Consumer Electronic Show 2014

Consumer Electronic Show 2014

The 2014 Consumer Electronics Show was filled with interesting, revolutionary new tech products. Unfortunately, many of them will never see the light of day. Others will make it to the market, but won't have a major impact on the tech landscape. As told by Sam Mattera 

The following could be deemed as the most significant products from this year's show:

NVIDIA unveils revolutionary new mobile chipAs the market for traditional PCs has declined, chipmaker NVIDIA has branched out into mobile processors -- NVIDIA's Tegra mobile chips power a number of tablets, including Microsoft's Surface RT and Surface 2.

Intel diversifies with lineup of wearablesIntel will be hoping that tablet-makers choose its chips over NVIDIA's in 2014, but the Dow components focus this year at CES was on new wearable technology. Intel's new CEO, Brian Krzanich, unveiled nearly half a dozen different wearable gadgets last week, including a smartwatch, earbuds, and a headset. More significant than the actual gadgets themselves, however, was Intel's new "Edison" chip that powered them.

Sony unveils the future of video game distribution
Sony's big announcement at CES wasn't a physical object, but rather a service. Later this year, Sony will launch "PlayStation Now" -- an on-demand, subscription-based video game service that gives gamers access to a catalog of older PlayStation titles.

Microsoft challenged by Google-powered devicesMicrosoft didn't announce anything major at this year's CES, but the company's future looks to be affected by the products of firms that did. Both Hewlett-Packard and Lenovo -- the world's largest PC OEMs -- unveiled desktops powered by Google's Android.

Source: http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/01/15/the-5-most-significant-products-from-this-years-co.aspx

Social-Bowl

The Superbowl (or Social Bowl)

The Superbowl is an international event, watched by millions, and this year's one was no different. Nowadays, many people are watching with their mobile phones in hand, so Social media goes hand in hand with the event itself. 

The following were some social media highlights of the Superbowl, and some ideas for international businesses to use in future big sporting events, most notably the Winter Olympics in Sochi at the moment or the World Cup this Summer.

No one was really sure what was going on with JCPenney’s Twitter feed during the Super Bowl. The company later apologized and said it was “tweeting with mittens.”

 Seahawk Celebrations

It’s starting to feel like a commercial inspiring a debate about race in America is inevitable during the Super Bowl these days. Cheerios’ follow-up to its commercial featuring a mixed-race family predictably drew remarks, but nothing like a Coca-Cola commercial featuring the song “America the Beautiful” sung in a different languages.

Social Media platforms are increasingly becoming more important for marketers than the actual Super Bowl ad, which cost $4 million for a 30-second spot this year. This graphic from Offerpop breaks down some of advertising’s biggest moments on the Internet during the Super Bowl.

Source: Offerpop

International companies could take advantage of team's colours, particularly in food industries.

I particularly liked this marketing idea from Skittles :

This worked wonders for the company, and the fact they won could only have been a positive for them.

Source: Searchengineland.com

Pinterest - The Enterprise

Pinterest is a visual discovery tool that people use to collect ideas for their different projects and interests. People create and share collections (called “boards”) of visual bookmarks (called “Pins”) that they use to do things like plan trips and projects, organize events or save articles and recipes. The site was founded by Ben Silbermann, Paul Sciarra and Evan Sharp. It is managed by Cold Brew Labs and funded by a small group of entrepreneurs and investors.

Pinterest also allows businesses to create pages aimed at promoting their businesses online. Such pages can serve as a "virtual storefront". In one case study of a fashion website, users visiting from Pinterest spent $180 compared with $85 spent from users coming from Facebook. These users spent less time on the company's website, choosing instead to browse from the company's pinboard. Further brand studies have continued to show Pinterest is more effective at driving sales than other forms of social media. In 2013, Pinterest introduced a new tool called 'Rich Pins', to enhance the customer experience when browsing through pins made by companies. Business pages can include prices of products, ratings of movies or ingredients for recipes.

In May 2012, Pinterest was valued at $1.5 billion. In February 2013, it was valued at $2.5 billion. In October 2013, it was valued at $3.8 billion.

The following is a link to my pinterest account where I have started to follow interest that I have, particularly links like the following which will hopefully prove to be true,  Ways for businesses to make money through social media. There will hopefully good things for future assignments and interesting articles for this module too.

Interesting article too.

And a relevant picture shared via my blogger account 

Here is a link to an interesting article on using Pinterest with your business. 

Sources: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24649021

Tumblr - The Enterprise

Tumblr, The Enterprise

David Karp was the founder of Tumblr , and it has global ranking of 30 in the world.  According to Forbes, Karp's net worth exceeds $200 million, and Tumblr has been valued at $800 million.

Here is an interesting article of an interview with David from the Guardian

An this is an interview I enjoyed.

Since being bought by Yahoo last year, Tumblr has stopped increasing in traffic, which is bad news for the company. In May, the month the deal was announced, Tumblr reached an audience of 47.49 million users across desktop and mobile, according to SCOR +0.35%. Only once in the subsequent six months, in July, did its traffic exceed that level. That’s not to say traffic has fallen off, just plateaued abruptly. Forbes.com

Here's a graph of recent activity for the company: As reported by Jeff Bercovici from Forbes.com

How to explain this? The easiest theory would be that Tumblr, having become part of a faceless corporate colossus, has “lost its cool.” Certainly there was no shortage of predictions at the time of the sale that this would be the case, and no shortage of users vowing to take their business elsewhere. But history suggests mass defections of that sort are rare. (The promised post-Facebook Instagram exodus was all talk, for example.) When users flee in droves, it’s usually because of a change to the product, not the ownership.


