Tal Ben-Shahar
Jon is amazed that professor Tal Ben-Shahar gets away with teaching happiness at Harvard.
Tal Ben-Shahar is an author and lecturer at Harvard University. He taught the most popular course at Harvard on "Positive Psychology" and the third largest on "The Psychology of Leadership"--with a total of over 1,400 students.
Tal consults and lectures around the world to executives in multi-national corporation, the general public, and at-risk populations. Topics include happiness, self-esteem, resilience, goal setting, mindfulness, and leadership.
An avid sportsman, Tal won the U.S. Intercollegiate and Israeli National squash championships. He obtained his PhD in Organizational Behavior and BA in Philosophy and Psychology from Harvard.
HAPPY CONFERENCE 2009, Impacting Wellness in Organizations
In an interview with WSJ's Alan Murray, WPP CEO Sir Martin Sorrell conceded that advertisers must do better to inform customers about the tracking and mapping of online behavior. On the U.S. economy, he characterized the last 6-7 months as "America Bites Back" but wonders how long the recovery will last.
Facebook says it is taking steps to "dramatically limit" the exposure of users' personal information, after a WSJ investigation showed that personal IDs were being transmitted to third parties via Facebook apps. But how hard is it to fix such a breach - and how concerned should users be about the sharing of these IDs? Julia Angwin joins Digits to discuss.
Many top applications on Facebook have been transmitting identifying information to Internet tracking and ad companies. Emily Steel discusses. Also, Michael Ramsey discusses skepticism about the auto industry's big bet that battery-powered cars will become big sellers.
It's rarely a coincidence when you see Web ads for products that match your interests. WSJ's Christina Tsuei explains how advertisers use cookies to track your online habits.
A new report in the Wall Street Journal's "What They Know" series illustrates how companies like Microsoft must balance conflicting interests: helping people surf the Web with its browser to keep their mouse clicks private, and helping advertisers who want to see those clicks. WSJ's Julia Angwin, Nick Wingfield, and Jessica Vascellaro join host Simon Constable as panelists on this special Digits live show.
Take your campaign anywhere.Our powerful widget allows you to take your campaign anywhere, including your website, blog, or social networks like MySpace. By copy/pasting a single line of code, people can join your campaign without ever leaving your site.The campaign widget makes it easy for existing communities to leverage the power of The Point by taking campaigns to all the places where like-minded people exist.
Cheburashka (Russian: ru-Cheburashka.ogg Чебурашка (help·info)), also known as Topple in earlier English translations, is a character in children's literature, from a 1966 story by the Russian writer Eduard Uspensky. He is also the protagonist (voiced by Klara Rumyanova) of the animated film series by Soyuzmultfilm studio, the first episode of which was made in 1969.
Eric Schmidt speaks at IFA 2010 on September 7, 2010 in Berlin. The talk includes demos of mobile features by Product Management Director Hugo Barra and of Google TV by Product Marketing Manager Brittany Bohnet.
At least it did me. Touted by co-founder Sachin Agarwal as a one stop shop for all your sharing needs, the Posterous app (now available in the App store) is extremely intuitive to use, and you don’t even need a Posterous to use it to start uploading photos, video and text, which, if you’ve enabled the Posterous “Autopost” feature will also post to your Facebook, Twitter as well as 26 other social sites including Flickr, YouTube, WordPress, Vimeo and Tumblr.
While you might be experiencing iPhone share fatigue (Instagram, Twitter, Tumblrette, WordPress and many others allow you to upload content directly from your phone) Posterous has always modeled itself on providing its pretty fanatical userbase with ease of use, the original idea of the service being that you could send an email to post@posterous.com and get a blog back, to which you the could send any other subsequent posts to post@sitename.posterous.com.
