set up accounts, so we can share photos. The browser made Flicker usable for me! I was also able to do a search and find the account for our on-retainer web designer, who happens to be an awesome photographer. You can check out his work here.
I set up the blogging tool, and I can now blog about any article or RSS feed I'm reading--on any one of my many Blogger.com blogs I write on!! For an impulsive writer like myself, this is invaluable! I get an idea--BOOM--I write it in and Its done! This is going to help me better manage my time and contribute more frequently to my various blogs. You can check them out: Latino Issues Archive, Denver NSHMBA Blog, and of course this one.
I have all my various RSS feeds set up, and I can read them by collection or by individual feed! So, I created so far 4 folders:

Townhall Feeds: This includes all of Townhall.com's columnists, provided via RSS feed, all of the official Townhall.com blog feeds, and of course, all of the Townhall.com user blogs! I am the Online Community Manager for Townhall.com, so Flock allows me to consume every single user generated blog post on a daily basis. We are talking about over 1,000 user blogs!! Only Flock!
Daily Reed: These are blogs I read every day, like Instapundit, Michelle Malkin, Babalublog, and others (as I ad them). Again, the idea is to facilitate the process so I can get more reading done in less time--and pick what I want to read and what I am not interested in. Talk about empowering, technology like Flock allows me to stay more informed, and keep track of more sources.
MSM: I have a folder where I have set up RSS feeds for a few (not many) MSM news feeds, to help me understand what it is the rest of the world is hearing.
Flock Picks: Flock provides various recommendations in several categories, so I set up a folder and subscribed to some that seemed interesting. Mostly, I picked out some business feeds to stay on top of. This should be helpful with my National Society of Hispanic MBA Blogging, as well as my MBA graduate studies.

Of course, Flock is built upon the reliable and familiar Firefox platform, so I get to enjoy the tabbed browsing I enjoy. Now, if they would make Flock accept the pluggins and tools that Firefox has, I would be a happy camper.

As you can tell by now, this is quite a powerful communication technology. It is helping me stay connected with family, stay informed and up to date with the information I find relevant and necessary, and it organizes the excessive amounts of content I want to consume, and puts it all together in one place.

What does this mean to the advertiser, you ask? Well, to start, most of these RSS feeds do not provide full text, so when I click on a story of interest, it opens that article and web site in a new tab--providing the publisher with a good number of ad impressions. The key point is, I clicked on what I wanted, and Flock helped me filter through my interests to find the content I wanted. This can only increase page views over long term, because I don't get frustrated searching and clicking around looking for something that will catch my attention.

Well, thats all for now. You can check out Flock, and download it for free, right here.

Online ad spending to reach Hispanics has grown 900%

2006-01-10T12:56:00.000-08:00

Via IconCulture:

Since 2002, online ad spending to reach Hispanics has grown 900%, says the Internet Advertising Bureau. Online expenditures now total an estimated $100 million which is more than several traditional media categories, including out-of-home and magazines.
HISPANIC BUSINESS 12.05

Let's hope some of this means that online business can grow in Latin American countries as well.

Internet ad growth pressures TV to change

2005-12-02T15:23:00.000-08:00

This is the way it's going. Good story by Reuters on the pressures television is having to face in order to remain competitive. With more and more people going online, television will need to adapt, and integrate, or die.

"We believe the Web site will ultimately replace the 30-second commercial as the central expression of the brand ... The TV commercial over time will become more of a way to simply send people to your Web site," said Brian McAndrews, chief executive of Internet marketing company aQuantive Inc..

Television accounts for roughly two-thirds of major companies' advertising budgets, and that could shrink to about one-half in three years, according to David Verklin, chief executive of online media buying company Carat Americas, a unit of Aegis Group Plc.

A main driver of that change will be online advertising, he said, which should see its share of spending roughly double from about 8 percent now, as companies pay more attention to the Web's ability to tailor messages to individual consumers and to track response.

Web video advertisements will be about 10 seconds long, and mobile advertising on cell phones and other devices would be a similar length, he projected.

Verklin, like a number of executives, predicted that television would begin to look like the Internet, perhaps adding clickable Web sites in place of commercials. The element of interaction could increase the older medium's ability to reach smaller, self-selecting groups of clients, he added.