There is also an Irish music blogger who I follow, here is his website with links to his Tumblr.

Here is also a link to my page, which I don't actively use much, but do follow a few good pages.

Facebook Paper - Up and coming

Facebook announced their new big application which will no doubt become huge!

Paper is the first product born of Creative Labs, a new space within Facebook for small teams to develop ideas and apps and see if they stick. To build the app, Zuckerberg enlisted Mike Matas, who designed software for the original iPhone, Nest's trademark thermostat interface, and Al Gore's pioneering interactive eBookOur Choice. His work has cemented touch-based interfaces in the modern vernacular — especially as they pertain to manipulating text and photos on a screen with your fingers.

When Facebook acquired Matas’ digital publishing company Push Pop Press in 2011, it asked him to apply his skills to Facebook content. Paper was initially conceived to make Facebook look better, more like the interactive, always-relevant "personal newspaper" Zuckerberg hoped Facebook would be. Paper turned out a little bit differently: the app abandons Facebook’s singular News Feed in favor of several — each containing a different kind of news. One is your regular old Facebook feed, and you choose the others among 20 categories like Headlines, Planet, Cute, Tech, Pop Life, and Score. Each section includes a stream of stories laid out horizontally inside cards — you swipe left and right to scroll, not up and down as Facebook has trained us all to do.

This is a big deal for Facebook, and could be another step in them taking over the world!

Augmented Reality

Augmented Reality on Mobile Phones

Personally, I've been limited to my usage of augmented reality technology so far, but I can see the advantages of it, particularly in a business/marketing sense. The video shown in class showed Lego boxes being shown to the camera and visual representation of the final product being shown, that was very interesting.

My Nintendo 3DS also has gaming capabilities, but it's more of a gimmick at the moment more than anything. 

My most recent and also the most interesting usage of Augmented Reality was with music, and a forthcoming album I've pre-ordered, from Reverend & The Makers.

You need to download the app "Aurasma" and then hold the camera over the album cover, and an exclusive video is shown. This is particularly exciting to me as someone who loves exclusive content, so I'm looking forward to seeing how it plays out. It also could be a big thing for the music industry as they need to differentiate if they want people to continue to purchase music, as piracy continues to rise. But companies are doing well to tackle it, such as Spotify.

Augmented Reality in Video Games and the Military

Video game companies are quickly hopping aboard the augmented-reality locomotive. A company called Total Immersion makes software that applies augmented reality to baseball cards. Simply go online, download the Total Immersion software and then hold up your baseball card to a webcam. The software recognizes the card (and the player on it) and then displays related video on your computer screen. Move the card in your hands -- make sure to keep it in view of the camera -- and the 3-D figure on your screen will perform actions, such as throwing a ball at a target.

Limitations and the Future of Augmented Reality

Augmented reality still has some challenges to overcome. For example, GPS is only accurate to within 30 feet (9 meters) and doesn't work as well indoors, although improved image recognition technology may be able to help [source: Metz].

People may not want to rely on their cell phones, which have small screens on which to superimpose information. For that reason, wearable devices like SixthSense or augmented-reality capable contact lensesand glasses will provide users with more convenient, expansive views of the world around them. Screen real estate will no longer be an issue. In the near future, you may be able to play a real-time strategy game on your computer, or you can invite a friend over, put on your AR glasses, and play on the tabletop in front of you.

The future of augmented reality is clearly bright, even as it already has found its way into our cell phones and video game systems. For more information about the subject and where it's headed, take a look at the links on the next page.

• Berlin, Leslie. "Kicking Reality Up a Notch." New York Times. July 11, 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/12/business/12proto.html
• Ensha, Azadeh. "Another Augmented-Reality App for the iPhone." New York Times. Oct. 15, 2009. http://gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/15/augmented-reality-apps-continute-to-roll-out/

Reddit - Read it

Reddit is my personal favourite website at the moment. It is both a social media platform as well as a news source and the host of a good majority of the original comedy content, which is then reposted throughout the web and other social media platforms such as Facebook. 

Reddit also allows you to see into people's lives that you wouldn't otherwise, with the site hosting "AMA's" or Ask me Anything's" with celebrities or people of interest, where they are brought down to level and answer interesting questions which may not otherwise be answered.

There aren't profile's per say, like Faecebook, but comment and link karma, where you're "upvoted" or "downvoted", this generates popularity. 

If the majority isn't your thing also there are sub-reddits for pretty much anything, opening it up to even the most niche of interests, it really is a great and diverse community.

As you can tell, it is a hard website to define, so here is a video, which also contains an interview with the 2 founders of the website Steve Huffman & Alexis Ohanian;

Here is a link to an AMA that Bill Gates did last week

And if you're a bit too lazy or not familiar with the Reddit layout, here's a recap of what we learned from Bill.

There is also a Social Media sub-reddit, which is where I have a look from time to time on what's going on, this week I read an interesting article on how to increase social sharing of boring press releases.