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The Comunicano Daily for Monday July 20th, 2015

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Hello from Lisbon where the temperature is 84 degrees/29 degrees Celsius and sunny. The weekend was one of those "catch up" weekends flying back from London Gatwick to here, finding the apartment A/C was off but getting it to work as the breaker had blown, and having to contact the owner vs. calling the front desk is an example of the difference between AirBnB and a hotel. The net result was the same. It was fixed, but that's why planning where you stay when using AirBnB is so important, and establishing up front, a dialogue with the property owner and their on the ground contacts are so essential. In my case, it's the owner's mother, a very together, poised woman, who cares. Also being in a security/concierge building, where the staff are super friendly and attentive, proving doing your homework matters as the desire was to be able to have all the comforts of home, while being a stranger in a strange land. Sunday was lots of catching up on my reading and writing for work. One of my new way's of staying current on news related to our client base is to incorporate RSS feeds into Slack. I pipe in the sites feeds as appropriate to each agency client, and then can decide what needs to be shared outside of the team working on that piece of business.  Once that was done, I explored more of Lisbon by wandering through some of the more colorful neighborhoods of the city, in this case a walk through the Chiado on my way to dinner..           The summer news slowdown is in full force and you cant tell by the amount of feature content that's in today's news. One story that I felt compelled to share was about compensation and the questions today's graduates are asking about it. If you're an HR person, your life is going to change as stock options are starting to be looked at as employee benefits with questions being asked that were previously more recruiter level, then HR level oriented.       Employees Wise Up This week, a Bay Area founder was taken aback when an engineer being recruited by his startup asked for both its cap table and information regarding the liquidation preferences of its venture backers. The candidate presumably "worked somewhere where he discovered that these things matter," says the founder, who asked not to be named in this story.     [continue...]       Balance is something we all want in our life. Working from a different country, in a different time zone over a sustained period versus a few short weeks has taught me a lot more about my own work habits, traits and efforts. In reading the post from Upfront Ventures Mark Suster, I realized just how much I can relate to his life, and how apropos it really was. His blog is a great read and one worth keeping on your short list.       How the Hell do I Prioritize Work, Blog & Find Balance? | Bothsides of the Table I noticed this post today from Ezra Galston titled " Dear Brad, Fred & Mark: How The Hell Do You Do It? " The premise is that either I have some magical solutions that allow me to produce a lot of content or I'm super human.     [continue...]       The succession planning at Cisco is now almost through the top level changes,  and John Chambers is now the Chairman on a farewell tour, but he's clearly leaving a mark on the company and setting things up for the next ten years.       Cisco's John Chambers on two decades as chief: 'You have to let go' Speaking to The Telegraph in his last interview before relinquishing his role to long-time protégé Chuck Robbins and becoming chairman, Chambers was steadfast in his assertion that ever-increasing connectivity, between both humans and machines, will be a catalyst for growth and employment over the next decade.     [continue...]       Our mobile phone is more than just a phone. This article paints a very good picture of what they mean to us, and more what we do with them.         My mobile: so much more than a phone My mum came back from a party when I was little and told me about a conversation she'd had with somebody who worked for BT. "In the future, we won't phone a family," he'd said to her, to our general 1980s bafflement, all Rubik's Cubes and CND badges. "We'll call a person."     [continue...]       Drones are going to be big business. First in the NBC news story we can see how they will benefit society, especially with health care related activities. The second story shows how they will benefit the "amusement" economy, with Drone racing.       First FAA-Approved Drone Delivery Drops Medicine in Virginia The first government-approved drone delivery took flight on Friday, in which an unmanned aerial vehicle successfully dropped medical supplies to a health clinic in rural southwest Virginia. Several hundred people including Gov. Terry McAuliffe came to the fairgrounds in the coal-mining region of Wise County, Virginia, to see the delivery, county officials told NBC News.     [continue...]     Drone racing: Teenagers are being lured away from screens and outside to fly their aircraft against each other It seems certain that he will achieve his goal. Ask anyone in the tight-knit drone racing community and they will tell you that the teenager from Somerset is already an accomplished - some would say prodigiously gifted - aviator. Luke flies a type of aircraft known as an FPV racing drone.     [continue...]       Machine learning is one of those topics that are en vogue right now. And for good reason. Give a read over a cup of coffee or tea of today's item from the Financial Times.         We are data: the future of machine intelligence I look at apps like Grindr and Tinder and see how they've rewritten sex culture - by creating a sexual landscape filled with vast amounts of incredibly graphic site-specific data - and I can't help but wonder why there isn't an app out there that rewrites political culture in the same manner.     [continue...]       Our next item deals with address book management, and an eerie side of it.         My Digital Cemetery MY digital address book lists 2,743 contacts. This is not because I'm popular or extroverted; I'm neither. It's because this collection of names stretches back two decades, the oldest contacts tracing to a 1996 Palm Pilot and preserved through transfers involving more devices than I care to remember.     [continue...]       A phone without a SIM is where Apple and Samsung want to take you. This would mean more unlocked devices, and likely more freedom for the global worker and the global workforce. The phone and an app would be your key to more options as you travel or even while you're at home.       Apple and Samsung working on a standardized e-SIM card If it all goes according to plan, you could soon be able to switch mobile carriers by going to the settings page on your smartphone. On Thursday The Financial Times (paywall) reported that Apple and Samsung are in "advanced talks" with telecom operators from all over the world to launch new electronic SIM cards.     [continue...]       Back in San Diego, I use Amazon Fresh and have since it opened up that market. Now I saw it's coming to the UK, which means it takes on the established players there who long have offered home delivery.        Amazon Preps Fresh Grocery Delivery Launch in U.K. Amazon's grocery delivery service is still only available in a few markets in the U.S., but the e-commerce company is already planning to launch the service outside of the country. Multiple sources tell Re/code that Amazon is prepping to launch the Amazon Fresh service in the U.K.     [continue...]       If you didn't know it by now, I love wine. With the help of master winemaker and friend Doug Margerum, I'm now producing wines ever other year-really when there's enough grapes to go around-and enjoy having a wine to call my own. Our favorite designer, Bobby Buchanan of San Diego's Buchanan Design, designed the Comunicano Wine Company labels, which are very non traditional in the wine world so when I saw this story, I had to share it, not only with Bobby but with everyone who likes a good bottle of wine, but hates the label.             A Winery With a Young Visual Indentity Djurdjic Winery is a Serbian wine producer set-up in 2004. Peter Gregson's task was to create a new and memorable visual identity. Djurdjic Winery is a relatively young winery so in that context they don't have a strong heritage background which allowed the designer to create a simple design that represent the winery as new [...]     [continue...]

