Giving Your ‘Touch’ Screen Real Feelings

by Harris Cohen, the PromoGuru

You may never have heard of haptics, but you come into contact with it every day. When your phone vibrates to indicate an incoming call, that’s haptics. When you’re playing a video game and your controller rumbles along to an explosion in the game, that’s haptics. Haptics is any technology that connects with the user through the sense of touch.

GE Looks at the Future of Flight

by Harris Cohen, the PromoGuru

Check out out this website - Future Flight - for a look into the future of aviation from GE.

The real treat on this particular website is the interactive airport map. You'll find it about halfway down the page. Check out such lists as "World's Oldest Airports" and "Most Scenic Airports". Our hometown San Diego made the top of "World's Most Urban Airports". Choose the "Remote Airport" list and then zoom out on the map to see just how middle-of-nowhere some airports are! You can also make a custom list - maybe all the airports you've flown into, or ones you'd like to visit - and share it with friends on Facebook or Twitter.

Maybe you should activate the out-of-office manager on your e-mail...this site could have you busy for a couple hours.



 Picture credit: GE

Pull Up a Chair...to your iPhone

by Harris Cohen, the PromoGuru

Is the iPhone screen just too small for you?

You've tried upgrading the iPad, but still not getting the screen clarity you desire?

Maybe you need to pull up a chair to the iTableous!

Creator Benjamin Bachmeier took a 40" screen and designed an Apple-style table around it. In addition, it runs the Mac operating system (and Windows 7!), rather than the iOS (the operating system for Apple phones and tablets).

Check it the iTableous here, and watch a video tour of this custom job!

Online Shopping, Tablet-Style

by Harris Cohen, the PromoGuru

Online shopping changed the face of retailing, but what will change the face of online shopping? The clear candidate is the touch screen computer – more specifically the tablet. Devices like the iPad and Galaxy can recreate the feeling of flipping through a catalog to shop a retailer’s inventory, giving a more personal, or maybe a more familiar, touch than scrolling down a list in a browser window.

QR Tech Alert: SnapTags Become Fashionable

by Harris Cohen, the PromoGuru

You may have seen QR Codes and Microsoft Tags here and there in print magazine ads. But fashion magazine Glamour is looking to ratchet up mobile tagging in print media with their fall fashion issue. The magazine has partnered with Facebook to add “SnapTags” to the cover and inside ad pages of their September edition. Readers with smartphones will scan the SnapTags and be encouraged to “Like” either Glamour’s or a relevant advertiser’s Facebook page.

Introducing the Next World's Tallest Building

by Harris Cohen, the PromoGuru

New concept pictures have just been released for the Kingdom Tower project in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The one-kilometer-tall skyscraper will dwarf the current place-holder, Dubai's Burj Khalifa, by nearly 200 meters. Within, 59 elevators will race you to the observation deck at 10 meters per second. This is not a building for the easily queasy!

Check out the website of Chicago's AS+GG Architecture, the firm designing the tower, for awe-inspiring renderings of what the completed project will look like. Construction is expected to start no later than this December, and take about five years to complete.

Remember, while these are computer renderings, this is a building they are really hoping to build - not a piece of CGI scenery for the next Star Wars project!

QR Tech Alert: Subway Shopping

by Harris Cohen, the PromoGuru

UK-based retailer Tesco is bringing the store to the shopper using QR codes. In South Korea, the supermarket chain has set up a virtual storefront in a Seoul subway station. Wall-length advertisements were designed to look like market shelves, displaying product images and price tags featuring unique QR codes. Shoppers, while waiting for their train, can scan the codes, adding them to their online shopping cart. Once the transaction is complete, the order is processed at a nearby Tesco Homeplus and the real groceries are packaged up and delivered to the shopper’s home by the end of the day.

The approach lets consumers who may feel that they do not have enough time to go to the grocery store make ample use of their waiting time during commutes.

Click below to see a video of the set-up of the virtual supermarket:

Bringing Social Media Into the Office

by Harris Cohen, The PromoGuru

Social media sites can be a great way for businesses to reach customers, but it’s hard to keep an open forum like Facebook anything but informal. So how do you utilize social media in your business and still keep an aura of professionalism?

iPhone 5 Update

by Harris Cohen, the PromoGuru

Looks like it won't be until October that we see the release of the next generation of iPhone.

See this story at All Things D for details, including how Apple employees have been blocked from taking vacation the last two weeks of September in preparation for the iPhone 5 release!

Photo Credit: All Things D

Tablets Are From Mars, eReaders Are From Venus

by Harris Cohen, The PromoGuru

Is the battle of the sexes spilling over into our tech preferences? It’s about more than just a choice between the pink or blue iPod Nanos. A recent study found that women are more likely to own an e-reader, and men more likely to own a tablet.

Research firm GfK MRI polled more than 26,000 adults in the U.S. and discovered that women are 52 percent more likely than men to own an e-reader, and men are 24 percent more likely than women to own a tablet.

