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Archive for the ‘sort of different’ Category

Nokia Augmented or Mixed Reality

September 9, 2009 Leave a comment

This concept allows to you to experience immersion and effortless navigation in an Augmented Reality environment. New types of interactions involving near-to-eye displays, gaze direction tracking, 3D audio, 3D video, gesture and touch.

Through these new types of social linkages people will be connected in innovative ways between the physical and digital worlds.It’s hands-free and weightless compared to a tablet, no small screen problem as you have on a mobile phone – but is it truly useful?

Unlike most other AR apps we’ve seen lately, where the physical world is referenced by the AR – the two seem unrelated here. It takes all kinds, though, and who’s to say how AR will be used?(Also, isn’t this music a little creepy? It sounds bittersweet about the inevitable and yet slightly frightening future.)None the less, we’d love to get our hands on a prototype of this technology to test it – just as soon as it becomes real.

more about “Nokia Augmented or Mixed Reality“, posted with vodpod

Peek – About Peek

September 5, 2009 Leave a comment

Check out Peek – a great simple device to get your email anywhere.

Peek was born on a walk in the park when Amol Sarva and his wife, Ursula, were expecting their first child. At six months pregnant, Ursula couldn’t sit still and found comfort in taking long walks. But planning for a new arrival and a busy life besides, Amol saw that Ursula would return feeling behind. Emails were piling up. She had inbox anxiety.

A seasoned wireless industry entrepreneur, Amol had long been using smartphones for mobile email. With smartphone in hand, their long walks were actually a great way for him to stay on top of things at the office. Amol tried to get Ursula to use one, describing the many features: email, texting, voice calling, Internet, etc. But the bells and whistles are exactly what turned her off. She didn’t want a complicated smartphone with extras she didn’t need.

What she really wanted was a simple, nifty device that would let her do email on the go since email was how everyone she knew made plans, caught up, and shared news.

Amol thought a simple, fun, and attractive mobile email device had to exist. He asked his contacts at the cell phone companies, but they were dismissive. Nobody wants “simple”, they want “more”, they said. But Amol saw an opportunity, which he discussed with a few colleagues from earlier ventures. They explored the idea in the “real world”, closely observing real people using email at their desks and on the go.

Amol’s hunch was right; people really want a device that simply does email.

via Peek – About Peek.

mistakes continued – see everybody does it

September 5, 2009 Leave a comment

Charles de Gaulle – “The better I get to know men, the more I find myself loving dogs.”

what the hell am I doing online with all these accounts

September 5, 2009 Leave a comment

Update: 9/18/09: Testing them out… I’m in the middle of a testing period of the publishing apps – Tumblr, Posterous, WordPress.com and a few other tools.  Will report feedback on a later post.

As more and more new communication tools (Social Media and Networking) are offered to everyone, I realize that there is a need for aggregating services (which are popping up all over in the Internet space).  With membership to many of the life publishing tools available it has become necessary to have aggregation for your feeds.

Why am I using all of these tools anyway?  I’m creating a lifestream, I’m becoming ubiquist and creating multiple streams of my personal and professional messages.

I have a bio, a blog, a Twitter feed, a Flickr account, a Tumblr account, a FriendFeed account, a Facebook account, a LinkedIn account, and numerous other accounts including Vodpod, Picassa, Delicious, Digg, Twitpic, SlideShare, YouTube, and Last.fm.

This allows you to produce or share content and have it appear everywhere.  But you need to manage your stream.

So go out and expand your mind and cruise the Internet.  Save what you have interest in and read it, if it stirs something within, then share it with others.  Add your thoughts for each item you want to share on the micro blogging sites I’ve mentioned. Just pick a subject that you have interest in.

Back when I taught the basics of the internet to my son’s first grade, (1997), I explained if you love Lima Beans and Green Jello – the Internet is for you!!  Post that you love it and it will allow others who feel the same way to connect.

Some things never change in society, connections are made due to similar interest.  The tools have just gotten better out there to find your connections.  Enjoy!

The final item I’ll add is to be yourself, just share the color in your life.