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The Comunicano Daily for Wednesday July 8th 2015

The Comunicano Daily

It's always fun to watch the moves in big business. A few years ago Microsoft acquired Nokia, largely to help them with their hardware business. At that time, Nokia then was also partnered with Siemens to form NSN on the infrastructure side of the house. Now NSN is all owned by Nokia, and the handset division is owned by Microsoft. But as our first story tells us, that's coming to an end or sure looks that way.         Major Job Cuts Expected at Microsoft Microsoft plans to announce a major new round of layoffs as early as Wednesday, as the company seeks to further cut costs amid a shifting technology landscape. The layoffs are in addition to the roughly 18,000 employees that Microsoft said it planned to let go a year ago, according to people briefed on the plans who asked for anonymity because the details were confidential.     [continue...]       But there's more to the Nokia story. One of the bright light divisions that got lost in the transition at Nokia was Maemo, a next generation Operating System (OS) that was to be the flagship to replace Symbian. The team there went off and formed Jolla, and in turn built the Sailfish OS. Yesterday we learned the company is being split into two. The reason? Smart money has Nokia snapping it up to reenter the handset business.       Mobile Maker Jolla Splits In Two, With Sailfish OS Its First Order Of Business Software or hardware? Finnish mobile device and Sailfish OS maker Jolla has always intended doing both. But that could be changing. Today the company announced it's forking itself, splitting its business into two. One of those businesses will be fully focused on pushing its Sailfish software platform forward.     [continue...]       Years back pal Tom Carter, now at F5 Networks, co-invented and successfully patented the concept of the Wi-Fi network being an extension of the mobile/cellular network. That technology, called Voice Call Continuity (VCC) was first brought to market by former client BridgePort Networks is now owned by CounterPath, whose advisory board I sit on. Well Tom and Bodie Wilhoite's vision is now coming to fruition as more and more mobile operators embrace Wi-Fi calling, but the real vision of disruption is coming from elsewhere, namely Google with ProjectFi that is so close to the original vision that I recall hearing from Tom that's it's very eerie to see it all unfold.       Project Fi Review: Google Masters Wi-Fi Calling, But Needs Better Phones For millions of us, Google is the backbone of our digital lives. So it's a little incongruous that to get to its many services, we generally go through carriers such as Comcast, Verizon or AT&T. In a few towns across America, Google has eliminated the middleman and started providing broadband service.     [continue...]       GigaOm Research is returning. And not soon enough. In an era where there's never enough insight, perspective and opinion, GigaOm's cadre of analysts always provided a very timely perspective. Sadly with the shuttering of GigaOm as we knew it, the last few months have left a void. Thankfully, the new owners are going to refill that void as pal Stowe Boyd shares the news with us.       Rebooting Gigaom Research On March 9 2015, Gigaom ceased operations because of the insolvency of Giga Omni, the corporation behind the scenes. As part of that cessation of operations Gigaom Research also closed its doors, and the network of analysts, editors, researchers, and other staff - built over years - was disbanded in one day.     [continue...]       Ever wonder how a company's story gets told?  We at Comunicano like to call it the "Brand Narrative" and today's piece in Medium provides a very insightful read on just how the company rises, falls and rises again to be sold another day. It's a great read if you are a marketer or communications pro or junkie.       How the Tech Press Forces a Narrative on Companies it Covers The tech press moves like clockwork, fitting company narratives into a predictable arc. Here's how pros deal with it. I don't remember who told me company narratives were like a clock. I was at Google, where I'd taken a job on the communications team despite zero experience in communications.     [continue...]       With the movers and shakers of content, media and technology all in Sun Valley for the Allen & Co. annual soiree, rumors will always abound. One that seems to be making th rounds is FaceBook buying Twitter. Given Twitter is searching for a new CEO, the time could be ripe for an acquisition, but given the current climate in D.C. on M&A and how consolidation of growing markets is viewed as bad it may not be as likely.       Will Facebook buy Twitter? Will Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey get caught huddling at the Duck Pond? That's a hot question as Allen & Co.'s annual Sun Valley media conference kicked off Tuesday - and some of Facebook's key investors are hoping and praying that the answer is "no."     [continue...]       Over in Europe the right to be forgotten in search engines is available. But not so in the USA. A consumer group is advocating that the Federal Trade Commission looks into why Google isn't offering that same opportunity to those domiciled in the USA.       A consumer group wants Google to give Americans 'the right to be forgotten' A consumer advocacy group is urging the US Federal Trade Commission to investigate why Google has not given American internet users the "right to be forgotten." In 2014, a European court mandated that Google remove search results from individuals when asked, if the results are irrelevant, outdated, or otherwise inappropriate.     [continue...]       Every Monday, I join long time pal and tech media star Ken Rutkowski on his dailyBusiness Rockstars 'cast (now video and audio) that is heard on CBS's Play.it and over 180 radio stations across the USA. During my weekly appearance I highlight a few new apps or services that can help business people do their job better or run their business more efficiently. So, in that tradition of "finding something new" today's app is "Telegram" a messaging app that works cross platform and adds some neat features like enhanced privacy.       Telegram: the best messaging service you're probably not using Every week or two a new update brings another new feature to Telegram. Photo: Telegram What Messaging App do you use? I've tried them all, settling on Telegram as my favourite cross platform chatting client. But what is the point of a great chat service if none of your friends are there?     [continue...]

