Journal: Microsoft, Kinect, & Hackers

Collaboration Zones, Communities of Practice, Ethics, IO Technologies, Policies, Real Time, Threats, Topics (All Other)

Innovators like Oliver Kreylos were eager for the Xbox Kinect, but not to play games. He uses it to capture live 3-D images.

With Kinect Controller, Hackers Take Liberties

Mr. Kreylos, who specializes in virtual reality and 3-D graphics, had just learned that he could download some software and use the device with his computer instead. He was soon using it to create “holographic” video images that can be rotated on a computer screen. A video he posted on YouTube last week caused jaws to drop and has been watched 1.3 million times.

Philipp Robbel combined an iRobot device and the new Microsoft controller that can recognize gestures. He calls it the KinectBot.

Mr. Kreylos is part of a crowd of programmers, roboticists and tinkerers who are getting the Kinect to do things it was not really meant to do. The attraction of the device is that it is outfitted with cameras, sensors and software that let it detect movement, depth, and the shape and position of the human body.

Mehmet S. Akten uses the system to draw in 3-D.

Phi Beta Iota: Microsoft took a few days to “get it” but their “final answer” is exactly right: “Anytime there is engagement and excitement around our technology, we see that as a good thing,” said Craig Davidson, senior director for Xbox Live at Microsoft. “It’s naïve to think that any new technology that comes out won’t have a group that tinkers with it.”  Kudos as well to the New York Times for a lovely piece of useful inspiring reporting.

Reference: Social Media for Business 101

About the Idea, Articles & Chapters, Collaboration Zones, IO Mapping, IO Multinational, IO Sense-Making, IO Technologies, Mobile, Policies, Real Time, Threats, Topics (All Other)

Eric Lefkofsky

The New York Times November 17, 2010

A Business Creator Sees Big Returns From Social Media

By DARREN DAHL

Asked to name the world’s wealthiest entrepreneurs, few people would think of Eric Lefkofsky, who is 40 and keeps a deliberately low profile in his hometown of Chicago. But Mr. Lefkofsky has an impressive entrepreneurial track record, one that recently led Forbes to estimate  his wealth at $750 million.

The first business Mr. Lefkofsky started, StarBelly, made tools for building Web sites; he sold it in 2000 for $240 million. He then started two companies that have since gone public —  InnerWorkings, which provides printing capabilities over the Web, and Echo Global Logistics, a transportation and logistics outsourcing business he founded with a law school friend, Brad Keywell. He also founded MediaBank, which helps companies buy advertising. In each case, Mr. Lefkofsky used the power of technology and the Internet to update an industry.

And then came Groupon, the social-coupon Web site that he bankrolled and started in 2008 with Andrew Mason  —  a venture that has been called the fastest-growing company ever. Groupon offers its followers a deal-of-the-day coupon, sponsored by a local business, that the followers are encouraged to share with their social networks. The local business gets customers, and Groupon takes a share of the coupon proceeds  —  a business model that has led to talk that Groupon, still privately owned, could be worth as much as $3 billion. More recently, Mr. Lefkofsky and Mr. Keywell started an investment fund with $100 million of their earnings. It’s called Lightbank, and it invests only in early-stage technology companies that are built around social media. The following is a condensed version of a recent conversation with Mr. Lefkofsky.

Read full article at The New York Times

Continue reading “Reference: Social Media for Business 101”

Journal: The Future of the Internet

03 Economy, Analysis, Audio, Augmented Reality, Collective Intelligence, Collective Intelligence, Commercial Intelligence, Computer/online security, info-graphics/data-visualization, InfoOps (IO), IO Technologies, Journalism/Free-Press/Censorship, Maps, Methods & Process, Mobile, Open Government, Real Time, Standards, Strategy, Technologies, Tools
Jon Lebkowsky Home

Tim Wu and the future of the Internet

Tim Wu explains the rise and fall of information monopolies in a conversation with New York Times blogger Nick Bilton. Author of The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires (Borzoi Books), Wu is known for the concept of “net neutrality.” He’s been thinking about this stuff for several years, and has as much clarity as anyone (which is still not much) about the future of the Internet.

I think the natural tendency would be for the system to move toward a monopoly control, but everything that’s natural isn’t necessarily inevitable. For years everyone thought that every republic would eventually turn into a dictatorship. So I think if people want to, we can maintain a greater openness, but it’s unclear if Americans really want that…. The question is whether there is something about the Internet that is fundamentally different, or about these times that is intrinsically more dynamic, that we don’t repeat the past. I know the Internet was designed to resist integration, designed to resist centralized control, and that design defeated firms like AOL and Time Warner. But firms today, like Apple, make it unclear if the Internet is something lasting or just another cycle.

Journal: Microsoft & Nokia in the Mobile Space

InfoOps (IO), IO Multinational, IO Sense-Making, IO Technologies, Methods & Process, Mobile, Strategy, Technologies, Tools
November 09, 2010

Microsoft and Nokia: A tale of two elephants

Nokia reabsorbs Symbian, and Microsoft ships Windows Phone 7 — to big yawns. How they became mobile's elephants in the room

By Galen Gruman | InfoWorld

When Microsoft released Windows Phone 7 in the United States yesterday, very few people lined up at the AT&T and T-Mobile stores to get the HTC and Samsung debut models — despite all the extensive Windows Phone 7 advertising by Microsoft to goose up demand. (Maybe they read the unenthusiasic reviews from publications that got early versions.)

When Nokia announced yesterday that it was reabsorbing the Symbian operating system it had spun out as an open source effort 18 months ago, I thought, “Why bother? I thought MeeGo was your mobile OS future anyhow?” — especially given the lack of attention to the last major release of Symbian (Symbian 3) in September.

Read rest of review…

Phi Beta Iota: Both Microsoft and Nokia are at a fork in the road.  The above review, vastly more critical than the fluff found elsewhere, is bleeding edge truth.  Absent new management and a compelling vision–ideally one that united both companies to favor a very simple low cost cellular “key” combined with a vast global grid meshing humans with call centers and back office cloud processing, both companies appear destined for further decline.

See Also:

Graphic: One Vision for the Future of Microsoft

Reference: Collaborative Technologies

Augmented Reality, Collaboration Zones, Communities of Practice, IO Technologies, Tools
Master Source

Knowledge Sharing Tools or Technologies are distinct from Knowledge Sharing METHODS, and both are further separated from Knowledge Analytics and Knowledge Management which is but Quadrant I of the Four Quadrants.   The Whole Enchilada does not exist and is unlikely to exist given the present courses of IBM, Microsoft, and Oracle.

Below we offer a small selection of the tools that are very ably represented in proper context at the Master Source.  The entire list, while not complete, is highly recommended.

See Also:

Graphic: Information Operations (IO) Cube

Graphic: OSINT and Full-Spectrum HUMINT (Updated)

Graphic: The New Craft of Intelligence

Journal: What to do with all this data?

Reference: Five Golden Rules for Data-Based Decisions

Reference: M4IS2 OSINT UN NATO Search List Alpha

Reference: The Next Revolution in Productivity

Review: Knowledge As Design

Review: The Design of Business–Why Design Thinking is the Next Competitive Advantage