During some recent digging (we do that alot) we stumbled across the Microvision wearable display. At $10K per unit they aren’t ready for consumer consumption yet, but the concept looks compelling. Basically they are using their pico projector technology to bounce lasers on your eyes. Sounds dangerous but they seem to disagree.
Microvision has a very good questions and answers page where Ben Averch (Global Product Manager, Wearable Systems) talks about the value of Augmented Reality and how the data of the future will be accessible anywhere and any time. Great job Ben and Microvision. We want one now!
During a recent digital expedition we stumbled across this gem. The folks at Georgia Tech are using augmented reality and behavioral modeling to build an interactive scenario where the human must resolve a conflict between a virtual married couple. The result is compelling and entertaining. So much so that the complexity of the system is almost transparent. Now they need to get their engineering students assigned to miniaturize the platform. You won’t find many people willing to wear a laptop on their back.
We, the city of big shoulders, enjoyed more than 10 inches of rain this weekend. It was a gift from our deadbeat friend Ike (so like him to stop by uninvited…). In past posts I’ve talked about how we as a society still have not realized the full potential of our coupling with Digital and unfortunately this story adds further proof.
The rains started falling sometime Friday night. By noon the next day, our basement carpet was soaked by water that was coming in through the outside walls. I, in my typical “I’m on a mission” manner, went out to Home Depot to purchase a Wet/Dry Vac and a sump pump. To my dismay, Home Depot was enjoying a run on all things flood related. People were fighting for bags of leveling sand. There were no vacs or pumps left in stock.
So I think to myself, “Here’s where we test Digital!” To maximize my effectiveness, I logged onto consumer reports on my iPhone (the site works well except for Flash callouts) and found out who made the best Wet/Dry vac for the money. It turns out it was Sears / Craftsman. So off to Sears.com I went. (I’m doing this all in my idling minivan in the Home depot parking lot). I was able to determine that Sears did have the model I sought in stock at a location that was 6 miles away. Yay Digital, I’m now more informed than the hordes of shelf stormers rampaging through Lowe’s down the street. Unfortunately this is where Digital falls down. Sears.com crashed my iPhone before I could purchase the equipment online. I was attempting to purchase the items with in-store-pickup because Digital (Sears really) promised me a special entrance intended for the Digital elite and a dedicated attendant to help me load my minivan. No such luck, however. Digital failed me again when the online store lookup became unavailable. Imagine this drama unfolding at slow-mo EDGE network speeds…painful. I decided to ditch Sears.com and try 411. Perhaps AT&T’s Digital could help? The number the system gave me (even with operator assistance) was a fax line. Not willing to give up I had called my wife, had her look up the store phone number online and read it to me and then called them directly. About halfway through the call with my wife, I start driving to the Sears location hoping to get one of the last items before the hordes pillage the entire place. I dial the number she reads me and I get a computer (hello Digital) telling me that they are experiences call problems and to call back another time. I call three more times and get the same thing.
When I finally get to the store, the hordes are just showing up. The store manager has got all of the pumps and vacs they have in stock and out on dollies ready for the mayhem. I grab my stuff and get in the line for checkout (starting to get long). When it’s my turn to pay I mention that the phone system is having problems and the register clerk tells me that it’s not the phone system it’s that there are only 4 people in this department and they are being overwhelmed by calls for vacs and pumps so they stopped answering the phone.
It’s clear that natural disasters stress all systems, especially digital. It’s also clear that Digital is still too brittle to be relied upon and is only providing marginal benefit when it works. I won on Saturday, but not without an extreme amount of effort. We at Tanagram are continuing our quest to make this better, but we need your help. Please?
File this one under, what the heck do I need this for?!? The Sony Rolly was dancing it’s fool heart out at the Sony Store at Old Orchard today. It definitely caught my (and Lulu’s) eye. But who would pay $400 for this thing? Watch the video and be amazed.
