You can’t exactly buy rain on Amazon but you can buy the RainMachine. This weather forecast sprinkler controller talks to the NOAA weather satellite service to find out about the coming weather and changes the amount of water the different areas of my garden get accordingly. It replaces my old traditional sprinkler controller that watered the same way, day in and day out. How does it know what my garden needs? It knows me. […]
Sometimes it’s hard to tell the practical from the artistic. Eames and Bauhaus chairs. KitchenAid mixers that are making a comeback in all colors. Depression glass juicers. At the Sonoma Valley Museum of Art through December 1, 2013, Kathleen Thompson Hill’s exhibit of culinary gadgets and ephemera, “Kitchen Memories” is not only an exercise in the whimsical and practical, but an experience that will stimulate memories going back to your childhood. […]
In a highly successful campaign where “the camera tastes food before the mouth does”, Johnson & Johnson China focuses on young Chinese consumers’ love of taking pictures of their meals and sharing on social media networks to remind them to pay attention to oral health at “foodie time.” The small budget campaign was 720 times more cost-effective than the average CPM of TV in China tier one cities.
Kubi, meaning literally “neck” in Japanese, is the next big thing in telepresence. This attractively styled robotic stand from Revolve Robotics for camera-enabled tablets fits as nicely on a table at holiday dinners as it does at board meetings or in classrooms. And it represents: YOU. You control Kubi from afar, using web-based remote control and Facetime, Skype or other video calling or telepresence apps, tilting the stand up when […]
China’s mobile ad platform management company, Guohe Ad, took top gold honors at the Mobile Marketing Association “Smarties” competition in China for its two-week “Let’s Merry” campaign that bridged real and virtual holiday worlds. Â Some 670,000 people participated in the promotion that called on SMS and LBS to check in and share Starbucks experiences and accumulate points for a Starbucks drink. Â The two-week campaign took place in three China provinces […]
VIA Technologies, that has for years been quietly pursuing its business as the third of of the three official x86 CPU companies, is also an ARM licensee and today it knocked some common sense into the market’s thick head by unveiling APC, a $49 Android PC System. Â APC is powered by a WonderMedia ARM processor, integrated memory, storage…basically everything you need to run great video, play Angry Birds, and browse […]
Sometimes we get so entrenched in our traveling habits that it takes an event for travel press like the recent Connected Traveler Technology Showcase to open our eyes to some serious technology as well as gadgets and devices that make traveling more efficient and enjoyable. Here are some of them. My next post will look at the apps and other software at the event. Every so often someone comes up […]