productivity

PR is part of the product design: Ford's social media news release

I know this blog is about product design and innovation but let's talk about PR for a minute. Why? Because the way you talk about your product should be part of your design process. The product design ought to incorporate the product story you want to tell. Sometimes, the story even becomes the product. Moreover, some may think PR is immune to innovation, but is in fact a field that is currently going through a series of pretty radical disruptions. The rise of social media has challenged the old way of promoting messages, and today's PR practitioners face … Read more

Toshiba recalls portable DVD adapters

Toshiba's U.S. subsidiary is recalling 142,000 AC adapters sold with the company's portable DVD players, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission announced Tuesday. The adapters can fail, causing the portable DVD player to overheat and posing a burn hazard to consumers.

The voluntary recall involves the ADPV16 AC adapter sold with Toshiba's SD-P1600 portable players. The gadgets were sold in consumer electronics stores nationwide from January 2005 through April 2006 for between $200 and $230.

Toshiba has received two reports of minor damage to the bottom of the DVD player, according to the CPSC, … Read more

Sexy Unilever promos push envelope on Web advertising

The online video sector appears stumped by the question of how to advertise to viewers without alienating them. Some say ads that run prior to the start of a video are the answer. Others, such as YouTube, are experimenting with ads that briefly appear at the bottom of a video while it plays.

Unilever, the maker of Axe men's personal-care products, isn't waiting around for popular video sites to figure it out. They are taking to the Web with attempts at cutting-edge humor and storytelling to create spots that are entertaining enough to attract their own viewers. The … Read more

Junk in a box: Why do we buy dysfunctional product designs?

Back in the 1980s there was an expectation that when you bought a product, it would work. For example, CDs, pop one in a player and it would play. There wasn't a case of, say, a Version 2.0 CD player that refused to play a Region 9 disc. As far as I can recall, 100% of properly manufactured discs played on properly functioning machines. You pressed "play," and you heard music--no menus, no error messages, no ifs, ands, or buts.

But CD, the first truly successful consumer digital audio format, was introduced before computers sabotaged the … Read more

In New York, approaching zero Halo hour. Plus: Master Chief interview!

Leave it to Microsoft to turn the glitz factor up to eleven. The company that brought us interpretive dancers on bungee cords for its Vista operating system has brought in spotlights, prizes, NFL players, and rappers for the launch of Halo 3, the final installment of its hit first-person shooter trilogy, which launches at midnight on Tuesday.

They kind of need to do it. As Halo is a piece of software, not a harder-to-manufacture gaming console or handheld device, the way that Microsoft has drawn the crowds for this Xbox 360 release is with star power. If there weren't … Read more

With half a day to go, N.Y. hearts 'Halo 3'

It doesn't hold a candle to the lengthy queue that assembled a few blocks north for Apple's iPhone in June, but a handful of New Yorkers decided to sacrifice a full day's work (and then some) to wait in line for Halo 3, the highly anticipated title for Microsoft's Xbox 360 that hits stores at midnight on Tuesday.

First in line at the Best Buy on Fifth Avenue and 44th Street, the official launch site for the city, is 28-year-old Uche Nwachukwu, a Web designer from the neighboring borough of Staten Island. "I want the … Read more

Keyboard vs. mouse

Inspired by Tony Targonski's wonderful heat map of the dirt distribution in his keyboard, I decided to take all my keys off and give my own keyboard a good cleaning yesterday. (Honestly, everyone should do it once a year, unless you've got some crazy, futuristic, self-cleaning device.)

As I painstakingly scraped off all of the gunk, I learned two things. No. 1: I'm a proud PC gamer. Most of the dirt was concentrated under W, A, S, and D. No. 2: I love my keyboard and I hate my mouse. My keyboard provides endless creative potential, while my mouse helps me click on stupid links. I never clean my mouse.

In order for we keyboard lovers to make the most of our wonderful input devices, we need good launchers, i.e. apps that let us run programs or load Web sites without clicking that silly mouse.… Read more

Google Presentations goes live (and yes, it's beta)

Tonight the stars have aligned in Mountain View, and the long-awaited Google Presentations is finally live, and a working part of Google Docs for all users. Here are some of the specs from Google's release:

"-Create and keep presentations in one place on the Web that's accessible anytime, from any Internet-connected computer.

- Manage, update, and share presentations with colleagues by sending them a simple e-mail invitation.

- Edit together online and in real time, or contribute at different times to the same presentation on the Web.

- Present and control slide shows for all viewers over … Read more

Micro-productivity: man vs. machine, divergence vs. convergence

According to a McKinsey & Company study of US economic activity, "Raising the productivity of employees whose jobs can't be automated is the next big performance challenge." The study argues that "as more companies come to specialize in core activities and outsource the rest, they have greater need for workers who can interact with co-workers, partners, and vendors," supported by highly personalized organizing and communication tools. 40 percent of labor activity, says McKinsey, comes not from making things or from traditional transactions but from what the consultancy calls the "Interaction Economy," which it … Read more

Office 2.0 Launchpad rundown

The Office 2.0 Conference is only two days long, and in that time there are dozens of announcements big and small from a wide array of productivity and business companies. Amidst the bevy of panels, and discussions lies the launchpad event, a small 45-minute time slot carved out for product announcements. It's basically everyone's chance to show off their stuff, or as much as they can in the brief three minute allotments. Here's a rundown:

Zoho, mentioned itsits Zoho Business platform, which they launched this morning. We've got a full story on it here.

Veodia, the live broadcasting folks are launching a new portal for the iPhone and iPod touch. The team has been live broadcasting conference coverage all day.

TimeBridge is launching the public beta of its personal scheduling manager. It's a little bit like CircleUp ( coverage) meets Outlook, to lets you sync up your scheduling decision with your Outlook or Google Calendar. Previous Timebridge coverage can be found here.

Pano Logic has a really neat piece of hardware that does "zero client computing." This means with a server setup, you can get little portable computers that run off of these little metal cubes. This is great for small businesses who want to save some cash on desktop hardware, or who want to fool their employees into thinking they're in the future.

OpenSAM discussed creating an open set of standards for sharing online file types and information. ShareOffice is adding calendars from Jotlet, and conferencing from Persony. They've also built an iPhone app for accessing documents on ShareMethods.

Nozbe announced its business service, which features project collaboration for small and medium sized businesses. The team has also put together an iPhone-friendly version of the site for users to access projects on the go.

gOffice has a really nifty service that lets you type a Microsoft Office document on your iPhone. You can type to your heart's content, add a custom signature, and even get gOffice to print it out and send it (via snail mail) to wherever you want for a small fee.