The Posterous mobile app takes off on this basic “no need to log in” philosophy, but supports geolocational tags, category tags and various levels of editing and privacy. And despite being buggy at points (one of my test posts posted twice, which was confusing), it’s pretty impressive how much you can actually do from the app (for example I set up my whole Posterous account) as opposed to WordPress, which has the effect of making you feel immobilized when blogging on the go because it does not allow you to upload media other than photos and lacks social sharing functions.
Winning “Keep It Simple Stupid” product strategy aside, it’s really hard not to root for the YC-backed Posterous; Their recent skuffle with Twitpic solidified them as champions of user portability which is always a crowd pleaser. Their user traffic has also risen accordingly boasting a 40% increase since June.
Currently funded at $5.14 million, Posterous’ future plans for the iPhone app include building the ability to directly edit posts from the app, landscape post viewing, multiple photo selection and showing attachments as actual thumbnails.
Jeffrey Tucker interviews bestselling author and Mises Institute Senior Fellow, Dr. Thomas E. Woods, Jr. They discuss his recent blockbuster "33 Questions About American History You're Not Supposed to Ask."
With the development of the BMW GINA Light Visionary Model the BMW Group presents trendsetting solutions. Chris Bangle gives us a first impression of the ideas behind the process of sculpturing an experimental study. This is the story behind this innovation!
The GINA Light Visionary Model is a fabric-skinned shape-shifting sports car concept built by BMW. GINA stands for "Geometry and functions In 'N' Adaptations".[1][2][3] It was designed by a team led by BMW’s head of design, Chris Bangle, who says GINA allowed his team to "challenge existing principles and conventional processes.
Check out this Guerrilla Marketing Campaign Example!
What if someone bottled the water that millions in developing countries drink every day and offered it on the streets of New York?
For just a buck, during World Water Week (March 22-29), New Yorkers in the Union Square Park area were able to enjoy the benefits of DIRTY WATER. It was available in a wide variety of choices like MALARIA, CHOLERA or even TYPHOID DIRTY WATER -- and currently has 900 million consumers. Over 4,200 children die of water related diseases every day and millions of people around the world lack access to clean water resources.
New Yorkers were startled to find YELLOW FEVER or HEPATITIS DIRTY WATER bottles. They looked at the vending machine in disgust. Though no one drank Dirty Water,many did donate to the cause. This idea of "selling" dirty water was inspired by UNICEF's promise that every dollar donated would provide safe drinking water to 40 children for a day.
This eye-opening DIRTY WATER initiative from Casanova Pendrill New York, goes beyond collecting funds for UNICEF in a unique active street effort. The goal was to shock the media and the public with this alarming issue.
The campaign is currently active since people can continue donating online at tapproject.org or via text message. Text TAP or AGUA to UNICEF (864233) to make a $5 donation.
This effort is part of a much bigger pro-bono Spanish/English campaign that Casanova Pendrill executed within UNICEF´s Tapproject.org. This is first time the campaign expands to Multicultural. Casanova has managed to secure half a million dollars in donated media and developed TV spots, Radio, Outdoor, web banners and outdoor events.
