Osram offers MusicLites wireless light speaker combination!

In a world where new inventions are sought after on a daily basis, Osram may have revolutionized the way we live at home. What do you think?

Osram is often a name that one would associate with lighting technology, especially lightbulbs throughout the home. Well, this time round the company has rolled out MusicLites – the first wireless light speaker combination of its kind in the world. This is definitely a ground-breaking product as it is full well capable of being “backwards compatible” so to speak, fitting onto existing lighting fixtures and provides the most cutting edge lighting and high fidelity audio simultaneously in today’s markets. This is a really unique concept, and we are amazed that the technology wasn’t there until now. It is nice to see Osram attempt to forge new grounds with their products, and we are sure that MusicLites will offer a slew of entertainment options in homes of the future since nearly everyone sports some sort of MP3-capable playback device these days.

The unique concept of a speaker and light combination isn’t new, since it was invented and patented in 1999 by Cary Christie, president and CEO of ARTISON. Fast forward slightly more than a decade and you have the MusicLites – a result of the collective result of OSRAM SYLVANIA’s expertise in LED solutions and ARTISON’s creative dedication to state-of-the-art audio. MusicLites is capable of fitting into multiple applications in the commercial or consumer marketplace, where the design will comprise of an efficient 10-watt LED light, a 70-millimeter full range high fidelity loudspeaker and a wireless audio receiver, all crammed into a module which is compatible with a whole lot of audio sources. MusicLites can fit into four-, five- or six-inch recessed cans, provide light output that is the equivalent to a 65-watt reflector bulb. All audio signals are transmitted through a proprietary 2.4 GHz wireless transceiver, making it more or less compatible with a slew of audio sources including USB, smartphone, and portable audio devices, offering the benefits of both limitless light and audio distribution throughout any environment. Individual MusicLites kit will come with a couple of 3.8″ x 5.3″ modules, where it ships with a remote that controls light, including dimmers, and audio settings. No idea on pricing though as at press time, but it definitely will be more expensive than your regular light bulb!

Breaking events from Denis, Yavor, Georgi and Edgar

1) We thought of creating a new event in Esei, in a following academic year 2010-2011. The new event is going to involve students with the highest grades. It is going to give the opportunity for those students to work for the best companies in Barcelona for one day.

2) Making joint events together with other International univirsities in Barcelona each month. Esei and for example, European University, Barcelona Business school, Esade, La Salle, IESE, etc. They can be done in bars, pubs and picnics. In that way we can find new connections for our future business life, exchange information and knowledge.

3) One - day boat trip for Esei best students based on highest grades for the year. It will be done at the end of the year payed by the University.

Finger hover tracking on touchscreens

I was just forwarded this link, I think this is something that will be used in 3G or maybe 4G mobiles, its actually very simple, and could soon be something that everybody will be using. Check out the video, if you wanna know more you car read the article.

Link to the article>

http://www.slashgear.com/cyress-add-finger-hover-tracking-to-touchscreens-video-2182656/\

Link to the video>

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1875385286?bctid=79173949001

3D Camera

Alright I found this just recently, since everyone seems to have been grasped by the "Avatar" movie in 3D and other movies such as "Clash of the Titans" and "how to train your Dragon", the question was not far off. When will the average Joe be able to film something in 3D?!

It's not a trade that we'd ever willingly make -- dropping to standard definition for the sake of some 3D shenanigans, but DXG is offering you the choice anyway. The budget cam maker has just announced its 3D View stereoscopic shooter, which interestingly comes with a separate 7-inch LCD display (800 x 480 resolution) for playing back your recorded footage without requiring glasses -- thanks to some parallax barrier magic. We might be tempted to spend the $400 this package costs just to get a preview of what the Nintendo 3DS -- based on the same spectacle-free technique -- might look like, but retail availability isn't expected until June, which is just that tiny bit too far out for our limited attention span.

Mosquito EXTERMINATOR

Mosquito laser gun offers new hope on malaria!

