Category: Technology

Adobe Systems Marketing Cloud

Kelli Richards August 19, 2013

Adobe Systems recently completed their acquisition of Neolane- a company that specializes in integrating both online and offline marketing data, solidifying Adobe’s platform for their “Marketing Cloud.” But what is Adobe’s Marketing Cloud, and why is this $600 million purchase important?

Well, its not. Unless you own a company looking to efficiently analyze marketing information; or if you’re looking to by a new pair of shoes; or a great hamburger; or if you are a consumer. So, I guess it’s pretty relevant for all of us.

That being said, the Adobe Marketing Cloud is a one-stop shop for marketers looking to “get ahead and stay ahead,” by collecting and analyzing relevant consumer data. And the Marketing Cloud (I’ll refer to it as MC from now on, like the Hammer) does so with the use of Adobe Analytics, Adobe Experience Manager, Adobe Media Optimizer, Adobe Social and Adobe Target- I know, really creative names, I guess the MC lacks an imagination- all of which work, analyzing data in their specific niches, whether it be “Analytics,” customer “experience,” “social” media, etc.

In the end, Adobe, promises to equip the user with the power to understand “Big Data;” declaring, “if you understand the meaning behind the numbers you can take actions based on facts not hunches.” Sounds pretty awesome, why have power, information, if you’re not using it, or not using it correctly?

But how does The MC target and analyze useful data? By focusing on and tracking “Key Performance Indicators” about the consumer in order to make their online experience both efficient and relevant. Relevant in that they find what they’re looking for, and efficient in their search- the shortest distance is a straight-line. The MC does this by recognizing where the customer is coming from. For instance, are they new or repeat visitors to your website? Did they arrive via a search engine, or a social media platform referral? If they’re new visitors do you approach them with location based experiences, or trending items? For return visitors, what have they purchased in the past, or previously viewed? The MC analyzes all this information for you, and provides the customer with a unique, personalized web experience. It can also analyze things that are purchased together, purchasing trends, etc. The MC also analyzes across social medias, determining who mentions your company on Facebook? Twitter? Are there positive or negative reactions? Likes? Comments? All organized and analyzed for you. This just keeps getting better. Sounds like Adobe is killing it, so where does Neolane fit in?

Like I said before, Neolane specializes in integrating online and offline marketing data. So it analyzes data across platforms like the internet, email, social media, mobile, call centers, direct mail, and points of sales. Neolane will complement The Marketing Cloud’s existing Analytics, Target Audience, Social Media, Experience Manager, and Media Optimizer teams, creating both an unparalleled costumer experience and marketing tool. 

Sounds like a company owners dream and an analyst’s nightmare; either way it’s a pretty impressive offer.

Until next time,

Kelli Richards, CEO of The All Access Group, LLC

IFTTT – “Put the internet to work for you”

Kelli Richards August 12, 2013

Apple has taken Charmin-Ultra’s motto and mastered the notion that “Less is More;” championing a simple message with a plain white background, leaving their audience fiending for their latest product. Who can remember the iPhone 3g commercial discussing the vastness of the App Store? “Whats great about the iPhone, is that if you want to check snow conditions on the mountain, there’s an app for that. If you want to check how many calories are in your lunch, there’s an app for that. And if you want to know exactly where you parked the car, there’s even an app for that.” Before declaring, “Yup, there’s an app for just about everything, only on the iPhone.” Brilliant.

Four years have passed, and Apple has not backed down on its word, there literally is an app for everything: from voice translators, to Instagram, to Despicable Me video games, and Nike fitness trackers. And now there is even an application that can pick up on triggers from other apps and set in motion a series of actions through other applications.

This Rube Goldberg-esque application is called IFTTT, pronounced “Gift” with a silent “G” (Billy Madison would have a tough time with that one) and is, according to their website, a “service that lets you create powerful connections with one simple statement,” called a recipe. These “recipes” work on an “If This Then That” platform, the “this” being a trigger, and the “that” an action- in attempt to mimic, and even follow through on our impulses automatically.