An education video on Mass Spectrometry using a magnetic sector instrument from the Royal Society of Chemistry. From the Modern Instrumental Techniques for schools and colleges DVD. For more information on the Chemistry for our Future programme please visit http://www.rsc.org/CFOF (C) Royal Society of Chemistry
The Mass Spectrometer In order to measure the characteristics of individual molecules, a mass spectrometer converts them to ions so that they can be moved about and manipulated by external electric and magnetic fields. The three essential functions of a mass spectrometer, and the associated components, are:
1. A small sample is ionized, usually to cations by loss of an electron. The Ion Source 2. The ions are sorted and separated according to their mass and charge. The Mass Analyzer 3. The separated ions are then measured, and the results displayed on a chart. The Detector
Ultraviolet/Visible Spectroscopy (UV-Vis)
An obvious difference between certain compounds is their color. Thus, quinone is yellow; chlorophyll is green; the 2,4-dinitrophenylhydrazone derivatives of aldehydes and ketones range in color from bright yellow to deep red, depending on double bond conjugation; and aspirin is colorless. In this respect the human eye is functioning as a spectrometer analyzing the light reflected from the surface of a solid or passing through a liquid. Although we see sunlight (or white light) as uniform or homogeneous in color, it is actually composed of a broad range of radiation wavelengths in the ultraviolet (UV), visible and infrared (IR) portions of the spectrum. As shown on the right, the component colors of the visible portion can be separated by passing sunlight through a prism, which acts to bend the light in differing degrees according to wavelength. Electromagnetic radiation such as visible light is commonly treated as a wave phenomenon, characterized by a wavelength or frequency. Wavelength is defined on the left below, as the distance between adjacent peaks (or troughs), and may be designated in meters, centimeters or nanometers (10-9 meters). Frequency is the number of wave cycles that travel past a fixed point per unit of time, and is usually given in cycles per second, or hertz (Hz). Visible wavelengths cover a range from approximately 400 to 800 nm. The longest visible wavelength is red and the shortest is violet. Other common colors of the spectrum, in order of decreasing wavelength, may be remembered by the mnemonic: ROY G BIV. The wavelengths of what we perceive as particular colors in the visible portion of the spectrum are displayed and listed below. In horizontal diagrams, such as the one on the bottom left, wavelength will increase on moving from left to right.
Proton Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR)
1H NMR Intrepretation Tutorial
Proton Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (1H NMR) Spectroscopy is a powerful method used in the determination of the structure of unknown organic compounds.
During Chemistry 222 lab you will be using NMR extensively to help assign structures to two unknown organic compounds and this tutorial and exercises will hopefully help you solve your unknown.
To remind you of some things that you probably already know about the basic workings of an NMR and interpreting NMR spectra:
The 1H NMR spectrum of an organic compound provides information concerning:
the # of different types of hydrogens present in the molecule the relative #'s of the different types of hydrogens the electronic environment of the different types of hydrogens the number of hydrogen "neighbor" a hydrogen has Use the index on the left to choose which topic you want to go. If you feel pretty good about your knowledge of NMR, you should go directly to the exercises. If not, maybe you could visit the tutorial pages and take the included quizzes to help you remember.
An education video on Fourier Transform Infra-Red Spectrometry from the Royal Society of Chemistry. From the Modern Instrumental Techniques for schools and colleges DVD. For more information on the Chemistry for our Future programme please visit http://www.rsc.org/CFOF (C) Royal Society of Chemistry
Charles Babbage, FRS (26 December 1791 – 18 October 1871)[2] was an English mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer who originated the concept of a programmable computer[3]. Parts of his uncompleted mechanisms are on display in the London Science Museum. In 1991, a perfectly functioning difference engine was constructed from Babbage's original plans. Built to tolerances achievable in the 19th century, the success of the finished engine indicated that Babbage's machine would have worked. Nine years later, the Science Museum completed the printer Babbage had designed for the difference engine, an astonishingly complex device for the 19th century. Considered a "father of the computer",[4] Babbage is credited with inventing the first mechanical computer that eventually led to more complex designs.
Worth It?: Google's Gmail Calling 10/8/2010 9:34:11 AM WSJ's Courtney Banks tests Google's new addition to its Google Voice platform: Internet calling through Gmail, which offers free calls in the U.S. and Canada and cheap international rates. But outgoing calls can sound garbled, she reports.
digits: Microsoft's Handset Hopes 10/11/2010 1:24:19 PM Microsoft unveiled a lineup of smartphones using its revamped Windows Phone 7 mobile-operating system, the software giant's boldest move to remain a player in the mobile business. Spencer Ante, Dan Gallagher and Jennifer Valentino-DeVries discuss.
Walt Mossberg and Marcelo Prince discuss the possible benefits and drawbacks of having the iPhone on Verizon's wireless network, including whether it will suffer some of the same problems that have plagued AT&T. Plus, Verizon readies 4G service.