American scientists are making a ray gun to kill mosquitoes. Using technology developed under the Star Wars anti-missile programme, the zapper is being built in Seattle where astrophysicists have created a laser that locks onto airborne insects.

Scientists have speculated for years that lasers might be used against mosquitoes, which kill nearly 1m people a year through malaria.

The laser a (WMD) weapon of mosquito destruction – has been designed with the help of Lowell Wood, one of the astrophysicists who worked on the original Star Wars plan to shield America from nuclear attack.

“We like to think back then we made some contribution to the ending of the cold war,” Dr Jordin Kare, another astrophysicist, told The Wall Street Journal. “Now we’re just trying to make a dent in a war that’s claimed a lot more lives.” The WMD laser works by detecting the audio frequency created by the beating of mosquito wings. A computer triggers the laser beam, the mosquito’s wings are burnt off and its smoking carcass falls to the ground. The research is backed by Bill Gates, the Microsoft billionaire.

3D web2.0

1、Meez：

Meez combines avatars and games within a virtual world, creating an environment where users can personalize their identity, connect with friends, socialize, and share media. http://www.meez.com/

2.GOO3D:

GOO3D lets anyone create and display 3D models on a standard web browser

http://www.goo3d.com/

3. Voyage : 3D RSS reader

http://rssvoyage.com/

4.3D package

http://3d-pack.com/

5. spacetime ：the first 3D browser

http://search.spacetime.com/

Rolly by Sony - Make your Music Move!

As a Special Easter Edition, let's have a look at the latest Tech-Egg, The Rolly. The Rolly is an egg-shaped digital robotic music player made by Sony, combining music functions with robotic dancing. It has several motors that allow it to rotate and spin, as well as two bands of LED lights running around its edge and cup-like "wings" (or "arms" according to the Sony sonystyle USA website) which can open and close on either end, all of which could be synchronized to the music being played. Sound-sensitivity components detect beat, rhythm, voice and pitch, which could be used to have the device automatically react to music. It also has a G force sensor (accelerometer) which detects if the player is moving up or down. The track control is always on top and the volume control is always on the bottom. Preprogrammed movements along with music can be downloaded from personal computers using Bluetooth, having been composed on the computer or obtained from Sony's repository of user-made movement schemes. It has 2 gigabytes of flash memory to store music files. The product was unveiled on September 20, 2007, and went on sale in Japan on September 29, and was for sale at the Sony sonystyle USA website for $229.99 USD, down from $399.99 USD. It is available in black and white. Sony offers the "Engrave it." option for this item, and a number of accessories, including "arms" in different colors.

Closer to your music Rolly™ is a new dimension in MP3 players that brings you closer to your favourite music. Shake it and twist it to choose your tracks. Watch it respond to the beat with funky moves and crazy light shows. And when darkness falls, be prepared for an even more spectacular performance.
Make your own moves Choreography Software provided by Sony makes it easy to make your own moves with Rolly apart from the default ones. Making your own dance moves with the supplied software couldn’t be easier. Just click and drag to add motion and tempo. With the digital playback option you can easily see the results on the screen.
More than moves With over 700 possible variations, the light effects are a feature in their own right. You can add and preview just like you can with the dance moves, so get mixing and matching for another dimension in music experience.
Its not all work It’s not all work. If you just want to upload your favourite track and watch Rolly™ perform, you can. At the click of a button it will improvise and take over the dancing. All you have to do is sit back and watch.

Midterm exam

Some questions for discussion:

What kind of technologies are involved in wearable computers, and how may they be used to develop new products?

Comment on the changes that the CIO’s role has also experienced as a result of the evolution of Information Systems, and what could be the next changes to be faced.

How can CRM and SCN systems help today’s companies? What are their benefits, and in which ways can they be used to make decisions in an organization? What are their components, from the IS point of view?

What are some of the new technologies used in Knowledge Management?

iBasket

The iBasket is a hamper/washer/dryer combo. The transparent iBasket stores your dirty clothes. Once filled, the automatic wash and dry cycle begins. After it has finished drying, the iBasket will send you an email or text message to let you know it’s done.