Let's hope advertisers do better this time, and don't over saturate. Permission marketing must be the way corporations operate, or a version of it, in order to execute sustainable advertising.

U.S.-EU Showdown Averted over Control of the World Wide Web

2005-11-16T08:53:00.000-08:00

Thank God the Internet is safe for now! Having the UN in control over the Internet would amount to censorship. I hope the UN just gives up this pursuit. It would stifle innovation, and delay progress. In effect, it would have the opposite effect of what they intended--to reduce the technology gap.

Negotiators from more than 100 countries agreed late Tuesday to leave the United States in charge of the Internet's addressing system, averting a U.S.-EU showdown at this week's U.N. technology summit.

U.S. officials said early Wednesday that instead of transferring management of the system to an international body such as the United Nations, an international forum would be created to address concerns. The forum, however, would have no binding authority.

Tag: News, Politics, technology, Blog, Media, Music, Internet, Current Affairs.

VEOH NETWORKS LAUNCHES LEGAL P2P VIDEO DISTRIBUTION

2005-10-25T10:18:00.000-07:00

Interesting technology with great possibilities. We'll see who jumps on the bandwagon. I like that they are integrating RSS into it. They are also planning to “integrate” its software with Apple’s new video-capable iPod models.

LA JOLLA, Calif. – August 17, 2005 – Veoh Networks, Inc., the first Internet Television Peercasting Network, today announced its VeohNet™ protocol, the company’s video transport system that significantly surpasses the capabilities of existing peer to peer (P2P) systems in effectively distributing high-quality video.

Veoh Networks was founded in 2004 by Dmitry Shapiro, a technologist best known for creating the world’s leading P2P security software that manages more than one million enterprise users, regulating applications such as BitTorrent and Grokster.

“Our engineers and I have spent the last five years dealing with various P2P networks including BitTorrent, eDonkey and FastTrack, as well as the dozens of applications that support these protocols, including Grokster, KaZaa and Morpheus.” said Dmitry Shapiro, Veoh’s CEO. “We have created a new protocol that sets a new standard in terms of both technology and legitimacy for content owners. In contrast to earlier approaches, from inception, our focus has been respecting the rights of content owners.”

According to a recent Massachusetts Institute of Technology study, existing decentralized swarmcast systems are fundamentally limited, especially in their ability to penetrate firewalls thus requiring users to open up ports in order to get these systems to work effectively. VeohNet uses advanced firewall traversal technology to provide excellent performance to all users without firewall adjustments or decreasing security requirements.

Veoh’s engineering team is led by Dr. Ted Dunning, who was previously the Chief Scientist at Musicmatch (now a division of Yahoo! Music), IDAnalytics and Aptex (an HNC company). For the past 20 years Dr. Dunning has built complex mathematical models that predict network behavior based on mega-dimensional matrixes of inferred and implied variables. These mathematical models create a layer of intelligence on top of the transport protocol that better guides video transport over P2P network architectures.

Veoh software, installed on consumers’ PCs or Macs, creates a virtual television network that is able to distribute TV-quality, full-screen broadcast video to hundreds of millions of users with broadband Internet connections. Motion picture studios, television networks, organizations and individuals can publish unlimited amounts of broadcast video content to the network, providing consumers with unparalleled choice in television programming and control over their viewing experience. VeohNet was specifically designed to provide DMCA compliance, while traditional systems do not take compliance into account enabling the rampant piracy of intellectual property. A beta version of Veoh’s software and service will be available later this month. Content producers and consumers are encouraged to visit www.veoh.com to sign up for notification upon launch.

Holy See's Address on Information Technologies

2005-10-18T16:17:00.000-07:00

This via Zenit.org. It is an interesting and compelling essay on the relationship between truth, ethics and technology. What I don't agree with is the treatment of technology and communication as a human right. This leads to a whole lot of social experimentation and socialist policy that have been proven to not work.

NEW YORK, OCT. 18, 2005 (Zenit.org).- Here is the text of an address delivered by
Archbishop Celestino Migliore, the Holy See's permanent observer to the United
Nations, last Thursday before the U.N. General Assembly commission on "Questions
Relating to information."

