2015 is New Magic Date for Fuel Cell Vehicles

Wishing upon a star or throwing a coin in a well might make dreams come true, but when it comes to fuel cell vehicles, auto industry executives are hoping that chanting in unison will turn hopes into reality. The mantra from execs: “Fuel cell cars for sale by 2015.”

Honda FCX Clarity

In the past few weeks, Ford, Toyota and Daimler have expressed and reiterated their commitment to bringing hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicles to market in six years, with Honda pushing its target date to 2018.

The US Department of Energy announced that it will be pulling the plug on fuel cell research and development—and California is threatening to slash its spending on building a hydrogen refueling infrastructure—but automakers are holding firm to their new timeline for hydrogen.

• Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche told Speigel Magazine in March that annual production of fuel cell cars will need to reach 100,000 units to be considered commercially viable, and that vehicle prices could be comparable to “premium” gasoline cars by around 2015.
• Toyota.s spokesperson John Hanson said in June, “Toyota is planning to go ahead with its program in certain world markets by 2015, if not sooner.”
• Speaking in June at the Edison Electric Institute conference, Ford CEO Alan Mulally saw 2015 as the date that fuel cell cars would go on sale. Mulally hedged when reminded of the US government.s cut in fuel cell research funding. “That pushes out the timeframe for commercialization,” he said.
• At a recent fuel cell conference, GM.s Larry Burns also agreed with the 2015 dates, commenting: “General Motors is committed to developing a hydrogen fuel cell car despite its bankruptcy and a huge cut in (federal) research dollars for the zero-emission (hydrogen) vehicle.” Dave Barthmuss, GM's West Coast regional PR manager, said last week, “We don't need any more breakthroughs to bring the [fuel cell] cars into the commercial market by 2015."
• Honda.s Steve Ellis, manager of fuel cell vehicle sales and marketing, told an audience at a National Hydrogen Association webinar in June that Honda is looking at 2018 as its magic date, but is already producing the FCX Clarity on a regular production line.

Waiting for a Miracle?

Despite repeated statements pinpointing 2015 for delivering fuel cell cars, automakers acknowledge two major hurdles in reaching that goal: high costs and lack of infrastructure. As Andreas Truckenbrodt, chief executive of the Automotive Fuel Cell Cooperation—a Daimler-Ford venture to advance fuel cells for vehicles—said, “Fuel cells work fine. The number one focus is now on cost reductions, and we know how to get there. Do you really think we would be spending billions if we were waiting for a miracle?”

But a miracle might be required for producing and selling fuel cell cars in any significant numbers by 2015. The hydrogen-refueling infrastructure remains a distant, and extremely expensive, dream. The federal government and the State of California are both wavering on previous commitments to spend the required large sums of money on building hydrogen stations—begging the question of who will buy fuel cell cars without knowing where they will find fuel. If the US commitment to this technology wavers, auto companies may shift their focus to more markets, such as Japan and Germany.

Most industry analysts do not expect commercialization of fuel cell cars until 2020, at the earliest. As the move to plug-in cars—plug-in hybrids and electric cars—builds momentum, carmakers that have heavily invested in fuel cell technologies will feel increased pressure to justify the expense and convince their stakeholders that fuel cells are coming sooner than expected.

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How will life in 2050 be like?

What picture do you have of the future? Will life in the future be better, worse or the same as now? What do you hope about the future?Futurologists predict that life will probably be very different in 2050 in all the fields of activity, from entertainment to technology. First of all, it seems that TV channels will have disappeared by 2050. Instead, people will choose a programme from a 'menu' and a computer will send the programme directly to the television. Today, we can use the World Wide Web to read newspaper stories and see pictures on a computer thousands of kilometers away. Bu 2050, music, films, programmes, newspapers and books will come to us by computer.Then, 'Holographic Feedback TV' will have arrived: holograms are pictures that have height, width
and depth. Simple holograms exist today and 'virtual reality' games are already popular. By 2050, we will be able to see, smell and touch the things that we see on television.In what concerns the environment, water will have become one of our most serious problems. In many places, agriculture is changing and they are growing fruit and vegetables to export. This uses a lot of water. Demand for water will increase ten times between now and 2050 and there could be serious shortages. Some futurologists predict that water could be the cause of war if we don't act now. In transport, cars will run on new, clean fuels and they will go very fast. Cars will have computers to control the speed of the car and there won't be any accidents. Today, many cars have computers that tell drivers exactly where they are. By 2050, the computer will control the car and drive it to your destination. On the other hand, space planes will take people halfway around the world in two hours. Nowadays, the United States Shuttle can go into space and land on Earth again. By 2050, space planes will fly all over the world and people will fly from Los Angels to Tokyo in just two hours.In the domain of technology, robots will have replaced people in factories. Many factories already use robots. Big companies prefer robots- they do not ask for pay rises or go on strike, and they work 24 hours a day. By 2050, we will see robots everywhere- in factories, schools, offices, hospitals, shops and homes.Lat but not least, medicine technology will have conquered many diseases. Today, there are electronic devices that connect directly to the brain to help people hear. By 2050, we will be able to help blind and deaf people see again and hear again. Scientists have discovered how to control genes. They have already produced clones of animals. By 2050, scientists will be able to produce clones of people and decide how they look, how they behave and how much intelligence they have. Scientists will be able to do these things - but should they?How will life in 2050 be like? written by Cristina Nuta for FamousWhy.comFamousWhy.com - Famous People ... Famous Regions, a Lot Of Articles and Free Software DownloadsHow will life in 2050 be like?
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Future Shock - the mobile phone of 2015

