way cool…
Get a load of this display…
Dell Crystal Takes Home Best of CES Innovations Award 2008
Tempered glass, highly polished metal tripod stand, unobtrusive connections, capacitive touch controls, integrated webcam, microphone and speakers, and a 22” HD panel helped Dell Crystal take home the 2008 Best of Innovations Award at the International Consumer Electronics Show which recognizes the most innovative consumer electronics (CE) products in the industry’s hottest product categories.
One of Vista’s killer features…
Vista has a ton of killer features… most are lost in a wave of MS cynicism and Apple hype… Ed gets at a few of these… And some more from Thomas Hawk…
Thomas is using Drobo, one of the hot new consumer devices here in the US. I’m getting one of these soon…
Interesting facts on ugc
Some interesting facts on user generated content from a recent Deloitte study… Highlights include data on:
- User-generated content as an activity for all generations
- 40% of all survey respondents are making their own entertainment (editing movies, music and photos)
- One-third of online content viewing is done on user-generated site
- An interest in traditional media for all consumers – even Millennials
- 72% enjoy reading magazines over finding the same information online; 58% of Millennials agree magazines help them learn what’s “in”
- Compared with online activities like surfing the Web and downloading music, all generations aspire to reading a book in the coming year
- How habit and personal relationships drive Web traffic
- Search engines and word of mouth are the most effective way to drive site traffic — 85% of Xers are influenced by a recommendation
- 87% of respondents continually visit the same Web sites
- The future: centralizing home media into one entertainment center
- Millennials are combining different technologies and platforms:
- 64% want to connect their TV to the Internet for viewing videos and downloading content to the TV
- 57% want a device that lets them do everything
- 49% want one device to be the center of the home media experience
Economist tech predictions…
They call them fearless – I call them narrowly defined. But, still interesting…
- Surfing will slow: PEERING into Tech.view’s crystal ball, the one thing we can predict with at least some certainty is that 2008 will be the year we stop taking access to the internet for granted. The internet is not about to grind to a halt, but as more and more users clamber aboard to download music, video clips and games while communicating incessantly by e-mail, chat and instant messaging, the information superhighway sometimes crawls with bumper-to-bumper traffic…
- Surfing will detach: Google, mobile, blah, blah, blah…
- Surfing—and everything else computer-related—will open. Rejoice: the embrace of “openness” by firms that have grown fat on closed, proprietary technology is something we’ll see more of in 2008. Verizon is not the only one to cry uncle and reluctantly accept the inevitable.
my new XPS One
Finally got around to unpacking my new XPS One – a gorgeous system that in looks and performance rivals anything out there. Amazingly easy set-up and unpacking. Keyboard is fantastic.
What actually takes the most time is getting all the stuff I need onto the system. We have to find some way of making that easy for people to do – maybe as part of the order process? Anyway, here is what I am loading:
- Internet Explorer 7 – already on the system – set-up my iGoogle and Yahoo home pages. Remember, you can set as many homepages as you like so when you launch, they all open in tabs. Import bookmarks and feeds.
- Firefox: I prefer IE 7 over Firefox but like to have Firefox about for some of the add-ins.
- Download and install del.icio.us extensions for IE and Firefox. Click on the buttons and save to del.icio.us.
- Livewriter – my preferred blogging client. Fantastic little app from Microsoft that they have managed to make impossible and anoying to install by bundling with their very confusing “Live” family of products.
- Google Toolbar. Try the beta. Love the gadgets in the toolbar.
- Google Notebook. Terrific way to store information and access it from anywhere.
- Skype. Can’t live with it. Can’t live without it…
- Yahoo Messenger. Chitter chatter…
- Feeddemon – my preferred way to read all those blogs. Still can’t get it to sync correctly and wish they would deploy the NetNewsWire interface.
- Raphsody. Love this. Is the future of online music in so many ways. But still need a simple way to manage my tunes so download iTunes as well. iTunes is still the best way for me to access my Podcast subscriptions.
- Real. I go for the free version with the IE 7 plug-in. Love it as a way to collect and store video.
Now i am downloading all my cadgets for Windows Sidebar – why don’t they store this online and sync it via log-in? This goes for all the dashboards…
I’ll keep updating this as I motor along…