* * *

Mr. Chairman,

The Holy See recognizes the right to information and its importance in the life of
all democratic societies and institutions. The exercise of the freedom of
communication should not depend upon wealth, education or political power. The right to communicate is the right of all. Freedom of expression and the right to
information increase and develop in societies when the fundamental ethics of
communication are not compromised, such as the pre-eminence of truth and the good of the individual, the respect for human dignity, and the promotion of the common good.

Furthermore, new technologies have an important role to play in the advancement of the poor. As with health and education, access to the wealth represented by
communications would certainly benefit the poor, as recipients of information to be
sure, but also as actors, able to promote their own point of view before the world's
decision makers.

Given the ever increasing ease of access to information of every possible kind, the Holy See also stresses the need to protect the most vulnerable, such as children and young people, especially in the light of the increase of content featuring violence, intolerance and pornography.

Perhaps the most essential question raised by technological progress is whether, as a result of it, people will grow in dignity, responsibility and openness to others.

In this context, the Holy See has set up a unique continent-wide initiative called
the Digital Network of the Church in Latin America ("Red Informatica de Iglesia en
America Latina" -- RIIAL) which promotes the adoption of digital technologies and
programs in media education, especially in poor areas. The success of this project
has drawn the attention of the Observatory for Cultural and Audiovisual
Communication in the Mediterranean and in the World (OCCAM) and other international organizations. The Holy See also supports the continued promotion of the traditional role of libraries and radios in formation.

It is to be hoped that the Second Phase of the U.N. World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), to be held in Tunis shortly, will lead to further concrete efforts to build a more inclusive digital society which will reduce the widespread
"info-poverty." It would be well if a new dynamic were created which goes beyond the political and commercial logic usually at play in these fields.

My delegation believes that the Information Society should be one endowed with the ability, capacity and skills to generate and capture new knowledge and to access, absorb and use effectively information, data and knowledge with the support of information and communication technology. Already in society there are many "agents of meaning" or "knowledge workers," such as the family, schools, the state, opinion makers and leaders, not to mention religious institutions.

Knowledge is essential in establishing presence in the international marketplace,
and is key to participating in the global economy of which the Internet is an increasingly important vehicle. Moreover, knowledge should be recognized in its role in the development of information and communication technology. At the same time, there is a fundamental need to develop an ability to discern information received, given the enormous sea of information available. This process can flourish only where there is a recognized hierarchy of values.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman

AMD brings bare-bones PC to consumers

2005-10-03T09:46:00.000-07:00

This sounds like a more solid, and economically feasible idea. It sticks to major communication technology standards, and focuses in on specific needed uses. I think this kind of product will do a lot more to gap the technology divide in third world countries.

Radio Shack plans to start selling a low-cost alternative to the personal computer starting Sunday.

The $299 machine, dubbed the Personal Internet Communicator, was designed by Advanced Micro Devices to access the Internet and perform basic computing tasks.

Sunnyvale-based AMD originally conceived the device last year for low-income consumers in developing countries as part of an effort it calls ``50x15.'' AMD Chief Executive Hector Ruiz wants more than half of the world's population using computers by 2015.

It turns out that companies such as Radio Shack see demand for low-cost devices even in the United States.

In contrast to more complex personal computers, the Personal Internet Communicator is a bare-bones machine that is supposed to be simple, reliable and durable, said Bill Edwards, AMD's chief innovation officer.

It uses the stripped-down Windows CE operating system from Microsoft and can be used to read and create word processing, spreadsheet and presentation files as well as access the Internet or send e-mail.

``It's not a general-purpose PC,'' Edwards said. ``It focuses on communications, and for a lot of folks, that's all they need.''

So far, telephone and cable TV companies have begun providing subscribers with the machine in places such as Mexico, Brazil, the Caribbean and India. Soon, companies in China, Russia, Turkey and elsewhere will start selling the Personal Internet Communicator.

$100 laptop set to bridge digital gap?

2005-10-03T09:40:00.000-07:00

This is an interesting idea, and good effort, but I am not sure if it is realistic of the demands placed by computer users worldwide. Just because the user is in a third world country, does not mean the demands are first-world demands. Also, what is the use of students learning Linux, when companies want employees that know and have experience on Windows and Office?