Being the forward-thinking technophiles we are, the OnSoftware team is constantly musing over what the future holds for the world of software and technology. Every coffee break or brainstorming meeting seems to end up with us debating the prospect of flying cars, how long before chips are planted in our heads, and whether Apple will ever release its fabled tablet device. Instead of us arguing amongst ourselves over the plausibility of a time-traveling MP3 player or if it's right for a human to marry a robot, we decided to each vent our perceptions of the future in a series of posts.

 (Photo by asifpk)

As OnSoftware's resident visionary genius mobile devices editor, I get to go first. I'm going to explain my theories about the future of mobile phone technology. Then, over the coming days, the rest of the team will be prophesying about their own specialist tech subject, revealing their crackpot ideas about what the World will look like in 2015.

The changing mobile environment

I guess it makes sense to start by considering what mobile software will be like in 2015. And I think 'convergence' is the key word here (as it always has been). At present there are a plethora of mobile operating systems to choose from and handset manufacturers must pick and choose which to include on their devices. For the software developer, it's now a grand task to produce apps that run on every OS, and consumers too are baffled by which to opt for. I think mobiles will go the same way as desktop computers, and that platforms will converge, so handsets will come with one of only two or three operating systems. My guess is one will be an Apple OS (i.e. a descendant of the current iPhone platform), one will be open source (my bet is that Google will eventually snap up the Symbian cooperation and Android will rule supreme), and the other will be a more business-oriented platform from BlackBerry, Microsoft, or even Palm, depending on who can squeeze out/buy out the others first.

WiFi everywhere

Software on the phones of the future will be largely web-based. This will work because Wi-Fi networks will be ubiquitous in the western world. For those in the developing world, tailored data plans will make using GSM an affordable alternative to desktop PCs. Most of Africa will be online by 2015, with the majority of people using a mobile device as their primary means of Internet access.

Life-changing applications

There's no question that the smartphones of 2015 will not just be for making calls or browsing the Web. Mobile phones will be tools that are used for every aspect of a person's life. It will become as useful as any robotic personal assistant dreamed up in the Sci-Fi films of yesteryear. Take for instance, a typical trip to the shops.

1. After leaving your house you will lock your front door and enable your home's alarm and mobile video surveillance using your phone. Any disturbance or attempted break-in will then trigger the alarm, show you a live video feed of what's happening, and automatically relay data to the police.
2. Next, you go to get in your car. Actually, you'll probably be getting into a rented electric car, because the environmentally-savvy folk of the future will realise that owning a car is nonsensical. People will instead pay a subscription to a car sharing service, where they can get into any vehicle that's parked one of the special bays dotted around all cities. Just go up to a car, press a button on your mobile to unlock it and another button to start it. Your phone will then, of course, act as a GPS service and guide you to the shop. In fact, you won't actually be driving at all because the phone will communicate with the car, which will steer it to your destination for you.
3. When you arrive at the shops, you go in and start buying as normal - except this time with a difference. Flash your phone's camera at a product and it will reveal all the details of this product on screen (price, nutritional information, expiry date, etc.) using either barcode recognition, RFID tags or picture recognition technology (I'm coming on to this). Then if you want it you just press a button on the device and it's yours, automatically deducting the cost from your bank account in real time. Once you're finished your shopping, just walk out with your goods (the RFID tags have already been deactivated, remember?) without going to the checkout. Cool, eh?

