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Here are five things in technology that happened this past week and how they affect your business. Did you miss them?
1 – Microsoft says its speech recognition is now as good as humans.
Based on a study it did, the software giant put its speech recognition technology up against professional transcriptionists. The result? Humans made more mistakes than the software. (Source: VentureBeat)...
Nearly 250 years later, in a world defined by technological change, we see the same fears and concerns. As of September 2015, Amazon had 30,000 Kiva robots automating its warehouses, increasing efficiency and reducing the need for pick-and-pack labor. And at the same time, demand for software developers continues to rise, as Marc Andreessen’s famous 2011 statement that “software is eating the world” becomes ever more true.
Over the next decade, we’ll see this pattern play out once more in the nascent Internet of Things (IoT). With an industry defined by “bringing physical things online,” many IoT business models are predicated on improving efficiency by eliminating labor. We see companies connecting garbage cans to the internet to improve the efficiency of deploying waste collectors — which means we’ll need fewer waste collectors. Drones are dramatically reducing the time it takes to survey a plot of land — which means we’ll need fewer surveyors. Every industry that involves electronics or equipment can expect to be disrupted in this way over the next 10 years.
So the same question that was asked in the late 1700s remains: Will this new technology eliminate jobs? No....
Ideas come to us in all shapes and sizes, in all levels of importance, and at all different times of day. Sometimes, we get inspired by something we read online and want to capture it and comment on it. Other times, we come up with an idea out of nowhere and want to jot it down, or say it out loud into our phones before we forget it. When we have these ideas, it's far too easy to forget them or let them slip through the cracks -- especially if we don't have a system for organizing them. Thankfully, there are some amazing tools out there that can help us track and organize ideas in all different situations.
Here are the best tools out there for organizing your ideas -- including note-taking tools, visual organization tools, collaboration tools, and general organization tools....
Digital technology has proven to be game-changer that most established parties don’t know how to deal with. Confronted by digitally fluent competitors, market leaders underestimate the degree to which they must adapt, and are left behind in a rapidly changing market.
How can established brands maintain or secure a competitive advantage alongside disruptive start-ups which seem to be dominating the digital landscape? This article puts forward the idea that what sets a company apart in the digital age cannot be found between a company’s walls. In this day and age, a successful brands establishes its competitive advantage by being structurally present in the life of the consumer....
The Earth's rotation is slowing down, and we're just going to have to deal with it, ok?
...The changes add up—on average, the Earth’s rotation slows by two-thousandths of a second a day—which is why, since the first leap second in 1972, the world’s timekeepers at the International Earth Rotation Service in France add a "leap second" to the year every so often. The world’s 26th leap second ever will be added this year, on June 30, 2015, when the second hand of the clock will essentially strike midnight twice.
According to The Telegraph, this poses major hassles for software and computing companies that rely on precise time keeping. Usually, systems around the world stay in sync with each other using a system called the Network Time Protocol, which is programmed to stay within a few milliseconds of Coordinated Universal Time—the official scientific time for the world as measured by atomic clocks. But the protocol doesn’t deal well with leap seconds. The last leap second in 2012, for example, caused sites like Mozilla, Yelp, and Reddit to crash and problems with Linux operating systems—like a mini-version of the Y2K bug....
It doesn’t matter how many years of experience you have of a programming language, framework or CMS, you will always need to, from time to time, refer to the official documentation or, and more than likely, a handy quick reference cheatsheet, as it’s literally impossible to remember and know absolutely everything.
In this post I have collected an avalanche of useful cheatsheets, references, guides, checklists and docs, covering almost all aspects of web design, that will not only help to improve your productivity, but will also help to solve some of those frustrating programming issues that often arise (I’m looking at you PHP!).Just click on the ‘view’ button beside each resource and either save the PDF or bookmark the page....