An example of a IFTTT process would be identifying when you were tagged in a picture on Facebook and automatically saving the image to DropBox. (If I am tagged in a picture, then save it to DropBox.) IFTTT (Gift) currently has 67 channels, all with their own unique triggers and actions. Channels vary from Blogger to Craigslist, ESPN to Last.fm, and Google Calendar to YouTube. The possibilities seem endless. Shared “recipes” include, “Send me a joke when it rains so I won’t be depressed,” “Good morning Twitter at 8am,” “New movies on DVD, add to Google calendar,” and “When I post to Facebook, post it to Twitter as well.”

The apps that help manage our lives seem endless. Now if only there was an app for when I’ve misplaced my iPhone…oh wait, there is!

Until next time,

Kelli Richards, CEO of The All Access Group, LLC

Excel –Canvas or Spreadsheet?

Kelli Richards July 29, 2013

When you first hear the word “Excel” do you immediately cringe? Does it remind you of spreadsheets, graphs, and formulas? For most people in the business world, using Excel can be compared to an alarm clock repeatedly beeping in the middle of the night with no shut off button; that’s a horrifying thought. But for one man, using Excel doesn’t coincide with rows and columns of numbers. For 73-year old Tatsuo Horiuchi, Excel is just another canvas to paint on.

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Horiuchi uses Excel to create traditional Japanese artwork using Autoshapes. In an article in Yahoo! News Horiuchi explained that he often saw his coworkers using excel in the office. He said, “I could probably draw with that. Graphics software is expensive, but Excel comes pre-installed in most computers.”

Horiuchi was first noticed for his Excel artwork in 2006 when he won an Excel Autoshape Art Contest.

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Upon hearing about Horiuchi’s creative use of the program, I of course had to try it out for myself. The program does provide a surprising number of drawing tools for a program whose uses don’t really align with drawing, until now I guess.

Horiuchi isn’t the only artist using Excel. Danielle Aubert uses Excel to make her own kind of art. On her website she explains, “Microsoft Excel is a program designed to track and compute information, but here I am using Excel as a drawing tool. These drawings are a part of a series that I executed on an irregular daily basis for 16 months. Each drawing is in a new ‘worksheet,’ which is automatically set up as a grid. The drawings were made by changing cell preferences for background color, fill pattern, and border styles and from time to time inserting ‘comment’ boxes and letters or words.”

From Horiuchi and his beautifully mounted Japanses artworks and Aubert who created an eclectic coffee table style book of excel artwork a whole new world has been opened up to those of us who thought excel was just a program to create spreadsheets. Who knew!

Until next time,

Kelli Richards, CEO of The All Access Group, LLC

*Images from www.spoon-tamago.com

iWork for iCloud

Kelli Richards July 22, 2013

It seems like it was just a matter of time before Apple coordinated its iCloud technology, currently used for bringing media stored in iTunes (music, movies, tv shows, etc.) to all your Apple products, with its iWork platform- syncing Apple’s version of Microsoft Office to iPhones iPads and Macs alike.

Notice that, I referred to iWork as Apple’s version of Office, as it very may well be the only thing that Microsoft does better than its Silicon Valley competitor. It’s unusual to think about Apple as a little brother, or an inferior, for lack of a better word, in any product that is knighted with the bite-missing Apple symbol; and it appears that the head honchos of Apple will be putting an end to Microsoft’s control of work documents in the Fall- restoring order to the world.

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The implementation of iWork with iCloud will be game changing, swinging the proverbial momentum in favor of Apple. Whereas one would previously have to transfer files via email or convert documents into a Google Drive in order to access them away from the office, classroom or kitchen table, with iCloud files stored through Pages, Numbers, or Keynote can be accessed on all devices. So, no more searching through emails, or rummaging through Google Docs, just simply open the desired application and choose your document, accessing the file like a song you purchased on your iPad and played on your iPhone.

The most unnerving aspect of “iWork for iCloud,” for Microsoft at least, is that it will bring Pages, Numbers, and Keynote to PC’s as well. But can the tides turn that rapidly? Can this relationship in which Microsoft had its hands in Apples cookie jar all of sudden flip to where Microsoft is groping at thin air, while Apple enjoys all the spoils?