Artificial intelligence

These future phones are going to be pretty smart. They will not only know where they are (this is already the case with newer handsets) but also what they're looking at. I was at the Nokia World conference in December and the company was already showing off some remarkable apps that use this kind of technology, such as a 'point-and-find' service, where you point their phone at a building, monument or other site and the phone will automatically detect what it is, and pull information off the Web to show you. In 2015 this will be commonplace not just with places but with people too. Just point your phone's camera at someone, and it will use photo recognition software to tell you who they are, based on a profile they've created online. You can then automatically add their number to your contacts, request them as a Facebook friend, subscribe to their Twitter feed, etc.

Location-aware mobile social networking clients, such as GyPSii will grow in popularity and power. You will be able to see in real-time on a map where they are, as well as finding out what they're doing by following their status updates, photo streams etc. You'll also be able to tap into what they're listening to on their MP3 player, thanks to playlist sharing services like Spotify Mobile.

Totally switched on

You reckon in 2015 you'll still be watching TV programs on a TV, enjoying films a DVD (or BluRay) player, listening to music via a sound system, or sending emails and Skyping from a computer? Wrong, wrong, wrong, and wrong. You won't be doing any of these things. All of these mediums will be replaced by the mobile phone. TV, films, music, and even games will all be streamed from the Internet and enjoyed on the mobile. "Yeah, but I'll never want to watch TV on a small screen" you're saying. "Yeah, but you don't have to", is my response. Mobile phones will all have inbuilt projectors, so you can still experience your entertainment in large-screen format - not just in your living room, but wherever you go. It's kind-of a more polished version of the technology that allowed Princess Leah to pop out of R2-D2's eye in 3D. The computational power of 2015's smartphones will kill desktop computers. Foldable better-than-Bluetooth keyboards and the projector technology will replace the need for bulky peripherals.

Gorgeous gadgets

Touchscreen will be the standard interface format, of course, and video and photo capabilities will be immense on all devices. However, there will also be a trend towards miniaturization and integrating devices into fashion accessories, such as the rather wonderful LG watch phone which is due for release shortly. It wouldn't surprise me if phones were also integrated into ear-rings, hats, and sunglasses in the future.

I'd be interested to hear what you think the future of the mobile phone is. What do you reckon they will look like in 2015? Do you agree with my predictions, or are they too far off the mark?

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PayPal Predicts The End of the Wallet By 2015

PayPal has just hit a new milestone: The payments platform has more than 100 million active accounts.

The news, announced by PayPal President Scott Thompson, also comes with a bold prediction: By 2015, the wallet will become a thing of the past.

“As the trend toward digital currency continues to gain momentum, we are focused on delivering solutions that are not just new and different, but better than what is currently the norm today,” Thompson said in a blog post.

“We believe that by 2015 digital currency will be accepted everywhere in the U.S. -– from your local corner store to Walmart. We will no longer need to carry a wallet.”

To back his assertion, PayPal is launching a new campaign that will challenge five Bay area residents to only use digital currency to pay for all of their purchases — no cash allowed. It’s an intriguing campaign that could become a good marketing tool for the company.

PayPal has been on a tear in recent years, generating more and more of eBay’s total net revenues and profits. The company is expected to facilitate more than $3 billion in mobile transactions this year alone.

The payments company faces some powerful challengers, though. Google recently unveiled its mobile payment solution, Google Wallet, to the world. PayPal has sued the search giant, accusing two of PayPal’s former executives (now with Google) of stealing and sharing trade secrets.

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Top 10 online marketing technology trends for 2011

As the year comes to a close, and a new one begins, I reflect on the typical questions and trends I’ve seen and think about how best to advise our clients for 2011.

Top 10 Trends of 2011:

Online Marketing Predictions for 2011

10.  Facebook’s Online Marketing Platform

The adoption of Facebook’s advertising capabilities and ability to target specific segments by smaller and mid-sized firms.  While Facebook has done little this year to improve the features in its advertising portal, the business community is beginning to adopt the platform en mass.  If you haven’t heard of facebakers.com, you might want to review the international levels of adoption of Facebook as a global advertising player.

9.  Privacy Showdown becomes a major news topic in 2011

Digital marketers had a lot of press coverage on their tactics in the last half of 2011.  We’ll see public debates, but I don’t think that there will be any major changes this year in the law.  However, I do believe that we’ll see some innovations coming in the way of online reputation managers allowing both sellers and regular folks to create digital reputation management badge that can be taken with them across all websites.

