Reality, what is it really? Exploring Augmented Reality

Augmented reality, Featured, Focus: AR/VR, Personalization, Predictions

I love the concept of augmented reality. I mean, isn’t watching Avatar in 3D Imax so much better than the gray reality when you come home to look at your walls? Don’t you love the colors! – and can’t you feel your muscles twitching as you mentally jump from psychedelically colored palm frond to palm frond along with the Navi?  When I got home after the movie, all I could do is stare at my (boring) walls and wonder “where are my white floating squids?” Uch. Reality is tough, gray, cold – well, “real”.

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Not just a pretty face in the crowd: The future of Visual Search

Convergence, Personalization, Predictions, technology trends

I’m fascinated with the potential for visual search a la Google Goggles. It’s one of the newest ways to search and at the forefront of the next generation: it allows you to search from your cell phone by snapping a picture, and returns information about the building, object, business, etc. (true augmented reality). I first used it when passing a historic building, and was curious about it. My friend pulled out his phone, snapped a picture, and voila! – information about what it was, the architect, date and style, etc. So neat that I think

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Welcome 2011 – Garbo was on to something: Trends in digital privacy

Predictions, technology trends

Happy 2011 to everyone! I’ve been woefully bad at posting blog entries these last few weeks – largely due to preparation for moving across the country – which doesn’t at all mean that I haven’t been noticing trends and connecting dots while taping yet another box. 2010 was a dizzying year on many fronts and I think people are weary on many levels. The economy has consistently stayed slow, wave after wave of corruption has been uncovered, the “war” in the Middle East drags on, and domestic rhetoric increasingly has overtones of a civil

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The island of “me”: Digital narcissism, personalization, and ego

Customization, Digital marketing, Social mores

I’m intrigued by a pet observation that’s been swirling and coalescing in my little head lately: namely, the internet – an instant platform for all our own little opinions and soapboxes – has made us all think we’re important. Way too important, actually. The digital world has given us our proverbial “15 minutes of fame” – except, when everyone have a loud opinion, perversely none count, and the soapbox isn’t 15 minutes, but forever. It used to be that you knew your relative importance in the world – possibly you shared your opinion with

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Disparity and consequences: How technology will create an opportunity divide

Social mores

Technology – particularly the Internet – was hailed as “the great leveler” in the early days, and indeed it many ways it has been. But I was struck by a comment on someone’s post today, that both of his grandchildren – 4½ and 7½ – were getting iPads in their xmas stockings. “Really?” I thought. Those things are not cheap, and I don’t believe childproof. But what struck me wasn’t the obvious display of disposable income (shocking to my thoroughly calvinist upbringing lol – still working on that), but that those kids are being handed

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Disruptive cataclysms? The impact of rapidly changing technology

Convergence, Personalization, technology trends

Technology – and the “rapid changes” everyone is talking about – is being hailed as a disruptive force. Most recently Mark Zuckerberg used the term to describe the future business landscape, and how Facebook (or rather, erm, “social networking”) was at the forefront of the next generation of businesses. But there are two levels of where “disruption” is happening: not only at the business level, but also at the consumer. I’m going to stick to consumers in this discussion, snce I’m constantly hearing about people adapting to the “rate of change”, or rather, the (perceived) difficulties

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Twitter me smart(er): Intelligence and social networking

technology trends

I’ve seen a whole spate of articles like this one in the recent few months that frankly, raise my hackles (what is a hackle, actually?) The reason is the premise is all wrong. They are claiming that the technology – in this case, Twitter – can actually make you smarter, based on a semester long study of student who use / don’t use Twitter. The ones who did reportedly had higher GPAs. Never mind that a GPA is hardly a measure of intelligence (the correlated premise of the article), but more importantly “Twitter” is only the

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My way? Branding in a personalized world

Branding, Personalization

I follow comments on articles and posts with not-so-always-as-unattached-as-it-should-be bemusement; quite often the article/post is more of a catalyst than an actual source of information. I’m struck by a thought tonight though, after a particularly vitriolic back-and-forth session on a Daily Show post: what will “authenticity” look like in the future, and how will we recognize it? There used to be “trusted” authoritarian figures – Cronkite, Brokaw, those types. But with the advent of “social media”, our trusted advisers are friends, or others in our community (digital or otherwise). Fine. But as the noise

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