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The Comunicano Daily for Friday November 14, 2014

The Comunicano Daily

It's always nice to wake up to see Comunicano clients in the news. Today, GigaOm's David Meyer captured the news about Temasys launching the All AWS (Amazon Web Services) based Skylink for WebRTC developers. In essence, if someone is building services on Amazon's Web Services platform they can now quickly and easily use Temasys' technologies quickly and easily.       Temasys wants AWS users to embed WebRTC comms using its platform The WebRTC company Temasys has released a platform called Skylink to help other firms build real-time communications into their apps and services. Because it is entirely built on the AWS stack, Skylink should work particularly well for providers who are also using AWS as their foundation.     [continue...]       The rules of the game for investing are changing and Angels List, like OurCrowd is at the forefront of changing those rules. Now they are letting institutional investors jump in early. Where this really changes the game is in the area I like to call "diagonal marketing" where relationships that exist between companies, people and organizations can be leveraged to shorten time to market, broaden distribution, supply pieces, parts and technology, form alliances, etc. This is all good as long as they all stay far away from the potential anti-trust, monopoly or insider trading regulations. I see this as a ripe opportunity for new regulation to come to be...hopefully for the good.       A disruptor shakes up angel investing One recent evening a group of institutional money managers was ushered into a backroom at San Francisco brasserie the Cavalier via an unmarked secret entrance that most customers would mistake for an emergency fire exit. Their host was Naval Ravikant, a wildly successful angel investor-Uber, Twitter, etc.-and serial entrepreneur who wanted to pitch them on his latest venture.     [continue...]       If it walks like a duck....BlackBerry Meetings sounds a lot like iotum's Pronto to me, which Comuicano helped launch many years ago at DEMO winning a DemoGod Awardin the process. Fast forward nine years and now BB has Meetings that does much of the same thing, but possibly with different technology.       BlackBerry announces BBM Meetings, a cross-platform conference call tool for $13.75 per month BlackBerry continues to expand upon and flesh out the features of its BBM messaging service. The company today hosted a BES event to unveil a new a new app called BBM Meetings that it says will address the shortcomings of current collaboration solutions.     [continue...]        If you need a lift to work now there's Lyft for Business. Fortunately, for the Comunicano team, we all are usually WFH (working from home) but if we do need to go somewhere more and more we use Uber and other ride sharing services. (Personally I'm a huge fan of Uber X)....The idea behind Lyft for Business is that companies can set up accounts for their employees, but also what Lyft is doing is setting up some car-pooling systems for co-workers. It's a neat idea and one that may just put more cars in the car pool lanes.       Lyft Becomes An Employee Perk With Launch Of 'Lyft For Work' On-demand ride-sharing service Lyft is announcing a new program that will allow businesses to give Lyft credits to employees as a perk. The new Lyft for Work program, which launches today, is aimed to boost adoption of the service while also providing a better commuting experience for company employees.     [continue...]       "I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass" was a song by Nick Lowe, and for some in the industry there may be some joy in Mudville over the nay saying, barb throwing aspects of the story below about Google Glass' future not being so bright. I take a different view, and thing that as with all early adopter programs that are over-hyped, there's a period of dissillusionment before the dam burst for the idea. Given we work so much with early stage ideas and companies, I'm a bit more tolerant but also like to caution our clients on not telling the whole story too soon. Google Glass is one where the whole story isn't really yet known.       Google Glass future clouded as some early believers lose faith - The Economic Times After two years of popping up at high-profile events sporting Google Glass, the gadget that transforms eyeglasses into spy-movie worthy technology, Google co-founder Sergey Brin sauntered bare-faced into a Silicon Valley red-carpet event on Sunday. He'd left his pair in the car, Brin told a reporter.     [continue...]       Back to School Daze..BlackBoard, which wants to be the supplier of all things educational except keeps rolling up vertcially aligned companies with their latest purchase, ParentLink.        Blackboard shells out an undisclosed sum to acquire ParentLink The shopping spree continues for District-based Blackboard. The education technology company has paid an undisclosed sum for Provo, Utah-based ParentLink, a company that connects school districts with parents through social media, mobile apps, phone calls and e-mail. Blackboard executives said Thursday that the purchase reflects the company's growing focus on selling technology to elementary and secondary schools.     [continue...]       This sounds like something that would happen to me. And actually I'm surprised it didn't on a flight back from London on a test flight on Virgin Atlantic where WiFi was offered (It was slow and useless). That said, there are faster services coming to the global airlines, and hopefully, better pricing than this.       Man gets $1,171 bill for using in-flight WiFi When it comes to offering Wi-Fi in the sky, airlines enjoy a situational monopoly. Still, this takes the cake: a Singapore Airlines passenger stepped off a plane, looked at his phone and discovered this bill for $1,171.46: As the passenger, Jeremy Gutsche, explains on TrendHunter, the eye-popping total came about as result of ordinary internet use - sending emails, uploading documents and such things.     [continue...]       From the "don't try this at home department" of viral videos, take a look at the CEO of a company that builds armor plated limos and how far he has gone to prove his product works......       Texas Armoring Corporation CEO Lets Employee Shoot Car With Assault Rifle While He's Inside  A Texas-based company posted a video on YouTube showing one of its employees firing at an SUV with an assault rifle while his boss is inside the vehicle, MSN has learned. The video is a promotional material for Texas Armoring Corporation, a company that retrofits everyday vehicles with protective armor.     [continue...]