Tanagram participated in The Presidents’ Symposium of Chicago on September 9th at the University of Chicago Gleacher Center, sponsored by the Entrepreneurship Institute. This yearly event brings local executive management together to discuss business trends.
Joseph Juhnke and Adam Kallish participated in two panel discussions. Joseph Juhnke participated as a panelist in a “Web 2.0″ forum moderated by Scott Pemberton of Productive Strategies. The first ten minutes of the session were spent proving the term “Web 2.0″ is nothing more than a rallying cry from a few years ago the group focused on the use of technology as an enabler to connect businesses and customers in new and meaningful ways. Other panelists included Kristin Brown (Productive Strategies), Kelly Cutler (Marcel Media), and Matthew Klein (Fuor Digital). Approximately 45 people attended this session and participated in the very lively discussion.
Panelists attempted to illustrate the wide variety of potential social frameworks can offer a company looking to build closer relationships with their customers. We talked about the value of traditional online marketing as well as viral techniques, that the new web was made by the people for the people (User Generated Content). There was plenty of time allocated to discuss attendees personal questions.
Adam participated on the panel “Transitioning Your Business From a Commodity to a Value Added Provider.” The moderator was Phil Krone of Productive Strategies with the participation of Bob Jonas (The Christman Group), Allen Schiefelbein (MassMutual Financial) and Lyell Clark (Clarke Mosquito). 45 people attended this breakout session which addressed issues of how business can avoid commoditization.
The panel tried to emphasize the need for self-examination, discovery with prospects, leadership attributes and how to differentiate from competitors. Much of the audience was interested in how to have a more effective sales process. Adam’s theme on the panel was to address the needs of prospects and their client base to identify greater value.
As panelists we were invited to attend the other sessions and we found them very engaging. An excellent event overall, but it’s invite only. Start networking now to attend next year. We’re are!
The team at Kohls.com is highly committed to user experience so it is no surprise to us that they are already pushing the boundaries of accessibility and e-commerce. This week Kohl’s launched an updated version of their shopping cart that includes navigation jumplinks and a high-contrast style sheet. Kudos to the Kohl’s team for taking steps towards optimizing their experience beyond 508 compliance.
Maybe it’s just me but I could watch this application for hours. It’s so fascinating to have little peeks into other people’s lives and to see where they are in the world. Perhaps it’s the suggested integrity of each person’s post that makes this more compelling to me than the DiggLabs visualizations, but I can’t peel my eyes off the screen long enough to think about it.
Second life is an amazing platform, a world where you can buy/sell virtual property, build/buy/sell virtual objects, and meet interesting people. Recently I dusted off my avatar (born in 2006) and re-experienced my second life for my second-first time. The following live blog illustrates some of the challenges faced by individuals new to Second Life. Don’t give up hope though, once I left orientation island the people I found and the subsequent people and conversations were worth the effort.
* 19:35 – Downloaded new SL client, installed. Had to use recover name and password function on site. Response email went to junk mail.
* 19:40 – Logged on to find myself underwater with no way to swim. I walked for a few minutes in a couple of different directions. Was assaulted by an auto-bot that kept inviting me to spend $100 to spend 30 minutes on a boat with “24 Sceneries.” The boat was floating above my head. No you can’t fly under water. (NOTE: This would not happen to a new member, I must’ve been at this location when I last logged out two years ago.)
* 19:50 – Located Teleport Home function and BAM! found myself in a strip mall (orientation island).
* 19:51 – Found group of people using talk function to harass an English sounding fellow who was shouting rude things about race, and America. Listened for a few minutes watched people. Very negative. Not sure who was more of an ass.
* 19:52 – Wandered off to track what looked like monorail. No monorail arrived. I walked down the tracks to another city center. This appeared to be a fishing town. Witnessed smoke bombs and two flying cars (very little realism). Lots of gun shots. Nobody appeared to be hurt.
* 20:01 – Accidentally sat on a man on the bench. He jumped up and flew away.