...But it wasn’t until 1999 that Tim Berners-Lee, who had invented the World Wide Web and launched the first webpage on August 6, 1991, coined the concept of the Semantic Web — a seminal stride toward cultivating wisdom in the age of information, bringing full-circle Otlet’s vision for an intelligent global network of organizing human knowledge. Much like Johannes Gutenberg, who combined a number of existing technologies to invent his revolutionary press, Berners-Lee was simply bringing together disjointed technologies — electronic documents, hypertext, markup, the internet — to create a new paradigm that changed our world at least as much as Gutenberg’s invention. But how, exactly, did we get there?
The 98 landmark technologies and ideas that bridged Otlet’s vision with Berners-Lee’s world-changing web are what digital archeologist Jim Boultonchronicles in 100 Ideas that Changed the Web (public library) — the latest installment in a fantastic series of cultural histories by British indie powerhouseLaurence King, including 100 Ideas that Changed Graphic Design, 100 Ideas that Changed Film, 100 Ideas that Changed Architecture, 100 Ideas that Changed Photography, and 100 Ideas that Changed Art....
Marc Andreessen is able to explain himself so well that I should have less commentary to add to the quotations in this post than usual. But where is the fun in that?
My primary task with this blog post has been assembling the quotations and placing them in an order which flows well, since understanding the earlier topics helps the reader understand ideas which come later in the list. Each set of quotations is a mash up from sources like the links identified in the notes at the bottom of this post....
A variety of new applications have adapted the bitcoin protocol to fulfill different purposes; the latest is Ethereum.
For many, bitcoin — the distributed, worldwide, decentralized crypto-currency — is all about money … or, as recent events have shown, about who invented it. Yet the actual innovation brought about by bitcoin is not the currency itself but the platform, which is commonly referred to as the “blockchain” — a distributed cryptographic ledger shared amongst all nodes participating in the network, over which every successfully performed transaction is recorded.
And the blockchain is not limited to monetary applications. Borrowing from the same ideas (though not using the actual peer-to-peer network bitcoin runs on), a variety of new applications have adapted the bitcoin protocol to fulfill different purposes: Namecoin for distributed domain name management; Bitmessage and Twister for asynchronous communication; and, more recently, Ethereum (released only a month ago). Like many other peer-to-peer (P2P) applications, these platforms all rely on decentralized architectures to build and maintain network applications that are operated by the community for the community. (I’ve written before here in WIRED Opinion about one example, mesh networks, which can provide an internet-native model for building community and governance)....
Welcome to 2014, a brand new year to look forward to and you know what this means, another list about tech companies. This time we look at another batch West Coast startups that we believe could be big news in the next twelve months. The names on this list are not constrained to just Silicon Valley — they can be based in any part of the region, including Seattle, Portland, and Los Angeles.
Practically every day, a new company sprouts up to tackle one of countless problems and while some hold promise, it’s impossible for us to list them all. We’ve tried to focus on the few that cover a variety of industries, including those that are doing something really cool, whether it’s in healthcare, 3D motion control, enterprise computing, or even those focused on behind-the-scenes services.
Here are our picks for 2014, presented in no particular order. These aren’t all necessarily brand new companies, but ones we think will make a significant breakthroughs in 2014. If you want to look at our list from 2013, you can view it here....
In my previous article I discussed the importance of ensuring that your data is clean and processed before attempting any form of data visualisation. Here I will share some really awesome tools that (once your data is clean and ready to use) you can have at your disposal to create mind-blowing representations of the facts and figures.Here is a list of tools, some more open and adjustable than others, that add value to your raw data and can be used as a source of inspiration and design when approaching the visualisation process....
