Barney’s is offering a “mind blowing experience” with its 3D online catalog. The only problem is that to view in 3D you need 3D glasses. Okay, that’s expected. On the catalog page you can find a link to get ‘free glasses’. I followed the link, signed up to get on the ‘list’ and then umm nothing…just a link to “shop now page”. Okay, I bet I get an email confirmation, right?. I do, but with no more mention of the ‘mind blowing experience”. Just more “shop now!”.

Now marketing minds everywhere are thinking “It worked, didn’t it? You signed up didn’t you?” Yes, but now I am left with a feeling of being fooled in some way. Not that I wanted the glasses but that I was promised something and Barney’s did not deliver. Not a feeling you want your customers leaving your site with.

A page from Barneys New York’s 3D catalog

Now Barneys New York’s site has that ‘stickiness’ that a lot of sites wish they had. It’s designed well with their market in mind and has some engaging content. The 3D catalog was a clever idea and I clicked. But then to ignore the fact that I can’t view it, that there is no ‘mind blowing experience’ and I can’t even see the catalog without blurry red and blue lines, just seemed like a total waste of my time and the store’s money.

What would have made it a better, maybe even mind blowing, experience? Create a catalog that a user can interface with in real time. I would love to see some of the outfits in “3D” even if only simulated by using Papervision 3D for Flash. Or how about video that lets me see the model moving in the outfit or other views of the clothes? How about allowing me to put together selected items on a virtual model? Technology already exists that would have made the experience interesting and engaging.

At the very least send me to a non-3D copy of the catalog to look at.
And the sad part, I actually was going to the site to buy something but was turned off by this poor tactic to get my email address.

HP announced their fall lineup of products that include a 3d laptop. The HP Envy 17 3D is the first 17-inch notebook PC to support 1080p 3-D and Blu-ray.

Also to be introduced is the HP Wireless TV Connect that allows customers to wirelessly connect their laptop to their flat panel display, making your HDTV Internet Enabled and Blu-ray capable. The connection will allow for 1080p HD video and audio to stream to your display via HDMI. Here’s a quick look from TheStreet.com.

HP also announced a 14-inch Beats Edition that comes with Dr. Dre Solo™ Headphones from Monster for all you mixmasters out there. And another notebook, the HP Pavilion dm3 notebook which is said to have “intelligent cooling software” that can automatically adjust cooling according to customer’s personal preferences. No more burning laps. A bit on how the cooling system works:

“HP Thermal Assistant software detects how the PC is being used – for example, around the house or on a desk – and an accelerometer automatically shifts into either a maximum cooling mode or maximum performance mode based on the customer’s choice.”

The HP Envy 17 3D is said to be available this holiday season with pricing yet to be determined. The HP Envy 14 Beats edition and the HP Pavilion dm3 are available now. The HP Wireless Connect accessory will be available in the U.S. next month.

And of course, more netbooks on the way, this time with the new Atom processor. Quite a lineup HP.

Apple has just announced that they will be streaming the September 1st Music event over the Internet. If you want to catch the updates on Apple’s iPods, iTunes and maybe the Apple TV, just go to www.apple.com at 10:00am PDT tommorrow.

From the announcement on the website:

Apple® will broadcast its September 1 event online using Apple’s industry-leading HTTP Live Streaming, which is based on open standards. Viewing requires either a Mac® running Safari® on Mac OS® X version 10.6 Snow Leopard®, an iPhone® or iPod touch® running iOS 3.0 or higher, or an iPad™. The live broadcast will begin at 10:00 a.m. PDT on September 1, 2010 at www.apple.com.

Interesting that they don’t specify Windows or Linux requirements…hmmm? And do I really have to watch it in Safari? I guess we will find out tommorrow.

If your system doesn’t meet the above requirements, I am sure there will be live blogging as well so check out these sites for ongoing commentary.

