MS-Surface ditches the mouse

It’s all over the news — Microsoft is taking a break from the “Vista-is-the-future” campaign to show the world something that actually looks like it’s “futureworthy”.

If the name “Surface” doesn’t ring a bell yet, wait until you visit a restaurant, hotel, retail outlet or casino resort where this technology is deployed. It’s so innovative and different from what we’re used to that at Microsoft, Surface is dubbed a new product category!

The device which looks like a small food cooler with a screen on top is the first commercially available surface computer from Microsoft and it’s expected to break down barriers, especially for those who don’t mix too well with “traditional” technology. Surface provides effortless interaction with information using touch, natural gestures and physical objects, like a mobile phone or a digital camera.

To wrap your head around Surface, just imagine a touchscreen surface that can recognize physical objects from a paintbrush to a cell phone while allowing hands-on, direct control of content such as photos, music and maps. No USB or FireWire cable clutter here -and- no time wasted trying to figure out how to properly mount the device. As long as it’s compatible, you just drop it on the surface and it’s recognized.

To anyone who has wasted countless hours trying to configure their personal computer so it can play well with the plethora of tech gadgets that multiply around it, this sounds like tech nirvana!

But that’s not all, Surface isn’t shy and welcomes collaboration. That means the whole family can gather-round the 30-inch display and check out the pictures and do all sorts of manipulations on them… hopefully in a collaborative manner.

The whole point of Surface appears to revolve around providing a dynamic surface that makes effortless interaction with all forms of digital content a reality. For the movie fans who remember Tom Cruise’s information handling (with his hands moving holograms, floating in the air) in Minority Report, it appears Surface could be the first major commercial step towards that kind of “user interaction” spirit.

This post’s title announces the end of the mouse, as we know it, with Surface but that’s not all, even the physical keyboard gets the pink slip — nevertheless, your fingers will still come in very handy but this time, they’ll be all over the touchscreen.

Microsoft is trying to add a profoundly human touch to the computing experience, with Surface. In fact, putting people back in control mainly happens through the following key attributes:

• Direct interaction - Users can actually “grab” digital information with their hands, interacting with content by touch and gesture (without the use of a mouse or keyboard).
• Multi-touch - Surface computing recognizes many points of contact simultaneously, not just from one finger like a typical touch-screen but up to dozens of items at once.
• Multi-user - The horizontal form factor makes it easy for several people to gather around surface computers together, providing a collaborative, face-to-face computing experience.
• Object recognition - Users can place physical objects on the surface to trigger different types of digital responses, including the transfer of digital content.

Microsoft’s Surface Computing clearly brings to life a whole new way to interact with information that engages the senses, improves collaboration and empowers consumers who can use these devices to, for example, pay their bar tab.

People who have tried Surface are few and far between so “issues” aren’t yet discussed but speed, privacy and sanitary matters come to mind. For instance, will the MS-Surface slow down considerably if the digital camera contains hundreds of high-resolution pictures, will people passing by be able to see what the user is doing and at the end of a busy day, will it still be safe for anyone to hover their fingers over the same surface everybody else did earlier? Those and many other interesting questions should find answers as more people get their hands dirty with Surface, litterally.

So, who’s eager to try Microsoft’s idea of Surface Computing?

Tags: microsoft, surface computing, touchscreen, collaboration, tech

SitePal does the talking

Go to your favorite “offline” store and listen to the finest salespeople. They all talk their way into selling whatever the boss has to offer. Face-to-face selling pitches work and it’s been that way, well… forever!

Nowadays, with countless potential customers storming the web for all sorts of products and services, opportunity knocks for any savvy marketer who feels the power of talk can apply to their online business model, namely through the use of a SitePal talking avatar.

Differentiation from other web sites really matters.

Whoever can get the right message through to the visitors is likely to ring up way more e-sales. Having a talking character doing all the right talking for you, 24/7 without taking breaks, could appeal to potential customers looking for a more personal e-shopping experience.

Oddcast, the New York-based company behing the SitePal talking characters, covers many specific business needs, such as (1) viral marketing, (2) e-learning, (3) rich media ads, (4) mobile avatars, (5) telephony, (6) blogging & social networking, (7) small businesses and (8) web-2-broadcast.

The characters can talk in many popular languages and you can extensively customize yours to match your web site’s looks. These virtual creatures talk in a way people will recognize as being somewhat automated but it’s surprisingly close to real human speech, especially for shorter sentences.

Like any salesperson on your payroll, this animated persuader doesn’t work for free. Fortunately, Oddcast has managed to devise price plans that appear to be affordable for any serious e-business.

