What is an Emerging Technology Lab (ETL)?
The ETL is a place where we think, exchange ideas, discuss new technology or better yet, determine how we can use technology in a new and different way. The ETL is a place were we learn about the latest trends and movements. And we are moving on to the next one.

It is not a place where, as our Chief Creative Officer has described, "a room with stuff in it. And we can only get as close as the red velvet rope." It is not a game room.

Rather, the ETL is an environment where employees, clients and partners can:

• Learn about What’s Next!
• Experiment with emerging technologies
• Foster the exchange of new ideas, new applications, new tools and solutions
• Build a forum where high tech companies and startups provide demo environments
• Collaborate with local, leading universities on the exchange of ideas and the establishment of a beta testing center

The initial phase is complete. The ETL is set up with a 52" HD TV. We also have an Xbox 360, Wii, PS3, TiVo and an Apple TV. In addition, we are experimenting with the Amazon Kindle and a phone product called magicJack. Each technology has something interesting to offer:

Gaming

TiVo
Has TiVo finally figured it out? As the pioneer in the DVR space, they have partnered with YouTube and Amazon for content and ecommerce.

Wii
The first gaming system where you can't sit on the couch to play. The game play is revolutionary and can be quite a workout. Ask our CEO, who experienced a Wii injury after playing Wii Tennis. Has Wii changed video games going forward?

Apple TV
Apple TV is digital box that connects to a TV. It is design to play content from a Windows or Mac OS computer running iTunes. It can stream music, videos and podcasts from your iTunes to your TV. It can also access YouTube content. The product is easy to use but in typical Apple fashion, it limits what it can do by being completed tied to iTunes. The upside is tremendous, but right now Apple TV has some severe limitations.

Xbox 360
The Xbox is a top notch online gaming system. Microsoft has done a great job at building an online community with its gaming system. In addition, there are several games on the market that have in-game advertising (billboards, etc.).

PS3
The Sony Playstation3 offers a great selection of games, but the online gaming features are sub-par. The PS3 doubles as a Blu-ray DVD player.

Communications

magicJack
magicJack is a product that provides phone service over your broadband network. Although there are similar products on the market (Skype, Vonage, etc.), installation is less than 3 minutes and you pay $20/year for everything - free calls within the US, call waiting, voicemail, etc.). And it connects to the phones in your home.

Amazon Kindle
Amazon Kindle is an e-book reader. It uses electronic paper display and has a Wi-Fi connection (over the Sprint network) to download content. The Kindle is a little pricey (even with it's most recent price reduction) and the cost for content seems to high. The upside is that it does a great job simulating a printed page and it has a vast library of e-books, newspapers, magazines and blogs.

In closing, please make the ETL part of your day. We want you to embrace it and make it your own. And if you have ideas or suggestions, please let me know.

Over the next several weeks, we will be moving forward with Phase II. Thanks for reading.

• 고객은 맞는 옷을 고르기 위해 이 옷 저 옷 입어보는 노력을 하지 않아도 되며,
• 종업원은 그에 따른 옷정리 수고도 하지 않아도 되고,
• 옷 사이즈가 틀려서 반품하는 일은 거의 사라질 전망이다.
• 결국은 fashion 산업에서 mass-customization이 보다 수월해 질 것이다.

아래 첫번째 동영상은 Intellifit이고, 두번째 동영상은 Bodymetrics이다.

• T-Mobile's "The Minority Report Screen": 2008년 CeBIT에서 인기 있었던 제품.

• PICO by James Patten

Community Eye는  범죄 퇴치를 가장 중요한 정책으로 삼고 있는 Cory Booker 시장의 주도로 추진되었다.   그는 2006년 시장 선거에 나서면서 범죄 퇴치를 선거 공약으로 내걸었고, 그가 당선되자 그에게 위협을 느낀 갱단들이 공공연하게 그를 암살하려고 했지만 그는 전혀 아랑곳 하지 않고 오히려 Newark시에서 가장 위험한 지역으로 이사한 것으로 유명하다.

Community Eye의 효과는 다음과 같다.

• 경찰과 앰뷸런스를 신속하게 사건 현장에 보낼 수 있다.
• 현장에 도착하기 전, 경찰은 현장에 대한 정확한 정보를 사전에 알 수 있다.
• 범죄 현장을 정확하고 선명하게 녹화할 수 있기 때문에 범인 검거가 용이하다.
• 총성을 정확하게 녹화해서 사용된 총기의 수와 종류, 사용된 위치 등을 파악할 수 있다.
• 결과적으로 총기의 사용을 억제할 수 있다.

Community Eye가 privacy 이슈가 있지만 범죄 억제에는 매우 큰 효과가 있는 것 같다.    앞으로 모든 감시카메라들이 이와 같은 high quality wireless 카메라와 noise detection system으로 대체된다면 대부분의 범죄를 예방할 수 있을 것이다.