At the end, its a feel good thing, but with Microsoft and Office being a huge standard, I don't know that creating bare-bones computers is all that helpful. A better option would be to encourage corporations to donate second hand computers to schools.

The visionary is Nicholas Negroponte, director of the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his idea consists of a new kind of laptop computer that will cost just $100 (about R636) to buy.

It will also be a little different in design from the sleek machines some of us in the West have learned to love or covet.

It will be foldable in different ways, encased in bump-proof rubber and will include a hand-crank to give it power in those corners of the globe where electricity supply is patchy.

The first prototype of the machine should be ready by November and Negroponte - who was one of the first prophets of the internet before most of us understood the word - hopes to put them into production next year.

He expects to churn out about 15 million of them in a year, shipping most of them at first to children in Brazil, Egypt, Thailand and South Africa.

Describing the unusual design of his sub-laptop on Friday, Negroponte insisted that it would "have to be absolutely indestructible".

The mission is to create a tool that children almost anywhere can use and can easily carry between their classrooms and their homes. For that reason, for instance, the AC adaptor cable will double as a shoulder strap.

Technology is a big need in third world countries. Instead of trying to create low-cost computing that isn't competitive, we should be fighting third world corruption, opening up free trade, and helping these countries develop their own technology production capabilities. That's just my thoughts--who knows, maybe the idea actually works and does help. Perhaps I am missing something here.

Microsoft to support PDF in Office 12

2005-10-03T09:22:00.000-07:00

ZDNet has a story on Microsoft's Office 12, and new functionality that will enable people to publish documents in the Adobe PDF format.

Office 12, which is expected to be completed by the second half of 2006, will let end users take an Office document and convert it to PDF format, Brian Jones, a program manager for Microsoft Office, said in a blog posting. People will not be able to actually read PDF files from within Office applications; a PDF viewer will still be required, he noted.

The PDF support will be built into Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Publisher, OneNote, Visio and InfoPath, Jones said.

"We've really heard the feedback that sharing documents across multiple platforms and long-term archiving are really important," Jones said in his blog. "People now have a couple options here, with the existing support for HTML and RTF, and now the new support for open XML formats and PDF."

It is interesting to see more and more integration between the various document formats and technology. This should be good for consumers, who won't be "forced" to buy one product over another, as a result of incompatibility issues.

500 Million People Worldwide are Expected to own Camera Phone

2005-09-29T07:52:00.000-07:00

How is this going to change our public world? I wonder if this could mean huge steps forward in the fight against corruption in third world countries? What about here in the US? What about right to privacy from strangers?

By the end of this year, 500 million people worldwide are expected to own a telephone with some sort of image-capturing device. That number could swell to 3 billion by 2010, says cellphone manufacturer Nokia.

LATIMES.COM 9.6.05

Consumption of Web Services Will Greatly Increase Through 2009

2005-09-13T09:19:00.000-07:00

Interesting look ahead. This is a key trend in regards to how and where corporations are spending their Information Systems money. The Internet is the great "integrator", making cohesiveness in business processes possible.

"Web services are expected to become even more pervasively used throughout the entire computing stack," said Sandra Rogers, program director for SOA, Web Services, and Integration research at IDC. "Web services have been and will continue to be primarily adopted by technology vendors that then proliferate the use and consumption of Web services via integrated solutions more so than enterprises addressing all the development and processing complexity directly."

Several trends influencing the level of spending for Web services software include:

Continued vendor and product consolidation

Price pressures and shifting license models

Evolving maturity and skill sets in developing Web services and Services oriented architecture (SOA) solutions

Major product version releases by key vendors influencing the landscape

Complexity of and rate of adoption for various Web services standards

Organizations balancing existing base of technologies until volume and levels of complexity force review and investment

Companies Turn to Knowledge Management to Solve Information Overload

2005-09-13T09:17:00.000-07:00

A recent survey of 122 European business executives has found that, of all strategic technologies, knowledge management solutions rank first among executives in terms of importance in large companies. The survey, conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit, indicated that this may be because the majority of executives feel unable to use large amounts of the corporate information that is available to them.

Fifty-five percent of those surveyed said that their IT departments' failure to prioritize bulk information was the main barrier to effective decision-making. Ignorance of what knowledge exists, or of where to find it, is another major barrier, according to 41 percent of respondents.