Why do consumers need the iBasket?

The iBasket saves time and energy as you’ll never have to transfer your clothes from the hamper to the washer to the dryer again. Plus, you won’t have to worry about your lucky shirt being dirty when you need it for a special occasion.

Features:

• Transparent body
• Built-in air refresh system that removes the smell of dirty clothes
• Wi-Fi enabled to help you monitor it from your PC or laptop

The one drawback to the iBasket is that it is very small. It has a capacity of approximately 3-5 kg which works out to be around 3 t-shirts and 2 trousers.

Pirate Bay founder introduces Flattr.

One of the founding members of The Pirate Bay has announced Flattr, a micropayments service/system that could help content owners make money from the web when surfers consume their content online. Flattr will provide a new system for sharing money, for bloggers, photographers and other people, and Flattr will allow them “to get money for things they do.”

Here is how it works:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwvExIWf_Uc

The members pay a monthly sum to thier Flattr account and when they stumple upon something that another Flattr member has put on the web that they like or find usful they simply click on their Flattr button/icon to give them money for this site. At the end of the month, the fee that they had paid to their Flattr account will be distributed to the sites that they have clicked on. All the members will have to pay the monthly fee that will be about 2 EUR.
The system will not make a difference on the users or makers of the content on the websites.

"We aim to revolutionise how people pay and get paid for content on the internet. Come, join and show the world that good content is worth some coins out of your pocket," a message on the Flattr site reads. If successful, Flattr could prove to be a realistic way for copyright owners to make money rather than simply be faced with the choice of giving their content away for free or having the content pirated and distributed online without permission.

However there are already critics to this new system that are saying that micropayments have never really caught on online, as they stop surfers getting to the content they want quickly.

You can register your interest on the Flattr site http://flattr.com/beta/ and the service will launch fully in April.

Touch Screen Vending Machines. (news update blog)

It’s surprising that touch screen vending machines haven’t showed up sooner, but they’re now on their way to a mall near you. Recently debuted at CES, the Sapient designed Samsung uVending machines feature a huge, fully featured touchscreen which uses animations and interactive menus to assist and enrich your soda ordering experience. They are also outfitted with WiFi to alert owners to dwindling supplies, or update digital content. You also may want to think twice about giving the machine a shake to pry loose a hesitant soda, motion sensors are embedded that dole out on-screen warnings – and there’s reportedly a built in camera to capture images of vandals. They’ll be rolled out soon in the Simon chain of malls in the US, and in the UK sometime in 2010. Check out a video of the uVending machine in action through the link below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-DX6sEFRSI&feature=player_embedded

PLE Prezis

Last week we talked about Personal Learning Environments, and the proposed activity for this week is to create a Prezi describing your own PLE. Post the Prezi link here, and don't forget to add a comment about your PLE: do you think you have one, or are on the way to creating it? Which tools are part of your PLE? Does it help (and how) in your learning process? creating new connections and contacts? managing content and information? getting ready for the job market?

Learning by doing: Prezi presentations

Last session we worked in teams and created six Prezi presentations on different topics, all related to technology and business. For most of you, Prezi was a new tool; although it had been introduced by Edgar in an earlier session, not everyone gave it a try. That's why we did this activity. As we commented in class, the objectives were several: to "learn how to learn" to use a new tool using a hands-on approach; to work in teams on a topic with a very tight deadline; to assign tasks and manage them; and, of course, to learn a little more about Prezi.

In this thread, add a comment explaining your experience working with this apllcation, and what you learned from this activity.

Wearable Mobile Device: Your hand is your new phone

Since the hand is the "most basic communication method," why not transform it into a cellphone? That's what designer Sunman Kwon has developed in this spectacular wearable mobile device for superior chatting purpose. It's like witnessing something from a sci-fi movie. It includes: Analogous to 3,5G, 4G communication standard, this device, worn on hand, lets the user communicate with utmost ease. It employs the inbred input method ‘finger joint‘ for simplified controls. Each finger joint except the thumb makes for the 12 buttons along with the ‘knuckle button’ utilizing the cell phone’s 3X4 keypad. That’s simply ingenious! Just goes to show you that you don't need umpteen millions of dollars to create something unique.