Source: Preventing Crime With Tech: The Newark Experiment

현재 태양광 에너지를 이용한 전기는 전체 전기 생산의 1%도 되지 않는다.  태양광 에너지를 제대로 활용하지 못하는 가장 큰 문제는 태양을 볼 수 있는 맑은 대낮에만 태양광 에너지를 얻을 수 있으며, 태양광 에너지를 저장하기 위한 배터리가 너무 비싸다는 점이다.    

이 촉매제를 이용하면 태양광 에너지에서 만들어진 전기로 물에서 수소와 산소를 상온에서 큰 압력을 주지 않고도 쉽고 간단하게 분리할 수 있다.    이 촉매제는 쉽게 구할 수 있는 인산염 (phosphate)과 코발트(cobalt)로 만들어진다.  

지금까지 수소를 미래의 에너지로 사용하려는 많은 노력들이 있었다.   하지만 가장 큰 문제는 물에서 수소를 뽑아내기 위해서는 엄청난 에너지가 필요하다는 점이다.   이 문제를 이 촉매제는 해결한 것이다.    이 촉매제를 이용한 태양광 패널이 상용화되면 모든 집에서 값싼, 그리고 무공해의 연료 생산이 가능해진다.

Source: Cheap Catalyst Could Turn Sunlight, Water Into Fuel

관련 Post: “Exponential Progress의 의미” by Ray Kurzweil

Then, the group of people were told that the "Mojave" Operating System was just Windows Vista all along.

A Cnet article had this to say:

"Oh wow," said one user, eliciting exactly the exclamation that Microsoft had hoped to garner when it first released the operating system more than 18 months ago. Instead, the operating system got mixed reviews and criticisms for its lack of compatibility and other headaches.

The teaser site for the video that will be released this coming Tuesday has been put up.  You can find it here with some details on how they set up the experiment.

In my opinion that this is a step in the right direction for Microsoft.  To be honest, Apple's TV ads are amusing and they connect with everyday people.  It's about time Microsoft stepped up now that its Windows Vista OS is more mature.  With Windows 7 in heavy development, Microsoft needs to gain some advertising momuntum that is going to make Windows more attractive to consumers.  Since Windows 7 is going to be built off of Vista, they need to get thier proverbial ducks in a row.  With cool upcoming features like native multitouch support and a strong foundation, Windows has a lot to offer.

In terms of current content, a large majority seems to be medical related.  I'm sure as people start finding out about this service, there will be a wealth of information.  You can find the page here.

Accenture는 최근 모두 13개의 videoconferencing room을 설치했으며 올해 안에 22개를 더 설치할 계획이다.    Videoconferencing room을 이용한 virtual meeting을 통해 5월에만 240건의 해외 출장과 120건의 국내 출장을 대체할 수 있었다.    시간과 비용면에서 엄청나게 절약한 것이다. 

Telepresence 기술을 개발하고 있는 Cisco는 200여개의 telepresence room을 운영하고 있으며, 이를 통해 항공기를 이용한 출장을 10% 감소시켜 매년 $1억 이상의 출장비를 절감하고 있다고 한다.    Telepresence 기술을 기발하고 있는 HP사도 telepresence room으로 항공여행이 25% 감소했다고 한다.

Videoconferencing 시스템과 같이 비싼 기술뿐만 아니라 web conferencing, online document sharing, wikis, internet telephony 등의 사용도 늘어나고 있다.    Virtual meeting 뿐만 아니라 교육 훈련에 있어서도 e-learning을 위한 기술의 사용도 늘어나고 있다.   Slidecast ("Slidecast = Slide + Podcast" 참조), SlideShare ("SlideShare" 참조) 등이 교육용 presentation기술로 새롭게 주목 받고 있다.

아래 사진은 Videoconference room에서 회의하고 있는 모습이다.   Face-to-face회의와 별차이가 없다는 것을 느낄 수 있다.

Source: As Travel Costs Rise, More Meetings Go Virtual

[slideshare id=517721&doc=ua-presentation-1216337419857221-8&w=425]

San Francisco 시 당국은 이를 통해  empty parking 장소를 찾기 위해 배회하는 차량 traffic을 대폭 감소시킬 수 있을 것으로 기대하고 있다.   New York시를 대상으로 한 연구 결과에 의하면, 일부 거리의 경우 28-45%의 traffic이 parking 장소를 찾고 있는 차량들이라고 한다.   Mahattan Upper West Side의 Columbus Avenue 15개 블럭 지역에서는 parking space를 찾기 위해 차량들이 움직인 거리를 모두 더하면 366천 마일에 달한다고 한다.   

