Some are calling it “mini,” others are calling it “nano”; either way, I call it great. Over the recent months, rumours have been swirling over whether or not Apple will reveal a smaller version of the iPad this year. This “iPad Mini” is rumoured to be announced sometime in June at Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC), along side the new iPhone, and is expected to be sold sometime in August or October. Nothing official has come out of Cupertino about the new device, but its customary for Apple to leverage secrecy to create hype around their products.
(more…)
iPad Mini – Its Like The iPad, Only Smaller
DropBox Gets Dropkicked
When dropbox launched, not everyone understood the point of the service. A folder on your machine that sync’s everywhere. It almost sounded too simple to be useful. Steve Jobs himself once told the founders while trying to buy the service that Dropbox was a feature and not a product. Despite the setbacks and the negativity, the DropBox team managed to build a viable business out of their oh-so simple value proposition. Their reward for their hard work? Being copied shamelessly by the biggest players in the game.
Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is – Kick Start A Project
A friend tells you about a great idea for a product, and it sounds amazing. The product sounds so cool, you immediately respond, “If it existed, I’d buy it.” Problem is, this ambitious endeavour requires a handsome sum of money to get off the ground, so the product remains just an idea. If only it could get the funding needed to get started. I’m sure many of us have a friend with a great idea, needing some coin to turn their dreams into reality. As Dragon’s Den has clearly shown, getting funding isn’t exactly the easiest thing to achieve — or is it? Cue in KickStarter – a service that allows people like your friend to get a project funded through crowdsourcing.
(more…)
Windows Phone – The Honeymoon is Over
Microsoft and Nokia just launched the Lumia 900 on AT&T in the United States. The phone was meant to be a “halo device” for the two companies, allowing Nokia to finally compete in the U.S. smartphone market, and allowing Microsoft to catch up to the two smartphone incumbents: iOS and Android. So how are they doing?
Beautiful Handcuffs
Most reviews of the Lumia 900 agree that the hardware is beautiful. It is considered on par with the industrial design of the iPhone, which is a considerable compliment. The hardware also gets many accolades for having more personality than most of the black slab phones which are poor copies of the iPhone’s design.
Interest In Pinterest: Making Money From Pinning
Pinterest is easily one of the fastest growing social media sites on the web. Founders Ben Silbermann, Evan Sharp, and Paul Sciarra kicked off this social networking site in 2010 in beta. It allows users collect photos, link to products, create pinboards, and follow the pinboards of others. Currently host to about 17.8 million unique users, the invite-only Pinterest has definitely peaked many people’s interests. Like most technology start-ups, sooner or later, Pinterest will have to figure out how to monetize their user base; in other words, make money. Pinterest is already looking into ways to turn a profit, so let’s look into some ways Pinterest can turn pinning into winning.
(more…)
Driving In The Fast Lane: Staying On Top of Web Trends
In the world of technology, life moves fast. Everyday new trends and technologies emerge. Many stay static while the world passes them by. Others chase the trends trying to keep themselves on the cutting edge. Few set those trends and develop the technologies that drive our world into the future.
Is Anybody Home?
While staying static is easy, it’s only a matter of time before you find yourself and your website heading straight to the Google graveyard. Websites live in an evolving space. Embrace the change that is happening around you. Use it as motivation to offer new experiences, or at the very least new content to your audience. A blog is one of many simple tools to drive more content through your site. Post a new article every week or every other week. Web surfers love new content. Feed into that need and you’ll be breathing new life into that dusty old website of yours.
(more…)
R.I.M. R.I.P.
It looks like Waterloo’s finest, Research in Motion is heading towards the end of the road. After a Bloodbath of a quarter, with nosediving revenues, profits, margins, and handset prices, it looks like just a matter of time before RIM ceases to exist as an independent company. How did this all happen? How did R.I.M. go from a world leader in smartphones, to an also-ran in just a matter of years? Let’s take a look.
Be Careful what you Get Good At
Gabrielle Hamilton once said,
“Be careful what you get good at doin’ ’cause you’ll be doing it for the rest of your life”
RIM has always been a company built on exceptional messaging and wireless data efficiency. As the smartphone landscape evolved and those strengths became less important compared to platform strength and app selection, RIM didn’t adapt. Instead they doubled down on their strengths and tried to ride out the storm. It’s becoming clear that that was the wrong strategy.
Personalizing the Mobile Travel Experience
Travel has always been an industry (much like the banking industry) that has been slow to evolve. We may have moved much of the travel experience online, where you can book your flight and hotel, get information, and more, but the experience has pretty much stayed conventional. You still have to check you and your baggage in, go through security, get on your flight, check-into your hotel, etc. The travel experience is not very personalized. It feels like a routine instead of a great experience. Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) and JetBlue are two companies who are making strides in mobile in order to bring new heights to that experience.
(more…)
“Little Data” – Personal Analytics Goes Mainstream
Last week we talked about the Big Data Revolution and this week I want to take a look at a related, but slightly different revolution: Personal Analytics. Personal analytics are going mainstream thanks to a number of new integrated devices that allow for always-on, background tracking of everyday activities that allow for lots of new insights on the trends that make up a life.
The Pioneers
Nicholas Felton was one of the first people to create data-rich summaries of his everyday activities for public consumption. His Annual summaries are in many ways the pinnacle of the personal analytics movement. Him and Stephen Wolfram are really paragons of what is possible once this movement takes off. (more…)
Dataheads: Making Sense of Big Data
We live in a world where information is obtainable and accessible. In the Information Age, big data is the name of the game and right now information is prevalent, however it is also scattered and under-utilized. No, I’m not crazy, there is so much more we could be doing with the data we’ve collected. You’ve seen what they’ve done with data already and it’s pretty amazing. Sites can get a sense of what you are interested in and advertise relevant offers. Facebook has a good idea of who your closest friends are and can suggest that you “friend” one another. Well, truth of the matter is, you haven’t seen anything yet. For the most part, data is siloed in its respective properties. Once you start layering data from different sources, the story starts to change. The question is, how can we use intelligence to make sense out of massive amounts of data? Here are just two companies who are set to take on this challenge.