Bicycle-Powered Treehouse Elevator

Posted on September 7, 2013 by loiswhitmanhess

This is what I call innovative. I have always loved treehouses. Being a city kid, I rarely got to visit one. When I did, I just loved the panoramic view from above. It was all about fantasy.

My last treehouse visit was about two years ago at a home of Terri Weinstein in Coral Gables, Florida. It was very difficult to capture the structure in a photo because it was covered with branches and leaves. Getting up there was an experience. I think I still have some faded cuts.

There was no question about it. Once you were up there, the view was dreamy. You got the best view of the garden and the use of coral throughout the patio and pool area. We hung out for just enough time to truly remember why treehouses are just so much fun. Getting down was just as painful as going up.

Inventor Ethan Schlusser has a better alternative. He uses bike pedals that are connected to a pulley system to lift himself 30 feet up in the air. When he gets to just the right level, he climbs into his waiting tree-borne abode.

Make sure you watch the video above. If you have a better idea, let me know.

Meanwhile, here are some treehouses for adults.

Happy New Year

Posted on September 6, 2013 by loiswhitmanhess

Liat, Roi, and Reut at Best Buy, Miami Beach

We had a wonderful Rosh Hashanah dinner in Miami with Whitney, Fredrick, Williams, and our Israeli cousins Liat, Roi, and Reut. Our cousins are on an extended vacation and luckily we were in Miami when they made a stop here. While we are miles and many years apart, it felt like we see each other every day and are all the same exact age. We were totally united. That is one of the big advantages of Facebook.

I did a little recuperating this afternoon listening to some very interesting stories from Umano. I wanted to share them with you.

Don’t Be a Bully Because You Have a Big Vocabulary

8 Ways To Get Out Of A Rut & Get Moving

Save yourself a trip to the doctors office. Talk to a physician online.

Jack Nicholson’s unconfirmed memory loss.

At 5 pm, the Royal Caribbean, Majesty of the Seas, floated right under our balcony with sister-in-law Dorothy and niece Valerie on board. We gave them a great Bon Voyage sendoff.

Leftovers with Rene and Howard

Someone Tell Jack Nicholson to Start Playing Video Games

Posted on September 5, 2013 by loiswhitmanhess

The other day there was a rumor that Jack Nicholson, age 73, was a retiring from the movies because he had a difficult time remembering lines. He hasn’t acknowledge the report yet. He also hadn’t denied it either.

He needs to read the recent NY Times article that says the challenges of certain video games can improve short-term memory and long-term focus of people who are as old as 80. The findings just got published in a scientific journal called Nature. The article is appropriately named, “Game Changer.”

The gist of the article says that recent research “shows you can take older people who aren’t functioning well and make them cognitively younger through video game training.” That may mean a whole new market for video games: octogenarians.

A study from the University of Rochester shows

“Heavy use of certain off-the-shelf, intense shooting games can lead to improvements in a user’s ability to ignore distractions, and even learn. Brain scientists have discovered that swerving around cars while simultaneously picking out road signs in a video game can improve memory.”

All the researchers quoted in the story admit that the study is very young and still in the very stages. However, we all know that active minds stay fresh and vibrant. If video games and other intense mind games, help the cause, I say “Shoot away.”

Stolen Hotel Towels Are Sending Signals to Be Rescued

Posted on September 4, 2013 by loiswhitmanhess

If you lifted a towel, wash cloth, bath mat, or even a bed sheet from a hotel you recently visited, there is a chance that the police will be knocking at your door very soon.

More and more hotel linens are sporting a patented chip designed to track its whereabouts. I kid you not.

Here is the good news. More than likely the linens you took by mistake (cough, cough) don’t have the tracking gizmo in it. However, in a few years I would bet that every item that is not nailed down in a hotel will contain a radio-frequency identification chip (RFID) that keeps real time inventory of frequently misplaced or stolen goods. That means each item can be traced from the guest room to the laundry, storage, and out-the-door.