8.  Smartphones for everyone.

No longer reserved for the traveling elite, smartphones have found their way into the hands of soccer moms, teenagers, tweeners, and even children.  The 7-12 year olds at church were asking for the “itouch” on their holiday gift list.  Digital cameras are going away, and devices that double as cam-corders and “The Jetsons” video telephones are coming to a hand near you.  Droid, Blackberry and Apple will fight and Blackberry will become a distant third because they haven’t catered to the all-powerful Apps content the way Droid and Apple have.  See #4 for more on this topic.

7.   Software as a Service

Major software industries are being consolidated from the traditional client / server model.  Companies such as NetSuite, Salesforce, Omniture, Rackspace, and others are finally making it possible to enjoy the benefits of the internet without having to be a propeller-headed, geek.  This is our hope and Lima Consulting Group continues to position itself to help companies benefit from these trends by integrating these software solutions for our clients.  We believe there are three “i’s” in technology Innovators (the manufacturers of software), Implementers (the installers) and Integrators (consulting companies that implement two or more of the innovators solutions).  We’ll continue to see increased competition from new entrants who present themselves as “cloud computing”, “Software as a Service” consulting companies.

Open Source software will continue to gain widespread adoption.  Drupal, Joomla, Mambo, Typo3, WordPress, and even xMod are solid tools depending on the job you’re asking them to do.  But the real innovation here will come from systems integrators that offer these solutions as a service.  Companies that allow you to setup and host these applications will do well.  I like the business model from companies such as Volusion and Shopify in this respect where for about $50 a month you get an e-commerce platform that should meet most online stores needs.

6.   Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is an amorphous term, but I’m defining it here as data centers migrating away from corporate or the home to the internet based data centers. Firms like Rackspace, Carbonite, Jungle Disk and my favorite, Box.net are really growing their user base.  The ability to integrate these applications within other software packages, (for example you can integrate Box.net within NetSuite), is a real alternative to the costly implementations for tools like Sharepoint and Documentum.  Keep an eye on the company that Computer Associates acquired, 3Tera, and software companies that virtualize data centers and applications.   This software allows data centers to move their entire operation to the data center closest to the highest levels of traffic within seconds.  As the world rotates each day, the data centers will also rotate to wherever the sun is shining.  The data center that never sees night – interesting concept towards addressing disaster recovery and increasing internet speeds while seeking best pricing on energy.  That’s enough to make the “green” contingency happy, the typical internet user and even the lawyers among us.

5.  ieverything™  vs Robot This

iPad launches, iPhone 4.0 and iOS make it easy for entry level developers to develop over 300,000 which were downloaded over 7 billion times.  The median revenue is less than $700 while the average cost to develop an app ranges between $15,000 to $50,000.   The iPad took the world by storm introducing a new category of computing, or at least bringing a niche category of tablet computing to the forefront.  Today, Barnes and Noble declared the Nook as their best selling product ever, it’s been out – what – two months?   And the Kindle brings up the 3^rdplace spot filling a need for a less tech-savvy crowd.  But the real shift in 2011 will be back to subscription models to pay for content such as the WSJ, NetFlix downloaded to your devices and of course ebooks, which outsold regular books in 2010 and lastly the worlds largest media company, yep – you guessed it – Apple.  They sell more media than any other company.  So the device and the content combination will engage in hand-to-hand combat with Google’s Andoid more flexible and open platform.  Microsoft really should be the one giving Apple the competition here, they missed their chance.  If Google gets this right, they will finally be out of trouble in having 96% of their revenue coming from their online advertising product, Adwords.  Look for a bloody battle between these two in 2011, it’s going to get personal.

4.  Here an App, there an App, Everywhere an App, App!

Salesforce started the first large-scale App store with their AppXchange.  Then Apple with their App Store, then every company in the internet base Software as a Service model did.  NetSuite has the BOS network, Omniture has the Genesis partners, Droid has andoid.com and the list goes on.  The widespread adoption of the “crap apps” out there will be a major reason that the victor will emerge, and I predict that Apple will continue here for several years to lead.  While Droid has flash, and an open network, I heard once that “average products well marketed will beat good products with average marketing.”  And the iPhone is no average product, they have the first mover advantage for having created the category and they don’t appear to be letting off the accelerator in terms of innovating both their software and their hardware associated with the iPhone and iPad.  I for one have been impressed with their advances the last three years and I am eager to see what they launch in the summer with their next generation iPhone and iPad.