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The Comunicano Daily for Thursday September 11, 2014

The Comunicano Daily

Lots of interesting news on the front of innovation or maybe best described as "its time has come" today and reflects upon how much we at Comunicano have been in the thick of this over the past ten years.  Wi-Fi calling and in flight texting from T-Mobile.. Comunicano represented pioneer Bridgeport Networks, founded by Tom Carter, now at F5 where he's leading their wireless efforts worldwide, over ten years ago, and they were the pioneers in Fixed Mobile Convergence. Google Hangouts adding full blown GoogleVoice integration. Comunicano represented GrandCentral during their rise to acquisition by Google in 2007. Blackberry acquires a virtual SIM company that will allow more capabilities by carriers, enterprises and users. Comunicano helped launch current client Truphone's multi-IMSI technology back in 2009 at Mobile World Congress and continues to support policy and billing technology leader ItsOn which just raised more cash from Cisco. So as I look at the news, so much of it isn't "new" or revolutionary, it's more about the times catching up to the inventions...NOW ON TO THE NEWS.       T-Mobile Expands Wi-Fi Calling to New Smartphones, Partners with Gogo for In-Flight Texting Adding to an already busy week of mobile news, T-Mobile announced several moves today designed to help customers use their phones even when there's no cellular connection, including when flying the friendly skies. Dubbed the "Wi-Fi Unleashed" campaign, T-Mobile said going forward all of its new smartphones will be enabled for Wi-Fi calling and texting.     [continue...]     Google Hangouts Gets Google Voice Integration And Free VoIP Calls For the last few years, it has always felt like Google Voice, the company's VoIP calling solution, was on its way out. Instead, the video-centric Hangouts was getting all of the attention.     [continue...]     Google Voice Is Dying and It's Beautiful I am a huge fan of what Google Voice can do. That's why I've been calling for a mercy kill, so that its best features can thrive in something other than a limp husk of a service. And now that Google is finally beginning to merge Voice into Hangouts, the process has started in earnest.     [continue...]     BlackBerry Acquires Virtual SIM Startup Movirtu     BlackBerry today announced it has acquired Movirtu, a UK startup that allows multiple numbers to be active on a single device. The Canadian company's hope is to boost its device management offerings in bring-your-own device (BYOD) and corporate owned personally enabled (COPE) environments. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.     [continue...]       A virtual assistant to help manage your on demand services sounds like a great idea. But honestly, those services are really best in high density, heavily populated areas. You won't see the demand for them as much in rural America initially, or small villages in Europe, but where you have a massive population, virtual work forces, transportation congestion and urban renewal, many of these services can aggregate people, products and services and deliver them more efficiently than many businesses doing the same thing for less.        Personal assistant service Alfred wins TechCrunch's Startup Battlefield contest A group of venture capital and tech company execs chose Alfred as the winner of TechCrunch's "Startup Battlefield"contest here at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference. Alfred is a subscription-based service that provides people to do basic tasks for you, like picking up dry cleaning, doing laundry, getting groceries, going to the pharmacy, cleaning the house, and a lot of other tedious and/or time consuming tasks.     [continue...]       On demand services being delivered by UBER can be here sooner than you know it. Already they have experimented with burger delivery and what they are are doing in Sweden is becoming another proof point on their road to hacking how consumers get better service and eliminate the old way of doing things.       Uber pilots on-demand product delivery in Sweden -- powered by its new API Today Uber announced a product delivery pilot test in Stockholm in partnership with Swedish ecommerce platform Tictail. Stockholm marks Uber's fourth city with large-scale on-demand deliveries, following Washington D.C., New York, and Santa Monica. The partnership coincides with the launch of Tictail's first iOS app.     [continue...]       This is a dream come true for all shoppers of IKEA and other furniture stores where "assembly is required."  Assemble itself furniture is coming.       In The Future, You'll Never Have To Assemble Furniture Again If you've ever struggled to put together some tricky furniture, just wait a few decades and you won't have to deal with the frustrating process. In 15-20 years, your furniture will put ITSELF together.     [continue...]       Here in California, Governor Gerry Brown basically upheld the First Amendment signing into law an agreement that comments in social media can't be restrained contractually directed at consumers and businesses. To me, the attempts to keep people from making comments about a bad experience always smacked of "prior restraint" so it's good to see this law get signed.       Gov. Jerry Brown signs bill protecting consumers' online reviews Californians offering online opinions or reviews of businesses will have new legal protection under a bill signed Tuesday by Gov. Jerry Brown .     [continue...]       Sometimes success can mean failure. That was the case in a Kickstarter campaign that did too well for a Delaware Valley company outside of Philadelphia.       Big Kickstarter Campaign Overwhelms Radiate Athletics Many entrepreneurs are using crowdfunding campaigns to raise the profile of their nascent businesses and products, while also raising funds. But the tactic sometimes backfires when a startup isn't prepared for the demand that follows. Consider the plight of Radiate Athletics and its co-founder Kenneth Crockett Jr.     [continue...]       As much as I love U2 it seems some Apple iTunes users didn't like the idea of being given free music but one of music's all time great bands. Part of this is really about the User Experience and how some people set their phones to auto-download or make excessive use of the iCloud music storage. To me the nay sayers are in the minority and the "bugs" or "warts" of the experience are really Apple's way of finding problems in user experience and fixing them.       Why is U2's latest album on your iPhone? How to remove Apple's publicity stunt Apple may have succeeded at breaking two records at once with the free release of U2's latest album via iTunes yesterday: The album, titled Songs of Innocence, instantly became "the largest album release of all time," as Apple CEO Tim Cook announced on stage during the company's iPhone 6 event.     [continue...]       Apple has created Reservation Pass. Gee this sounds like Craig Walker's Firespotter Labs service called NoshList that is deployed by restaurants. Oh, and about being on the forefront of technology that's ahead of its time, Comunicano supported Firespotter on its launch of Nosh, the food photo and what's on the menu app.       A new digital reservation system could save you time in the iPhone 6 line Hoping to buy a new iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus in the Apple Store next Friday but don't have hours to stand in line? You may not have to. 9to5 Mac reports that Apple Store employees received training documentation for a program called Reservation Pass.     [continue...]       Twitter is getting back into the developer relations arena with their upcoming developer conference, FLIGHT.       Twitter Announces Flight, An Annual Mobile Developer Conference Twitter has announced Flight, a new developer conference focused on mobile. The conference will take place at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco on October 22, with a keynote from CEO Dick Costolo, followed by technical sessions aimed at helping mobile devs build. It's not the first developer conference Twitter has held.     [continue...]       Comunicano is happy to be supporting and partnering with long time collaboration analyst and consultant David Coleman on the 2015 edition of the Distributed Collaboration Summit, otherwise known as DCS. This is the world's first virtual and real world conference ever staged for the collaboration industry. Contact me for details.       Distributed Collaboration Summit Coming In January A new kind of conference for a new kind of workplace DCS Dates January 15 - January 16, 2015 Time 8AM - 4PM Pacific Time Locations San Francisco, Santa Monica, Houston, Chicago, Washington DC, Boston, New York, Silicon Valley, Atlanta, Seattle DCS is a unique conference based on the growing trend of distributed teams and distributed work.     [continue...]

