Where did my dinner come from? I want to know!
You’re in the grocery store, staring at a row of fish, trying to figure out which one is the most sustainable. Then you spot a code on the label and breathe a sigh of relief. You pull out your smartphone, aim it at a code, and presto, you know instantly when, how, and where that cod was caught — and that you can now grill it up guilt free tonight.
This is the future of food, one that’s barreling towards us. In China, with its recent spate of food safety issues, shoppers are using bar codes in markets to track down — and pay more for — chickens raised in Hong Kong, which has a better food safety record. Westfleisch, Europe’s fifth largest producer of meat, is slapping QR codes on its products so consumers in stores can track where an animal was raised and slaughtered and when it was packaged.
In part, this transition to smarter food is happening because today’s consumers are voracious when it comes to information about what they put on their tables.
via Where did my dinner come from? I want to know | SmartPlanet.
As yet this is not something I have done – though I am a fussy eater. My buying preference is based on brand trust. If its BirdsEye for instance I assume it will be better quality than a superstore brand.
What is your buying preference? Do you scan the food?
Smartphone = Smarter Healthcare? [Infographic]
More people reportedly have access to mobile phones than to clean water, according to the nonprofit Tides Center that runs openmhealth.org. Assuming this is true, the implications of “mHealth” — the electronic management of health care through mobile devices — could be far reaching. Wondering what mHealth is exactly? The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services defines it as “the use of mobile and wireless devices to improve health outcomes, healthcare services, and health research.”
Sound unlikely? Not really. Chances are you already manage some aspect of your value based healthcare using mHealth. If you’ve ever downloaded an app like “Calorie Counter” to see how many carbohydrates those daily peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches account for or if you’ve ever been online to see if it’s OK to yank out your daughter’s loose front tooth, then you’ve discovered what it is that comprises mHealth.
Original Post http://www.alliedhealthworld.com/visuals/smartphone-healthcare.html
The End of Television as we know it
The milestones of televison have been inspiring, going back to 1831 when Michael Faraday discovered electromagnetic induction. Television came of age in the 1950’s with popular shows like I Love Lucy, the 1954 World Soccer Championships. By the late 1960s and early 1970 colour television had become widely adopted and then the beloved remote control.
For generations the TV audience happily embraced scheduled programming. For the industry, making a connection with the consumer was pretty straight forward, one-to-many experience… until recently.
Audiences today have some many media choices and are becoming increasling fragmented, splicing their time amongst the myriad of channels and platforms. Many consumers have migrated to more specialised, niche content via cable and multichannel offerings. Now with the growing availability of on demand, self programming and search features these niche users are moving to individualised viewing.
The are two market drivers that will drive evolution:
– Openness of access channels
– Levels of consumers involvement with media
There will be huge movement of these over the next five to seven years – but not uniformly. It will be marked with consumer bimodality, a coexistence of two types of users with disparate channel requirements. One segment remainly largely passive in the living room, whilst the other will force radical change in business models. The search for anytime anywhere content, leading us to a world of platform agnostic content, fluid mobility and the end of traditional concepts.
This is the beginning of “the end of TV as we know it”
Which category of user are you?
Unlocking value and productivity through social technologies
The social economy: Unlocking value and productivity through social technologie:
There’s plenty of research and comment around topics such as finding new customers, customer satisfaction, collaboration, building value, individual benefits from embracing Social technologies… This report demonstrates that IBM is ahead of the curve for adoption (own use) and for solutions for firms embracing (for their use).
Key findings include :
The speed and scale of adoption of social technologies by consumers has exceeded that of previous technologies.
– Several distinct properties of social technologies make them uniquely powerful enablers of value creation. The most fundamental is to endow social interactions with the speed, scale, and economics of the Internet.
– Based on in-depth analysis of usage in sectors that represent almost 20 percent of global industry sales, we identify ten ways in which social technologies can create value across the value chain.
– Companies that rely heavily on consumer insights for product development and marketing purposes have an opportunity to create value by engaging with consumers on social media and monitoring social media conversations to generate consumer insights and market intelligence.
– Individuals and the communities they form will derive much of the benefits of social technologies.
– Giving social interactions Internet scale, speed, and economics carries risks. These risks include identity theft, loss of intellectual property, violations of privacy, abuse, and damage to reputations. Social technologies also can disrupt traditional business models.
– The benefits of social technologies will likely outweigh the risks for most companies.
Download the full report HERE
If you have any questions or want to explore the benefits of being a social business, contact me.
Using Sport to Inspire Careers in Science and Technology
Reading this press release from IBM (full article) I do enjoy being part of an inspiring company.
IBM Hursley hosted one hundred Year eight girls, from ten different schools around Hampshire and the surrounding counties, for a two day camp known as think.IT. The aim of the camp, which was repeated twice over the week, is to encourage girls to continue studying Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) and eventually consider careers within the IT industry.
Split into teams so that no two girls from the same school worked together, the girls were tasked with designing and marketing a brand new product, this year in the field of Technology in Sport, before presenting their idea to a team of judges in the form of IBM executives and Master Inventors.
The camps began with a brainstorming session during which the girls explored ideas and selected one to take to market. The girls were then taught the basics of marketing and the importance of branding and applied this knowledge to their product by developing a business plan and creating a brand logo, slogan and designing a web site. Team building exercises and mentoring on presentation skills helped them prepare for their final presentation to the judges.