Source: Can’t Find a Parking Spot? Check Smartphone

If we decide we're going to take this on, what kinds of things should be included in our planning? What kinds of workshops/speakers do you want to see?

Patty

하지만 Omnisio를 이용하면,

• 온라인 비디오 중에서 (현재는 Youtube, Google Video, Blip.tv의 비디오만 가능) 일부 clip들만을 뽑아내고 서로 묶어서 새로운 비디오를 만들 수 있다.   전 과정이 매우 단순하고 쉽다.  
• 비디오와 다른 컨텐츠, 특히 Presentation Slide와 Mashup할 수 있다.   비디오를 보는 사람들이 강의 동영상을 보면서 강의에 사용되고 있는 slide를 쉽게 선택해서 볼 수 있도록 만들 수 있다.
• 비디오 내에 만화에서 사용하는 popup bubble을 사용해서 comment를 달 수 있다.

아래 링크로 연결된 동영상은 Omnisio를 이용해서 만들어진 것이다.   3개의 동영상 clips을 결합해서 하나의 동영상으로 만들고 presentation Slide와 Mashup한 것이다.   하단 부에 띠처럼 보이는 부분이 Slide 부분이다.  마우스를 올려놓으면 Slide가 크게 만들어져서 내용을 볼 수 있다.   동영상이 진행되면서 관련 slide가 오른 쪽에 크게 나타난다.

http://www.omnisio.com/v/HTbPHSTdjhG/bp_inv_060508

아래 동영상은 Bangalore stage에서 Cisco CEO인 John Chambers가 캘리포니아 San Jose에 있는 Emerging Technologies의 Martin De Beer 수석 부사장과 TelePresence의 Chuck Stucki General Manager를 실시간으로 3D 영상으로 불러내서 마치 face to face 토론하는 것과 같은 모습을 청중들에게 보여주고 있다.

앞으로는 회의에 참석하기 위해 먼 거리를 오고 갈 필요가 없어진 것 같다.

Source: Cisco On-Stage TelePresence Holographic Video Conferencing

1. First up are the top ten TED Talks which come from the TED Conference.  "The annual conference now brings together the world's most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes)."  The thing that sets these talks apart from other internet speeches and talk is that these speakers are incredible presenters.  They know how to captivate and audience and make a really difficult subject really easy to understand.  The video posted on this page gives pieces of the ten best TED Talks.  It is definitely worthwhile to give this one video a look, I'm sure you'll want to check out some of the full length videos after you see this one.
2. This video is a holographic representation of 3D Google Earth.  It is incredibly cool, and is something every techie wants to have in their living room.  Hopefully this technology will replace the standard LCD screen, keyboard and mouse.  After, (in my opinion) too many years of monitors, keyboard and mice we are long due for a serious recalculation of our computing experiences.
3. Lifehacker asked readers to comment on their favorite Windows maintenance tools.  This post is a summary of the comments.  I have used most of them and can say that they are fantastic.
4. The Phoenix Mars Lander has indeed found ice on the surface of Mars.  It seems as though the landing vehicle landed directly on top of ice covered by settled dust which blew away once the lander arrived.  They are going to place the ice sample in the robot's oven to run tests.  This is the homepage of the Phoenix Mars Lander, and this is the relevant story to the baking of Mars' ice.
5. The Bavarian Parliament has passed a law that permits Bavarian Police to place Trojans on suspect's and suspect's contacts computers.  The article (which has been translated via Google Translation) details the whole story.  This approach to fighting crime is new and certainly scary, especially since it is state sanctioned.
6. Slashdot has an excellent interview with Lt. Colonel John Bircher, who is with U.S. Army Computer Network Operations (CNO)-Electronic Warfare (EW) Proponent's Futures Branch.  Similar in scope to AFCYBER, this Army program is currently evaluating the need and repsonse for military action in the cyber warfare realm.
7. Firefox 3 set a world record for the most number of downloads in a single day- with 8 million.  Hit up the link for a cool interactive map that shows how many downloads there have been to date.  At the time of this post, Firefox 3 had reached 30,391,042 downloads.
8. An update for those who are looking for the rest of the DGI Conference on Cyber Security posts, I am working on it.  I've been swamped with work and some other stuff, but I assure you that I'm working on it.

See how it can help direct and instruct - will this make us dumber by putting us on auto pilot or will it leave less room for mistakes where lives could be depend on perfection?

Believe it or not, I like Windows.  I can see the merits of using OS X or Linux, but let's face it, Windows is very useful and even more practical.  Despite have the majority of marketshare, Windows is still teetering on the edge of disaster.  Chatter on the internet suggests that Microsoft has a few things up it's sleeve to reinvent the traditional Operating System.  This article discusses a secret, post-Windows OS that many high level MS employees are currently working on.  The meat of this article comes as a quote from the Microsoft 2.0 website, which I found particularly interesting:

“There’s a seemingly related (related to Singularity) project under development at Microsoft which has been hush-hush. That project, codenamed ‘Midori,’ is a new Microsoft operating-system platform that supposedly supersedes Windows. Midori is in incubation, which means it is a little closer to market than most Microsoft Research projects, but not yet close enough to be available in any kind of early preview form.