The iPhone is finally coming to the Verizon wireless network as Apple gears up to produce a CDMA version of its popular smartphone that will be available in the first quarter of next year. Marcelo Prince and Julia Angwin discuss.
Apple Readies Verizon iPhone
By YUKARI IWATANI KANE And TING-I TSAI
AT&T Inc. is about to lose its lock on the iPhone.
Apple Inc. is making a version of its iPhone that Verizon Wireless will sell early next year, according to people familiar with the matter, ending an exclusive deal with AT&T and sharpening the competition with Google Inc.-based phones.
Walt Mossberg and Marcelo Prince discuss the possible benefits and drawbacks of having the iPhone on Verizon's wireless network, including whether it will suffer some of the same problems that have plagued AT&T. Plus, Verizon readies 4G service.
While Apple is on track to sell 40 million iPhones across the globe this year, the touchscreen handset is facing pressure in the U.S. from phones running Google's Android software, which have been heavily promoted by Verizon Wireless, the biggest U.S. carrier by subscribers.
Apple plans to begin mass producing the new iPhone by the end of the year, and it would be released in the first quarter of 2011, these people said. The phone would resemble the iPhone 4 currently sold by AT&T, but would be based on an alternative wireless technology used by Verizon, these people said.
The new iPhone spells the end of the exclusive arrangement that AT&T has had since 2007, when Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs introduced the original iPhone. Since then, the iPhone fueled much of the AT&T's growth.
Verizon Wireless has been meeting with Apple, adding capacity and testing its networks to prepare for the heavy data load by iPhone users, according to one person familiar with the matter. The carrier is seeking to avoid the kind of public-relations hit that AT&T took when the boom in data-hungry iPhones overtaxed its network, especially in New York and San Francisco.
The iPhone is finally coming to the Verizon wireless network as Apple gears up to produce a CDMA version of its popular smartphone that will be available in the first quarter of next year. Marcelo Prince and Julia Angwin discuss.
More
Digits: A Verizon iPhone: How Many Would Switch? Verizon to Launch 4G in 38 Cities This Year Motorola Sues Apple Over Patents The move would give consumers more choice in terms of networks and perhaps pricing. Verizon's network is untested in terms of whether it can withstand millions of iPhone users, but studies by Consumer Reports and others have concluded Verizon has a better network than AT&T. Verizon also still offers unlimited Internet data plans.
Apple is facing increasing pressure to find new avenues of growth in the U.S. market as most AT&T customers who wanted the iPhone have now bought them. Meanwhile, phones running Google's software—built by Motorola Inc., HTC Corp. and others—have surged this year.
Android smartphone subscribers in the U.S. reached 10.9 million as of August, from 866,000 a year earlier, according to comScore Inc., a market research firm. In comparison, there were 13.5 million iPhone subscribers at the end of August, up from 7.8 million last year, comScore says.
Separately, Apple is also developing a new iPhone model, said people briefed on the phone. One person familiar said the fifth-generation iPhone would be a different form factor than those that are currently available, said one person familiar with the new iPhone plan. It was unclear how soon that version would be available to Verizon or other carriers.
At a press conference Wednesday, Verizon Communications Inc. President Lowell McAdam declined to comment on whether his company would soon sell an iPhone. "At some point our business interests are going to align," he said, referring to Apple. "I fully expect it, but I don't have anything to say."
A spokeswoman for Apple declined to comment. The Wall Street Journal in March reported on Apple's plans to build an iPhone that works on code division multiple access, or CDMA, technology used by carriers like Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel Corp.
Toni Sacconaghi, a Sanford Bernstein analyst, estimates Verizon could add more than 10 million U.S. iPhone customers, adding it could help stem the rapid adoption of devices that run Android.
It was unclear whether Sprint Nextel and CDMA operators in countries such as South Korea, Japan and Latin America would get the CDMA iPhone as well.