In some cases, a simple solution—such as keeping a regularly updated record of who knows what—can be more effective than throwing IT at the problem, according to the report.

Apple Launches New ITunes Phone, Changing the Face of Media

2005-09-07T12:25:00.000-07:00

This is trend-setting and is part of what will change how people engage with Media. The key idea behind this sort of technology is to combine tools, and allow individuals to listen to what they want when they want to. Media is going one-on-one, instead of the old-world fashion of "broad"casting.

By GREG SANDOVAL
AP Technology Writer

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Apple Computer Inc. CEO Steve Jobs introduced a music-playing phone Wednesday that is capable of storing about 100 songs, as well as a pencil-thin version of the iPod, the company's ubiquitous digital music device.

The iPhone, made by Motorola Inc. and loaded with iTunes software, can store podcasts as well as music. Users can transfer songs to the device from their PC or Macintosh computers and make calls through Cingular Wireless.

"It's an iPod shuffle right on your phone," said Jobs, Apple's chief executive officer, who noted that both the iPhone and iPod shuffle both randomly sort music, hold about the same number of songs and have display screens.

Jobs also introduced the pencil-thin iPod Nano, which will replace the iPod Mini. It is one-third the size of the Mini and holds 1,000 songs.

"It's impossibly small," Jobs said at the Moscone Convention Center. "It's thinner than a No. 2 pencil."

The Nano can store music, games, photos and a calendar. It also has a "screen lock" feature that allows no one except the user to access content.

A 4-gigabyte Nano will retail for $249, and a 2-gigabyte model will sell for $199. Both versions will be available in stores this weekend, Jobs said.

Music-playing cell phones could emerge as a competitor to the iPod, some analysts predict. By branching into phones, Apple would hope to secure its place as the kingpin of digital music regardless of what device is used to listen.

Shares of Apple rose 21 cents to $49.01 in afternoon trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

Tags: Motorola, iTunes, Apple, iPod, Mobile Phones, iPhone, Rumors, Cingular.

Wi-FiTV Launches

2005-08-22T10:27:00.000-07:00

Wi-FiTV (www.wi-fitv.com), a broadband Web site that features more than 200 TV channels from around the world, launched last week.

The site bills itself as providing one-click access to news, sports, music and general-entertainment channels, fitting its definition of IPTV.

The channels can be accessed using any broadband connection -- cable, digital subscriber line or T-1 -- although session quality can vary depending on the channel and the broadband-connection speed.

It looks interesting, but it is yet to be seen as far as how much acceptance it's going to get.

CyberBug can drop in and quietly gather intelligence

2005-07-29T15:34:00.000-07:00

What you can do with a remote control these days! Anybody have $5,500 I can borrow? Proxity said the CyberBug costs that much per unit. Not to bad, I think.

A U.S. company has begun marketing a stealth micro-unmanned aerial vehicle that can blend in with its surroundings.

The micro-UAV, dubbed CyberBug, weighs less than a kilogram and was designed for both military and security surveillance. The battery-powered UAV can fly undetected into a hostile environment, land on rocks or trees and relay video images and voice.

Ex-Microsoft Exec Barred From Google Job

2005-07-28T19:35:00.000-07:00

Browser wars are getting interesting!

SEATTLE (AP) - A former Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) executive who defected to Google Inc. (GOOG) cannot immediately perform the job Google hired him to do, a judge ruled Thursday, saying Microsoft has a well-grounded fear that leaked trade secrets could hurt its business.

Superior Court Judge Steven Gonzalez granted a temporary restraining order barring Kai-Fu Lee from working at Google on any product, service or project similar to those he worked on at Microsoft, including Internet and desktop search technology.

A Google lawyer requested a more specific list of tasks Lee can perform. Microsoft said it would provide the court with its recommended list by Monday.

Relpacement for the Space Shuttle? -- Richard Branson and Burt Rutan Form Spacecraft Building Company

2005-07-28T08:34:00.000-07:00

This from Space.com:

British entrepreneur, Sir Richard Branson, has teamed up with aerospace designer, Burt Rutan of Scaled Composites to form a new aerospace production company. The new firm will build a fleet of commercial suborbital spaceships and launch aircraft.