“What’s also interesting about Midori is who is running the project. One-time Gates heir-apparent Eric Rudder is heading up the effort. Midori is being incubated under Chief Research and Strategy Officer Craig Mundie’s wing. ‘Everyone under him (under Rudder on Midori) is a multi-year vet, has a super fancy title, and is going back to their roots and writing code like they probably did in the old days,’ one Microsoft tipster told me.

“When and how Microsoft will roll out Midori is still a mystery. But it sounds like the company thinks the project is serious enough to dedicate a considerable amount of time/people/resources to it.”

Even though this is still speculation and rumors, I can't help but to feel that the deluge of mediocrity that Windows has become in the past few years is almost over.  It's almost the same feeling I get before a major Steve Jobs keynote.  Although the rumor mill is smaller, I still get a kick out of rumors that will probably significantly impact me down the line.  Like I said in my previous post on this topic, I hope the Midori and Singularity projects don't disappear into the clouds to never see the light of day.  The world needs an OS that is built from scratch that is designed ground-up with security in mind.  Some security nightmares we face today are the result of decisions made 40 years ago.  The fact that we have not tried to rework the equation is embarrassing.

Look at Firefox 3.  When it was released a few weeks ago, it fixed tons of problems that plauged Firefox 2.  Memory leaks were addressed, security holes patched, and the visual design was reworked among other things.  The Mozilla team promised extraordinary changes, and the public benefited from it.  If an open source project can make that much actual and beneficial change in a product that tons of people rely on, why can't a huge company do the very same thing.  I mean, let's be honest here, Microsoft is a big company with enough extra dollars to spend some money on nice things like research and development.  As much as you might think that revenue goes to plugging holes in thier current OS offerings, lets hope some gets reverted towards new efforts.

It is my hope that this post cleans up some of the mess I left on the original post.  I wanted to pin down a few things and this post helped me to accomplish that goal.  Leave your comments below.  Thanks for reading!

Source: Take a Peek

TinEye에서 몇 가지 이미지를 검색한 Demo를 직접 볼 수 있다.

What was most disappointing about Vista was that Microsoft had a solid 6 or 7 years to release a truly stunning product.  The end result was that we didn't get anything worth writing home about.  Sure, there are a few more security features, and it looks a little better than XP, but it offers little in the way of an actual performance increase.  I can still remember the angry customers at the major consumer electronics retail store that I worked at after the release of Vista.  They wanted to return the OS after installing it because they found out that their computer was too slow to run the new OS.  In my six months of employment there, I had never seen so much disdain for any one product by customers.  One of my coworkers would point people in the direction of the Apple Center of our store when people asked where they could find Windows Vista.  Although it was purely a geeky joke, there was some truth in it.  Customers would probably save money in the long run if they bought a Mac.  The headaches that some people had due to Vista were enough to allow Apple to enjoy a greater marketshare.

Since we're on the topic of Apple products, I would like to mention a new Apple initiative that will prevent OS X from suffering the same fate as Vista.  Leopard OS X is a great Operating System and represents a decently sized change from the version prior to it (Tiger).  For the next version of OS X (Snow Leopard), Apple is taking an incredible initiative to improve their OS.  Instead of focusing on new features and gimmicky crap, they are reworking the core of the OS.  Developers have gone through and optimized the size and performance of popular applications (article here).  Additionally, developers are making the OS truly x64 bit to take advantage of Intel processors.  Up until now, computers don't really take advantage of having multiple cored processors.  Since it is not uncommon to have quad core or even an oct core, there is a big need to harness all the power.  Apple is introducing Parallel Programming into the core of Snow Leopard so all applications can take advantage of the technology.  Additionally, computers with dedicated GPU can use the idle processing power of the graphics chip to assist the CPU.

It is refreshing to see a company spend time in improving upon an existing platform that will benefit both customers and the company in the long run.  If Microsoft spent a few CPU or product cycles on this effort, customers would definitely take notice.  People would remember why Microsoft was able to secure its giant stranglehold on the IT industry, and not be angry about it.

So please Microsoft, make people happy.  You will be doing yourself a favor in the long run.  Don't let the fact that reworking an OS can sometimes lead to massive failure.  Take a chance, make the next Windows OS something you can be proud of.  Make the next OS something I can be proud of, rather than me having to explain, for the one thousanth time why PC's are better than Macs.  Leave your suggestions on how Vista and the next Windows OS can be improved.  I would very much like to hear what you have to say.