3.   Net Neutrality – Ain’t

Net Neutrality in 2010 allowed one standard for wireless providers and another for landlines making, in essence 2 playing fields.  This was an unfortunate ruling that would allow certain wireless providers to block features that don’t need to be blocked for any other reason than it would cannibalize the cell phone companies revenue.  Central to the issue is Skype’s video chat and voice chat using the 3G network on the major carriers.  Verizon allows it, AT&T does not.

2. Personalized Online Experiences Based on What You’ve Done on the Internet

The improvement in web analytics to allow for personalization of ads and content based on prior site visits.  Solutions such as Omniture’s Test and Target, Recommendations, Merchandising, Survey, and Search and Promote became more widely adopted and this notion of personalizing experiences on the web is the future of online experiences.  The increased integration of your entire totality of information available to digital marketers will allow them to develop a more complete picture of an individual’s online behavior and interests than ever before.  Armed with the profile information collected from social networking sites such as Facebook, linkedin, Twitter, youtube, and others they can present more relevant content and online experiences.  The first to adopt these technologies will be media companies and ecommerce marketplaces.

1.  Hacking used as a tool by ordinary citizens as a method of protesting

WikiLeaks renegades using social computing to propagate their Denial of Service Attacks.  By enlisting anyone who wished to support the WikiLeaks organization, thousands of novice hackers downloaded the software and allowed their computers to attack the likes of Visa, Mastercard, Paypal, and other internet giants.  This behavior reminds of the flash gangs that started popping up around Philadelphia, and more recently in Rio de Janeiro.  They happen when a ring leader sets a time and place for hundreds of his hooligan friends to show up and rob neighborhood stores and then disperse within minutes making it nearly impossible for police to find the vandals.  This trend will continue in 2011 by less and less sophisticated threats.  Welcome to the new era, for good or for bad, of the masses having the ability to meet (a right that in many countries is not granted) and to conduct large-scale coordinated hacking attacks for any purpose.

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Twitter.com Turns 5 Years Old

How can you describe your use of Twitter in 140-characters or less?  Today marks 5th birthday of Twitter and the site is still gaining users and breaking records all along the way.  Five years ago, the first tweet, “inviting co-workers”, was sent out by co-founder Jack Dorsey and it’s been quite a ride since then.

Many people flocked to Twitter to sign-up and see what the “hub-bub” was all about, without really ever knowing how to even use the site.  Much like a Facebook status update, a “tweet” is a short, description of what you have on your mind.  Or maybe it’s what you just ate for lunch, a link to a review of a new product or maybe you just wanted to let your “followers” know how your cat was doing today.  It can be whatever you want as long the tweet is 140 characters or less.

What has Twitter been up to over the last 5 years?  Not only has the site become one of the best places to find up-to-date breaking news, headlines, sports scores, and more, Twitter has also helped when other forms of communication have failed.  Is your father a follower of you?  You can contact him via Twitter if you are unable to call for instance.  Granted, your father might not be into Twitter as much as you are, but at least he can’t say you didn’t try to communicate.

One thing Twitter has still been trying to figure out ways to make money.  Don’t be confused, Twitter has plenty of funding from investors, but there has been little return on that money.  Do you think Twitter could survive without making money in the long term?

Nonetheless, Twitter has been a large part of our lives for the last 5 years.  More and more businesses use it as a way to connect with their customers and many devices are used in connection with Twitter, thus getting more connecting out of each user.

There are plenty of celebs and pro athletes on the Twitter wagon as well.  You can search for tweets from 50 Cent, Bob Vila, David Spade, Ice-T and John Cena just to name a few.  Pro athletes make news when they tweet and some of them include, Dwight Howard, Steve Nash, Eli Manning or even Shaun White.

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Is Amazon interested in buying WebOS from Hewlett-Packard?

Amazon.com's Kindle Fire is a jump into the growing tablet market and a clear challenge to Apple's blockbuster ability to integrate hardware and software so seamlessly.

But what will Amazon's post-Fire moves look like as it seeks to build a major business in tablets, something only Apple has so far been able to pull off?

According to both VentureBeat and the New York Times site Deal Book, Amazon is consideringbuying the WebOS mobile operating system from the struggling Hewlett-Packard in a move to nab an OS of its own and to gain some mobile tech patents as well. Amazon officials were unavailable for comment on the rumors Friday.