Many Verizon customers have been clamoring for the iPhone for years. "This is the longest running tease in the history of consumer products," said Garret Bedrin, a 31-year-old Apple fan in Glen Rock, N.J., who plans to buy a Verizon iPhone as soon as it's available. "As loyal as I am to Apple, I won't leave Verizon," he said.
John Donovan, AT&T's chief technology officer, wouldn't comment on whether AT&T is losing exclusivity next year but said iPhone buyers would have reason to chose his network over Verizon's. AT&T's network lets users browse the Web while making calls, while Verizon's can't, he said.
"It's not like we sit around and don't prepare for the future," Mr. Donovan said in an interview Wednesday, noting AT&T also has compelling offerings in Android phones, as well as Research In Motion Ltd.'s new BlackBerry Torch.
EXPERIENCE WSJ PROFESSIONALEditors' Deep Dive: Carriers Vie for Mobile-Phone Plans EWEEK Why Verizon Needs the Apple iPhone MARKETWATCH Motorola Extends Android's Reach COMMUNICATIONS DAILY Price War: Evidence of Wireless Competitiveness Access thousands of business sources not available on the free web. Learn More AT&T has been taking steps all year to answer concerns about a loss of exclusivity, adding new phones to its lineup. It has also said more than four-fifths of its contract subscribers are on family or business plans, which make switching to a new carrier more burdensome.
Apple's CDMA iPhone is being made by Pegatron Technology Corp., the contract manufacturing subsidiary of Taiwan's Asustek Computer Inc., said the people briefed on the matter. A spokesman for Pegatron declined to comment.
Apple originally decided against developing a phone for Verizon to focus on a version based on GSM, a more prevalent mobile technology used by AT&T and most mobile operators in the world, people familiar with the decisions have said.
Verizon, in those earlier discussions, balked at Apple's requirement that Verizon not allow its retail partners to sell the phone, people familiar with the discussion said at the time. Verizon also declined to give up its ability to sell content like music and videos through its proprietary service, these people said.
This time around, Apple considered a dual-mode phone that would let users roam on GSM-based networks, one of the people briefed said. But the company ultimately went with a device that would only work on a CDMA network. Qualcomm Inc. is providing a key chip set for the new iPhone, according to a person familiar with the matter. A spokeswoman for Qualcomm declined to comment.
—Roger Cheng and Spencer E. Ante contributed to this article.
Nagoya Institute of Technology, Center for Speech Technology Research The MMDAgent Speech Synthesis Kit for Real-time Conversation with a CGI Character. The Nagoya Institute of Technology, Center for Speech Technology Research presented a demonstration introducing their prototype MMDAgent software and speech interaction system. Via the MMDAgent software, visitors to the booth were able to engage in real-time conversation with a CGI character displayed on the screen. The exhibit also featured demonstrations of dialogue with the virtual diva Hatsune Miku. Freeware that brings together voice recognition and synthesis technologies MMDAgent software is based on four different technological elements - the HTS voice synthesis kit, a Julius voice-recognition engine developed and released by NIT's Center for Speech Technology Research, a 3D rendering module, and a dialog module. NIT also plans to release MMDAgent as freeware once it has passed the prototype stage. The speech interaction control section can be configured to suit a wide range of actions (conversations, motions, etc.) in respond to both internal and external stimuli such as speech input. What's more, as the descriptions for various dialogue scenarios are written in a script format, general users who do not have specialist knowledge can freely configure the software. OpenGL 3D rendering functions ensure high performance to enable imaging with abundant toon rendering (cel-shaded animation) and shadow mapping in addition to providing life-like expressions via the physical engine. Because all model data is in the open-source format, everything from the 3D character models and motions through to speech and dialogue scenarios can also be freely customized. Therefore, when this freeware released, it is sure to become a highly attractive tool for all creators from general users to specialized professionals. Strong interest from the tourism industry and an important tool for establishing venture enterprisesApplying specialized research into speech technologies, NIT's Center for Speech Technology Research's reputable high-precision tools have been developed based on its vast amount of accumulated knowledge and expertise. In addition to generating significant interest internationally, NIT has received many inquiries from customer service businesses and the tourism industry throughout Japan and notably, its technologies are used in mobile device applications in China as well as in car navigation systems. The venture enterprise, "Techno Speech", was established within NIT to enable it to better delineate between its objectives as a research institution advancing technology and its involvement in corporate economic activities. This will enable these highly flexible development tools to be provided to a wider range of users and at the same time, allow NIT to focus on supporting the development of even higher precision software to meet the needs of society in general. Using a vertically mounted screen and microphone, NIT's demonstration at CEATEC Japan 2010 featured a life-sized character answering questions in real time with the virtual diva, Hatsune Miku, also making an appearance.