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The Comunicano Daily for Wednesday September 3, 2014

The Comunicano Daily

Today's humpday so it's time to look at what's happening around the technology news world. We'll start off with a Huffington Post item about Customer Disservice something most of us have felt from some PC brand, utility, airline, hotel or car manufacturer over time.  Next we're seeing the IRS looking at those who feed their staff and how that can be considered income vs. an expense..The Celebrity Photo Hack is making the news cycle, this time with the tools that can make it possible..Microsoft is everyone's target it seems these days, not just Apple or Google...all this and more today, SO ON WITH THE NEWS...       Why Is Customer Disservice Becoming the Norm and What Can We Do About It? Posted: "The entrepreneur always searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an opportunity." - Peter Drucker If you haven't yet heard the 8-minute diatribe leveled by a Comcast customer service rep to a customer and his wife who were trying to cancel their cable service, tune in here.     [continue...]     Silicon Valley Cafeterias Whet Appetite of IRS There is a grumpy new face in line at Silicon Valley's lavish freebie cafeterias: the Internal Revenue Service. Staffers at technology companies such as Google Inc., Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. long have enjoyed free gourmet meals, courtesy of their employers.     [continue...]     The Police Tool That Pervs Use to Steal Nude Pics From Apple's iCloud  As nude celebrity photos spilled onto the web over the weekend, blame for the scandal has rotated from the scumbag hackers who stole the images to a researcher who released a tool used to crack victims' iCloud passwords to Apple, whose security flaws may have made that cracking exploit possible in the first place.     [continue...]       We're just finally seeing 4G/LTE and LTE-A (for advanced) rolling out in more places in the USA and around the world and so it's no surprise the 5G is making noise, this time in Finland.       Nokia to build 5G test network in Oulu While a commitment-in-principle has already been made, a formal decision on construction of the high-speed 5G network won't come until autumn, said Nokia technical director Juha Määttä. When asked about the construction schedule for the network, Määttä said that it could begin early in 2015.     [continue...]     WiFi speed displayed directly onto booking and travel websites Hotel WiFi Test has launched a browser extension that displays information about a hotel's WiFi speed and quality onto the most popular booking and travel websites: Hotels.com, Expedia, Booking.com and TripAdvisor.     [continue...]       Office by the Month. Not the kind you physically use, but from Microsoft has debuted for iPad as an in-app purchase. In my view this is two years or more too late. Google Apps is gaining momentum and already is far more integrated.        Microsoft adds monthly in-app subscription option to Office for iPad Summary: Microsoft Office for iPad users now have the option to subscribe to Office 365 monthly and from inside Word, Excel or PowerPoint. Microsoft is now allowing Office for iPad users to pay monthly, rather than only annually, for their Office 365 Home or Personal subscriptions.     [continue...]       If you don't use Evernote, your working too hard when it comes to storing and finding notes, pictures, videos and more. And, like Google and others, the company is taking aim at Microsoft Office at the right time. While Microsoft has OneNote, Evernote has users, lots of them who are raving loyalists.       Evernote's Phil Libin Has Come to Bury Microsoft Office, Not Praise It What about OneNote? It's a question that Evernote CEO Phil Libin gets asked all the time, especially after Microsoft made the note-taking app free earlier this year. But, Libin says, it's the wrong question. Libin makes no bones about having Microsoft in his sights, but it is Office he wants to dethrone, not OneNote.     [continue...]       While Evernote takes aim at productivity Google is going right after the jugular of Office and Exchange by developing a strategy that looks to displace Microsoft Outlook.       Google's New Strategy to Unseat Microsoft Outlook Google executive Amit Singh must persuade companies to ditch Microsoft Outlook for business-focused versions of Gmail. But pioneering driverless cars may be easier than changing the way people send email at work.     [continue...]       Who comes after the Millennials? It's Gen-Z, not Jay-Z. And, Gen-Z seems to be more like those who came before GenY....at least that's what one study says. We really won't know for a few more years though..       Are You Prepared for Gen Z Tech Workers? Millennials and their quirky work habits get all the attention these days, but the younger Gen Z is turning out to be even more of a mystery.     [continue...]