Unlike Apple, Amazon doesn't own the software that will run on its tablet. Android is owned by Google, though Google shares its Android with the world at no cost and the version of Android that will run on the Fire is a build unique to Amazon.

But while Google doesn't charge for Android, others do. Microsoft, for example, is collecting royalties from Samsung for its use of Android and has agreements with other Android users, such as HTC, that pay Microsoft and/or call for shared patent portfolio licenses.

Google, known for its weak patent portfolio, is attempting to buy Motorola Mobility in both a move to help shore up its IP and get into the hardware business in a limited way. 

HP bought Palm in April 2010 for $1.2 billion, mainly for WebOS, but in August the company gave up on making hardware for the operating system.

As pointed out by VentureBeat, HP has been eyeing Amazon as a possible partner for WebOS as far back as July, Jon Rubinstein, who was then leading HP's WebOS division, said in an interview with the website ThisIsMyNext. This was due to Amazon's potential to match WebOS with an ecosystem of content -- books, music, TV shows and movies.

What do you think? Could Amazon save WebOS, bring it back to life on hardware of its own? Should the Seattle online retail giant buy WebOS and dump the software and hold on to the patents? Or would it be best for Amazon to stick with Android and risk potential lawsuits or royalty payments to competitors such as Microsoft? Sound off in the comments.

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Gartner Identifies the Top 10 Strategic Technologies for 2011