Could this potentially be the end of cell phones as we know it?

Crystal World

LG GD900 Crystal

The GD900 Crystal is a slider phone with a 3-inch touch screen, and a transparent keypad that lights up when opened. But it's more than just gimmicky, see-through goodness--the keypad is a touch-sensitive controller, too. That means you can use it to move through menus, navigate the Web, and even write using handwriting recognition.

LG has thrown in gesture support too, so you can launch applications with a swipe around the keypad. This includes multitouch, as does the main display, so you can pinch your fingers to zoom in to a photo or map.
If this is a touch-happy overload, you can also use it normally, to dial phone calls, and there's vibrating feedback to let you know when you've hit the flat numbers.

So what's the point of having two touch screens? The reasoning goes that if you're basking in the glory of the GD900's screen--watching a video, for example--you don't want to block the action by waving your sausage fingers over the screen to zoom or rewind. And it's pretty freaking cool, too.
The GD900 uses the same S-class user interface we've seen on the LG Arena. One of our biggest complaints about the Arena was that the touch screen wasn't as responsive as we'd like, but based on the phones we tried, it's running with more vim and vigor on the GD900. The little spinning cube is still useless, but there are about five different ways to access each feature, and adding gestures means there should be a user-interface option for every user, if they can be bothered to learn them all.
We found gestures and handwriting recognition were accurate and responsive, and although we wouldn't use it for long texts, we could see handwriting coming in handy when you want to enter a few words in a Web form without fiddling with predictive text on the alphanumeric keypad.
Like the Arena, the transparent handset is no slouch when it comes to features. There's also an 8-megapixel camera, expandable memory up to 32GB, Wi-Fi, and HSDPA for speedy Web surfing.

take a look of this video get to know more about LG GD 900







Sony Ericsson Pureness

Following the launch of the first crystal phone of LG, Sony Ericsson has also put their conceptual design into reality.

The Pureness is one of those crazy brand statements where a company does something just because it can. In this case, it's making a transparent-screen phone. The phone's screen is gray on clear, a monochrome 1.8-inch display that's actually quite readable in person and looks absolutely terrific outdoors.

However, this phone costs $1000, it's kind of weird.

Crystal phone in the future

Samsung AMOLED notebook

Samsung could be the first to introduce a production notebook with a transparent display.

After showing a 14-inch see-through AMOLED screen at CES this year, the Korean company now says that testing suggests the PC could be in shops within the next 12 months. Sullivan expects that "all" Samsung's AV hardware could use the technology soon.
The company has already tested out transparent AMOLEDs on a small scale with the IceTouch, a media player with a 2-inch touchscreen. Until now, such displays have often been cost-prohibitive due to the price of an AMOLED, but economies of scale have grown to make at least smaller screens reasonable. The IceTouch should sell in the US for about $378 within the first half of this year.


AMOLEDs by themselves are considered an advantage over LCD through their thinness, their color accuracy and the absence of an energy-hungry backlight. Transparency is likely to be just a cosmetic feature at first, but it allows for notebooks, players and phones that lift the isolation of the user and helps handheld users see what's in view.

Using transparent AMOLED display technology can give more advantages to LCD not just because it has thinness amount but also could view picture with high color accurancy and the absence of an energy- hungry backlight.

Well, to find out the real performance of Samsung AMOLED notebook, we must wait till they officially release them for worldwide market this year.





Will you join the crystal world?

PUMA PHONE

Some of us heard the rumor, and now it is finally become true. Puma has joined with Sagem to create the PUMA PHONE. This is a lightweight little phone that can boost an integrated solar cell for charging and charge indicator to let you know how you are doing on battery. The phone's 2.8inch capacitive touchscreen, plus a 3.2 megapixel cam with LED flash and a 6x zoom makes this phone quite attractive and interesting to have. It also provides users with GPS, a compass and a geotagging. Since it is a ¨Sporty Phone¨ it also features a pedometer, stopwatch and GPS tracker. If you like, you can also strap the phone around your arm when you are on the go! So, if you are into an active livestyle this phone sure suits you!