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The January Juggernaut Begins

Today marks the end of a two week respite of sorts. By working from Cascais, Portugal and now Paris, France I was able to spend time with friends and still work remotely using a combination of blazing fast 60 meg symetircal broadband in Cascais, and mobile technology when I was out and about.

But, starting Monday, with Pepcom Digital Experience as a prelude to CES in Las Vegas, the January Juggernaut begins, with plenty of hardware and apps finding their way to us all. Right on the heels of CES in New York is the annual National Retail Federation conference and trade show begins on January 13. There, whats new for retail and e-tail makes their marks. Then over in Hawaii, the annual Pacific Telecommunications Council conference takes hold on January 20th before we end the month with IT Expo East starting on January 30th in Miami Beach, FL.

So what does this all mean? Well for starters it means a lot of NEW and a great deal of hype being played out. What's old doesn't make the news as much, and speculation on what will be the next big things starts to mount. In reality a lot of that work began months before and really goes live during the events, and surrounding activity points, taking what was once an ideal or concept, all the way through to the finished goods.

For the media it will mean long hours, races to beat their competitors to the news that will break down into there categories:

1. New and Shiny-this is where press releases rule, where notes about something new comes out, where testing and validation are not part of the news. Largely, the informaton comes from the companies, and sometimes a third party speculates.
2. Release and Review-here, what's new actually gets tested or reviewed by the reporter, with some degree of experience ranging from holding it in their hands, having someone show them the features to having actually used the product or app for enough time to share their views on how good (or bad) it is, or if it's worth buying, trying or should be passed up.
   
   
3. Insight, Perspective and Opinion-This is perhaps the most valuable but least found writing or coverage weeks of shows. It means someone takes the time to look at what's "new" and evaluate it's impact on society, business or the market at large. It's less about the wow factors that seem to envelope the news during show weeks, and more about the what it means and how things will change, could be different or be the means to make things different.

For those on the other side of the screen, it means information overload, too much delivered that looks to be the same, and the need for greater curation, aggregation and what none of us have. Time. Starting Monday, January 7, we become time famished, time challenged and time contrained. Hopefully some of the new products and services find a way to eliminate those...but I doubt it....