Curiosity

What I Learned at Search Engine Bootcamp — Last week I was fortunate enough to be given a pass to attend the Search Engine Bootcamp here in Melbourne. I tweeted throughout the day quite a bit - but thought I’d write up some of the tidbits that I took away from some of the sessions over the day. There was a lot covered so I won’t go through it session by session (I missed a few at the start and end of the day too) but here are a few of the quotes and ideas that I came away with from different speakers (and a few thoughts on... [Tags: alkemi, brand names, curiosity, differentiation, digg]

Nokia's Z-Wave Home Control Center hands-on and video — Since hearing about Nokia's foray into the world of home automation, our curiosity has been seriously piqued. Thankfully, our girl-on-the-scene Drita has captured video of the new software / hardware combo in action on the Nokia World show floor. It looks like a fully decked out system is going to run you a hefty fee (given all the components required), but can you put a price on the extreme laziness it will enable? We didn't think so. Check out the thrilling video out after the break!Gallery: Nokia's Z-Wave Home Control Center hands-on and videoContinue reading Nokia's Z-Wave Home Control... [Tags: curiosity, drita, engadget, extreme laziness, foray]

Robotic Rickshaws Wander the Streets of Beijing [Robots] — Wu Yulu may have only a primary school education, but his fascination with robots has inspired him to create 26 automata, a veritable robot army. But rather than leading his robots toward global conquest, Wu has designed robots with more socially beneficially uses, such as his robotic rickshaw Wu No. 25, which can pull an individual through the streets of China’s Beijing region for up to six hours on a single charge. Wu was invited to participate in this year’s Microwave International New Media Arts Festival in Hong Kong. Despite possessing only a basic education, Wu, who lives in the... [Tags: basic education, chaise, curiosity, doorway, fascination]

A Simple Way to Promote Your Loyalty Program — It’s simple, but makes so much sense. Moosejaw Mountaineering creatively advertises its rewards-points program by including a points-teaser right under the product pricing (”Earn 1999 Rewards Points” - the unusually large number sparks curiosity), with a link to its loyalty program details: Rewards Points Calculator Earn 1999 Rewards Points + 0 High Altitude Rewards Bonus Points 1999 Rewards Points! that’s like $19.99 to spend at MoosejawRewards.com!! Moosejaw Rewards Moosejaw Rewards is free and you are automatically a part of it (emphasis mine). You earn 10% back in points on all regular priced items and 5% back in points on all... [Tags: altitude rewards, bonus points, coffee mugs, comparison shopping, competitor]

Drunk or Not? DuiPhone Knows — duiPhone is one iPhone hack / application that’s guaranteed to come in handy at some point. The application comes with a mouthpiece that gets blown into to assess blood alcohol level. Use it determine if you’re able to legally drive home, or just out of scientific curiosity. duiPhone was cobbled together out of a store bought breathalyzer and a 3G iPhone by design group Tellart. Tellart: duiPhone © Dan Gould for PSFK, 2008. | Permalink | Comments | Add to del.icio.us... [Tags: blood alcohol level, curiosity, design group, gould, iphone]

Exploring Social Media: Establishing Your Online Credentials — Yesterday, I wrote about how to win at the social media game and how it begins by establishing your online credentials. Basically, it’s how to create a virtual business card and resume that establish your web presence and history. From this information, people can get a glimmer of who you are, what you do, how you do it, and how they can use you to get the job done. What Are Your Online Credentials? I talked about the basics you probably already have in place, the social media tools of email, blog, and so on. Don’t have a blog? Get... [Tags: age group, bios, blog, credentials, curiosity]

Just Don't Click — A reader writes:The fervent scouring of blogs plays upon some pretty bizarre impulses. No aspect of blogging better illustrates this than the hyperlink. I saw your cryptic post and my curiosity spiked. I wanted to be privy to those insidery points too! But then you previewed just how deep this rabbit hole might lead. I hesitated and then desisted. Though I remain ignorant to what the hell that post is about. I am no servant to my whims. It was a necessary backlash to maintain my humanity.And we? To maintain my humanity? I'll have the petite vanilla scones myself. (They're... [Tags: backlash, blogging, curiosity, hell, hyperlink]