Until next time,

Kelli Richards, CEO of The All Access Group, LLC

Futuristic Mac Pro “Pretty Hot”

Kelli Richards July 15, 2013

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In a rare move at the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco on June 10th, Apple offered a sneak preview of what Philip Schiller, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing, calls “the most radical Mac yet.”

Referring to the newly redesigned Mac Pro, one of Apple’s most expensive products and one favored by creative types, the desktop has indeed received an impressive overhaul – its first real update in years.

The new Mac Pro is architected around a unified thermal core, allowing the desktop to “efficiently share its entire thermal capacity across all processors” – resulting in what Apple assures us to be “breakthrough performance” from a machine that is “optimized for performance inside and out.”

The new system features next-generation Intel Xeon E5 processors with up to 12 core configurations, delivering double the floating point performance, as well as the fastest ECC memory ever seen in a Mac with 60 GBps bandwidth. It boasts flash memory up to ten times faster than the previous model, and video performance up to two and a half times better than the last generation thanks to dual workstation GPUs.

“Can’t innovate anymore, my ass,” Schiller quipped after showing off a video of the new hardware, which prompted loud cheers from the WDC audience. NBC tech editor Wilson Rothman agrees, calling the new desktop, which is capable of driving three 4k resolution displays, “pretty hot.”

With six Thunderbolt 2 ports that can deliver up to 20Gbps of bandwidth to each external device, the next generation Mac Pro is “the most expandable Mac ever built,” according to Apple. “Each of the six Thunderbolt 2 ports supports up to six daisy-chained devices, giving you the ability to connect up to 36 high-performance peripherals. Thunderbolt 2 is completely backwards compatible with existing Thunderbolt peripherals, and allows you to transfer data between Macs faster and easier than ever.

As if these specs weren’t already impressive enough, all this processing power and expandability is packed into a dramatic new cylindrical design that is merely one-eighth the volume of the previous generation, standing only 9.9 inches tall – what Rothman calls “a gnome” next to its predecessor. The entire top of the new model is a handle, making it supremely portable, while ports are all located in the back.

“Best of all,” Schiller concludes, this futuristic machine “will be assembled here in the USA.”

Geared to professionals, the Mac Pro has already generated a lot of excitement, despite the fact that it won’t be available until “later this year.” Though Apple did not offer any pricing on the system, the current model starts at $2,499.

Until next time,

Kelli Richards, CEO of The All Access Group, LLC

Google: Pioneering Meaningful Controls to Prevent Child Pornography

Kelli Richards July 1, 2013

With so many ways to access, share and distribute information on the internet, is it possible to put meaningful controls in place to prevent child pornography? And if removing the offending pictures is achievable, what happens when they reappear in another location? For all of the benefits the digital age has brought us, the rarely discussed world of online child pornography is the one defect that has yet to be addressed.  Fortunately, Google is about to implement a change that will drastically reduce online child pornography.

The internet search giant is taking on child pornography in an effort to remove offending images from the web. Using hashing technology developed in 2008, Google will be able to identify duplicate images that still exist. According to Google spokesman Scott Rubin, a database of images will “…help all technology companies find these images, wherever they might be.” Because each image is unique the computer is able to identify multiple copies of the same digital file across the web. The best part is that this technology can accomplish the task without human interaction. 

Google is developing software that gives search engines the ability to share information about offending child pornography. Organizations such as the Internet Watch Foundation will flag offensive images. The database, which is expected to be operational within the next twelve months, will then clean all offending flagged images off the web. Almost instantaneously, all copies of a child porn image will be removed.

Google is creating a $2 million fund to allow independent software developers to create software to further eradicate child pornography. Pressure has been building for software industry leaders to combat this problem. Recently, England’s Prime Minister said he was “sickened” by the images available online. Up to now no industry standard existed to identify and eliminate images tagged as child pornography. Any images removed in one location could pop up somewhere else. By developing an industry standard, companies can find and remove images where ever they reside.

