ed gottsman

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Waking up, calming down

Fujitsu is working on a steering wheel-mounted drowsiness sensor that will detect subtle changes in the driver's heart rate and respond with various wake-up calls, including opening the windows, blasting the radio and jolting the wheel. Seriously unconscious drivers might get all three at once. (Here's hoping that sheer surprise...

Tags: Car, Window, Sensor, Ed Gottsman

Blog posts 2008-12-01

Bugs and boredom

No matter where you were, you'd have to assume you were being watched by invisible insects (there's a paranoid fantasy) and that videos of anything interesting would wind up on the Web. by Ed Gottsman

Tags: Fantasy, Corporate Communications, Channel Management, Marketing, Ed Gottsman, DARPA, Technology, Asia Times, Government, Advertising & Promotion, Vertical Industries, Enterprise Software, Software

Blog posts 2008-10-20

Grid Computing meets ET

Could you run your nightly batch cycle on your employees' PCs? Maybe save a bundle on hardware? Probably not. The technique is best for compute-intensive tasks--tasks that require lots of calculation and little data. by Ed Gottsman

Tags: Grid Computing, Productivity, Cloud Computing, Utility Computing, It Management, Network Technology, It service Management, Networking, Ed Gottsman, PC, Rich Internet Application, Machine

Blog posts 2008-10-19

Web 2.0 again: Prediction markets

I just ran across an article in the Wikipedia on prediction markets, of which I've long been a fan. Prediction markets' basic idea is to turn predictions ("Obama will win" and "McCain will win," for example) into stocks, then have participants buy and sell the two stocks on an exchange....

Tags: Web, Web 2.0, Stock, Prediction Market, Investment, Finance, Ed Gottsman

Blog posts 2008-10-16

Something you're going to want to smack

A magic box from GreenRoad Technologies UK will be installed in 200 military vehicles as part of a six-month trial to determine whether it's possible to detect bad driving and then intervene to improve it. As nearly as I can tell, the boxes have accelerometers (i.e., sensors that measure acceleration)...

Tags: Box, Insurance Company, Needle, Insurance, Business Operations, Corporate Insurance, Ed Gottsman

Blog posts 2008-08-25

And your point would be?

A website called The Point ("Make Something Happen") provides a framework in which you can raise support for a cause. The cause may be as grand as getting an oil company to lower gas prices or as humble as persuading the local Starbucks to install recycling containers. by Ed Gottsman

Tags: Oil Company, Cause, Action, Point, Digital Media, Consumer Electronics, Personal Technology, Ed Gottsman

Blog posts 2008-08-23

Cozying up on Twitter

Twitter...yet again. Stephen Rose over at Fast Company has discovered a new use for the beast: Following the activities of business contacts with whom you want to ingratiate yourself. So What? Twitter skip this paragraph if you know is a micro-blogging service. You use...

Tags: Twitter, Sales Strategy, Sales Force Management, Internet, Sales, Ed Gottsman

Blog posts 2008-06-24

Displays: More is more

Display manufacturer NEC has released a report on monitor size and its relationship to productivity. Surprise: There's a positive correlation. Big surprise: for editing tasks text and spreadsheet the gains can be as much as fifty percent. So What? "Fifty percent"? Brighter screens, faster...

Tags: NEC Corp., Monitors & Displays, Recruitment & Selection, Workforce Management, Payroll Solutions, Microsoft Office, Hardware, Components, Human Resources, Office Suites, Software, Ed Gottsman

Blog posts 2008-06-20

Perfecting the potato

Today, a couch potato still needs to operate that remote, which keeps his right thumb fit and toned. Gaze tracking could make his potato-hood complete. by Ed Gottsman

Tags: Mouse, Gesture, Gaze, Eye Gesture, Mice, Hardware, Peripherals, Ed Gottsman

Blog posts 2008-06-12

Lollicams

According to The Register, there were 1,400 incidents of crossing guard abuse (driving past while they're in the road, revving engines, shouting epithets, etc.) reported in the UK last year. Dozens of guards (they're called "lollipop ladies" because of the signs they carry and because, apparently, few of them are...