Local MP for Romsey and Southampton North, Caroline Nokes, who returned again this year to watch the girls commented: “I was very impressed with the inspirational speakers and the enthusiasm shown for IT during my visit. A thoroughly enjoyable morning.”
The two winning ideas were:
– Training Buddy. “Working out how to work out” – A smartphone application designed to offer injury prevention, treatment and nutrition advice to athletes.
– Leaf. “The personal best trainer” – A silicone ear piece that moulds to the ear of the user, and allows an athlete to communicate wirelessly with their coach whilst training.
The runners up were:
– Morfs – An innovative sports shoe that uses interchangeable soles, so that the same pair of shoes can be used for a variety of sports.
– My Grip – A multi-functional grip constructed from a combination of memory foam and a non-slip rubber surface, that moulds to the shape of an athlete’s hands.
I think these are fantastic ideas they came up with, what do you think?
What difference does a second make, I mean, really?
More than you might think. And not just to Usain Bolt. Ask anyone who was flying with Qantas on Sunday when Amadeus, the system the airline uses, had technical issues. Several hours were spent with staff having to turn to manual processes to check passengers in. Although it hasn’t been specified what caused it, there’s a chance it could be down to a leap second issue – where there has to be a one-second time adjustment to synchronise atomic clocks with those based on the Earth’s rotation.
Time is important, of course. As James Gleick memorably pointed out in his fascinating book “Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything”, the nanosecond can now be measured, and this has led to practical results:
“The time-obsessed used to keep their watches accurate to within seconds; now they keep their computers accurate to within milliseconds. Nanosecond precision matters for worldwide communications systems. It matters for navigation by Global Positioning System satellite signals: an error of a billionth of a second means an error of just about a foot, the distance light travels in that time. One nanosecond – one foot. That is a modern equivalence worth memorising.”
Suddenly, being a minute late for dinner, a meeting or that conference call seems to take on a bigger significance…
Technology enriches the user experience at Wimbledon.com
A vibrant new digital environment will greet tennis fans this year at Wimbledon, as the All England Club and IBM have the launched the all new Championships’ website, www.wimbledon.com.
Wimbledon.com has been completely re-designed to reflect the heritage and appeal of the event, as well as to offer the tournament’s anticipated 16 million unique website visitors a more creative and immersive experience through improved content, more powerful imagery and intuitive navigation process.
Built on IBM’s SmartCloud infrastructure to meet surges in demand, the website integrates a new online broadcast channel, Live @ Wimbledon alongside the interactive analytics-enabled IBM SlamTracker scoreboard, providing a one-stop shop for fans wanting to interact with The Championships.
Live @ Wimbledon
Featuring both TV and radio, Live @ Wimbledon will blend live action from around the grounds by dropping into matches at crucial points in play (a stream of one game, per set, per match, per hour) with the off-court color of a day at The Championships. In addition to the minimum of five hours live broadcasting per day, viewers will be able to enjoy pre-packaged content such as previews and reviews, match highlights and archive footage.
The Live @ Wimbledon radio service will offer an enhanced and improved version of its popular predecessor (Radio Wimbledon), which will be available worldwide online and on the three local FM channels.
“Together with IBM, we’ve created a new website which features increased options for people to personalize their Wimbledon experience,” said Mick Desmond, Commercial Director, at the All England Club, home of The Championships. “Visitors can follow the progress of their favorite players, view live match play clips of the day’s action, and access scores and results delivered in real-time. We expect this increasingly engaging and personalized online experience to appeal to fans in ever-greater numbers.”
IBM SlamTracker
At this year’s Championships IBM SlamTracker uses predictive analytics technology to enable fans to gain deeper insight into the match. SlamTracker is a multifaceted feature of Wimbledon’s digital presence that leverages historical and real-time data to add depth and insight to the Championship experience. The ‘Momentum’ capability maps a match in real-time, visualizing key turning points and their causes (i.e. winners, aces etc.).
‘Keys to the Match’ is a feature within SlamTracker that leverages historical and immediate data to determine the top three things a player must do in order to do well in a specific match.
While SlamTracker is an example of how analytics drives insights for tennis, the uses for businesses are almost infinite. Businesses across multiple industries and geographies can gain insights from large volumes of data and then use that knowledge to choose the best strategies and better predict outcomes.
IBM SecondSight heads to Center Court
Following on from the 2011 pilot on Court 18, this year for the first time on Center Court, IBM will trial player movement tracking. With IBM SecondSight it will be possible to track the fastest moving players and how their performance changes, set by set and match by match. The system can provide new data that could help players, coaches, commentators and fans alike; and, add a new dimension to fan’s understanding of the science of tennis.
“This year a completely new website takes the understanding and insight into the Wimbledon Championships to a whole new level”, said Alan Flack, IBM’s Programme Executive for Wimbledon. “Using the power of cloud computing each individual data point is integrated instantaneously to deliver a powerful experience for fans, players, coaches and officials alike.”
Pizza Vending Machine
Should You Let Your Employees Work From Home?
Today, many companies offer their employees the option to work from home, even if they live relatively close to the office. But common sense tells us that for some employees, this may not be the best option. This decision tree created with Mindflash, will help you decide if you should let your employees work remotely, or if they should be required to work in-house.
Let me know which route you chose.