The resources Google put into this task is unprecedented. Chief Executive Officer Susie Hargreaves of IWF, an organization partly funded by Google, stated “This announcement is inspiring for those who are at the forefront of tackling child sexual abuse content.” While it is unrealistic to expect any one solution to be one hundred percent effective, this will go a long way in dramatically reducing the amount of child pornography found online. 

Until next time,

Kelli Richards, CEO of The All Access Group, LLC

Warp-Speed: A Promising Future for Spacecraft or a Trekkie’s Daydream?

Kelli Richards June 17, 2013

Hollywood films have championed the image of spacecrafts moving at unimaginable speeds, traveling seemingly faster than the speed of light. Whether referred to as “warp speed,” “super drive,” or “time travel,” movies from Star Wars to Star Trek to the satirical Space Balls, have all taken advantage of an apparently unrealistic form of transportation. But what if this incredibly efficient yet fictional type of travel was more practical than we ever imagined? What if “warp speed” was no longer in the realm of science fiction, but a mainstream, sensible mode of transportation?

Now before I go on, I feel obligated to inform you that the research, and necessary technology needed for such manipulation of space and time is in an extremely rudimentary form; that being said, recent breakthroughs in the logistics, calculations and theoretical plausibility of such transportation devices have reawakened the dreams of NASA scientists, and science-fiction geeks alike.  Who doesn’t get excited by the idea of traveling through space?

Physicist, Miguel Alcubierre, first formulated this notion of traveling near the speed of light in his 1994 paper, “The Warp Drive: Hyper-Fast Travel within General Relativity,” suggesting a manipulation of the time and space surrounding the vessel, rather than actual acceleration. Such manipulation of the space in front and behind the “space ship,” would focus on an expansion and contraction of space and time. (Think of space and time as one entity –the physical mass and structure of the universe surrounding the vessel.) Expanding the space behind the ship would cause a forward motion similar to the expanding and contracting of a rubber band. If you were to stretch out a rubber band, releasing one end you would send the band flying through the air. Such forward movement is caused by the elasticity of the rubber band, pulling it expands the rubber, which sends it forward- just as expanding the space behind a ship would, hypothetically, send it in a forward direction. This constant expansion and contraction, in front of and behind the ship, could allow for travel near the speed of light (as nothing itself can exceed the speed of light, according to Einstein.  However, space is able to contract at any speed, allowing for an equally impressive contraction.)

Now Alcubierre’s theory for travel at the speed of light hit a speed bump early in its life as it was determined that in order to manipulate time and space in such a drastic way, one would need massive amounts of energy- around the mass-energy of Jupiter or 317 planet Earths. The theory was deemed impractical and was since laid dormant.  However, recently, physicist Harold White has put this notion of faster than light warp drive back on the science fiction map. White, after making adjustments to the design of the craft and re-crunching numbers, has reduced the necessary mass needed for travel from a Jupiter sized planet to a common space craft, some 1,600 pounds (or the weight of Back to the Future’s 1981 DeLorean)- now that already seems way more plausible.

And while a functional warp drive space shift is still in the distant future, such advancements are extremely exciting and promising. Imagine traveling 4.3 light years in a matter of weeks, in order to visit other solar systems!

 

Until next time,

Kelli Richards, CEO of The All Access Group, LLC

Social TV & Second Screen: How Television Captivates Fans Using Social Media

Kelli Richards May 20, 2013

intonowAre you guilty of calling up Carson Daly in the early 2000’s and requesting a song on MTV’s show, Total Request Live? MTV is just one early example of viewers interacting with television. American Idol has also been notorious for enabling fans call in or text to vote for their favorite contestant for nearly a decade, but with the growing popularity of social media, we’re seeing an expansion of audience participation and networks are taking it a step further.

Not only are people requesting music and voting for their favorite talent, –online and through smartphones –but now audiences can interact directly with the stars and other fans, participate in contests and polls, and discuss show predictions, all while watching the show using their smartphones and tablets.  This is called Social TV or Second Screen.

