“My Virtual Life”

A journey into a place in cyberspace where thousands of people have imaginary lives, some even make a good living, big advertisers are taking notice. That’s how the article begins. I choose this article because I didn’t know much about the Second Life and I figure it would come in handy to know a little more information about this new and up and coming virtual life. The author comes and sets up a second life and meets up with one of the residents already on the set. He finds out that she has a successful business that “employs” 17 workers from around the world. Chung the owner of the real-estate business in the Second life is making real cash. The author states that the currency holdings are worth about $250,000 in real money. The writer continues on saying that second life is a multiplayer game that is booming in popularity. He claims that at least 10 million people pay $15 and up a month to play these games, and maybe 20 million more log in once a while. Some players call World of Warcraft the “new golf” as these colleagues and business partners gather online to slay orcs instead of gathering on the green to hack away at little white balls. What’s different about this second life world is that the residents have to create everything that they want. There is no avatar to select from that makes choices for you. A person can build anything that their imagination can do.

Hof, Robert D. My Virtual Life. 1 May 2006. BusinessWeek. 14 Dec 2009. http://www.businessweek.com/print/magazine/content/06_18/b3982001.htm?chan=gl

“Boeing Outsourcing will pay off: Pratt exec”

Boeing Co. will be proved right with its controversial outsourcing of airplane production when its long-delayed Dreamliner takes to the skies this week, a top US aerospace executive said on Monday. This is how the article sets out and sets the tone for the article. The article then proclaims that Boeing has been criticized by customers and unions over its decision to send offshore the production of much of the brand new jetliner, which is already two years behind their schedule. Then it let the president David Hess have his say in it all. And he believes that Boeing should stay the course along with other future projects. Hess believes he will test the Boeing 787 Dreamliner as early as Tuesday (Dec 15) a flight that I mentioned before that is two years overdue because of the claims of problems in the supply chain. The great advantage of this plane compared to its predecessors is its lightweight, this gives it greater fuel efficiency and lower maintenance costs. It has a record number of orders on the books for the plane at its stage in development. It is also because of the outsourcing, the demand is going up because of the lower costs and foreign ingenuity. The author then goes onto saying that Hess the president is scheduled to fly out to Seattle on Tuesday to attend the test flight of this great machine. “Obviously, it was a tough road for Boeing,” Hess said. “I think it still – to me – is a tremendous achievement.”

Peterson, Kyle. Boeing outsourcing will pay off: Pratt exec. 14 Dec 2009. Washington Reuters. 14 Dec 2009. http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5BD4YP20091214

“Cisco works percentages toward Tandberg takeover”

In its quest to acquire Tandberg, Cisco is close but is not quite there. The article goes onto say that even though Cisco owns 89% of the outstanding shares of Tandberg; it is still one percent short of closing the deal in Norwegian law. The article came out on the 4^th because Cisco exclaimed that if on Dec 3^rd that it did not posses all 90% of the shares it would walk away from the deal. And now this is definitely not happening being so close. Cisco announced that it would persevere with engaging in purchasing the other percent to own the business. And it believes that by midyear of 2010 it would happen. Cisco is doing this to capture the growing videoconferencing market. Tandberg is a company based in Oslo, Norway and New York. It offers low cost and high end videoconferencing tools to companies. In the article the author examines what else has been going on in the merger. Cisco claims that back in November they have tendered an extra 2 percent putting them over the mark of taking over the business. As the author pointed out though that this just means that the shares are promised to Cisco but what is not giving is the date for which they will receive them and until then Cisco is still out of luck. Also even if Cisco receives those needed shares it still faces regulatory approval from the US Department of Justice.