A cluster of computers on Carnegie Mellon’s campus named NELL, or formally known as the Never-Ending Language Learning System, has attracted significant attention this week thanks to a NY Times article, “Aiming To Learn As We Do, A Machine Teaches Itself.” Indeed, the eight-month old computer system attempts to “teach” itself by perpetually scanning slices of the web as it looks at thousands of sites simultaneously to find facts that fit into semantic buckets (like athletes, academic fields, emotions, companies) and finding details related to these nouns. The project, supported by federal grants, a $1 million check from Google, and a M45 supercomputer cluster donated by Yahoo, is trying break down the longstanding barrier between computers and semantics.
This is not the first time researchers have tried to tackle one of the great, elusive white whales of the programming world, but as the NY Times points out, the way NELL proactively creates and continues to expand its knowledge base is unique.
And yet despite all of NELL’s initiative and innovation, she needs help.
She is accurate 80-90% of the time, according to Professor Tom Mitchell, the head of the research team (see our demo with Mitchell above). For that 10-20% where NELL misses the mark the results can be somewhat comical— for example, according to NELL, AOL’s parent company is CarPhone and the Palm Treo is an Apple product. Mitchell and his small team are trying to clean up errors as they surface but with nearly 400,000 facts and counting, it’s a gargantuan task.
That’s where the online community comes in.
Currently, you can access NELL’s knowledge base, via the “Read The Web” project homepage. Here you can peer into NELL’s brain by searching for terms or download the entire database, if you so desire. The next step is turning readers into pseudo-editors. Starting sometime next month, Mitchell will open NELL ‘s database to anyone who wants to help edit and flag errors. “We’re soon going to be adding some buttons by these beliefs, as you browse, so if you see a mistake you’ll be able to click a button and say I don’t believe this… I think that will be very valuable to us,” Mitchell says. “
While this may remind you of Wikipedia’s model with its crowdsourced method of submission and editing, the NELL community will be tinkering with the content and more importantly, the engine. Every correction helps NELL “learn” about facts, relationships and the mechanics of language, which will help it avoid future mistakes. By unleashing the power of the internet on NELL, the system’s intelligence has a chance to grow exponentially, which will help the CMU researchers achieve one of their ultimate goals: to get computers to read, fully understand and return complete sentences.
To help with this process, Mitchell is also looking at alternative avenues to up NELL’s IQ, including gaming mechanics. He gave TechCrunch a first look at an upcoming game he plans to launch called “Polarity,” created by Edith Law, Burr Settles and Luis Von Ahn. In this game, a user will be randomly assigned to another user on the web. Each player will be given a keyword like “longtail salamander,” one user will have to click on the words that describe the keyword, while the other user will have to click on the words that do not describe the keyword. All these answers will feed into NELL’s engine and augment the system’s understanding of relationships.
The latest episode of Akibatteru talks about an Evangelion cell phone, hear from Studio Ghibli's Hayao Miyazaki about making anime and check out special Japanese Coke and Pepsi drinks.