Engadget
TUAW
arstechnica
gearlog
CNET

via MacRumors.com

Netflix has introduced their streaming service on the iPhone for existing members. Just download, sign in and start to watch. The app is free at the iTunes App Store.

After watching a few minutes (on my iPhone 2G) and jumping around the menus, I find the app is pretty stable on WiFi. I especially like the 30 second “instant rewind” button on the player window, for when you get distracted by oh, work or something. Nice additional feature button at the top of the player window that zooms the image full or back to letterbox. Load time for your own que or even rolling through Netflix’s recommendations is pretty snappy considering the rather graphic heavy pages. The search function is also pretty fast, although if you only have a partial title, alot of titles will come up and load which depending on your WiFi connection may slow you down a bit.

On my iPhone 3G the app was slower and input was a bit slow. Loading a movie over WiFi took almost twice as long. Once the movie got started, however, everything seemed to stabilize. Both video and audio streamed beautifully.

Streaming over Ameritech’s 3G network, load times are, of course, slower, but not painfully so. The movie loaded as you would expect but the playback was excellent and smooth. On 3G! Pretty impressive Netflix!

A spoof on the movie Fight Club, with a bit of a twist. The characters and setting are out of a Jane Austen novel. The production is really well done. I think Ms. Austen would be proud!

Via WebTVhub

Researchers from Northeastern University and Harvard University, studying the characteristics and dynamics of Twitter have plotted data from some 300 million tweets and have charted the mood throughout the U.S.

Some of the current trends are that “Happy” tweets were spotted more in the morning and early evening and generally speaking (very generally) the west coast gets happier 3 hours before the east coast. Hmmm.

Interesting use of social media. Wonder what other kind of data can be culled from similar analysis of facebook entries, or myspace, or maybe I don’t want to know.

The video below shows the data flow throughout a 24 hour period.

To read more:

http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/amislove/

http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/amislove/twittermood/

Via gapersblock.com

Waiting to find the perfect name for your new website? Don’t take too much time. It seems the number of internet addresses available are running out. According to a recent blog entry at readwriteweb.com

“There is an explosion of data about to happen to the web -thanks largely to sensor data, smart grids, RFID and other Internet of Things data.”

And those ten youtube videos you posted aren’t helping!

Need proof? You can get a daily countdown on Twitter at IPv4Countdown

Via ReadWriteWeb.com

Just recently, attending a free movie preview, my friend and I were asked by two very intimidating men to open up our handbags for inspection. We were then scanned with a hand scanner before we were let into the theatre and to our seats. No explanation was given. We guessed it was to prevent us from recording the movie and uploading it to some bit torrent.

It wasn’t that great a movie.

Now those “big intimidating men” could be standing in your living room.

The FCC has waived the existing rule of prohibiting “selectable output control” technology by allowing cable and satellite companies to disable analog outputs on your set top box so the movie companies can release new movies sooner and by disabling your electronics, prevent you from making an illegal recording.

“We are unsure when the FCC has ever before given private entities the right to disable consumers’ products in their homes,” the Consumer Electronics Association said in a statement. “The fact that the motion picture studios want to create a new business model does not mean that functioning products should be disabled by them.”

What kind of precedent does this set? ISP’s, like Comcast are already restricting bandwith without the subscribers’ knowledge. What’s next? Will ATT&T start limiting your bandwith when you watch Hulu.com because it is owned by Comcast, a competitor?

The FCC believes this is in the public’s interest. Really? How does that work? I don’t need to see a movie as soon as it hits the theatres. I’ll survive. And what about the estimated 20 million viewers that use those analog outputs to watch the movies these companies can’t wait to get us to buy?

To all the content providers, ISP’s, cable and satellite providers, stop spending all that energy (and money lobbying) intimidating your customer. Instead, why not try to create content viewers want to pay for? Why not try to distribute it in a way that protects the copyright holder but doesn’t alienate your customer. Or better yet, try NOT treating your customers as if they were criminals.