The TV Antenna Of The Future... Since Aereo launched, the television industry has been hoping to sue it out of existence. Early attempts to have the service shut down have been unsuccessful, thanks to legal logic that may well wind up saving Aereo in the end. Meanwhile, the networks are clamoring for a plan B, which, if you believe the claims of network execs, includes threats to pull out of broadcast TV all together. (Said threats are, of course, unbelievably stupid.) Aereo does not disrupt the core broadcast business model. When I'm watching TV shows on my iPad using Aereo, I'm still seeing all the commercials, just like I would if I tuned in via an antenna on my television set. The problem is, my antenna sucks. On a good day, I can get four or five channels to display clearly on my TV, and even that involves some finagling. It feels decidedly old-fashioned to be tinkering with an antenna just to watch NBC. By contrast, Aereo feels right at home in the 21st century. When you watch it, it doesn't feel like you're stealing anything. Instead, it feels like the service has restored your ability to conveniently tune into broadcast TV — an ability that's atrophied for years thanks to changing viewer habits and, consequently, expectations for picture and sound quality....
It seems obvious, really, but a crucial step towards fully autonomous vehicles is making sure that the vehicles can respond to their surroundings. Each car needs to know exactly where every other car and obstacle is, which requires huge amounts of research and testing. This is called CAR 2 CAR Communication and a consortium was created by some of the top car makers to share car communication technologies and make a standard to ensure all cars will connect. The development of the autonomous vehicle requires, essentially, that cars don’t hit anything and this requires communication from car-to-car and car-to-object. That is the main focus: don’t crash. Simple enough, right? Not so much....
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For people who want to see an Internet at least partly liberated from the grip of rapacious, government-connected telecommunications giants, Guifi is one of the most hopeful developments to date. Its core values, ownership, and operations are testament to the idea that you and I, and our communities, can — and should — control how we communicate. For the tens of thousands of people using it, some at no charge, Guifi operates as well as Time Warner Cable does for New Yorkers (and maybe better). Guifi exists because a technically savvy local man, Ramon Roca, got tired of waiting for Telefonica, the Spanish telecom giant, to provide Internet access to the people of his community. He had a personal need for access. But he had a powerful second motive as well: “to help my neighbors.” Guifi started with a single wifi node in 2004. Today there are more than 30,000 working nodes, including some fiber connections, with thousands more in the planning stages.... .
Time recently ran a piece with the headline, “Chat Bots Are Back And They’re About To Take Over.” Really?
Evan Wray: You better believe it! There’s a popular report by Activate stating that mobile messaging apps have been the fastest growing online sector within the social landscape over the past five years, with 2.5 billion registered users today and an additional 1.1 billion new users expected by 2018 — totaling 3.6 billion users.
Couple that with the sophistication of today’s chat bot — or artificial intelligence technology. This is an environment in which audience engagement can flourish — and should not be ignored by marketers. The future mobile experience where commerce, services, and communications are all completed in a contextual intelligent chat thread within messaging apps — instead of through a clunky combination of mobile sites and apps — is becoming closer and closer to a present-day reality.
Just five years ago the world was a very different place. In 2010, the iPad had just made its debut, Kickstarter was introducing a new form of venture capitalism that would change the face of fundraising and Square was letting vendors of any size accept payment with a swipe of a card on a mobile device. And we haven’t looked back.
The next five years will no doubt unleash products and services that we have yet to imagine. But as we progress, what will we leave behind? Here are a handful of things we use today that likely will either be gone completely or on their last breath, disrupted by new innovations, technology and methods....
Of course, with a staggering amount of technology available to marketers (1,876 vendors as of Scott Brinker’s latest count,) and Gartner’s predictions that the CMO will spend more on IT than the CIO by 2017, it comes as no surprise that managing this technology took it’s place as a major responsibility in the survey.
What may come as a surprise is the sudden emergence of “understanding buyers” to a top responsibility in 2016, especially compared to the top duties reported today. Respondents said brand and positioning, lead generation, and brand communications were their top three leading responsibilities as of November 2014, the time of the survey.
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This is a wasted opportunity. Many marketers have reported rapid and significant ROI from adopting these tools; but first, they had to convince higher-ups to make the up-front investment. So, in the interest of helping clear that path, I am suggesting a Marketing Technology Starter Kit: the seven programs that every company’s marketing team should have access to, at a minimum, to grow leads, opportunities, and revenue.
