July 27, 2004
LingoPhone: Mobile Phone Language Translation
Recently seen via SmartMobs, new mobile phone technology:
LingoPhone has mobile translation services via text messaging: send text in English and get a translation in one of several European languages (French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese). You can also translate from other languages to English. The company is now creating databases that are accessible to mobile phones, beginning with the CIA World Factbook as a demo.
What can we expect as more network resources and tools are available in such a small form factor?
July 20, 2004
iPods for Education at Duke
Duke freshmen will be attuned to iPodsDuke University freshmen will get something even more trendy than a Blue Devils T-shirt when they arrive next month: a free Apple iPod digital music player.
On Monday, the university announced a deal with Apple to distribute 1,650 of the hand-held gizmos to first-year students. Duke will get a discount and give them free to freshmen -- for keeps.
The iPods generally are used to store and play music; the 20-GB model, which the students will get, can hold up to 5,000 tunes. But the Duke students, being brainy and all, will use the iPods mostly for academics.
from NewsObserver.com (thanks to Maria Hesse!)
This certainly is a technology that is within reach. What do you think?
July 14, 2004
The Dummies Guide to Change, Diffusion and the Tipping Point
The process and dynamics of how innovation happens is related to understanding emerging technologies- you may have heard a few years back about "crossing the chasm", the gap between leading edge innovators (heat seekers) and the larger numbers of "main stream" people- open to change, but more skeptical.
In The Dummies Guide to Change, Diffusion and the Tipping Point, Robert Peterson writes:
Understanding how to initiate change is becoming a central issue for our time. Fortunately nature has given us a model that has a much better chance of working than all the change book's ideas so far.
Over the last 2 years I have been seeking the best compression of the ideas of Everett Rogers - the father of Diffusion Theory and his popular disciple Malcolm Gladwell of Tipping Point fame.
I have edited a number of other people's work into what I hope is the easiest, most complete and most accessible review of their thinking. This is not my original work but is my original editing!