While recent controversy played a role in the uncrowning, Modelo’s long-term strategy may have more to do with its success.
RIM Intros the BlackBerry Presenter, Say Goodbye to Laptops
RIM has just launched it latest smartphone accessory, Â the BlackBerry Presenter – a small and light device that you can easily plug into a projector or monitor to display a Microsoft PowerPoint Presentation. You then control the presentation using your BlackBerry phone. Sounds cool? It certainly is, handy and useful as well.
Utilizing Bluetooth connectivity, the BlackBerry Presenter connects with your BlackBerry smartphone. As such, it allows you to move freely when doing your presentation, that is within the 30 feet range. This allows you to easily control your presentation – navigate through the slides, view speaker notes, loop presentation slided and reference information on one slide while displaying another.
The BlackBerry Presenter has the following specs – supports NTSC and PAL video formats, S-Video and VGA video cable, micro USB connection, and support for various display resolution – VGA, SVGA and XGA. It doesn’t need any additional file processing as you can do your presentations directly without tweaking your presentation on your PC.
No details on availability yet, but if you’re keen on getting the BlackBerry Presenter, it will set you back for $199. Â It works with most BlackBerry models except BlackBerry Curve series and BlackBerry Pearl Flip series.
Originally posted on January 6, 2010 @ 4:00 pm
Skype Supports HD Video Calls on PC and HDTV
As if awakening from a deep slumber, Skype suddenly comes back to life and announced just in time for CES 2010 their latest offering – 720p HD video calls on Windows PC as well as Skype enabled-HDTVs. Â Oh wait, are you still using Skype? If yes, then read to find out what these announcements are all about. If you’ve stopped using Skype a long time ago, this might be the right time to start using it again.
New Skype HD Video Calling
Although not really a full 1080p, Skype’s new 720p HD-quality video calling feature at 1280×720 resolution and up to 30 fps is enough to give you smoother and richer video calls. Â To use this feature, you need a new HD webcam, PC with at least 1.8GHz dual-core processor, high-speed broadband connection and of course Skype 4.2 Beta for Windows. In case you’re wondering what HD webcams to get, be sure to check out announcement from faceVision and InStore Solution during the CES 2010. These two manufacturers are said to be coming out with new HD webcams that will work fine with Skype. These webcams will set you back for around $99 to $140.
Skype Video Calls on HDTVs
Now this one made me feel bad since I just bought a 32-inch Samsung HDTV. I should have waited for LG and Panasonic’s new HDTV models that will have an embedded Skype Software. Anyway, Skype’s video calling on HDTV will let you do the following:
- Free Skype-to-Skype voice and video calls
- Calls to landline or mobile phones at Skype’s low rates
- Receive inbound calls via user’s online Skype number
- Skype voicemail
- Voice conference calls with up to 24 other parties
- Support for 720p HD video calls
Are we all excited about this now? I do hope so that this new features will revive the sparkle that Skype once had.
Originally posted on January 5, 2010 @ 4:36 am
Campaign Trail: How Toyota used its GR Corolla to animate an ad without VFX
The “Metalmorphosis” campaign uses vehicle-mounted cameras to show off the performance of a car that “isn’t your grandma’s Corolla.”
Originally posted on March 31, 2023 @ 9:40 am
GroundMap Aggregates Social Media Streams via GeoTagging
The GroundMap Application Demo from Eric Bieller on Vimeo.
We’ve seen various startups tried aggregating various social media streams such as tweets and Facebook updates. But none of them have utilized the power of geotagging. Until now, with new startup GroundMap and its new social media platform.
The idea is pretty simple and yet could be powerful. GroundMap lets you bucket geotagged social media streams and by that we mean all types of streams and not just tweets or reviews like what others are doing.
So, GroundMap lets you add PDF documents, YouTube videos, Flickr photos, Scribd documents, Google Maps, as well as Twitter and Facebook updates, under a particular geotag. All these streams become searchable on GroundMap by their locations or geotags and the platform presents it in a timeline format called GroundMap activity stream.
In addition, you can also search for activity streams using the tag cloud on GroundMap’s main page. It also allows you to add location which are not yet in the tag cloud. Once other users starts using the geotag, it’s appearance in the GrooundMap tag cloud increases in size – meaning the more relevant the tag has become.
While GroundMap’s concept may not be ground breaking as other services might have featured it before, what makes it different from the rest is its ability to give you different sources of social media under one tag.
GroundMap is a pretty useful online tool. Â It’s like other social bookmarking and recommendation sites such as Digg and Delicious done in a new way.
Check out the video demo for a more detailed explanation of GroundMap’s features.
Originally posted on December 30, 2009 @ 9:05 pm