Social television is almost essential nowadays. Fans expect to be able to tweet and post along with their favorite characters. Showtime, the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN), and the teen network ABC Family are just three of the networks that do this flawlessly.

So what are these networks doing right?

Showtime has been known for producing quality content for years, but the network has since stepped it up with the introduction of the Showtime Sync App for iPad. The app encourages viewers to follow along with the app while watching their favorite shows like Dexter, Homeland, and Shameless. As long as the audio is enabled on your device, the app syncs with your television, and allows users to take polls, make predictions, and get exclusive content specific to the episode playing. Users can even test their knowledge of their favorite shows and characters by answering trivia questions.

Incorporating an insiders view through the use of blogging is one of the ways Oprah’s Lifeclass has captured the attention thousands of people. The show airs on the Oprah Winfrey Network and showcases Oprah’s life lessons and advice. Oprah elicited popular bloggers and gave them behind-the-scenes access to the show, so they could share their experiences with the world. Oprah also effectively uses Skype, a video communication system, to directly incorporate viewers into the television program. Viewers can call in and ask questions, discuss their fears, or share success stories.

The family channel, ABC Family flawlessly uses twitter to interact with fans (250,000+). Actors from the popular shows such as Pretty Little Liars and The Lying Game live tweet every episode that airs. Hashtags are even displayed (strategically, I might add) throughout the episode during suspenseful or unexpected moments in the plot, so that fans can take to twitter with their reactions. Viewers have direct access to their favorite characters/actors and are encouraged to ask questions, make predictions, and participate in contests –and are rewarded with real responses. The network has often used twitter as their primary platform to give fans updates about new characters, plot twists, and new television programs.

The driving forces behind social TV and second screen are companies like yap.TV, Get Glue, intoNow, Zeebox, and Blip.TV. The common theme among them surrounds the platforms they offer –apps allowing you to connect to online communities while watching your favorite shows. Let’s take a look at a few of the best.

Yap.TV is an online TV guide with Facebook and Twitter integration and provides content feeds and group chat capabilities. IntoNow uses your television’s audio to recognize which show and episode you are watching and delivers preprogrammed content, similar to the Showtime Sync App. Blip.TV has taken a different approach from the others and showcases content from up-and-coming and well-know producers. The content is anything from reviews to updates to predictions, etc in the form of videos. The platform also has popular social media integration.

These networks have certainly gained a loyal following and continue to stretch the boundaries of social media. Meanwhile the tech companies behind second screen continue to evolve, adding new capabilities & ways to engage over time. Fans are developing an even deeper relationship with the celebrities and characters they love. In what ways do you use social media to interact with your favorite television programs? What does this mean for the future of social TV? What will viewers expect next?

Until next time,

Kelli Richards, CEO of The All Access Group, LLC

Tech Advances for a New Century – Fingerprints as Credit Cards

Kelli Richards May 6, 2013

FingerImagine going to your local Starbucks and instead of having to rummage through your wallet in the morning, simply pressing your finger to a scanner and walking out. Headache averted. Want to know more?  Read on for a 4-minute history and update on Scanning for Payment.

For years various companies have developed innovative, “easy” payment options for purchases at locations ranging from retail stores, to restaurants, to public transportation systems, to small-personal merchants. Businesses life Flock Tag, Square, and others, all feature an accessible, simple ability to allow the fast swipe of a card for payment or – bringing access to individuals and businesses who never accepted credit cards for payment before this due to the clunky technology and equipment.  Now it’s as easy as a 1” “square” and an app on your SmartPhone.  Yes, commerce has definitely come to the masses.

Square sends its user a card reader which plugs into the head phone dock on smart phones, allowing for users, usually small business owners, the ability to charge sales to cards. Square offers two payment options, either a rate fee per transaction or a flat $275 monthly charge.

Breeze Cards are re-loadable magnetized cards used in the Rail system in Atlanta, Georgia. The cards differ from Subway passes in cities like New York, in that they are reusable; by simply swiping your Breeze card at a kiosk you are able to add rides to the card, which is then swiped upon entering and leaving the “Marta”- subway.  This is a huge win for green ecology, all but eliminating the waste of use and use-up passes for other systems, like New York.