Verizon Employees Fired For Snooping Obama's Record — longhairedgnome writes "The curiosity in President-elect Barack Obama's phone records came with a high price tag for Verizon Wireless employees. According to CNN, the workers who snooped on Obama's phone records have been fired. "This was some employees' idle curiosity," a company source told CNN and added "we now consider this matter closed." Justice served? What about legal possibilities?" Can we expect anyone who followed a warrantless wiretap from the Bush administration to also be fired then? I mean, they violated our privacy as well.Read more of this story at Slashdot.... [Tags: barack obama, bush administration, cnn, company source, curiosity]

Facebook Hackathon yields cool app, but is it useful? — Facebook held one of its hackathons earlier this month, in which the company's engineers stay up all night working on development and hopefully, come up with site improvements or features that its users will appreciate. AllFacebook points us to one of the results of the November 5 hackathon, a nifty visualization of Facebook user activity (see video below). Using a 3D model of Earth, the app shows the data Facebook receives, including density by location (note how brightly lit the U.S. is at all times) as well as routes of Facebook user interactions. It's a cool-looking app that's curious... [Tags: 3d model, api, curiosity, data visualization, dataset]

Stephen C. Rose: Behind Barack's Steely Resolve, the Idea of Unity, the Capacity to Grow — By Stephen C. Rose Barack is ready to rumble, in the face of a White House that is AWOL. As the mind-deficient media has groused with impunity about inessentials, Barack has gathered a complement of solid choices faster than any President-elect in memory. The notion that because people who know DC will surround him, he cannot bring change, is a cop out. If you want to fix something, it helps to know how it works. Barack is about proving out an idea. Like Lincoln. The idea is unity. A coat of many colors. An iron belief in the rightness and... [Tags: anonymity, bold action, cabinet appointments, coat of many colors, curiosity]

Music Industry Week In Review: Zune, EMI, Amazon, Tribes, The Musical Middle Class & More — Microsoft Zune News: New Subscriptions With 10 Free Tracks plus Cuts Player Prices, Common Tapped For Ad EMI Shifts Focus From Sales To Fan Relationships A Look At Amazon's 70,000 New Artist Stores Unlicensed Music Via P2P In 2007 Worth $69 Billion Pandora Mints Energizer Music Forum Topsin's Ian Rogers On The New Music Business Equation Commentary:In Support Of The Musical Middle Class MySpace Grabs Chinese Democracy Exclusive eMusic Hits 250K Downloads And 4.5M Tracks K-OS Gives Fans Unreleased Album To Mix Kayne West Uses imeem To "Leak" New Mixes More Tribes:The Evolution Of Tribal Curiosity Is The Music... [Tags: amazon tribes, artist stores, business equation, curiosity, emi]

Being An Engineer At Honda Must Be Nice [Novelties] — Speaking as someone who has done it, being an engineer for any of the not-so-Big Three is something of a soul-crushing endeavor. Deadlines are always too aggressive, budgets are always too small, management never grasps the true complexities of a system, and you inevitably have to deal with totally incompetent suppliers who over promise and under perform. It's a delightful job. That kind of experience makes the open letter from a Honda employee that arrived at the offices of BoingBoing seem like working there is some kind of magical fantasy-land of happy rainbows and pony rides. Be sure to head... [Tags: budgets, complexities, core philosophy, curiosity, demarcation]

Two-thirds of OTA households have requested DTV coupons — Filed under: Industry, Regulatory, Tuners, OTA There's no doubt that the CEA and NTIA have been spreading the word about the 2009 digital TV transition as hard as they can, but some folks still aren't taking the time to listen. 'Course, 62% is way better than what we've seen in the past, but that still leaves a full third of OTA-reliant American households sans a government-issued voucher with under 100 days to go until analog slides under the guillotine. Currently, 17 million homes have requested 33.5 million coupons (in other words, most folks are requesting the maximum of two) and... [Tags: 5 million, american households, application rates, cea, coupon application]