Called The Spaceship Company, the new entity will manufacture launch aircraft, various spacecraft and support equipment and market those products to spaceliner operators. Clients include launch customer, Virgin Galactic—formed by Branson to handle space tourist flights.

I can't wait to see what the new ships are going to look like--twice as big!!

The announcement was made today at the Experimental Aircraft Association’s (EAA) AirVenture gathering being held July 25-31 in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. The yearly event spotlights homebuilt aircraft, antiques, classics, warbirds, ultralights, rotorcraft—as well as the emerging commercial spaceflight business.

Both rocket ship and the carrier aircraft will draw from Rutan’s work on SpaceShipOne and the White Knight mothership. The SS2/WK2 system will adopt the reentry concept and hybrid rocket motor design work hammered out for SpaceShipOne, licensing that technology from Paul Allen’s Mojave Aerospace Company.

SpaceShipOne successfully snagged the $10 million Ansari X Prize last year by staging back-to-back flights of the piloted craft to the edge of space.

Both of the new vehicles, however, are to be twice the size of the earlier designs.

Tagged: space shuttle

NASA Suspending Space Shuttle Program Over Foam Debris

2005-07-28T07:31:00.000-07:00

Just more signs that it's time to upgrade to a new, better shuttle system. I suggest bringing in private enterprise, to reduce government spending on this. The NY Times is reporting NASA's grounding of the Space Shuttles until further notice.

HOUSTON, July 27 - NASA suspended further flights of the space shuttle fleet on Wednesday after determining that a large piece of insulating foam had broken off the external fuel tank of the Discovery shortly after liftoff Tuesday morning, the same problem that doomed the Columbia and its seven astronauts in the last mission, two and a half years ago.

The foam does not appear to have struck the Discovery, so the decision will not curtail its 12½-day mission to the International Space Station, the officials said. But further flights will be postponed indefinitely, starting with that of the Atlantis, which was to have lifted off as early as September.

"Until we fix this, we're not ready to go fly again," William W. Parsons, the manager of the shuttle program, said at a news briefing at the Johnson Space Center here on Wednesday evening.

The detection of another large breakaway piece of insulating foam is a potentially devastating setback for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and a bitter counterpoint to the elation of Monday's seemingly perfect launching of the Discovery, a return to flight that was hailed as an inspiring comeback for the space program.

The effort to fix the foam problem had consumed more than two years and hundreds of millions of dollars. NASA identified the area on the tank that shed the latest piece of foam as a risk, but put off redesigning it.

"We decided it was safe to fly as is," Mr. Parsons said. "Obviously, we were wrong."

Tagged: space shuttle

Shuttle Discovery Blasts Into Orbit

2005-07-26T11:49:00.000-07:00

Finaly, we are back in space! It's good to be back. Now, I hope NASA will get their act together and start working on that new reusable space transport system before another shuttle has an accident.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Discovery and seven astronauts blasted into orbit Tuesday on America's first manned space shot since the 2003 Columbia disaster, ending a painful, 2 1/2-year shutdown devoted to making the shuttle less risky and NASA more safety-conscious.

Another Reason for Corporations to Avoide Spam--Vardan Kushnir found dead

2005-07-26T10:05:00.000-07:00

It just doesn't make sense, and creates more negative marketing than new prospects. Besides, it just might get you killed!

Vardan Kushnir, notorious for sending spam to each and every citizen of Russia who appeared to have an e-mail, was found dead in his Moscow apartment on Sunday, Interfax reported Monday. He died after suffering repeated blows to the head.

Cool new gadgets from Moto , the Q & the Razrwire

2005-07-26T08:58:00.000-07:00

This looks cool. I gota upgrade from my old B&W visor. Ugh! I wish the costs would go down.

Topping the list of new products, unveiled at a Motorola event on Monday, is an ultra-thin mobile phone with a QWERTY keyboard from which users can access their e-mails. The phone, dubbed "Q", will put Motorola in direct competition with Research in Motion, maker of the popular Blackberry devices.

The phone is based on Motorola's iconic Razr phone with its ultra-thin design that has proven so popular with the fashion connoisseur. Motorola claims the phone is 50 percent thinner than any of its competitors' handsets. It's equipped with a large colour screen and has an "antenna inside" shape.