The Flock Tag is a step further in this brave new world.  It is a “customer loyalty program,” originated in Ann Arbor, Michigan, which aims to replace all promotion cards at local stores that keep count of purchases – basically it works like this:  Buy 10 smoothies and get your 11th free.  To make it even easier, it combines all stores into one loyalty card.  The card is simply swiped after you pay and works with its corresponding phone application to track purchases and promotions.  What do ALL of these various cards have in common? They all represent new “revolutionary” forms of payment, and promotion, aimed at simplifying the payment process for consumers worldwide.

While all these cards are revolutionary in their own rights, engineering students at The School of Mines and Technology in Rapid City, a small university in South Dakota, may be in the process of outdoing them all with their implementation of fingerprint scanners as payment.  

And while there are privacy issues with this sort of technology, what could be more convenient than paying for your purchases by swiping your finger?

To good to be true? It keeps getting better. If this type of finger payment elicits memories from movies in which someone steals your finger, and you can’t cancel a finger like you can a credit card, the engineers in Rapid City are implementing a live hemoglobin check in the scanner, so only “live” fingers can be used as payment.  Gross, maybe?  Effective and thought provoking?  You bet.

Until next time,

Kelli Richards, CEO of The All Access Group, LLC

 

Leap Motion, Welcome to the Future

Kelli Richards April 15, 2013

Developers at Leap Motion may be in the process of creating the most revolutionary tool to hit computers in decades: the ability to control your computer using just your hands and simple finger movements. The Leap Motion device is a flash drive size gadget that connects to either your Mac or PC and instantly allows you to manipulate the three-dimensional model on your screen.

Inspired by the idea that it takes 10 seconds to mold clay in real life but 30 minutes using a computer, Leap Motion wanted a way to make “molding virtual clay as easy as molding clay in the real world.” And it seems that with the use of infrared LED’s and several cameras’ the Leap Motion controller has succeeded in revolutionizing the way people will interact with their computers; creating a virtual space above the cigarette sized device, tracking your movements in real time, accurate to 1/100th of a millimeter. What makes this invention so impressive is that the use of this virtual 3D space, allows the user to physically manipulate content rather than simply communicate with it in the form of gestures. (Swiping your hand to the left to change pages, or pinch your fingers to zoom in.)

Wired has declared that Leap Motion is, “the best gesture-control system we’ve ever tested;” and The Verge called the device, “the next big thing in computing.” But how will Leap Motion change the way you use your computer? Imagine surfing the Internet without the use of a mouse- clicking, scrolling, zooming in and out, and rotating images using only your hands. Editing excel sheets could be done with out tediously selecting and dragging data with a mouse and keyboard shortcuts, but instead by simply grabbing and dragging items with yours hands. Envision artists creating, drawing, molding, onscreen images in the most natural way possible- again, with their hands. Imagine doctors manipulating 3-Dimensional images of the human body to help patients pinpoint ailments; or surgeons practicing procedures in controlled environments.

Leap Motion’s cofounder David Holz believes that touch screen tablets are so incredibly popular because of their intuitive nature (in comparison to mice and keyboards), but such technology is limited. Holz has stated, “the fact is that you can’t really do anything with a tablet, with tap and swipe, but it feels natural… We have that same natural experience but we have more power.” And at a price of $69.99, the Leap Motion controller is reasonably priced, setting the stage for it to enter the homes of masses, revolutionizing our entire computing experience soon rather than later.

While currently the Leap Motion controller may be a computer gamer’s dream toy, allowing users to fire guns in a similar motion used by Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino, Leap Motion has declared, “The possibilities are endless, really. Art. Healthcare. Engineering. Gaming. If you can imagine it, we’re pretty confident there’s a remarkable member of our developer community who’s already making it a reality… We know, it sounds too good to be true. But that’s what we specialize in around here.”

You can watch the Leap Motion device in action here: Introducing the Leap Motion

Until next time,

Kelli Richards, CEO of The All Access Group, LLC

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