Filed under: Video, Productivity, VoIP, web 2.0

Musion Systems and Cisco Networks may be bringing our dreams to life.

Ever not want to attend a meeting in person? Ok, dumb question. But you’ve never had an option, unless you lied and said you got stung by 100 bees, or were contaminated in some way. But even at that, you’d have to eventually provide SOME proof.

Well, the future of laziness might be closer than we think.

This HAS to be too good to be true.

Maybe, but maybe not. With some fancy cameras and IP networks, you can have people on stage at an event or meeting that are not even there! Zuck could have done his SXSW keynote from Ecuador! And he would have been able to see the audience just like he was there!

These two companies have teamed up to create the Cisco On-Stage TelePresence Experience using technologies from each.

The possibilities are ENDLESS. Don’t want to visit mom? No problem, hologram yourself to the Church group brunch. Have a long distance relationship? Feel closer than iChat with someone.

We’re not sure when this is going to happen but we hope to get a Beta invite.

Check out this awesomesauce demo video.

[via lux.et.umbra]

Read

Share This

Share This

Filed under: Products and services, Consumer experience, World wide web, Apple Inc (AAPL), Marketing and advertising, Media World

Live Nation (NYSE: LYV) has secured a deal with Facebook and created an application for the social-networking site to sell concert tickets and promote concerts that may interest users. In addition, according to Variety, the application brings the “My Live Nation” global concert search engine into Facebook and allows users to sync the new application with their music library to receive concert updates automatically. Wired reports that the Live Nation application does not, however, link directly with your Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) iTunes library or another third-party program, instead giving the user the option of pointing toward a library or not.

It’s no surprise that one of the largest concert promoters has moved in with one of the top social-networking sites. Given that Live Nation is no stranger to wide exposure, the number of users on Facebook who may already be familiar with the promoter is prone to be significant. Instead, the aspects of Live Nation’s application that grant users to share upcoming concerts and shows they’re either attending or would like to attend should increase awareness of local and regional concerts — at least on Facebook.

Not a bad idea in the end, even if it is some form of viral marketing like the cited Wired and Variety articles claim. It’s not like Facebook isn’t already being used to market and sell music in other forms; the TuneSocial program basically advertises albums users are listening to, and iLike streams tracks that users enjoy. Live Nation offers the next logical step with concerts but directly connects users with the capability to buy tickets and boast or share with friends.

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Share This

Share This

Filed under: Products and services, Consumer experience, World wide web, Apple Inc (AAPL), Marketing and advertising, Media World

Live Nation (NYSE: LYV) has secured a deal with Facebook and created an application for the social-networking site to sell concert tickets and promote concerts that may interest users. In addition, according to Variety, the application brings the “My Live Nation” global concert search engine into Facebook and grants users to sync the new application with their music library to receive concert updates automatically. Wired reports that the Live Nation application does not, however, link directly with your Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) iTunes library or another third-party program, instead giving the user the option of pointing toward a library or not.

It’s no surprise that one of the largest concert promoters has moved in with one of the top social-networking sites. Given that Live Nation is no stranger to wide exposure, the number of users on Facebook who may already be familiar with the promoter is apt to be significant. Instead, the aspects of Live Nation’s application that grant users to share upcoming concerts and shows they are either attending or would like to attend should increase awareness of local and regional concerts — at least on Facebook.

Not a bad idea in the end, even if it is some form of viral marketing like the cited Wired and Variety articles claim. It’s not like Facebook is not already being used to market and sell music in other forms; the TuneSocial program basically advertises albums users are listening to, and iLike streams tracks that users enjoy. Live Nation offers the next logical step with concerts but directly connects users with the capability to buy tickets and boast or share with friends.

Share This

Share This

Filed under: Marketing and advertising

A piece in the USA This day reports that top retail chains have improved their supply chain management to get the hot new fashions in stores more quickly before.

Sounds great, right? Maybe not. According to the article. “With the tighter economy squeezing retailers industrywide, several companies have hit on a successful formula for propping up earnings: They’re speeding up the time it takes to get the latest fashions into their stores.”

Obviously increased efficiency is great and there’s nothing not to enjoy about improved ordering, fewer markdowns, etc. But it could be creating a false sense of optimism if it’s allowing for the frontloading of sales. $30 million in sales in the first quarter and then $10 million in the second is the same as $20 million in each quarter: but if you don’t know about the differences in inventory situations, you could have a false sense of optimism at the end of the first quarter.

Time will tell whether superior supply chain management is messing with the distribution of sales throughout the year.

Share This

Share This

Filed under: Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Productivity, OpenOffice.org, Open Source

Since before the dawn of time, open source projects have forked more often than Lindsay Lohan cheked into rehab. The Mozilla browser is a great example of a successful fork, it was once based on Netscape, but evolved on its own and eventually rendered classic Netscape obsolete. Many — if not most — forks disappear into obscurity. We aren’t so sure this one will go so quietly.

Go-OO is a fork of OpenOffice that has quite a few impressive features which really ought to be in official OO, but for some reason or another aren’t, such as support for OpenXML, superior Microsoft Binary support, and Word Perfect Graphics support. It also boasts significantly superior begin times — at least on our poorly equipped test machine.

Long story short, this is a fast, lean beast of an office suite with great compatibilty with Microsoft Office. The price is right at $0.00, but as with any community project you’re both welcome and encouraged to donate to the developers for their efforts.

Read

Share This

Share This