Gartner, Inc. today highlighted the top 10 technologies and trends that will be strategic for most organizations in 2011. The analysts presented their findings during Gartner Symposium/ITxpo, being held here through October 21.
Gartner defines a strategic technology as one with the potential for significant impact on the enterprise in the next three years. Factors that denote significant impact include a high potential for disruption to IT or the business, the need for a major dollar investment, or the risk of being late to adopt.
A strategic technology may be an existing technology that has matured and/or become suitable for a wider range of uses. It may also be an emerging technology that offers an opportunity for strategic business advantage for early adopters or with potential for significant market disruption in the next five years.   As such, these technologies impact the organization's long-term plans, programs and initiatives.
“Companies should factor these top 10 technologies in their strategic planning process by asking key questions and making deliberate decisions about them during the next two years,” said David Cearley, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner.
“Sometimes the decision will be to do nothing with a particular technology,” said Carl Claunch, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner. “In other cases, it will be to continue investing in the technology at the current rate. In still other cases, the decision may be to test or more aggressively deploy the technology.”
The top 10 strategic technologies for 2011 include:
Cloud Computing. Cloud computing services exist along a spectrum from open public to closed private. The next three years will see the delivery of a range of cloud service approaches that fall between these two extremes. Vendors will offer packaged private cloud implementations that deliver the vendor's public cloud service technologies (software and/or hardware) and methodologies (i.e., best practices to build and run the service) in a form that can be implemented inside the consumer's enterprise. Many will also offer management services to remotely manage the cloud service implementation. Gartner expects large enterprises to have a dynamic sourcing team in place by 2012 that is responsible for ongoing cloudsourcing decisions and management.
Mobile Applications and Media Tablets. Gartner estimates that by the end of 2010, 1.2 billion people will carry handsets capable of rich, mobile commerce providing an ideal environment for the convergence of mobility and the Web. Mobile devices are becoming computers in their own right, with an astounding amount of processing ability and bandwidth. There are already hundreds of thousands of applications for platforms like the Apple iPhone, in spite of the limited market (only for the one platform) and need for unique coding.
The quality of the experience of applications on these devices, which can apply location, motion and other context in their behavior, is leading customers to interact with companies preferentially through mobile devices. This has lead to a race to push out applications as a competitive tool to improve relationships and gain advantage over competitors whose interfaces are purely browser-based.
Social Communications and Collaboration.  Social media can be divided into: (1) Social networking —social profile management products, such as MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn and Friendster as well as social networking analysis (SNA) technologies that employ algorithms to understand and utilize human relationships for the discovery of people and expertise. (2) Social collaboration —technologies, such as wikis, blogs, instant messaging, collaborative office, and crowdsourcing. (3)Social publishing —technologies that assist communities in pooling individual content into a usable and community accessible content repository such as YouTube and flickr. (4) Social feedback - gaining feedback and opinion from the community on specific items as witnessed on YouTube, flickr, Digg, Del.icio.us, and Amazon.  Gartner predicts that by 2016, social technologies will be integrated with most business applications. Companies should bring together their social CRM, internal communications and collaboration, and public social site initiatives into a coordinated strategy.
Video.  Video is not a new media form, but its use as a standard media type used in non-media companies is expanding rapidly. Technology trends in digital photography, consumer electronics, the web, social software, unified communications, digital and Internet-based television and mobile computing are all reaching critical tipping points that bring video into the mainstream. Over the next three years Gartner believes that video will become a commonplace content type and interaction model for most users, and by 2013, more than 25 percent of the content that workers see in a day will be dominated by pictures, video or audio.
Next Generation Analytics. Increasing compute capabilities of computers including mobile devices along with improving connectivity are enabling a shift in how businesses support operational decisions. It is becoming possible to run simulations or models to predict the future outcome, rather than to simply provide backward looking data about past interactions, and to do these predictions in real-time to support each individual business action. While this may require significant changes to existing operational and business intelligence infrastructure, the potential exists to unlock significant improvements in business results and other success rates.
Social Analytics. Social analytics describes the process of measuring, analyzing and interpreting the results of interactions and associations among people, topics and ideas. These interactions may occur on social software applications used in the workplace, in internally or externally facing communities or on the social web. Social analytics is an umbrella term that includes a number of specialized analysis techniques such as social filtering, social-network analysis, sentiment analysis and social-media analytics. Social network analysis tools are useful for examining social structure and interdependencies as well as the work patterns of individuals, groups or organizations. Social network analysis involves collecting data from multiple sources, identifying relationships, and evaluating the impact, quality or effectiveness of a relationship.
Context-Aware Computing. Context-aware computing centers on the concept of using information about an end user or object’s environment, activities connections and preferences to improve the quality of interaction with that end user. The end user may be a customer, business partner or employee. A contextually aware system anticipates the user's needs and proactively serves up the most appropriate and customized content, product or service. Gartner predicts that by 2013, more than half of Fortune 500 companies will have context-aware computing initiatives and by 2016, one-third of worldwide mobile consumer marketing will be context-awareness-based.
Storage Class Memory. Gartner sees huge use of flash memory in consumer devices, entertainment equipment and other embedded IT systems. It also offers a new layer of the storage hierarchy in servers and client computers that has key advantages — space, heat, performance and ruggedness among them. Unlike RAM, the main memory in servers and PCs, flash memory is persistent even when power is removed. In that way, it looks more like disk drives where information is placed and must survive power-downs and reboots. Given the cost premium, simply building solid state disk drives from flash will tie up that valuable space on all the data in a file or entire volume, while a new explicitly addressed layer, not part of the file system, permits targeted placement of only the high-leverage items of information that need to experience the mix of performance and persistence available with flash memory.  
Ubiquitous Computing.  The work of Mark Weiser and other researchers at Xerox's PARC paints a picture of the coming third wave of computing where computers are invisibly embedded into the world. As computers proliferate and as everyday objects are given the ability to communicate with RFID tags and their successors, networks will approach and surpass the scale that can be managed in traditional centralized ways. This leads to the important trend of imbuing computing systems into operational technology, whether done as calming technology or explicitly managed and integrated with IT. In addition, it gives us important guidance on what to expect with proliferating personal devices, the effect of consumerization on IT decisions, and the necessary capabilities that will be driven by the pressure of rapid inflation in the number of computers for each person.
Fabric-Based Infrastructure and Computers.  A fabric-based computer is a modular form of computing where a system can be aggregated from separate building-block modules connected over a fabric or switched backplane. In its basic form, a fabric-based computer comprises a separate processor, memory, I/O, and offload modules (GPU, NPU, etc.) that are connected to a switched interconnect and, importantly, the software required to configure and manage the resulting system(s). The fabric-based infrastructure (FBI) model abstracts physical resources — processor cores, network bandwidth and links and storage — into pools of resources that are managed by the Fabric Resource Pool Manager (FRPM), software functionality. The FRPM in turn is driven by the Real Time Infrastructure (RTI) Service Governor software component. An FBI can be supplied by a single vendor or by a group of vendors working closely together, or by an integrator — internal or external.
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Five Things to Know about Online Grocery Shopping

While shopping online for consumer packaged goods (CPG) may have come late to the e-commerce party, it is a fast-growing sales channel. In 2010, U.S. online CPG sales reached $12 billion, representing about two percent of all CPG sales. That sales rate is expected to double in four years to $25 billion by 2014. Several market factors and forces are at play making CPG ripe for e-commerce opportunity.

