Digital Times » Digital Innovation

Call phones from Gmail – but not in Ireland ‘quite yet’

Stephen — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 10:11:38 +0000

This is handy. Google in the US has launched its latest addition to the Google Voice feature, which allows users to make calls to phones via Gmail. Calls to the US and Canada will be free (until the end of the year) while calls to other countries will cost just $0.02 (two cent) a minute. Learn more at ‪http://gmail.com/call‬. The service isn’t available in Ireland yet. Google says: “If you’re not a U.S. based user—or if you’re using Google Apps for your school or business—then you won’t see it quite yet. We’re working on making this available more broadly—so stay tuned.”

Get in the game – new experiential marketing tool from Aviva

Edward — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 09:39:43 +0000

Aviva announced their new 3D point of view marketing experience today. The technology was built and designed by v-Stream, a Dublin based digital agency. Basically you get to “experience” what a player feels in the build up to and during the warm up of a game in the Aviva Stadium. Following the rituals from changing room to running out onto the pitch and having a 3D interaction with a simulated Avivia stadium. It does sound pretty cool. A little gimmicky perhaps, but then all these type of initiatives are.

Importantly, it is a world first in terms of technical innovation in software to personalise stereoscopic 3D video. A couple of quotes from the main heads are below:

Niall O’Driscoll, creative director at vStream – ”This is a big step forward in experiential marketing in Ireland, with the 3D element playing a major part. 3D is very much the next big thing, and is a first for Ireland from a visual perspective. We spent a number of months researching the technology in the UK in order to bring these capabilities into the country, and we aim to produce a lot more content of this kind. We see the world in three dimensions, so in many ways the shift from 2D to 3D is as significant as the move from black and white to color.”

Andrew Jenkinson, technical director of vStream, notes that the technology that is used to make the experience personal to each viewer is a worlds first. “Personalised 2D video has been around for a few years, but creating 3D personalised video has never been done before, and it took many months of R&D to develop the software to create a truly immersive experience for the client. We already have interest from a number of international clients.”

The 3D stadium experience will go on tour around the country in the next while and should pop up at festivals and major events such as the Electric Picnic. It will also be housed in Aviva Stadium.

The world’s first personal, social magazine

Stephen — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 14:27:38 +0000

This is a good idea. The Flipboard claims to be the world’s first ‘personalised social magazine’. It has been launched as an app for the iPad and essentially it offers users a packaged collection of all the news, features, videos and images circulating within their social networks.
It was developed by a former senior iPhone engineer called Mike McCue. The idea behind the app is to make it much easier for users to discover, view and share social media content. Users can also create sections around topics they are interested in. McCue calls it the world’s first ’social magazine’.

Touchable holograms – wow!

Digital Times — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 09:46:07 +0000

There’s not much you can say about this new technology except “Wow”! Touchable holograms? Technology that adds the sensation of touch to a hologram. The commercial possibilities for this technology are endless but the augmented reality and computer gaming industries immediately spring to mind.

Billboards that recognise sex and age

Stephen — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 14:08:28 +0000

How many times has the Tom Cruise film Minority Report been referenced by writers delving into the future of outdoor advertising? Well, one of the film’s most cited scenes has finally come to life – sort of. A Japanese advertising project has fitted billboards with cameras that can read the gender and age profile of individual people thus allowing them to tailor their commercial messages.
The ‘Digital Signage Promotion Project’ is currently in test phase. It is a one year pilot project involving 27 advertising display units in subway stations around Tokyo. The project is being funded by a consortium of 11 railway companies.
Each display is capable of recognising an individual’s sex and approximate age once that person passes the display or glances at the billboard. Unlike the ‘Minority Report’ hypothesis, these billboards are not yet capable of identifying individuals. However, face recognition technology tied in with social networks could soon change this.
The owners of the high tech digital signs have promised Japanese commuters that they will not save any of the recorded images and only analyse the collated data surrounding groups of people at general times of the working day. How long this promise will stand once real advertisers become interested in the technology remains to be seen. Our guess is approximately one millisecond.

Virgin plans to launch iPad magazine

Stephen — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 11:49:25 +0000

Richard Branson’s Virgin media is planning to launch a new magazine that will only be available on iPads, iPhones and Android phones and tablets. The magazine, Maverick, will focus on entrepreneurial projects and highlight new creative, business, travel and technology ideas, targeting an ABC1 international audience. It sounds like Wired magazine meets Entrepreneur Magazine and Branson’s 28-year-old daughter Holly will work as the magazine’s ambassador trying to sign up a select group of premium advertisers to work as ‘brand partners’ on the project.
Virgin hopes that Maverick will be its first step into building a successful stable of digital magazines. By launching an app-only title, the company believes it is free to exploit the creative potential of the medium without having the added costs associated with running a print title. Maverick is a 50-50 joint venture with publisher Seven Squared. More than eight million people will own iPads by the end of this year and Virgin is banking on tablet computers leading the revolution in digital magazine sales and advertising.