***

Motorola, which is second only to Finnish giant Nokia in the mobile phone manufacturers' league table, has also unveiled the Razrwire in conjunction with Oakley, the sunglasses manufacturer. The Razrwire will combine eyewear with Bluetooth wireless technology.

"Seamless mobility is here, now with the availability of Razrwire" said Bruce Hawver, vice president of companion products, Motorola's Mobile Device business. "Motorola and Oakley are bringing innovative wearable technology to life. With this one-of-a-kind Bluetooth-enabled mobile eyewear, active consumers can stay connected while moving from one environment to the next."

The Razrwire will be available through Cingular Wireless retail stores in the US from August, although consumers will be able to buy them online too at a retail price of USD249.99.

Online News Consumers Become Own Editors

2005-07-25T15:51:00.000-07:00

This is so true. I hate visiting news home pages. They are full of sports stories--I could care less--and other sorts of junk. RSS is the best thing since sliced bread. I just wish more content providers would use this--not just news sites.

I run two blogs. This one, on technology trends in Communications, as well as a political commentary blog related to Latino and immigration issues. I read and process a ton of news every day, and for the most part, I rarely go to the home pages.

NEW YORK - J.D. Lasica used to visit 20 to 30 Web sites for his daily fix of news. Now, he's down to three — yet he consumes more news online than ever. Lasica is among a growing breed of information consumers who use the latest Internet technologies to completely bypass the home pages of news sites and jump directly to articles that interest them.

He can scan some 200 Web journals and traditional news sites — all without actually going out and visiting them.

Online news consumers are increasingly taking charge, getting their news a la carte from a variety of outlets. Rarely do they depend on a single news organization's vision of the day's top stories.

"The old idea of surfers coming to your Web site and coming to your front door, that's going away," said Lasica, a former editor at The Sacramento Bee. "People are going to come in through the side window, through the basement, through the attic, anyway they want to."

Some Web sites are already responding.

"When we all started this 10 years ago, we wanted to be the one and only place people come to," said Jim Brady, executive editor of The Washington Post's Web site.

These days, he said, the Post is happy simply to be one of many sources checked daily. He sees his home page as a starting point, and during the July 7 bombings in London, the Post even linked to the BBC, something unfathomable a few years ago.

The Post and Knight Ridder Digital, meanwhile, are redesigning Web sites to spread elements previously found only on home pages.

And in a case of "if you can't beat them, join them," Knight Ridder Inc., Gannett Co. and Tribune Co. collectively bought three-quarters of Topix.net, a startup that provides tools for readers to bypass news home pages. The New York Times has been paying an undisclosed amount to have its headlines featured there.

Topix provides direct links to news stories it collects and sorts from more than 10,000 sources, and it slices story by category as well as region, down to the ZIP code.

Welcome to Virtual Earth--This is better than Google

2005-07-25T15:41:00.000-07:00

I find this whole competition in satelite imagery between Google and MSN facinating. I have read of other companies creating satelite imagrey mapping web-based sofware.

What is interesting to me is the way it is being put to use. My question is are we or could we be in any danger from terrorists, domestic or foreign, that could use this information? I personaly don't know the address to any nuclear power plant or any of that sort of thing, but I would guess that sort of imagery has been blocked from close-up range?

What sort of security parameters have been put in place to protect privacy and security? Otherwise, great tool. I can see parent's being able to track where there teens are after curfew, (the mall, not at their friends doing homework as claimed) or automobiles coming with GPS tracking device that can be quickly found over Virtual Earth.

I like the quality of the images in Virtual Earth. It has better quality pictures, with stronger zoom. It will be interesting to see how Google responds. I'll be looking into this some more and writting some comments.

Marketing goes Techie--Technology trends in Communications

2005-07-25T15:20:00.000-07:00

Hi There,

This here is my first post on my Technology blog. The purpose of this blog will be to highlight new trends in technology that are affecting or will affect the field of communications.

Sometimes, I will post on new trends or technologies, and sometimes I will just post on gadgets I think are cool. Every once in a while I might point out how technology is helping ethnic minorities, simply because I am a minority.

I hope you enjoy what you read. Come back often and post your comments.

~ Josue Sierra