APP OF THE WEEK: SNAPDAT LETS THE BUSINESS CARDS FLY
One of the coolest features of the old Palm organizers was that you could beam business cards to other Palms. The iPhone will soon add a similar feature, but in the meantime there’s SnapDat, a free application that lets iPhone users send virtual business cards to other people.
SnapDat has roughly 40 card designs as templates. Users can maintain any number of designs, making sure there are different cards for different occasions. To send a card to another SnapDat user, simply look up their username on the app. Cards sent between SnapDat members are automatically transcribed into your iPhone’s address book. People who aren’t members can also receive cards, which are e-mailed as a standard vCard attachment.
On the virtual card are one-touch buttons to dial, text or e-mail the person. There is also a link to any Web pages they have specified and a button to map the card’s address. You can mark on a map where you met (“Denver sales conference ’08”), and you can “flip” the card over to make a note on the back. (“Bob likes margaritas, but watch out after his third.”)
COMING TO SAVE THE DAY: A MIGHTY MOUSE, INDEED
Talk about the mouse that roared.
It’s not for the casual gamer — or the casual anyone — but the US$500 SpacePilot Pro, arriving courtesy of the Logitech subsidiary 3Dconnexion, is full of wow for designers and engineers who work in three-dimensional computerized environments.
SpacePilot has a built-in color LCD screen, which can display e-mail, messages and other customizable visual information, but the substance of the mouse is to expedite workflow and navigation through 3-D spaces like Autodesk Inventor, Microsoft Virtual Earth and SolidWorks.
Of course, mouse fans will have to have one, if only to gaze at sexy blue lights and the Darth Vader form factor — the buttons on SpacePilot make BMW’s confusing iDrive simple by comparison. The big knob in the center twirls six ways, and it tilts and rolls as well. In Logitech-speak, the device has “six-degrees-of-freedom sensor technology … by lifting, pressing and turning the controller cap, design engineers can easily pan, zoom and rotate without stopping to select commands.”
It adds up to a virtual nirvana for fingers.
HOW TO CAMOUFLAGE YOUR TWEETING AT THE OFFICE
Twitter fans face a hurdle: Can you use it at work without being caught? A British Web developer, Elliott Kember, has solved the problem with Spreadtweet, an easy-to-use Twitter client that looks like a boring Excel spreadsheet.
Each version of the program displays a fake Excel toolbar atop its window. But those buttons don’t work. The real controls are hiding just below as fake column headers: Home, Replies, Direct Messages, etc. On my Apple desktop, Spreadtweet mimics Excel to the point of placing an Excel icon into my iMac’s Dock, so anyone watching from farther away than a cubicle wall will be fooled.
The very existence of Spreadtweet suggests Twitter is headed for the same workplace showdown as Web browsers in 1993, or Facebook in 2006: Is it better to let employees play a bit with the latest Internet fad, or have early adopters found yet another way to goof off on the job? I think the answer is yes.
CAN’T WAIT FOR 3-D TELEVISION? NEITHER CAN PANASONIC
How important is the development of 3-D television? As far as Panasonic is concerned, it’s critical.
According to Eisuke Tsuyuzaki, Panasonic’s general manager for its Blu-ray Disc Group, 3-D television “could be as significant as the transformation from standard- to high-definition TV.”
If 3-D television takes off, it could fall right into the sweet spot for Panasonic’s products: large plasma displays that have received high marks for their picture quality. TV in 3-D looks best on large screens, and Panasonic thinks the technology could significantly increase sales of its sets, as well as a new generation of 3-D Blu-ray players (current Blu-ray players cannot be used to show 3-D content).
Panasonic has been lobbying hard for the adoption of 3-D TV standards by the end of this year, so that it can get 3-D ready TVs and Blu-ray players into the market by 2010. The company is concerned that if the technology doesn’t become available soon — within a year — the industry will miss an opportunity to sell the next generation of large-screen displays.
How big could the market be? Panasonic thinks 3-D could represent 10 percent of TV industry sales within two to three years.
Taiwan, once relegated to the backwaters of international news media and viewed as a subset topic of “greater China,” is now a hot topic. Words associated with Taiwan include “invasion,” “contingency” and, on the more cheerful side, “semiconductors” and “tourism.” It is worth noting that while Taiwanese companies play important roles in the semiconductor industry, there is no such thing as a “Taiwan semiconductor” or a “Taiwan chip.” If crucial suppliers are included, the supply chain is in the thousands and spans the globe. Both of the variants of the so-called “silicon shield” are pure fantasy. There are four primary drivers
The sprawling port city of Kaohsiung seldom wins plaudits for its beauty or architectural history. That said, like any other metropolis of its size, it does have a number of strange or striking buildings. This article describes a few such curiosities, all but one of which I stumbled across by accident. BOMBPROOF HANGARS Just north of Kaohsiung International Airport, hidden among houses and small apartment buildings that look as though they were built between 15 and 30 years ago, are two mysterious bunker-like structures that date from the airport’s establishment as a Japanese base during World War II. Each is just about
Two years ago my wife and I went to Orchid Island off Taitung for a few days vacation. We were shocked to realize that for what it cost us, we could have done a bike vacation in Borneo for a week or two, or taken another trip to the Philippines. Indeed, most of the places we could have gone for that vacation in neighboring countries offer a much better experience than Taiwan at a much lower price. Hence, the recent news showing that tourist visits to Pingtung County’s Kenting, long in decline, reached a 27 year low this summer came
Japan is celebrated for its exceptional levels of customer service. But the behavior of a growing number of customers and clients leaves a lot to be desired. The rise of the abusive consumer has prompted authorities in Tokyo to introduce the country’s first ordinance — a locally approved regulation — to protect service industry staff from kasuhara — the Japanese abbreviated form of “customer harassment.” While the Tokyo ordinance, which will go into effect in April, does not carry penalties, experts hope the move will highlight a growing social problem and, perhaps, encourage people to think twice before taking out their frustrations
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