Whitney, Lance. Cisco works percentages toward Tandberg takeover. 4 Dec 2009. CNET. 14 Dec 2009. http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10409293-92.html

“PDA RFID reader with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPRS capabilities”

I choose this article because it seems to include most of the chapters high points all rolled into a phone. The article is very short so hopefully I can fill out this paragraph to meet the word requirement. The article claims that there will be two version of this PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) a low frequency as well as a high frequency version. These two PDA’s are designed to accommodate information management, information collection and wireless data transfer. I put two pictures of the PDA’s just to show what is mentioned in the article. The two phones come either witht the touch screen or the keyboard. They both feature what was written in the title, the Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and GPRS. What is really cool I think about these two pair phones is the fact that they feature the standard USB port and RS232 communication port which allows any user to plug in any USB implement. Such as a keyboard, mouse, flash drive, magnetic reader, or any other instrument that would work. It also includes an integrated 128 MB SDRAM and 64 MB Flash ROM that is extremely helpful in preserving data in the event of a random reset of the device or a complete loss of power. Next the article goes into where these PDAs would function and benefit the consumer the best. The PDAs are aimed for industrial and outdoor RFID applications, such as inventory control, logistics, garment processing, luggage handling, parcel-postal delivery and cashless payments. This article was very interesting to me and I’m sure that companies will find this extremely satisfying.

PDA RFID reader with WiFi, Bluetooth, and GPRS capabilities. 4 Dec 2009. RFID News. 14 Dec 2009. http://www.rfidnews.org/2009/12/04/pda-rfid-reader-with-wifi-bluetooth-and-gprs-capabilities

“MySQL Creator Launches Campaign to ‘Save’ Database

I choose this article because I saw it and wanted to know more about this article. The title was catchy. Anyway it says that the creator of MySQL has launched a web based campaign to save the open source database from the “clutches” of Oracle, which is attempting to purchase its current owner, Sun Microsystems. Oracle earlier this year announced plans to buy Sun for $7.4 billion. The reason why this action has taken place before is because of concern about the database market. Oracle owns a healthy share of what’s on the market currently also that European authorities want to conduct an antitrust review. A blogger was quoted in the article by saying, “if users speak up now the European authorities could stop the merger or force Oracle to provide certain concessions and guarantees around MySQL.”  The article goes on about information about the database. MySQL was mainly used for web applications about ten years ago but now has become very functional, scalable and credible. Well in the end it looks as though the merger will go through. Oracle will own MySQL but a promise was also made, 10 commitments to MySQL’s user and developers. These pledges would be valid for the next five years following the close of the merger. This is what put the European authorities over and let the merger coincide. The European authorities feel that the merger will be a satisfactory resolution. I thought this article was interesting. It gave both sides of the story which is nice to see every once and awhile.

Kanaracus, Chris. MySQL Creator Launches Campaign to ‘Save” Database. 14 Dec 2009. PCWorld. 14 Dec 2009. http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/184558/mysql_creator_launches_campaign_to_save_database.html

“Why Grid Computing Makes Economic Sense”

I chose this article because I came across this in the chapter and didn’t understand it completely and wanted more information about this answer to solve many problems. The article begins with what the problem is now a day in the business platform. It delves into how the IT district is always struggling to find a way to be more cost efficient and also to centralize their business. Then the article continues on and tells the reasons for doing this. Scalability: where companies exhaust their resources and manpower deploying, maintaining, and upgrading software systems, they could use a grid and the power of existing systems can be scaled exponentially, maintained seamlessly, upgraded transparently, and redeployed at will. The speed of the grid is unparallel and can help increase productivity and a business’ competitiveness with a faster deployment of new systems, or the speedy ramping up of existing ones. Also users around the world can use this system very easily without specific training. Implementation is very easy on this. Developers can pair weeks of integration and configuration time with hosting environments for their cloud platforms. On demand network computing power and storage capability means that companies don’t have to invest the bank and everything under the mattress in the static hardware. And cost is the last thing that is mentioned in the article. To implement this is very low cost and this is the biggest advantage for companies. What the great thing is that businesses only pay for the resources that they actually use. And don’t forget about the great savings that will not be put into investing into the expensive hardware.

