Hasselblad rolls out 39 megapixel H3D II DSLR

from Engadget by Donald Melanson

Hasselblad may have already hit 39 megapixels more than a year ago, but that doesn't make the company's new H3D II DSLR any less impressive, which hits that same mark with a few other improvements. Those include a new 3-inch display, which promises both a clearer view of images and lower power consumption, as well as an apparently revamped menu system that'll let you tweak settings using the thumbwheel controls on the camera. Otherwise, you can expect just about everything you could ask for in a $37,000 camera, including 48x36 mm CCD image sensors (the largest currently available), a Global Image Locator that tags photos with the exact geographic co-ordinates at the time they were taken, and an array of features that promise to keep your shots free of noise and moiré effects, to name just a few. What's more, if 39 megapixels and $37k is just a bit too much for you, you can opt for one of two lesser models that Hasselblad's also just introduced, including the 31 megapixel H3D-31II ($30,000) and the 22 megapixel H3D-22II ($25,000).

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3D: MotionPortrait Animates Still Photos, Turns On Internet Dating World

3D: MotionPortrait Animates Still Photos, Turns On Internet Dating World

from Gizmodo by Yuri Baranovsky

MotionPortrait has released a new photo imaging program of the same name that can take a regular 2D picture and transform it into a moving, smiling, talking 3D model. According to the company, a one-gigahertz CPU can handle the 2D-to-3D transformation, which then allows the user to change eye color, hair-style and facial expressions. The CG animation can even be synced with sound to respond to various inputs.

This is easily one of the best picture-to-CG animations I've seen. Sure, it's not flawless -- but if the company keeps improving on it, it can open up a whole lot of interesting features for social networking sites and video games. Unfortunately, the program can only be used through companies that put it into their own products -- but I'm expecting a 3D animated Yuri to be doing obscene gestures my friend's cellphones in the near future. [SciFi via UberGizmo]

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Google Docs Adds Web Based Version of PowerPoint 1.0

from Digital Inspiration by Amit Agarwal

Google today launched a "very basic" PowerPoint clone that lets you create Presentations inside the web browser. Other than creating presentations from scratch, you can also upload your existing PPT and PPS slideshows into Google PowerPoint.

The new Google tool, which surprising doesn't have any name (they call it Google Docs presentations feature), is available at documents.google.com or can also be accessed from docs.google.com. It's also available for Google Apps customers.

Microsoft PowerPoint is celebrating it's 20th birthday this year but should the Redmond giant lose sleep with Google making inroads into the Presentation arena. Probably not because Google is more focused on building a tool that eases delivery of presentations online, not creating them.

The winning feature in Google PowerPoint is integration with Google Talk - while you are delivering a live presentation online, the presenter and attendees can text chat in real time via Google Talk.

Google provides no option to embed PowerPoint slideshows in web pages. You can export a presentation to zipped HTML but that functionality is broken as of now.

Related: A Real Contender for Google PowerPoint

© 2007 Digital Inspiration by Amit Agarwal

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Ask.Com Ad Campaign Futility

Augustine: "if a site cannot grow virally, it just will not grow." -- absolutely agreed. It is harder than ever to stand out these days with new web 2.0 websites springing up daily. The key is to start with something simple, yet remarkable enough that users are compelled to share it with friends (they know best what their friends are likely to like). And the next key is to continue to innovate and build so that the remarkability is sustainable. This could be extremely difficult, BUT web services have a built in customer feedback mechanism and power users/lead adopters are usually the ones that have the best ideas to share about how to improve a web service. So by putting in place the business processes to incorporate such ideas rapidly into features, a site can leverage continuous user innovation to help it continue to grow virally.

One other example from the field... a colleague at American Express was able to prove an early hypothesis of mine -- cut above-the-line advertising by half and there will be NO detrimental effect on website traffic or new cards acquired. His budget was cut by 80% in last year's belt tightening, BUT to everyone's surprise the website traffic showed NO decrease, and the rate of customers signing up for cards on the website showed NO decrease -- i.e. traditional advertising IS being ignored more completely than ANY industry reports are willing to admit.

from Alan Meckler by Alan Meckler

I think Ask.com is terrific! I think it was smart for IAC to purchase it a few years ago.

Recently the folks at Ask have been pushing a billboard and television ad campaign to stimulate readership. The billboard campaign was ridiculous. However the tv ads are terrific.

I doubt, however, that any ad will grow traffic to Ask. Our short Internet history has shown one thing: if a site cannot grow virally, it just will not grow.

The IAC management comes out of the old media tradition. While it has made terrific Web site purchases over the years, these ad campaigns seem to be coming from their old media training. I suggest they use the ad dollars for some more solid Web deals.

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Alarm Clocks -- from Seth's Blog

Augustine: something as simple as this, yet because manufacturers don't have business processes whereby such obvious customer feedback gets directly to product development people who need it, they have not built this in. Web 2.0 services have the luxury of immediate (and intense) user feedback and the good ones turn these into bug fixes or new features rapidly. Obviously it is a lot harder for traditional product companies to incorporate "rapid user feedback" but simple changes to business processes and organizational structure can bring them closer to this "customer-driven innovation" nirvana -- and save them a lot of time and resources on wrong product "guesses" - a la Palm's Folio.

from Seth's Blog by Seth Godin

For twenty cents or so, alarm clock manufacturers can add a chip that not only knows the time (via a radio signal) but knows what day it is too. Which means that they can add a switch that says "weekends." Which means that the 98% of the population that doesn't want to wake up on the same time on weekends as they do on weekdays will be happier (and better rested.)

This isn't as complicated or expensive as my idea four years ago.

So why doesn't every alarm clock have this feature? Because most people in that business are busy doing their jobs (distribution, promotion, pricing, etc.), not busy making products that people actually want to buy--and talk about.

There are very few products and services that wouldn't get a lot better if people just tried to make them better.

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