PRESS RELEASE INFO:

¨The PUMA PHONE is an active smartphone. Beyond internet, messaging, and gps localization capabilities, solar charging, video calling and Bluetooth photo sharing are all designed to make the device engaging and responding to consumers requirements. The spin and scratch music player and integrated radio make the device a connected companion. Designed around an active lifestyle, its sleek shape factor makes it a wearable fashion accessory.
Key features of the PUMA PHONE include:

- Integrated solar cell, with charge indicator
- Touchscreen: 2.8 inch thumbable screen with 240 x 320 QVGA resolution
and TFT wide viewing angle
- Camera: 3.2 megapixel camera with LED flash and x6 zoom; Bluetooth
photo sharing
- Video: VGA video call camera; full screen video playback, with video
recording and streaming and progressive video download
- Music: wide range of music formats with playlist support and FM radio
- Localisation: GPS, compass, geotagging, routing and mapping
- Sports: pedometer, GPS tracker and stopwatch
- Internet: Open internet browsing, with WAP Push
- Messaging: Mobile email client and mobile web mail notification;
instant messaging; MMS and SMS
- HSPA and W-CDMA/EDGE/GPRS/GSM connectivity; Bluetooth; USB 2.0
- Talk time up to 5 hours with 350 hours stand-by time; video call time
140 minutes; music player time 24 hours; video player time 5 hours
- Tablet form factor; 115g weight and dimensions of 102mm x 56mm x 13mm

"Just as PUMA is unlike any other sportlifestyle company out there, the PUMA PHONE is unlike any mobile phone on the market," said Jochen Zeitz, CEO of PUMA. "We want to engage with our community in a way that is consistent with everything PUMA stands for. Blending together the influences of sport, lifestyle and fashion, the PUMA PHONE reflects the joy, spontaneity and individuality that the PUMA brand is known for."

Stuff

Here's a little video on the bad side of businesses, creating conditions for consumers to never stop consume and just generate profits.

Future of the business world? Might it be sustainability?100% renewability?

What can you find in an damaged system? My answer is nothing else but possibility and progress.

Thanks for the link Antoine

5 Twitter Stars you've never heard of!

So i found this on CNN a while ago, and i thought this might be interesting for all the Twitteres and the ones that still have to discover it!

(CNN) -- Sure, everyone knows that Oprah, Shaq and Ashton Kutcher are huge on Twitter. They're famous -- they should be huge on Twitter.

But Heather Armstrong? John Dickerson? Adventure Girl? These people can stroll unmolested through a paparazzi convention, and yet each has more than 1.2 million Twitter followers -- enough to rank them in the top 200 overall and more than Stephen Colbert, Snoop Dogg or Paris Hilton.

To thrive on the popular micro-blogging site, celebrity isn't always enough. You also must have something to say.

"You can't be Moses shouting down the mountain on Twitter," says Brandon Mendelson, a blogger who has amassed almost a million Twitter followers. "You need to be that friend everyone wants to hang out with."

Here's a look at five Twitterers you may not have heard of. They don't show up in the tabloids or on Leno. But they have the power, through the viral effect of their retweets, to make things happen, and maybe even nudge the national conversation a little.

Che-

I think this is pretty interesting because its basically comepletly "normal" people that have something to say, and they just use a completly different channel. While some people write books and others make music these guys jsut Tweet, sure its not considered an "Art" but it does have an impact on millions of people as we can see!

Heres the Link for whoever wants to read more:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/10/26/unknown.twitter.stars/index.html

Google Buzz

Google Buzz is a social network and sharing product built by Google. Based within Google Profiles, Buzz offers a stream of status updates, pictures, links, and videos from your friends. You can “like” these items and you can comment on them. Updates from Flickr, Picasa, Google Reader, or Twitter can also be automatically imported into a Buzz stream. Buzz will recommend items you might like based on your friends’ activity.