The Tipping Point in Mobile Communications

by Harris Cohen, The PromoGuru

Analysts at Neilsen say we have reached that point: in May, for the first time, smartphone sales outstripped feature phone sales. Feature phones would be the pre-cursors to smartphones, which maybe could handle a game or two and would give you minimal if any Internet access, if any.

How did we ever get along without the Internet on our phones?

DIY Segway Hits the Streets of Stockholm

by Harris Cohen, the Promo Guru

Love to ride your own Segway but are a bit shy about the well-over $1,000 price tag? Petter Forsberg, a young tinkerer from Sweden, worked his way around that and has put together his own version of the personal transporter - and it only cost him $434 to create.

See the full story and videos here: Petter's Robot Dreams.

So we just need to get together some pieces, break out the tool set and hole up in the garage for a couple months, and viola! DIY Segway! Who's coming with me to the Radio Shack?

Facebook iPhone Update Conceals iPad Preview

by Harris Cohen, the PromoGuru

Sixteen months and 25 million units sold, and iPad users are still using the same old Facebook app from the iPhone? That doesn’t seem right. With iPad’s screen well over double the size of the iPhone’s, running the phone-tailored app seems such a waste of screen space and other tablet capabilities.

Then the HP TouchPad comes around touts the first ever Facebook tablet app right off the bat. So where’s the love for Apple users?

Not too far, according to Techcrunch.

Do Apple Sales Signal the “Post-PC Era”?

by Harris Cohen, the PromoGuru

Earlier this week, Apple quietly laid to rest the white MacBook, leaving new Apple enthusiasts with only two laptop choices: the MacBook Pro or the thin MacBook Air. Maybe it has something to do with Apple announcing that iPad sales in this past quarter had surpassed revenue from Mac sales.

And it only took the iPad 15 months to achieve this benchmark!

Apps Bring In the Money

by Harris Cohen, The PromoGuru

You’re not likely to make any money by playing Angry Birds, but if you were to develop an app of your own, you could be raking in the bucks.

High-tech analysts Canalys found that mobile apps will accrue over $7 billion in direct revenues this year, from downloads, in-app payments and subscriptions. This figure will likely double by 2012, to just over $14 billion, and is projected to reach $36 billion by 2015, which shows an annual growth rate of almost 50 percent.

From Apples to Amazon: A New Entrant In the Tablet Gambit

by Harris Cohen, the PromoGuru

Not content with just having the most popular e-reader out there, Amazon now looks poised to enter the tablet market. A launch date for the code-named “Hollywood” tablet was expected sometime in August or September. But the online retailing giant could face some setbacks, as Apple has recently placed orders for a huge quantity of parts from suppliers across the Pacific.

Facebook and Skype: Together At Last?

by Harris Cohen, the PromoGuru

This week saw the integration of two major players in online communications. At an event at Facebook headquarters in Palo Alto, California, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced a deal between his company and Skype, the voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) provider. Zuckerberg heralded the partnership as “the start of a new era of social networking.”

iRumors: Apple’s Autumn Releases

by Harris Cohen, the PromoGuru

The Internet is abuzz with rumors about what Apple has in store for the end of this year. Talk about the iPhone 5 has been around since the release of iPhone 4 in April; recent rumors have swelled over a new version of the iPad; and even the iPod Touch is getting some attention, with whispers of a very exciting new feature.

A Quick Boost, For You and Your Handheld

by Harris Cohen, The PromoGuru

Vitaminwater is looking to give a refreshing energy boost to more than just your body. Through ad agency Crispin Porter and Bogusky, the enhanced water drink company is integrating real, functional USB ports in their bus stop ads in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and New York.

The idea is to let riders charge their handheld devices while they wait for the bus. The ads are part of the Vitaminwater's 'You're Up' campaign, highlighting its message that the drink is formulated to give you a quick boost when you are on the go.

It’s an awesome idea…if we can get everyone to respect it. The line for the bus could become the line for the free charger (there do appear to be three slots). And hopefully some wisenheimer doesn’t stick their chewing gum in the slot.

Will the other energy drinks follow suit? Maybe 5-Hour Energy will set up a USB-capable subway ad, asking if your tablet needs to beat that 2:30 feeling!

The Tiny Screen Works Fine For Me

by Harris Cohen, the PromoGuru

Has your smartphone become your go-to Internet source?

A survey by the Pew Institute found that of 2,277 people polled, 28 percent used their small screen handset as their primary manner for accessing Internet content. That’s not too huge a sample of the population, so we can’t official consider the PC passé. But don’t be surprised if you see more people heading to the optometrist complaining of eye strain.

Another interesting figure from the poll found that 87 percent of smartphone owners use their device to browse the Internet, read e-mail and such. This leaves us to wonder why the other 13 percent even got a smartphone. To just play Angry Birds, perhaps?

Super-Spy Watch It May Not Be...But Pretty Darn Close!

by Harris Cohen, the PromoGuru

If you frequently leave your phone or tablet laying on your desk, but always have your wristwatch on, Fossil’s got just the thing for you!