I had the pleasure of talking the other day to the guy who started it all, William Serbin. His company, Linen Technology Tracking, is located in Miami. He was in the linen industry for many years and quickly became familiar with the challenges hotels face in monitoring linens. Each month hotels can lose five to 20 percent of towels, sheets and robes. That gets pretty expensive to replace.

When Serbin came up with the monitoring idea he had to make sure the chips were waterproof. Now they are tough enough to go through more than 300 wash cycles. He also admitted that while the trackers have caught a number of towel thieves the real value is just helping the hotel keep track of their inventory.

According to the Linen Technology website, “The entire system is designed around using RFID technology to identify linen within a facility. The RFID technology component consists of a microchip that has an ID and RFID reader and antenna that can receive the ID as a radio signal from the chip to identify it. Linentracker is fully FCC compliant.

“The information can be accessed by hotel management by running various reports through the Linentracker dashboard. As a result, hotel management will gain knowledge of the current loss, age of their inventory, wash counts, up-to-date inventory levels and more. The system works within a self-contained network and does not have to connect to the corporate network for any information.”

A Parking Meter that Talks to You

Posted on September 3, 2013 by loiswhitmanhess

The biggest nightmare about metered parking is making sure your minutes don’t run out. Countless times over the years I have watched people racing down the streets of Manhattan to feed a meter before a traffic cop could show up. I also remember being in the movies, restaurants, and concerts when friends had to suddenly leave the premises in order to make sure their parking meter didn’t expire.

While I knew about PayByPhone quite a while ago, I never witnessed how it actually worked. Just like a neophyte, I stood there in amazement yesterday morning when a bunch of us went out for breakfast in Midtown Miami and no one left the table as we sat for hours talking. I did see a few friends pull out their smartphones, bring up the PayByPhone app, click on two bars, announce that they had just extended their parking meters by an hour, and order more coffee. I marveled at both the convenience and the brilliance of such an invention.

Then I really got blown away when one of my friends got an alert that he needed to feed the meter. It was a 10 minute warning. Once again, he pulled out his smartphone, tapped the app twice, and put his cell away. I just sat there in awe. It’s one thing to write about technology. It’s another to see it in action.

No more coins or pay-and-display receipts. It’s now even easier to pay for your parking using PayByPhone. It’s available on iPhone, Android, and Blackberry.

PayByPhone is now North America’s leading provider of mobile payments in the parking industry. PayByPhone operates across North America and Europe in over 180 cities including London, Miami, Vancouver, Newcastle, San Francisco, and Paris. Over three million people have signed up to use the PayByPhone service.

Inpatient Treatment for Internet Addiction

Posted on September 2, 2013 by loiswhitmanhess

An increasing number of retired friends are complaining to me that they are spending too much time in front of the computer screen. They think they have an Internet addiction. They wake up very early each day and go straight to the computer. Some even turn on their smartphone or tablet without getting out of bed (me).

Hours fly by and, before they know it, it’s 10:30 or 11am. They haven’t even started their day. They missed their exercise routines and breakfasts. By the time they shower and shave, it’s noon. They go straight to lunch. They claim there is a whole new time shift. Many admit they love it. It’s the best part of their day.

They spend quiet time reading online newspapers and magazines. The convenience of having it all in one place is still a novelty. They are also spending greater time on Facebook, chatting online with far away friends, playing word games, listening to audio books, music, and podcasts. Some spend countless hours researching discounts on travel and recreation.

Many spouses and friends don’t like it. They are worried about their isolation and addiction to the Internet. Apparently, my friends are not alone. There seems to be a slow growing epidemic among baby boomers.

Treatment facilities are springing up all over the country. A psychiatric hospital in central Pennsylvania has announced that it is the nation’s first facility to offer inpatient treatment. The 10-day program opens on September 9th at the Behavioral Health Services at Bradford Regional Medical Center. It’s $14,000, no insurance. Ouch! Coincidentally, that’s the same day as my 47th anniversary of working. Is someone trying to tell me something?