"What On Earth?" takes you deeper into the mystery of the crop circle phenomenon than any film has done before. Against the breathtaking backdrop of the circles themselves, filmmaker Suzanne Taylor engages with a fascinating community of visionary artists, scientists, philosophers, mathematicians and educators from all over the world. Gorgeous, haunting, and full of wonder, "What On Earth?" is the kind of horizon-expanding documentary that will literally change the way you see the world around you, and has been hailed as the best documentary on crop circles ever made. (www.cropcirclemovie.com)
"Crop Circles: Quest for Truth" is a compelling and provocative feature-length documentary full of never-before-seen footage and interviews with leading Crop Circles researchers and scientists, some of whom agreed to be on camera for the first time. The film is an in-depth examination of prevailing theories about the origin and nature of Crop Circles and the possible implications for us and for the future of Planet Earth. (www.cropcirclesthemovie.com)
"Future by Design" is a documentary film by Academy Award nominated filmmaker William Gazecki, sharing the life and far-reaching vision of Jacque Fresco, a modern day Da Vinci. Peer to Einstein and Buckminster Fuller, Jacque is a self-taught futurist who describes himself most often as a multi-disciplinarian or "generalist"--a student of many inter-related fields. He is a prolific inventor, having spent his entire life (he is now 90 years old) conceiving of and devising inventions on various scales which entail the use of innovative technology. The film explores Fresco's world of the future, where scientific method, not politics, rules world operations, and all human activities and efforts are directed towards. (www.fbdthemovie.com)
Every day, thousands of gay and lesbian students are verbally and physically harassed in schools. Bullied centers on the powerful story of Jamie Nabozny, a gay teenage boy, tormented for years by classmates. Jamie fought back, not with his fists but in a courtroom. Presented by the Southern Poverty Law Center. A Teaching Tolerance Film. A Bill Brummel Productions Documentary. Available Free to Schools Nationwide: www.tolerance.org/bullied
I know we’re not technically in a recession and Americans love their electronics— especially those that start with the letter “i”— but as a whole, electronic retailers need a reality check, or a swift kick to the gut. On Wednesday, CrunchGear’s Devin Coldewey and I dropped by two product announcements, one for Cisco’s purportedly consumer-friendly ūmi and Logitech’s Google TV accessory round-up. It was a long parade of flashy products with decent specs and thought-provoking price tags. As I mentioned in an earlier post, ūmi truly does bring high-quality telepresence into the home (assuming you have a solid connection) but it will cost you $599.99 for the hardware and $25 a month— or $300 more per year— just to use the service. What exactly Cisco is providing to justify that $25 a month (besides extra padding for its bottom line) is beyond me.
Even other executives in the industry think $600 for consumer video calling is pushing it, especially when you consider that your target demo has been trained to equate video calling with “free” thanks to services like Skype and Google video chat.
When I asked Logitech’s CEO, Jerry Quindlen, what he thought about Cisco’s ūmi price point for TC TV, the polite executive merely said, “I don’t think anything that’s too expensive or isn’t easy to use is going to be successful, doesn’t matter who it’s from…if that’s where it [ūmi] is, and there’s a monthly fee, you know, that might be a tough sell in this economy.”
That’s suit speak for “Good luck, Cisco, see you at Overstock.com”
Of course, I whole heartedly agree with Quindlen but I can’t resist laying down that tired, if not apropo, idiom: pot, kettle black. To wrap up his presentation on Wednesday, Quindlen displayed a slide with Logitech’s entire mini-eco-system for Google TV: $299.99 for the Revue, the unit’s centerpiece, $129.99 for a mini-controller and $149.99 for a mountable camera for video chatting (requires the Revue for use). All told that’s $579.97 before taxes— notably less than Cisco’s one-trick-pony video chat solution but more expensive than many LCD and plasma screens on the market and roughly 6x the cost of Roku or Apple TV.
Logitech’s bundle may be the first set top solution for Google TV but it certainly won’t be the last or the least expensive. To put it bluntly, $600 for a set top bundle seems to be a tough sell in this economy.
Good luck Jerry.
See full video with Quindlen above, interestingly, he mentions that the next wave of products will include gaming solutions for Google TV.