College for $99 a Month by Kevin Carey | Washington Monthly

September 5, 2009 Leave a comment

Crucially for Solvig—who needed to get back into the workforce as soon as possible—StraighterLine let students move through courses as quickly or slowly as they chose. Once a course was finished, Solvig could move on to the next one, without paying more. In less than two months, she had finished four complete courses, for less than $200 total. The same courses would have cost her over $2,700 at Northeastern Illinois, $4,200 at Kaplan University, $6,300 at the University of Phoenix, and roughly the gross domestic product of a small Central American nation at an elite private university. They also would have taken two or three times as long to complete.

College for $99 a Month

The next generation of online education could be great for students—and catastrophic for universities.

Times are changing.

ideas

September 2, 2009 Leave a comment

As an idea person, I’m constantly amazed at the speed of which new ones seem to be entering the main stream.  If ideas use to be “a dime a dozen“, they are more like “penny for a pound” today.

From tweeting stuff your older father says to discussing the life of a squirrel, these ideas seem to be finding an audience and gaining sucess in short timeframes.  Today the New York Times released an article that showcased the case of a Twitter account named “shitmydadsays”.  Less than 30 days after launch, this young man has over 200,000 followers, media coverage, market appeal, an agent and multiple book offers.

So here’s to the speed of ideas and to hitting that sweet spot that only the world can tell you about.

Self-Diagnosing Sickness With the Web | TechWatch | Fast Company

September 2, 2009 Leave a comment

The health-care debate entered a “new phase” this morning, as news leaked that President Obama was re-tooling his plans for reform. But while pundits wait for him to make a major health-care speech next week, millions of Americans are turning to the Web to self-diagnose aches and pains.

Web sites such as WebMD and Discovery Health have long served this audience–inundating them ads in the process. Luckily, those of us that can’t make it to a doctor (or can’t afford to) now have another option. It’s called HealthBase, and it was launched this morning by a semantic Web company called NetBase. The concept of “semantic Web” is a truly amazing evolution of the Web as we know it now: It allows your computer to “read” Web sites and know their content, instead of blindly presenting you with data it can’t understand. That means smarter searching and more relevant content. Here’s how it works.

When you search a condition, treatment or drug on HealthBase, it performs a semantic search of all the other health-related sites on the Web. That means it doesn’t just look at the titles of the articles and spit back a result, it reads into the actual text to deliver you really useful content. (If this sounds like a technology that would have great implications for your business, you’re right; check out Oracle’s semantic databases. It has also done wonderful things for social networking, people-search engines, and other services.) Thankfully, the brilliance of the backend of this site comes without any of the 90s-Web-portal sensory overload of other sites; it’s simple, easy to navigate and transparent. When you navigate to HealthBase, you’re met with just a search box, and four simple tabs.

HealthBase

Doing a search for “neck pain” led me to a plethora of confusing links and materials on WebMD. It’s hard to tell what’s advertising and what is content; even if you can parse the two, there are still an overwhelming number of options.

Semantic web in action – expect to see more and more of these centralized semantic searches for niche markets

Offbeat Traveler: Ithaa Undersea restaurant at Conrad Maldives Rangali Island

August 30, 2009 Leave a comment

Visualizing up to ten dimensions – Boing Boing

August 20, 2009 Leave a comment

OK, some of the science is questionable, however, it’s worth the watch to understand and see possible dimensions.

A short animation that takes the viewer through a progressive description of all (and all possible) dimensions, up to and including the 10th

update and plans

August 15, 2009 Leave a comment

howdy fellow internet fans and die hards

i’ve been missing a bit from the blogosphere due to travel and deadlines for work
plus the reality of :

running two e commerce sites
having people working for you
trying to develop and plan two new ventures
finding time for friends who are in need
finding time for fun with friends
while i keep self educating daily and sharing resources
to help others learn
PLUS taking care of myself, my family, our house
and paying the personal and corporate bills and taxes

i’m finally whipped – hitting the wall

as a technical project manager during my day job, one of my core strengths is the ability to streamline and setup pipelines without obstacles to reach the end goal

time to turn it back on for my life outside of the day job

first change – my blogging,  tweeting and lifestreaming
they are all a priority to me as they allow me to feel alive and help me keep being me
but if i change the way i do them, i can make it easier on myself

ideas are floating around my head on this and i’m doing some research into tools that can help as i debate the best path for me
i’ve decided to just start blogging when i can and to share 3 or 4 resources or links with a short detail of why i recommend it
feel free to let me know if you find anything of value

thanks for reading  and sharing

kathleen

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