Avoyan, Hovhannes. Why Grid Computing Makes Economic Sense. 6 Dec 2009. SYS-CON Media, Inc. 14 Dec 2009. http://ajax.sys-con.com/node/1211109

James Strootman

Nov 30, 2009

I chose my research paper topic on smart advertisements. I chose this topic because I believe that this is going to change the advertisement industry for the better. The whole process is really quite exquisite. All you need is an idea and a computer (Advertising Trends…). Do not get the idea that there are zero flaws in this operation, but I believe that the pros outweigh the cons. Now let me go into more detail about what kind of advertisements I will be talking about. I would first like to give information about the ads themselves. The ads that I am talking about are the LED (Light-Emitting Diode) Signs. What this is, is a billboard that is replaced by the old vinyl traditional boards (The New Digital… ). The great thing about this is that there is no one that needs to come and strip the old advertisement and put the new one up. The other astonishing thing about this is that ads can be very target oriented to fit a specific audience. Now, advertisements can change instantly from one sale a company might have to the next in a matter of minutes. Another magnificent feature is that these signs can also capture radio frequencies that can change the advertisement based on what a potential customer is listening to on the radio. This also goes for many other ways for the billboard to recognize different things such as face recognition and car identifying (Digital billboards…).

This all sounds great but, like I said there is imperfection in this new age of advertisements. Someone in the greater Los Angeles area has hacked into the computer systems and put an ad of his own up there. It is somebody known as skullphone (Melanson, Donald). He is just a pirate taking over time slots that were paid for by companies. Another affliction of these great ads is that from any moment to another the sign would generate a different advertisement. What this means is that no company has full reign over a certain region of advertisements (Zita Torok). A company buys time slots, not locations anymore. So if a driver is at a traffic light and is exposed to thirty seconds of advertisement, and on average an ad last seven seconds the audience would have seen about four ads. So potentially the consumer would miss many other ads that should have been seen. This is not a good thing for the advertisers paying money to have people see their ads. This is another faulty issue that a company will have to address when considering this. The throughput will tell if the money was worth the initial payment up front.

Now as radio frequencies are accepted from each vehicle, information is gathered and puts up an ad that is target specific. A good example of this is say if I was driving and listening to a country station then an ad may pop up concerning great deals on new four wheel drive trucks. This happens because studies say that if a person listens to country music that they must drive a truck or in the market to get one. This is very helpful to companies and keeps the target audience very specific. It also gives instant information to a potential buyer, say for example how much that truck is or what kind of financing is available to them. My last source came out and said that from cameras on the billboard it can recognize individual cars and advertise to them as well. Such things in the article mention oil that is specific to a car make and model. What this does is inform the driver of discounts that would apply to his/hers vehicle (Digital billboard…).

In conclusion I think that this new wave of billboards is the future and that the old ones will be obsolete in a few years. Companies won’t waste their money to engage in a lifeless advertisement.

Advertising Trends: Digital Billboards. The Marketing Spot. 4 May 2009 http://www.themarketingspotblog.com/2009/05/advertising-trends-digital-billboards.html

Digital billboard ads recognize individual cars. Screensmedia. 22 Sept. 2009. http://www.screens.tv/article/11833/Digital_billboard_ads_recognise_individual_cars.html

Jay Ehret. “Advertising Trends: Digital Billboards”. The Marketing Spot. 28 Oct. 2009

http://www.themarketingspotblog.com/2009/05/advertising-trends-digital-billboards.html.

Zita Torok. The New Trend in Outdoor Billboard Advertising.2009. http://ezinearticles.com/?The-New-Trend-in-Outdoor-Billboard-Advertising&id=622779

Melanson, Donald. Skullphone decides to speak, probably shouldn’t have. 28 Mar. 2008. Engadget.  http://www.engadget.com/2008/03/28/skullphone-decides-to-speak-probably-shouldnt-have/

I found an interesting article at a website called ZDnet.com it had to do with business intelligence. A company called Oracle came up with an application for real time access to a business’s performance. This allows stockholders as well as customers to see how the company is doing. This is also a huge benefit for the CEO’s as well. It allows them to customize their application to see what is vital to their job and be able to make informed decisions. To be able to do something like this though the person must own the software that allows this business to be conformed to what they are interested in.
In the article it begins by talking about the Apple iPhone and what the main consumers use it for, what I use it for. The sweet games and fun applications. Then it starts in on the pitch, that currently Apple has over 2000 business applications not just for trade but for the serious business owners. The article goes onto say that the iPhone currently is controlling 13 percent of the smart phone market. And with that being said it is moving up and no longer be ignored.
(2009, October 28). Gallery: Best iPhone Business Apps. Retrieved October 28, 2009, from ZDnet. Website: http://content.zdnet.com/2346-9595_22-357728.html