Cimbal is a very interesting startup focusing in the electronics payments space, allowing for instant and easy store, online and person-to-person transactions.
This video shows it all:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfg7KD1rTYQ
That looks really cool, I’m wondering what is PayPal waiting to leverage its existing mobile application to do something similar.
No, I don’t think so, but from this picture we can extract some interesting facts about executives and social media.
It is now clear that executives care a lot about what is being said about them and their company on social media and they also try to participate in the conversation showing their point of view.
Social media are also seen as a useful source of information, where to find resources, as well as a “testing ground” for innovative campaigns or beta projects.
What caught my attention from this picture:
I recently stumbled upon a bunch of terrible Microsoft ads and decided to share the horror with everyone by posting the worst ads they have ever made.
This one is Steve Ballmer itself selling Windows 1.0, it is really worth watching…
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGvHNNOLnCk
Down here a promotional video to showcase a Microsoft Research project, that may have been even interesting, but the commercial was, at least, odd.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oGFogwcx-E
This simple interactive infographic from Business Week, shows how Google reduced by $3 billion its income tax since 2007.
Pretty odd for an “no evil” preaching company? Indeed there is nothing illegal about it, I wonder why they can’t to it for profits generated in the USA, while the rest of the world allows them to shuffle around all that money!
A colleague of mine, Francesco Marcellino, recently pointed to my attention this great article by Maddock and Vitòn in which they describe the main drivers that led the mobile platform to being the fastest growing platform in history.
In five nutshells they described these key drivers:
1) The world loves instant gratification. Thanks to mobile phones, we can make connections and decisions at any time or place.
2) We like filling time vs. killing time. We create mobile experiences in four- to 10-minute increments. That could mean anything from using imdb.com to look up who played Hector inTroy to checking out bls.gov for the latest unemployment stats for your region. We’ll find things to do. And when we do, we want progress, info, answers, and closure.
3) We crave superhero powers. Our mobile phones allow us to interact in multiple places at the same time. We can be on a conference call with Singapore while e-mailing friends in San Francisco as we use GPS to help us navigate the back roads of Cape Cod. On our walk on the Cape we can call out the constellations in the night sky even though we have never taken an astronomy course. We draw on all the powers of the universe.
4) We modify, adapt, hack, and generally MacGyver everything we get our hands on. Give people a tool, especially a technology or digital tool or channel, and they use it to achieve their goals in ways you never imagined. We call it “hackdapting.” Want proof? There are now more than 200,000 apps for the iPhone.
5) We think of our mobile device as our “No. 1 recovery tool,” and we never leave home without it. Why? It is a lifeline. Our cell phones are the first thing we reach for when we’re away from home or the office and a problem comes up.
I completely agree with their analysis, especially true now that smartphones are everywhere. I remember when the iPhone first launched in the US, how many people discovered the mobile web as a way to get instant answers to their questions on the go. A mix of network readiness and great mobile user experience is what it takes to create a platform that is at everyone’s reach.
BlackBerry really surprised my with its first tablet, looks like they wanted to take their time and deliver a really great product!
The Playbook is the first tablet featuring a dual core processor with powerful multimedia capabilities, which could sound wired coming from BlackBerry but at the same time it makes perfect sense to create a business multimedia tablet for the business poweruser.
The OS, at least in the simulation, looks smooth and feature-rich, completed by the well known enterprise integration that could make a huge difference once in the market.
For now we can just tease ourselves with this video!
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAaez_4m9mQ
How many times you’ve taken a picture to later discover that’s blurred, loosing forever a special moment?
Well this incredible technology from Adobe aims to allow users to later adjust pictures’ focus after shooting, simply by adding super techie lens on the standard ones. This gizmo will take different photos from different focal to be later merged by a super sophisticated software.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EI75wPL0nU
Really amazing!
I recently had the opportunity to take a close look at the new mobile OS from Microsoft: Windows Phone 7.
The roots are actually pretty old, as it is based upon Windows CE kernel, but the rest is completely different from the Windows Mobile OS we have all come to know in these years.
It’s still a partially “unfinished” OS, many features will follow in upcoming releases, but right from this one many changes are noticeable.
Among those the GUI is indeed the most relevant, featuring the concept of “panorama” which allows users to browse an extended desktop far broader than the phone display. It’s an original solution, even if I think it’s originated more by the need of being different instead of users’ real needs. I still find wired the title of the screens being truncated at the end to let users understand they have to scroll horizontally to reveal more.
Soon Windows Phone 7 will be out in the wild, ready for the 2010 Holiday season: let’s see how it rolls!
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LBsxEZORIg
At the latest edition of DEMO, the annual conference in which startup showcase their products and services in front of an audience of journalists and investors, Dynamics product really caught my attention.
Their product is Card 2.0 which basically is an electronic credit card capable of storing multiple accounts on just one piece of plastic, allowing customers to choose on which account bill the expense simply by pressing a button on the card.
Extremely interesting is also another prototype which needs to be “unloked” via a code to display the full 16 digits of the credit card, very useful both in case of theft of the card or internet transaction, as the credit card number could change at each transaction.
Watch the video if you wanna learn more, it is really worth it!
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RPkODrcjkU
Get Direct TV to stay up to date on all your latest tv and news!
Back from the holidays let’s start blogging again with nice infographics about Net Neutrality, indeed a hot topic during this hot summer 
View more by category: Uncategorized (119). .