Just a thought.

If you are working on that resume and want to add additional skills or just want to boost your confidence knowing you are proficient in the latest software, the internet has some great low cost training available. Whether your looking for a quick review of Microsoft Office, or a lecture on Social Media, the following sites are a great place to start.

QUICK NOTE: As you go about looking for classes online, be sure to try a demo of the class before signing up and paying anything. How you learn and how much time you have to spend on assignments will determine what you get out of the site. For instance, you may find you prefer text based learning rather than video lectures, you may want more interaction with an instructor than the site provides or the assignments take up too much of your time. So if you should opt for a pay site be sure to demo first.

Lynda.com

This site offers a few free tutorials, but to get access to all of the programs, you will have to sign up for a monthly subscription. Costs range from $25.00 to $37.50 (for using excercise files) and are on a month to month basis. I am a subscriber and love the site. As a subscriber I can view classes anytime, and even get a refresher, if need be.

The tutorials are made up of short videos that take the user from opening up the program to more advanced techniques. The videos are well done and very easy to follow and are created by industry experts. Over 820 tutorials are available and include subjects such as web development, business applications, blogging, game development and programming just to name a few. Don’t have the software but still want to add that skill to your resume? Download a demo of the software and start up the tutorial.

MIT OpenCourseWare

MIT OpenCourseWare is a site that offers free video of lectures and either notes or assignments from MIT University Courses. Subjects include Science, Economics, Management, and Humanities. You won’t get your degree with these classes but a lecture or two may serve as a great refresher. Are you looking into game development or New Media, then check out Comparative Media Studies. Or go to Writing and Humanistic Studies and expand your creative and writing skills.

W3Schools Online

If you are needing to update your web skills, another free site dedicated to all things Web is W3Schools Online which offers free tutorials for HTML4 and HTML5, Browser Scripting, XML, Server Scripiting, Multimedia and other Web Building classes.

The site even offers a Web Building Primer for beginner and advanced that tells you what you need to know to be a web developer. A great place to start if you are just beginning to learn web development.

ITUNES U

Want to learn German? Maybe you want to start writing fiction. How about a weekly podcast from Harvard Business school talking with business leaders about the latest and future trends.

If you are an iTunes user, you can download podcasts of lectures and classes from a variety of universities. Most of what I researched are free. Open up iTunes, go to the store and find the iTunes U tab under the iTunes STORE section (listing of genres). Classses are offered from Stanford, Oxford, Ohio, MIT and Yale Universities.

Gotham Writers Workshop

This site offers screenwriting, fiction writing and even songwriting courses. I actually took a screenwriting class a few years ago and loved it. You get a text lecture each week with an assignment. The assignment is evaluated by the instructor and your fellow classmates. And once a week they offer an online chat so that you can contact the instructor and ask questions or talk to fellow classmates. The cost of a course is about $365.00 to $125.00 depending on the length of the course. This is a course that you do have to attend on a weekly basis. I ended up getting swamped with a project during the class and I really couldn’t keep up with assignments. However, if you have a more regular schedule I would definitely recommend this site.

fxphd.com

If you are, or hope to be a visual effects or post production professional and want to update your skills, a great online source is
fxphd.com. They offer classes on most of the visual effects software available today. And you don’t need to buy the software to learn it. fxphd.com offers a VPN wherein you download the software, sign in to the VPN to obtain licensing with no restrictions and start to work on your non-commercial projects as you learn.

Of course, there are many more sites with free or low cost training, including those offered by your software’s developer. Adobe, and Apple have self paced online training both free and for a charge.

The sites above are just a start. Search for the training your interested in and be sure to DEMO first!

An amazing performance by artist Theresa Andersson, layering live music with live recorded performance.
Check out her other videos here or search youtube.com. Great voice and am impressed with the ability to multi-task! WOW!

Thanks for the link Miss Lee!