Dr. Kimberly Young, the psychologist who founded the program, said in an interview on ABC News, “Internet addiction is a problem that can be more pervasive than alcoholism. The Internet is free, legal and fat free.”

The not-for-profit program takes place inside a wing of the hospital designated for other addicts. These patients will undergo a psychological evaluation and learn ways they can minimally use the Internet and avoid problematic applications.

My question is where are the treatment centers for couch potatoes and sports enthusiasts who spend weekends in front of the television set? I like my Internet addiction. It keeps me balanced and informed. What about you?

Happy 10th Birthday Skype

Posted on September 1, 2013 by loiswhitmanhess

I have some friends who spend three to four hours a day on Skype. It has changed their lives. Family and friends who live far apart now see each other on a daily basis. It has truly changed the world of communications.

It’s popularity just keeps growing. The Internet calling service just announced that it connected 70 million people through its Internet calling service at once. That number is mind boggling. I try to imagine all those people talking to each other at once. Kind of like the scene in Bye Bye Birdie.

A leading Internet statistics company, Statista, also revealed:

1) The average time spent on a Skype conversation is 27 minutes.

2) Active Skype users spend 100 minutes a month on the service.

3) Thirty five percent of small businesses use Skype as a primary service.

4) Forty percent of all Skype calls use the video feature.

5) Microsoft bought Skype in 2011 for $8.5 billion.

Just 10 years agoonone million users used the service at once. In 2011, 30 million people made Skype calls at the same time, which is less than half the number concurrently connected .

Congrats Skype.

Tech-Inspired Words

Posted on August 31, 2013 by loiswhitmanhess

Miley Cyrus Twerking at the MTV Video Music Awards

Many baby boomers are very proud of their vocabulary skills. However, in this day and age a lot of new words are being born on the Internet. Here are some words the Oxford English Dictionary added recently.

Twerking: Dancing in a sexually provocative manner involving thrusting hip movements and squatting.

Click and Collect: When you buy something on the Internet and then pick it up in person so you don’t have to wait for delivery.

Derp: A stupid action.

Digital Detox: A period of time when a person refrains from using electronics products.

Selfie: A picture you take of yourself, usually with a smartphone.

Happy Birthday Eliot

Posted on August 30, 2013 by loiswhitmanhess

Scenes from a Birthday Celebration

Dinner at Mr. Chow, Miami Beach, FL

Group shot on boat

Whitney, all smiles

Howard and Eliot looking for dolphins

Steve, Fredrick, and Andrew

Steve and Williams

Me, Williams, and Ruth

Williams posing as JT

Fredrick and Andrew at the steering wheel

Our condo, far right

DigiDame

Fredrick posing on top of party boat

Made In USA

Posted on August 29, 2013 by loiswhitmanhess

For the last six months, I have had one of the most difficult assignments of my PR career. We were commissioned to get PR for RELM Wireless, a land mobile radio manufacturer. The radios are used by first responders: EMS, fire, police.

RELM is a 65-year old public company that only manufactures in the U.S. All of its competition manufactures offshore. Everything about the company is American: its products, its quality control, its manufacturing facilities, its company offices. RELM has excellent quality and is extremely competitively priced.

Does anyone care? We are all screaming that we need more jobs in the United States and our own government is giving foreign companies the contracts for LMRs. These are the radios that first responders use to protect all of us from terrorists, fires, and disastrous events. Just the other day, the U.S. State Department gave a $50 million order to Kenwood. When RELM asked why they chose Kenwood instead of them, the answer was “Oh, we have been doing business with them for years.”

Our client became unglued. The CEO of RELM wrote a very aggressive letter to the State Department ridiculing their out-of-touch, out-of-date business practices. No answer. I tried to get the story in the press about how we all say we need more jobs in America, yet our own government hands over the $50 million order to an Asian company. So far, very little coverage.

It all comes down to bureaucracy. No one wants to make a change. If predecessors at government agencies bought Asian, the new buyers want to do the same. It all sounds so ridiculous, but that is exactly what happens.

How do you feel about this? Shed some light.

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