Archive for January, 2007

Borderlands

photo essay and introduction at ^newwest

this just in

other Japanese released phones at ^gearfuse

"transdeletion pyramid"

at ^{futilitycloset}

Digital Signage

Google has revolutionized web advertising with its AdSense system, which displays adverts for products related to the page being viewed. Now it wants to do the same for billboard ads.

In a patent the company has filed, it argues that however glitzy the ads that run on electronic billboards in shopping malls and out on the street, they are all but useless if local stores have not got the advertised products in stock. Google has come up with a system that only advertises products available nearby.

Stores buying advertising time on local electronic billboards are able to connect their stock-control computers to the network. The ads are displayed in rotation, but only until the stock-control computer reports the product as sold out. At that point, the ad is omitted from the cycle until the product is restocked.

info at ^{newscientisttech}

and from Cisco at ^newteevee

Ciscoa€™s first offering in the space isna€™t for Mom and Pop businesses, unless youa€™ve got about $150,000 for a 50-display starter kit. Incorporated into such a bundle would be previously announced products³ like media management and video portal software and a video encoder.

New to the mix is something Cisco calls the Digital Media Player, a small (7.5 x 5 x 1.5 inches) box that would act as the lightweight client (network computer, anyone?) for a nearby display. At $1,490 per player, one might wonder why you wouldna€™t just use a cheap PC instead, but Cisco has answers for questions like that along the lines of security, manageability, low power consumption and upgradable firmware.

a€oeOff-the-shelf PCs might not be powerful enough to do all the video and graphics,a€A Wyatt says. a€oeIt turns out the players are a little more cost-effective.a€A (Off-the-shelf PCs dona€™t carry the Cisco brand name, hence that explanation!) Should you care deeply about such matters, Cisco will surely post soon its 24-slide PowerPoint presentation about Digital Signage, with all sorts of typically helpful network diagrams, product roadmaps, analyst projections and customer success stories. Therea€™s even a partnership with NEC thrown in, since like batteries with toys, displays are not included in Ciscoa€™s list price.

postmodernism -2.1

Morning Edition, January 16, 2007 AA A company selling Wrigley’s gum wanted music for a commercial in Russia. It went to an English company, and bought a catchy tune. The commercials aired in Moscow, until the Chinese embassy called to ask why the Chinese national anthem was used to sell gum. The company calls it a "misunderstanding."

listen at ^npr

Welcome to Cyberspace

flickr gallery at ^flickr

Cow-tipping

a€oeThe static physics of the issue say . . . two people might be able to tip a cow,a€A she said. a€oeBut the cow would have to be tipped quickly a€" the cowa€™s centre of mass would have to be pushed over its hoof before the cow could react.a€A

at ^timesonline

Gems are not for sale, but diamonds are

A man who tried to steal a A£1,750 engagement ring from a shop by swallowing it was caught after police ran a metal detector over his stomach, a court heard.

Simon Hooper, 28, initially denied the offence, but police X-rayed him and saw the diamond ring inside his body.

Police had to seek an extension of his custody time limit and waited three days outside his cell until the ring passed and they were able to recover it.

article at ^telegraph

Jamendo

Jamendo shares 50% of its advertising revenue with the artists that signed up to the program.

The sharing formula is very simple : we count the number of page views per artist (we count the album pages, the lyrics pages and the review pages), then we divide it by the number of page views of the artists registered to this program. This way each artist knows the percentage of the page views he accounts for. He earn this percentage of the 50% that jamendo shares.

In a nutshell, jamendo is:

• A nonexclusive platform: you remain the owner of your music, and you can still distribute it by any other means at your disposal. jamendo has a strong commitment of complementarity with traditional practices like CD sales.
  
• A zero-cost platform: there is no fee for artists using our service. We provide hosting for free. P2P distribution keeps our costs at a very low level. We just include some non-intrusive advertising on the website and in streamed music to make our platform sustainable.
  
• A free platform: you can stop the distribution of your music on jamendo at any time. Publishing music on jamendo does not forbid you to sign a future exclusive contract with a records company.

Free? No obligations? Publish your music on jamendo, now!!

at ^jamendo