* 20:02 – More rude insults from miscellaneous people standing around.
* 20:10 – I think a giant space ship just landed on me. Not positive what it is except there are three large pipes facing outwards and an entry way in the center
* 20:15 – Cars are back, just sitting there.
* 20:30 – Machine gun fire and someone just handed me a “landmark.” Reads, “Neon Nights Complex, Sim Camping, Free Lindens, Make Money. There is a picture that is a series of pink geometric objects. I’m not sure what I’m looking at. Buttons to Teleport and Show on Map.
* 20:34 – Got up to inspect car, walked right through it. Am now watching tiger stripped dancing girl with tiger teddy bear and mini skirt. Nice tail, no really, she has a tail.
* 20:35 – Someone just started playing a really terrible hip-hop song (I like hip-hop, this is just bad). Can’t figure out where the sound is coming from.
* 20:36 – Strange skinless (all grey) woman figure is swimming in the air in front of me. Strange!
* 20:37 – 2.5 seconds of a song… stop… 1 second of a different song… stop… repeat
* 20:38 – Buttless chaps wearing tattooed man with nipple piercings (connected by a chain) is doing spin kicks in front of me.
* 20:39 – Seems to be a rash of stupid banter on the chat window. “Don’t step in my wee” and “I need to lose three pounds so I bought a pint of ice cream.”
* 20:40 – Loud Fart noise.
* 20:42 – a woman just stood on my head. I looked up for a crotch view. Yikes. She’s a zombie.
* 20:43 – Random typing noise is annoying
* 20:44 – Sound keeps jumping from a hard shoed person walking in a very long echoing hallway to euro trash dance music… Ooops now it’s both sexy hip hop and Beasty Boys with Saturday Night Fever overlapping it. This is a special kind of hell.
* 20:45 – There is a woman standing in front of me in a feather dress with nothing but her hair covering her boobs. Nice looking but dead behind the eyes.
* 20:46 – Lots of these girls look like prostitutes. I just realized chaps guy is a match pair with tiger lady. They are dancing together to “Shake your Ass”
* 20:46 – Is that a chainsaw sound? Definitely a whip crack.
* 20:48 – Almost walked into a canal. Walked right through fence. Wouldn’t have been able to get out of that if I fell. Whew!
* 20:49 – Attempted to walk further down the road and was stopped by an invisible wall. A message just popped up saying I could not enter that zone because the server was full. I am now standing knee deep in the street.
* 20:50 – Quote of the minute – “Bestiality is bad”. More disembodied typing sounds.
* 20:53 – The region you have entered is running a different version of the simulator. What does that mean?
* 20:55 – Not sure what the map I’m standing on is but the random walk-through, walk over behavior is disorienting.
* 20:56 – Someone has a voice processor that makes them talk like a chipmunk.
* 20:59 – Just fell into the sidewalk in front of “Furry Slut.” She’s dancing erotically and her hair is flowing very realistically. Strange Grey boxes are emanating from here like a disco pattern.
* 21:01 – A black man in camouflage pants just urinated next to me. Complete with sound effects and a penis coming out of his pants. Yes a yellow green stream and a puddle were included.
* 21:04 – Blue message pop-up – Duane Scarborough’s “Hypnose Homme” Are you interested in men’s fragrances from the perspective of a BUTTON=MALE, BUTTON=FEMALE, BUTTON=IGNORE
* 21:06 – Seems to be a lot of urinating right now. Woman in funny hat just whipped out a penis and peed on the first offending urinator.
* 21:07 – I’m leaving now. Wondering what the hell was the point of that? Bad rendering, obscenity, lot’s of people doing nothing but standing around.
* 21:08 – As I log out the last sound I hear, besides the incessant typing sounds, was a single bird chirping in an idyllic manner. Almost surreal.
Stay tuned for follow-up posts where we will be addressing ideas for a Captivate, Convert, Continue process that could help Second Life build relationships with customers, improve the quality of the overall experience, and increase their population.
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