The new Fossil “Meta Watch” will come in two models, one analog with two small digital displays, and the other fully digital. Both connect to your smartphone or tablet via Bluetooth tech developed by Texas Instruments. On your Meta Watch you can receive push notifications and be able to read e-mails, tweets and Facebook updates. Since none of those apps actually exist on the device itself (they are just being transmitted from your main device), the watch has a great battery life.

Pre-orders are now being accepted, or you can wait until they go on sale officially next month at $200.

Checking your phone during a meeting can be considered rude, checking your watch carries just slightly less a taboo.

LinkedIn to Better Business

by Harris Cohen, The PromoGuru

Small business can now make the most out of their LinkedIn pages!

“Company Skills” has been around for a bit, but is one of the more straight-forward marketing approaches on LinkedIn. Businesses can showcase company info, announcements, and products photos, as well as post endorsements, similar to the personal recommendations made between connections. It’s like a graphics-rich resume for your business.

Included in the new features is “TextIn”, which gives users the ability to search and receive profile results through text messaging. You provide your mobile number to LinkedIn, authorize the app, and then via text you can search for a connection on LinkedIn. The results come back as another text message.

iPhone Users Flocking to T-Mobile?

by Harris Cohen, The PromoGuru

In a recent interview with 9to5Mac.com, a T-Mobile rep let slip that they are now supporting one million iPhone users.

If you’re thinking to yourself, “Wait, I didn’t know T-Mobile carried iPhones,” you’re right; they don’t. But Apple recently began selling unlocked versions of the iPhone. An “unlocked” version means that you can use the phone with other carriers; though they have to use the same type of network (sim-card based GSM). Before the release it wasn’t impossible to get your iPhone unlocked, though most people would probably want to tackle the process.

Checking In to Save When Checking Out

by Harris Cohen, The PromoGuru

Foursquare, which debuted in 2009, quickly popularized the idea of “checking in” by way of an app that would tell your friends and followers if you were at a certain store, restaurant, or theater.

 The idea has since been adapted by both Facebook (with their “Places” feature) and Google (with “Latitude”). But now Foursquare is bringing in a partner to introduce a whole new level of “checking in.”

Life Beyond the Known Domains

by Harris Cohen, The PromoGuru

The global agency that assigns Internet addresses, the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (or ICANN), loosened its guidelines earlier this week and will now allow domain suffixes to be named after just about anything.

Maybe this news is not quite as science fiction-y as our article title would suggest, but it certainly opens website owners to new possibilities. It’s possibly the biggest change to the Internet system since its start in 1984.

HP's Exclusive, Tablet-Only Magazine

by Harris Cohen, The PromoGuru

HP intends to change the way you shop for apps. With the release of their tablet, the TouchPad, they will also introduce an exclusive magazine called Pivot, available and updated only via the tablet’s wi-fi.

The magazine will be devoted to showcasing a wide array of apps, and the developers behind them. Customers will be able to explore the content based on their interests and lifestyles.

Shoot Now, Focus Later

by Harris Cohen, The PromoGuru

Thought you had the perfect shot on your vacation, but then it ended up a blurry mess? With an advanced new camera coming out later this year, you won’t have to worry. Just fix it later!

Silicon Valley start-up Lytro is set to introduce a point-and-shoot style camera which will feature technology that lets a picture’s focus be adjusted after it is taken. Once you have transferred the file to your computer, you will be able to bring any out-of-focus object in the picture into sharp relief.

Unlimited No More

by Harris Cohen, The PromoGuru

Look out, Verizon users! Before the summer ends, excessively streaming Netflix and Pandora on your smartphone is going to start costing you.

Perhaps as earlier as next month, Verizon plans to stop offering an unlimited data plan for smartphones, currently priced at $30 per month. The new tiers will put Verizon subscribers more on level with AT&T users (who lost their chance at an unlimited plan last year). Thirty dollars will now get you 2GBs per month; $50 will cover 5GBs, and $80 will get 10GBs. Similar plans already exist for tablets in the Verizon network. There will not be separate plans for 3G and 4G devices.

The Entrepreneurial Spirit: A Sign for a Time

by Harris Cohen, The PromoGuru

Over the next couple weeks we’d like to spotlight a handful of entrepreneurs who have stayed afloat in the toughest of markets: fads. How do you introduce a product and then stay relevant in a world that runs from the next big thing to another in seemingly no time at all? Maybe you move on to something new, or maybe you roll with the punches and have a good sense of your niche in the market.

In “The Entrepreneurial Spirit,” we’ll look at inventors and marketers who rolled out “Next Big Things” but also landed on their feet when the dust settled on the fad.

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In 1984, Michael Lerner was childless himself, but a drive down one of Boston’s busiest expressways with his 18-month-old nephew in the back seat had him scared out of his wits over the safety of the boy. He told Wall Street Journal, as traffic rushed around him, “for the first time, I felt like a parent feels when they have a kid in the car."