From a demand standpoint, the first generation of ‘digital natives’ are forming households. To these tech-savvy media mavens, online is a way of life for convenient, on-demand and personalized attention. Plus, broadband penetration and mobile adoption rates continue to increase. The “what I want, when I want it and where I want it” trifecta will be complete for the majority.

On the supply side, the economies of scale for retailers are building as the online channel provides a greater awareness and availability of distribution opportunities. For manufacturers, online enables a deeper, more personalized relationship with the shopper – delivering on the full promise of category management.

Five things to know about online grocery shopping:

1. Consumers love online grocery shopping, but it takes time getting used to. You can simply the process by improving the online experience with navigation, search, online help and porting over shopping lists. Deliver a better time-saving experience and consumers will hang on.
2. Online baskets are different than offline baskets. The average transaction size is much larger for food and beverages ($80 online / $30 offline) and health and beauty purchase ($30 online / $10 offline). And online shopping offers a greater mix of pack sizes and categories.
3. Consumer perceptions and purchase behaviors are affected in important ways. The interactions with the online ‘store’ environment are fundamentally different than an in-store experience. The online experience is fueled by a needs-driven experience as a greater variety of options are made available on screen.
4. Online shopping “levels the playing field”. Big brand ‘physical’ advantages do not translate online. With universal distribution and search functionality an inherent bias toward niche players is created. Ultimately, price transparency, connectivity and open content favor a purely ‘rational’ market.
5. Large and small brands can win online by combining marketing savvy with digital capabilities to add value. With interactive websites, smartphone applications and social media connections, expanding your brands in new and innovative directions is virtually limitless.

Online grocery shopping is no longer coming – it has arrived. Now is the time to get in the game and determine how your brand can add value in new ways across consumer touch points. It is not only a shopper’s market, but a marketer’s market. The rate of change is accelerating and so it the rate of opportunity for creative marketers who embrace the digital revolution.

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Top US Web brands

July 2011 marks the first month of Nielsen’s new “Total Internet Audience” metric, which incorporateshybrid audience measurement data to provide a holistic view of online audience activity. Google was the most visited website in the U.S. in July with 172 million unique US visitors. During July 2011, 7 of the Top 10 web brands retained the same rank, with Wikipedia and Apple switching places compared to previous months. Amazon had 70.4 million unique US visitors during the month, making their site the 10th ranked during the month.

Top 10 Web Brand for July 2011 (US, Total)
Rank	Brand	Total Internet Audience (000)	Time per Person (hh:mm:ss)
1	Google	172,533	1:29:40
2	Facebook	158,913	5:18:40*
3	Yahoo!	148,590	2:14:25
4	MSN/WindowsLive/Bing	131,061	1:38:57
5	YouTube	125,978	1:39:02
6	Microsoft	94,680	0:45:30
7	AOL Media Network	90,181	2:17:46
8	Wikipedia	74,655	0:18:19
9	Apple	71,153	1:03:48
10	Amazon	70,388	0:29:48
Read as: During July 2011, 172.5 million unique U.S. people visited Google’s websites. Source: Nielsen * – Due to a change in the type of call used behind Facebook’s AJAX interface, Nielsen NetView data for Facebook duration will be underreported for June and July.

Hybrid data extends beyond Home and Work PCs, and as a result of these measurement enhancements and the additional sources measured, metrics including Unique Audience, which Nielsen uses to rank the top web brands, witnessed changes in data for July. Therefore July data can not be trended, but moving forward Total Internet Audience data can be trended with previous months’ Total Internet Audience data.

Hybrid measurement combines Nielsen’s online panel, a people-based representative sample employed to measure consumer’s Internet behavior using Home and Work computers, with tag-based data from websites to account for Internet use from any source. Thanks to this hybrid approach, Nielsen’s Total Internet Audience metric includes web browsing activity from all devices, including mobile devices, tablets, secondary PCs and access points outside of home and work locations.

Overall 213 million Americans were active on the Internet in July 2011 from all sources included in hybrid measurement. Internet access through home and work PCs continued to grow to 249 million individuals in the U.S. during July 2011.

Average U.S. Internet Usage for July 2011
Metrics	Total
Sessions/Visits per Person	64
Domains Visited per Person	95
Web Page Views per Person	2,572
Duration of a Web Page viewed	00:01:06
Online Time per Person	27:14:48
# of People Who Went Online	213,253,000
# of People who had Internet access	275,465,750
Read as: 213 million Americans were active online during July 2011, from Total Internet Audience using all sources in the US.

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