90210: Make your predictions on who Sean really is! - VIDEO — Filed under: Video, TV Squad Polls, Watercooler Talk, Reality-Free, 90210If you are like me, you started watching The CW's 90210 out of curiosity and nostalgia but ended up not being able to miss an episode because you wanted to know how evil Naomi could be. You wanted to know what happened to the old Beverly Hills, 90210 gang, thanks to Jennie Garth and Shannen Doherty guesting on the spin off. And, let's admit it, you also wanted your weekly Rob Estes fix!Now a regular 90210 viewer, I got interested in the Sean storyline. Sean is the son Harry didn't know... [Tags: 22 years, adoption, beverly hills 90210, curiosity, cw]

eBay joins our homepage test — As many of you know, we’ve been testing a new Yahoo.com homepage since September. We chose a random fraction from our millions of users in four countries to play around with the new homepage and give us feedback on the new features. As expected, we’ve gotten a wide range of reactions from our testers -– the good, the bad, and the ugly. We’ve heard every word and have made some changes accordingly. For example, in the latest version, we’ve added a Mail link to the “Yahoo! Services” area so that people can get to their email faster. We’ll keep making... [Tags: auctions, blog, curiosity, dashboard area, ebay]

What's Your Type? — This site claims to be able to analyze a blog and determine its "type." I plugged the Dish in and it spat back this: The independent and problem-solving type. They are especially attuned to the demands of the moment are masters of responding to challenges that arise spontaneously. They generally prefer to think things out for themselves and often avoid inter-personal conflicts. The Mechanics enjoy working together with other independent and highly skilled people and often like seek fun and action both in their work and personal life. They enjoy adventure and risk such as in driving race cars or... [Tags: concrete examples, creativity, curiosity, dish, firefighters]

Aluminum MacBook X-Ray Makes Perfect Desktop Background [Apple] — I've seen a lot of disassembled MacBooks already, but this is the first time I've seen one under x-rays. The image was taken by Jason De Villa because he wondered how it would it look like. I've to agree on his curiosity: Like other gadget x-rays we have featured in the past, there's something about radiographed technology that satisfies my most intimate geek peeping tom and Dr. House-wannabe desires at the same time. And no, I'm not talking about the cellphones-up-your-buttocks x-rays. [The AfterMac via Cult of Mac]... [Tags: aluminum, apple, buttocks, cellphones, cult of mac]

Danny Groner: Culture Builds Character and Connections — Culture persists. That's the message Malcolm Gladwell encouraged right off the bat at a Barnes and Noble event last night. He was there to promote his new book, "Outliers: The Story of Success." In the book, Gladwell discusses the factors that helped some of the most successful people achieve what they have. He posits that nurture matters exceedingly more than nature and cites examples of people who have made the most of the opportunities bestowed on them. I read several reviews of the book, only to find a mixed bag. His advocates praise him for continuing his series of intriguing... [Tags: advocates, barnes, cloak, conclusion, contemporary world]

Ashley Dupre's Media Whirlwind — Ever since it was revealed Eliot Spitzer was caught planning a rendez-vous with a hooker named Kristen, which eventually led to his resignation, there's been massive curiosity about Kristen--aka Ashley Alexandra Dupre. Last week, it was reported that Diane Sawyer would have the first interview with Dupre, for this Friday's 20/20. And now it seems that Dupre was also interviewed by People for this week's issue. ABC News released a photograph of Sawyer with Dupre, in advance of this Friday night's interview. In the segment, Dupre will explain how an "upper middle-class, girl next door got into the profession... [Tags: abc news, alexandra, curiosity, diane sawyer, dupre]

Social Network Advertising is a Waste of Time — Don’t waste your time and money advertising on social networking sites. People just aren’t receptive to it. Social media ads suffer from extremely low click through rates and just disrupt the flow of social media users. It’s true that there are positives of social media advertising but I think the negatives outweigh them. Positives of Advertising on Social Media Demographic Targeting This is the strongest point for social media ads. Since sites like Facebook and Myspace invite users to share what they like, advertisers are able to target users by terms found in their profile. Obviously you can use this... [Tags: advertisers, audience, cost per click, curiosity, facebook]