Tags: Camera, Sign, Ed Gottsman

Blog posts 2008-06-10

Perfecting the potato

New Scientist is reporting on new gaze tracking technology designed for use in 3D virtual worlds. Gaze tracking has been used for years by people with motor neurone disease, cerebral palsy and other "locked-in" syndromes, but only to operate desktop interfaces. This more recent technology will bring the likes of...

Tags: Mouse, Gesture, Gaze, Eye Gesture, Mice, Hardware, Peripherals, Ed Gottsman

Blog posts 2008-05-21

REST: Reducing Effort in Script-based Testing

The narrow but very important problem: Test scripts used for version 1.0 of an application will probably break when applied to version 2.0 of that application. Testers try to edit old test scripts so that they won't need to create new ones from scratch, but the process is slow, tedious...

Tags: GUI, Ed Gottsman

Blog posts 2008-05-14

On polite police

The Register is reporting on a pilot program in the UK under which police officers will have video cameras sticking out of their helmets. The goal is to encourage good behavior on the part of suspects (and, I suppose, on the part of police officers). So What?...

Tags: Camera, Register, Ed Gottsman

Blog posts 2008-05-12

On being detained in Cairo

I've brought up Twitter before. Twitter is a micro-blogging service. You use it to "tweet" messages of no more than 140 characters. Your friends, colleagues and the general public can follow your Twitter stream and keep up with such urgent intelligence as, "Feeling bored," or "Currently surrounded by idiots." Or,...

Tags: Twitter, James Karl Buck, Telecom & Utilities, Cellular Phones, Consumer Electronics, Personal Technology, Ed Gottsman

Blog posts 2008-05-07

On owning your own bits

I recently got rid of my CD collection. It wasn't a big collection, as these things go: Maybe 200 discs. I didn't even need the shelf space...I just wanted to clear out an increasingly embarrassing relic of the "age of atoms." So What? Where...

Tags: CD, Digital Music, Digital Media, Personal Technology, Consumer Electronics, Ed Gottsman

Blog posts 2008-05-06

WSJ cleverly coins 'Motorborg', creates jealous blogger

The Wall Street Journal reported recently on Inrix, Inc., a Kirkland, Washington-based Microsoft spinoff that tracks speeds on 100,000 miles of US highway using data from GPS-enabled fleet vehicles, toll booths, road sensors...and citizens' mobile devices. The data is sold to a variety of companies (including MapQuest, Dash, and...

Tags: Wall Street Journal, Sensor, Blogger, Dash, GPS, Handhelds, Consumer Electronics, Personal Technology, Hardware, Ed Gottsman

Blog posts 2008-05-05

Internet addiction: threat or menace?

An editorial in a recent issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry presents the case for "Internet addiction" as a legitimate disorder deserving of inclusion in the DSM. (The DSM is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders--the official compendium of the conditions and syndromes that afflict humanity. If...

Tags: Internet, Ed Gottsman

Blog posts 2008-05-02

Ambient's strange necklace

New Scientist reported recently on a strange necklace that will soon be available from Ambient Corporation of Dallas, Texas. It has a package of sensors that pick up electrical impulses around the vocal chords. These signals are used to drive an artificial voice. Effectively, the necklace lets you subvocalize audibly...

Tags: Phone, Voice, Ambient, Telecom & Utilities, Telecommunications, Ed Gottsman

Blog posts 2008-04-18

Twitter, again

Last month, a colleague of mine attended the South by Southwest conference, a techno-lovefest that brings together software developers, graphic designers and a gaggle of luminaries of various persuasions. The big news, according to him, is that Twitter has come of age. (For a good explanation of Twitter see here.)...

Tags: Twitter, Instant Feedback, Web 2.0, Blogging, Internet, Ed Gottsman

Blog posts 2008-04-14

On the (mis-) use of DNA

Fascinating piece in the Wall Street Journal recently about the English/Welsh DNA database. We'll sneak up on it. The movie GATTACA always bugged me, or rather people's reaction to it did. Whenever I'd mention biometrics, people would say, "Have you seen GATTACA? Isn't that a frightening view...

Tags: DNA, Analysis, Employee Discrimination, Biotechnology, Ed Gottsman

Blog posts 2008-04-11