The Jury's Out

And under the hood



So Google has announced its latest intitiative and potential money earner. The question is, do we need another set of boxes on the TV stand?  I suspect not.

The quicker these technologies can be integrated into monitors at the point of manufacture the better.

What I do enjoy about Google is their constant quest for digital innovation, even though they are starting to sound like Steve Jobs in their presentation style and the hype is getting a little wearing.

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Future Shop?

It may be satire but this clip from The Onion is not as far fetched as it sounds. 

The combination of voice recognition software and product advertising would be a winning one if they could only just iron out the bugs.

An Ad- Whisper over ride button for a starter!

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Better Than A Flushing Toilet?

Image via Wikipedia

According to a survey just released by Tesco mobile most Brits rate the iPhone as a more important invention the flushing toilet and just behind the discovery of penicillin.

Even more surprising is the revelation that they rank it ahead of the car and the camera.

It is pleasing to note that the 4,000 respondents did rank the invention of the internet higher, at number four.

Without the internet the iPhone would be as useful as a food processor before the invention of electricity.

I will be upfront and reveal that I do not own an iPhone; which is an almost sacrilegious confession in gadget - happy Singapore.  This excludes me from lunch time discussions on the most exciting App. of the day. Not that I find this overly worrying as to be truthful only a few of these are used on a regular basis.

3G Phones (and now 4G) are tangible evidence of the convergence of technology.  The iPhone is one of Apple's most profitable inventions with more than 42 million units sold in the first launch in 1997.

There have been times when I have felt like throwing my mobile into a flushing toilet, especially when the faulty battery cover prompts an automatic reboot.

The survey also reveals that spectacles rank in the top twenty of all time inventions.  This too is hardly surprising as staring at a small hand held screen all day will guarantee the need for this body adornment.  My prediction is that the increased use of one will have a similar ranking impact on the other.


Here then is the full list of the Top 20 Greatest Inventions:

1. Wheel
2. Aeroplane
3. Light bulb
4. Internet
5. PCs
6. Telephone
7. Penicillin
8. iPhone
9. Flushing toilet
10. Combustion engine
11. Contraceptive pill
12. Washing machine
13. Central heating
14. Fridge
15. Pain killers
16. Steam engine
17. Freezer
18. Camera
19. Cars
20. Spectacles

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Too Good To Be True

Image via Wikipedia

The old adage that if something looks too good to be true, it probably is.

I have been amused by the plethora of get-rich-quick schemes that have surrounded social media platforms.

For example, something called Tweetomatic Profiteer targets "ex corporate slaves" and trumpets earnings of "$13,170.49 Month-After-Month"

Mind you, such promises don't come cheap and there is an inviation to spend a mere "one-off price of $77"

This is the sort pf promise one expects on a  shopping channel and I for one am not going to fall for it.

The other irritating thing about this site is the javascript which does not allow you to clickback to previous sites and keeps asking you why you are leaving.  I would have thought the answer was fairly obvious.

These affiliate programmes promise the earth but rarely if ever deliver. If I had believed eveything that Google Adsense promised I would own half of Dubai (pictured) by now.

Of more practical use are sites that share creative ideas that you, the publisher or site owner, can capitalise upon. This blog is set up to ferret out these opportunities.

One such article is by Juliana Crispo who gives some practical suggestions on how to leverage social media through the use of the tried and trusted Google maps.

She proposes:

1. Providing incentives by sharing coupons using Google Places (see video below)
2. Sharing a compelling route for people to try
3. Sharing your Place with other routes
4. Soliciting patron feedback
5. Sharing insights with your neighbours and marketers

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