Thank you for the music – Google and Microsoft see the future

Stephen — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 13:42:28 +0000

The death of the big music label is well documented. Hard copy music sales have plummeted and recording artists today make most of their money from live performances. Now the search giants are getting in on the music scene – in a big way. Microsoft says 10% of all search queries are entertainment related with 70% of these searches looking for lyrics to songs. With this in mind it launched an entertainment vertical to Bing which now serves up full-track streaming of songs from Zune and details on upcoming tours and links to where the music can be bought.
Google is listening to the music too and this year will launch a music download service that’s tied to its search engine. Apple currently commands 70% of digital music download sales in the United States. Google recently bought Simplify Media, a technology that can be used to synch and stream music bought online to any Android phone containing the technology.
What Google, Microsoft and Apple already know is that the future of music publishing lies in combining a vast cloud-based music library with online search and mobile-synching and then having the ability to sell advertising, concert tickets and merchandise around it. The video above shows what Google announced eight months ago. On the back of this, its much anticipated music download service is expected to be very good.

Apps to lead next revolution in news?

Stephen — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 09:59:35 +0000

As Irish and international publishers struggle to survive in the face of falling ad revenues and copy sales, the boss of the world’s largest ‘publisher’ believes print media will move to mobile digital devices faster than most publishers anticipate.
Speaking at the Activate 2010 summit, organised by the Gaurdain last week, Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google said the internet is the most disruptive technology in history and replaces scarcity with abundance, “so that any business built on scarcity is completely upturned”.
Bad news for traditional publisher in the face of companies providing real time search information (Twitter being the best so far).
Schmidt says three fundamental trends will change the way people access the information they want: mobile web connectivity, cloud computing and networking (social and business).
“Mobile is the hottest area of computer technology,” enthused Schmidt, saying all the smart developers are now creating mobile apps rather than writing code for desktop operating systems.
Schmidt believes apps will lead the next stage of the ‘news’ and publishing evolution.
“What does the news reading experience look like years from now? I think it’s delivered to a digital device, which has text, obviously, but also colour, and video, and the ability to dig very deeply into what you are supplied with … the most important thing is that it will be more personalised,” he said.
Something like what Wired magazine’s app is doing (above)?

WebActivate aims to build hundreds of websites for Irish SMEs

Stephen — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 11:39:37 +0000

“Many Irish businesses are losing customers every day because they have not embraced digital technologies,” said Dr. Stephen Brennan, director of marketing and strategy of the Digital Hub at the launch of a new project aimed at getting Irish businesses online.
Dr. Brennan said there are at least 30,000 businesses in Ireland that need to get online in order to compete effectively in the 21st Century marketplace.
“It’s shocking to think that thousands of small businesses still don’t have a web presence,” said Dr. Brennan. “Recent research shows that when Irish consumers go online to look for a product or service, 70% of them fail to find what they’re looking for in Ireland. This compares to less that 10% in the UK. Irish people spent over €2.1 billion online in 2009, but most of this went outside the country. Our indigenous small businesses have yet to wake up to the growing importance of being online.
Paul Dunne, director of the Digital Skills Academy, said 200 people who are currently unemployed will be given training and work placements in the initial phase of the project. “We are inviting people who are currently unemployed to apply to take part in an 18-week training programme in digital skills,” said Dunne. “They spend six weeks receiving ‘in-centre’ training and the remaining 12 weeks on structured work placements, building websites for small businesses involved in the project and helping them to establish an online presence.”
The training programme will begin in August. To find out more about the project, or to apply to get involved, go to: www.webactivate.ie.
The WebActivate project – an initiative of the Digital Skills Academy – is supported by The Digital Hub, as well as Chambers of Commerce and Further Education institutions throughout Ireland.
The project is being run as part of the Labour Market Activation Fund 2010, funded by the Department of Education and Skills and the European Social Fund.

Hulu launches premium service for iPads and iPhones

Stephen — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 14:41:42 +0000

We don’t get access to Hulu.com in Ireland, more’s the pity. However, the world’s largest ad-funded TV show site has begun what is the next phase in the evolution of television. Some have called it the next great experiment of the online TV age. Hulu.com calls it Hulu Plus. The big question is this – will many consumers pay a monthly fee of $9.99 for endless hours of entertainment and vast libraries of older TV shows?
NBC Universal, News Corp. and Walt Disney jointly own Hulu, and will continue to offer ‘free’ content on Hulu.com (supported by ad dollars of course). Hulu Plus will cost $9.99 a month and still come with ads.
Hulu Plus offers all the existing free content on Hulu.com plus multiple seasons of older shows no longer on the air, as well as all the episodes from current seasons of many shows from NBC Universal, News Corp. and Walt Disney, like Modern Family and 30 Rock.
All the Hulu Plus content will be also made available to users of iPads and iPhones. Smart move. The iPad is a device made to watch TV on one’s own.
The percentage of American adult web users who watch full-length television shows online is expected to grow to 72 million in 2011, up from 50 million in 2009, according to eMarketer.