Posted by Angela | 0 Comments
No Credit Cards? No Problem! Use Your iPhone!
Since the iPhone may be making a move to the Verizon community, it has also adopted some tremendously advanced applications.
Even Starbucks has recently entered the app field with a myStarbucks app and a card mobile app. The myStarbucks application is helpful in finding any local Starbucks, not to mention a list of amenities in each store, and a feature allowing you to list you or a friend’s favorite coffee so it is not forgotten. There is also a menu of all the items they sell and a guide to creating your own concoction. Even calorie counting is available.
However, the card mobile app is definitely the more impressive of the two. This application allows a buyer to buy a coffee or special drink by using his or her phone instead of actual, plastic credit card. The face of the iPhone will display a barcode when it comes time to pay for the drink and will act as a gift card with a prepaid amount that the purchase is subtracted from.
This app is a doorway to many more possibilities in the mobile purchasing field. Think about it… Not having a wallet anymore, only carrying your cell phone for monetary purposes. Even thought this app is a huge step towards a credit card-less future, it is still in the baby phase. Currently, the application is only being used in select Starbucks along the West coast of the US to be “tested.” Starbucks is not saying whether or not they will be using the app in other stores or when they will take it out of this testing phase.
Starbucks junkies around the country will be hopping on the iPhone bandwagon and downloading the app before they finish reading this article. Lucky for them, the app doesn’t inform its user when they have had too much coffee.
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Posted by Angela | 0 Comments
Fighting Terrorism Online
When the founder of Pay-Pal and an aspiring social philosopher put their heads together back in 2004, a spy busting software called Palantir was born.
Palantir, whose name comes from the Lord of the Rings series, prides itself on its advanced technology that uses the Internet to sort through multiple sources of information to make connections that can link to terrorist threats. Alexander Karp and Peter Thiel (founder of Pay-Pal) were at first dismissed by their competitors for being a startup that wouldn’t get the attention of government sectors who favor long established companies.
Their lack of experience isn’t the only thing that sets Palantir apart from the rest. Palatir’s office atmosphere is definitely a dream to any working class American. The office is said to have an office-wide gaming system that allows employees to play Halo against each other at any given time. Also, the kitchen keeps any specifically requested items in-stock for its employees. They even hosted their own battle of the bands competition! … Sounds like Keystone, except way better.
The group that makes up Palantir is seen as a bunch of flighty, bean-bag-loving youngsters playing dress up in real business clothes. However, despite these opinions, a few agencies have adopted the technology, including the Pentagon and West Point. The company is also expanding at a remarkable rate. Palantir now has an office in Washington, DC, which has grown from having eight projects to having over fifty projects in the past two years.
It seems like those computer nerds really are good for something…
Read MorePosted by Jeremy Scott | 0 Comments
They Tried To Make Me Go To Internet Rehab, But I ...
Addicted to the Internet?
There’s an app rehab for that.
An Internet rehabilitation center has opened in Seattle, claiming to be the first residential (or “in-patient”) facility in the US.
Pardon me for a moment while I scoff: are we really treating Internet addiction as a real thing? What’s next… Playstation Rehab? iPhone Rehab? Lottery Addiction Treatment?
Sheesh. Anyway, from the article:
The center, called ReSTART, is somewhat ironically located near Redmond, headquarters of Microsoft and a world center of the computer industry. It opened in July and for $14,000 offers a 45-day program intended to help people wean themselves from pathological computer use, which can include obsessive use of video games, texting, Facebook, eBay, Twitter and any other time-killers brought courtesy of technology.
I have this theory that people can get addicted to anything, particularly when their personality and DNA makes them more susceptible to such strong attachments. I base my theory on a little thing called “common sense.” Just because someone wastes 18 hours a day doing some particular thing… doesn’t mean that the activity itself is addictive.
In fact, the article quotes another doctor–not affiliated with the treatment center–a Dr. Ronald Pies, Professor of Psychiatry at SUNY Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, N.Y, who says:
“From what we know, many so-called `Internet addicts’ are folks who have severe depression, anxiety disorders, or social phobic symptoms that make it hard for them to live a full, balanced life and deal face-to-face with other people.”
That’s a fancy way of saying that Internet addicts are often troubled people with addiction tendencies long before they begin to obsess about the Internet.
Oh, and I feel compelled to point out that, while the ReSTART facility can treat up to six in-house patients at once, they currently only have one, a young man named Ben Alexander, who flunked out of college by playing too much World of Warcraft. It’s okay, though… because ReSTART charges $14,000 for their 45-day program, so even running as low as 1/6 capacity… they’re still making a killing. No one’s getting laid off there anytime soon. You’ve gotta feel for Alexander’s parents, though. First they fork out Lord knows how much money to send their kid to the University of Iowa, now another $14,000 to cure him of his desire to play video games.
Anyway… if you know of anyone who spends too much time online–and who among us doesn’t know such a person–and that person has a spare 14 Grand lying around… you might recommend ReSTART. I hear they have at least five open beds at the moment.
Posted by Jeremy Scott | 0 Comments
Videos Inside Google Ads
This is a huge development. Huge.
Google is quietly testing some videos inside their Sponsored Listings (commonly referred to as Google Ads). The search advertising system, called Adwords, has long been text-only. However, in a bid to get Hollywood movie studios on board with search ads, Google has created a way for videos to be added.
Try this… Google the word “extract” (or just click here). You should see a Sponsored Listing with the title “Extract Movie Trailer.” It might look like the screenshot below:
Click the “+” below the text portion of the ad, and you’ll see a video player expand and start playing the trailer automatically. Sweet!!
Video is far more engaging to users than text, that’s been fairly well proven, and it can greatly increase your chances of converting that user into a customer.
Currently the program is an invite-only affair, meaning you can’t have videos in your own ads just yet. But there’s no doubt whatsoever that this will eventually roll out to everyone. And I promise you that it’s the wave of the future in search engine advertising. There will soon come a day when nearly every Adwords ad contains a video, and those that do not will be entirely ineffective.
This is a game-changer, and the Adwords world may never be the same.
Read MorePosted by Angela | 0 Comments
Gmail’s Sudden Power Outage
On Tuesday afternoon, around 2:30 P.M. Central Time, the unthinkable happened. Gmail was inaccessible for a whopping 100 minutes! One of the longest 100 minutes I’ve known.
The official Gmail Blog posted a lengthy apology and explanation for the outage just hours after the problem was addressed and fixed. The source of the problem started with a routine upgrade of a section of Gmail servers. When this kind of routine update takes place, the traffic to the servers are redirected to other similar servers. However, when Tuesday’s updates were taking place, the redirecting component, called request routers, were overloaded and eventually shut down. Then, in turn, the next request routers were also overloaded and shut down.
Google’s monitoring system caught the traffic jam in seconds but took them a little longer to find a solution. The third largest email service in the world is back up and running, with more assurance that a similar outage will not happen again.
During the little-over-an-hour time frame that Gmail was down, Twitter was hit hard with tweets about the incident. In just minutes, over 20,000 tweets came up in a search for “Gmail.” The panic of Gmail users hit Twitter hard and probably could have shut down Twitter like the incident back in early August where the site was hit by an outside source until an outage occurred. Thank goodness Gmail is more prepared than Twitter for these kinds of situations!
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