Buzz Features include:

Buzz Online:

• Auto-following – Buzz allows users can auto-follow the people you email and chat with the most
• Rich, fast sharing experience – Buzz uses Gmail UI and keyboard shortcuts easing the transition for some users. Buzz also focuses on sharing media (video, images, etc)
• Public and private sharing – Buzz includes both public and private sharing. Some things Google can index, but also private messages
• Inbox integration – Buzz integrates with a users inbox to keep it the center for communication
• Just the good stuff – Buzz filters noise to keep users from being flooded with too much information
• Public things are published to a user’s followers and Google Profile
• Buzz objects are conversations and appear in a user’s inbox
• Comments on Buzz objects arrive in realtime
• Autocomplete @ replies
• Recommended Buzz – suggests friends of friends and others as people to follow, and tells the user why they were suggested
• 
  

Buzz Mobile:

• Detect location using GPS
• Suggest places the user might be at
• Voice input available
• Mobile web app that works on Android or the iPhone

Fujitsu iPad vs. the Apple iPad

Looks like apple has done a strategical move here, issuing the iPad right after fujitsu's trademark had expired. As this is what we study in law, might be an interesting case.

Masahiro Yamane, PR head at Fujitsu, made an astonishing assertion by saying he did not believe the rights to the iPad trademark would belong to Apple. He outlined that Fujitsu had applied for an iPad trademark as early as in 2003 and also that its current business PDA matches perfectly the mobile communicator description used by Apple. Although Fujitsu has lost its trademark since spring this year, the company did not loose hope to use the name.

Yamane told the New York Times that the name iPad belongs to Fujitsu. The company is consulting its lawyers to see what could be done, although it seems that without the trademark there is not much legal basis to get satisfaction. In June, Fujitsu re-applied for the trademark but has been immediately contested by Apple at the US Patent and Trademark Office. Fujitsu neither can claim prior use of the trademark as another company, named Mag-Tech, had already applied for it. Apple has time until the end of this month to file eventual formal objection to Fujitsu’s trademark.

Link here!

Making Phone calls through Google Chrome 4.0

Google Chrome 4.0 is here for Windows users, and it adds two of the most sought-after features: extensions and bookmark syncing. Google boasts that Chrome 4 runs 40% faster than Chrome 3.

Extensions have been available in the beta release for about a month now, but now you can get them in the stable version. There are now more than 1,500 extensions in the gallery; there were only 300 when the beta hit the streets. That’s a far cry from the selection available for Mozilla’s Firefox browser, but it’s progress. And don’t forget that with Chrome, you don’t have to restart the browser to install an extension.

A Google Voiceextension — which Google announced this weekend — is now available. It adds a button in your toolbar that lets you know how many new messages you have. You can access messages and transcripts and make calls or send text messages from within Chrome. It also makes phone numbers on web pages callable with one click, kind of like the Skype extension for Firefox.

You won’t get a bookmark sync function in Firefox without installing an extension like Xmarks, which is where Chrome has the browser beat. Google’s bookmark sync function will keep your bookmarks straight across all your installations of Chrome on all your Windows computers. When it’s enabled, adding a bookmark on one computer adds it on the others, too.
Extensions are now available in the beta release of Chrome for Linux, but Mac users will still have to either do without or give the developer version a spin. We’ve embedded Google’s video about extensions for Windows below.

Apple IPad

Well, here we are, the first Blog post from AIS09. Might sound a bit disturbing but I am pretty happy to have the honor.

Anyways, I would like to share with you guys something I find quite a step forward for IS as a customer-oriented business, and Apple in particular. Here we go:



To be fair with you, I am not at all sure that I am or ever will be interested in the actual technology that lies beneath this computer. Never the less, from a business prospect I strongly believe that Apple had revolutionized the world of commercially sold computers. What do you think?