These programs are essentially an online form of direct marketing. Traditionally the two most important factors in the success of direct marketing campaigns have been the list — getting the materials in front of the right audience — and the offer – offering them something that they will value and act on.
And direct marketers have been measuring and optimizing to improve results for decades, in a way that even David Ogilvy admired. In my Starter Kit you’ll see repeatedly how marketing technologies help you get in front of the right audience at the right time with the right offer.Here’s my list of seven technologies that are table stakes for today’s marketer....
Respected venture capitalist Bill Gurley is sounding the alarm on the startup industry.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Gurley says the current environment reminds him of the tech bubble that formed in the late 1990s.
Every incremental day that goes past I have this feeling a little bit more. I think that Silicon Valley as a whole or that the venture-capital community or startup community is taking on an excessive amount of risk right now. Unprecedented since '99. In some ways less silly than '99 and in other ways more silly than in '99.
Gurley adds, "No one's fearful, everyone's greedy, and it will eventually end."
Gurley is a partner at Benchmark. He's invested in Uber, OpenTable, and Zillow. Benchmark has invested in Snapchat, Quip, Yelp, and many more.
Private companies are raising giant sums of money — some as much as $500 million, says Gurley. When you have that much money, you have to spend it, so companies are upping their "burn rate," or the amount of money they're willing to lose to grow their businesses....
Online Voice Recorder is a free simple application which records sound from microphone.
After recording you can trim the sound and save it to your computer.
Via Nik Peachey
Banana Republic and Susan’s Neighborhood Shirt Shop could be using the same social networks—Twitter, Facebook, Google+, etc.—but their marketing plans and their marketing tools are likely quite different. Enterprise solutions are great for the big guys, but the rest of us are in the market for something more our size.
Small businesses are eager to find valuable tools that take a lot of the time and trouble out of social media marketing and that do so without costing an arm and a leg. I think we’d all want tools like that, right? Well, I went searching for just this kind of simple, easy, cost-effective tool, and I came up with 61 that made the cut. I tried out more than 100 in total, and I’m sure I missed a few along the way (please tell me in the comments or on Twitter which ones deserve a look)....
|Last week, the chilling visage of David Shing was thrust upon the world. Equally horrific was his job title--"Digital Prophet." That's something you can be for a living? Yes, and there are plenty of other make-believe jobs out there, too.
What are the baseline tech skills every entrepreneur should have before starting up? Here's a helpful checklist as a starting point for every small business entrepreneur.
The next shiny new thing in social media isn't necessarily a slam dunk.... Looking at Vine, there are some trends indicating that the Twitter-owned product has established itself as a worthwhile endeavor for communicators. Unruly recently conducted a study using 10 million Vine submissions as its data set and determined the following: - An average of 5 Tweets per second contain a Vine link. - 4% of the top 100 tracked Vines is branded content. - Weekends are the most popular time to share Vines. - According to Unruly co-founder, Matt Cook, vines that evoke emotional response are shared most frequently. On the flip side, Facebook has demonstrated how a new social-media product can land with a veritable thud. The company’s Home app has been described as a “flop,” and many are describing the smartphone home screen app as “too intrusive” and “pushy.”...
...After one day, my online presence was still out of action. Frustrating. Out of contact. And challenging because the technical solutions were far beyond my skills. I went to bed Friday night with no idea how long I’d be incommunicado and when or if my problem would be solved. The next morning an 8:00 AM e-mail made my day. Bluehost tech support advised my site was now up and running again. In less than 48 hours they had recovered and restored my websites and blog. That’s service! And that’s why they’ve been my web hosting provider since 2001. The backup restored the blog to one week earlier. All that was lost were three blog posts, easily reposted, and a small number of PR Library archive articles.
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Five very interesting tech stories worth reading.