Tags: sitepal, avatars, talking characters, virtual people, online sales, e-business

SugarCRM helps your customers

If you’re looking to make your customers happy by always calling them at the right moment, by planning ahead of their needs and by accompanying them in their projects, then using the SugarCRM Suite should make perfect sense to you.

Either hosted by Sugar or downloadable as an Open Source PHP / MySQL script, many experts consider that this Cupertino-based company is offering the next generation of CRM, today. For anybody managing customers, that’s enough to write home about.

In a nutshell, SugarCRM is rethinking how technology can help companies manage customer relationships.

More specifically, Sugar delivers a feature-rich set of business processes that enhance marketing effectiveness, drive sales performance, improve customer satisfaction and provide executive insight into business performance. This already sounds good but two new much anticipated modules are available and they’re bound to further help manage your customers.

First, the Knowledgebase helps customer support and engineering teams better manage and share structured and unstructured information. Knowledgebase allows users to create frequently asked questions (FAQs), manage files and search (and rate) content – all in one easy-to-use interface.

Secondly, the Customer Self-Service Portal allows companies to provide self-service capabilities to customers and prospects for key marketing, sales and support activities. Customers can log cases, upload relevant information and track cases to resolution without ever having to pick up a phone.

The SugarCRM Suite delights customers of all sizes across a broad range of industries. If you’re already one of them, now would be a good time to take a good look at how these new offerings can integrate with your business objectives, customerwise.

Tags: sugarcrm, crm, customer relationships, customer management, knowledgebase, self-service portal

Revenue Pilot’s new features

According to Salomon Smith Barney, the Internet search and related services has been estimated to be around $2.6 billion back in 2004 with an annual growth rate of over 20% through 2008.

We’re almost halfway through 2007 and according to U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray‚Äôs Senior Analyst, Safa Rashtchy, the paid search market has already reached nearly $7 billion in worldwide revenues, growing at a compounded annual rate of 35 percent.

As you can see, as more online advertisers are turning to performance-based online advertising solutions to fulfill their cyber-marketing objectives, pay-per-click search is quickly growing as -the- marketing solution of choice.

Revenue Pilot, based in Brooklyn, NY has earned itself a solid reputation over time, namely because of their respectable array of serious advertisers and on-time payouts to the publishers.

To make their pay-per-click ads even more convenient to display, for the publishers, Revenue Pilot has recently added new linking methods, such as:

• JavaScript Array
• TextFeed
• Dynamic Popouts
• Popouts
• Dynamic Layer Ads
• Floating Ads
• Interstitials
• Error Pages

Getting the codes to technically display Revenue Pilot’s ads through these methods (and others) is really easy but if you’re looking to seamlessly blend RP’s ads in your pages, the most efficient way to do it is through the “XML feeds” since they allow for virtually limitless visual customization.

Some keywords appear to be more lucrative than others. For instance, the “casino“-related paid search results seem to deliver the highest payout, for the publisher. Other competitive keywords inlude “mortgages“, “credit“, “finance“, “gaming“, “insurance“, “security” and “travel“.

In fact, if you deal in any industry where those keywords are applicable, it might be a good thing to sign-up for your very own publisher account where you get a healthy 60% from every “valid” click.

From my experience, dealing with the Business Development people at RP has been a very positive experience and for anyone with the need to monetize their good ideas, it may just be what the “doctor” ordered ; )

Tags: revenue pilot, pay-per-click, online advertising, tech, web

Newsvine’s new looks

Social bookmarking is getting smarter all the time. From easier access to the information you’re looking for to new ways to share your latest findings, getting social is the new game in town.

Newsvine, based in Seattle WA, takes the daily whirlwind of new information streams very seriously. With over 600,000 members already bookmarking their findings with their free service, they felt it was time for an overhaul.

They worked up their front page to make it easier to get a birds eye view of what’s hot online, at any given moment. With smart use of the usual news categories, such as politics, tech and entertainment, it’s a no brainer to sift through the latest releases from the world over. You’ll even find a collection of live tags for each category.

The local headlines and weather are also easier to gather, which is always nice but the search feature is somewhat sluggish. Then again, considering the amount of newly added data they need to process, that might be inevitable. Because of the nature of social bookmarking, cached data content is less valuable than the latest and greatest.

Add the Newsvine Groups, Newsvine Live and News in Pictures features and it’s easy to see that this social bookmarking service is looking to go places.

The external RSS feeds tool is a convenient to add the news you like to your Newsvine front page. Of course, this is a “member only” feature but since membership is entirely free, it shouldn’t be a problem!

Tags: newsvine, social bookmarking, tech, web services, online