Early adopters always get the girls. In this case, you will also get the boys. I am not talking sex appeal. I am talking attracting a crowd if you are wearing Casio’s new Bluetooth G-Shock watch.
It is the only watch that accepts email and phone-call notifications from your smartphone via a Bluetooth connection. It will also alert you when you get too far out of range from your smartphone. Casio doesn’t want you to lose your connection.
A beeping sound or vibration alerts you when a call is coming in. This can be a desired feature if you keep your phone in a handbag or briefcase. On the display of the watch, the text “Incoming Call” will scroll across the screen, but the name of the person calling the user will not be displayed on the watch.
As far as emails are concerned, the G-Shock will display the name of the email address that’s linked to the alert in addition to a flashing mail icon. In order to set up email alerts, the user is required to download the G-SHOCK+ application for the iPhone.
The Bluetooth G-Shock watch works with the iPhones 4S and 5. Android will be available soon. It retails for $180. You can buy it from Macy’s, Bloomingdales and Nordstrom.
Casio says the watch battery lasts for two years, even with excessive use. This is clearly for the person who has everything.
It’s that time again when we start thinking about holiday gifts. Many of us will be doing our holiday shopping online. As I previously reported, Black Friday generated record-breaking online sales, so it will probably happen again during the holidays.
If you don’t know about Etsy, I suggest you try it. It is perfect for unique gifts and one-of-a-kind items. It is an e-commerce website that offers items you just can’t find anywhere else. It was launched in 2005 and is one of the most successful businesses on the Internet. Etsy is a digital arts and crafts fair that provides sellers with personal storefronts that feature handmade and vintage items as well as arts and crafts. You can find all kinds of odds and ends including arts, photography, clothing, jewelry, food, bath, beauty products, quilts, knick-knacks, and toys. If you want to get creative this holiday season, you can also buy craft supplies such as beads, wire, and jewelry-making tools. I would love to make something myself, but I need a coach and no one is volunteering.
I know people who have made healthy incomes by being a retailer on Etsy. Some of them have quit their day jobs because they are doing so well. I also read that traditional retailers scout the site for unusual goods to sell themselves. It is really known as “the world’s handmade marketplace.” Etsy merchandise is also affordable, so you can always find something.
It will be interesting to find out how many of you know Etsy already. The site has been featured on many different media platforms including Good Morning America, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The London Times, Forbes, and dozens more.
What is even more terrific is that the famous website has pop-up locations all over the world including Paris, London, Amsterdam, and San Francisco. The big news is that Etsy has recently opened a SoHo location just in time for the holidays. This is the first-ever holiday shop in New York City from November 29 through December 8. You only have a few days left. It is next door to Dior, down the street from the Apple Store, with furniture boutiques and coffee shops nearby.
By the way, the name Etsy doesn’t mean anything. Robert Kalin, the founder, said that he named the site Etsy because he wanted a nonsense word. He wanted to build the brand from scratch.
Etsy’s head office is located in DUMBO, Brooklyn. They have an open house every Monday night.
I hate to admit it but I use several screens while watching TV. The truth is I don’t mind admitting it at all. I love having my laptop, iPad, and iPhone on the couch right next to me so I feel totally in control. I call it my virtual command center. All of my communications devices are now in easy reach. In fact, I am watching HGTV right now (it’s Tuesday night, Dec 4th, at 7:30pm) and I have my laptop nestled on my lap writing this blog post. I have become so Internet connected that I cannot sit for too long without checking emails, Twitter, Facebook, Words Free, text messages, and Linkedin. Some people might think that I am pathetic and there is no quality going on in my life but that it just not true.
I represent the new digital citizen who wants to be rich in information. I am living the life of several people because I can do a few things at one time. Trust me, when I need to focus, I am just as good as the rest of you. Nielson Co., the big research firm, just reported that I am not alone.
Nielsen confirms a trend among viewers that has been gaining momentum for some time: the use of a second screen while watching TV. The second screen of choice, increasingly, is Twitter, the social network that’s just six years old and limits messages to 140 characters. “Twitter has become the second screen experience for television,” said Nielsen social media Vice President Deirdre Bannon.
Associated Press reported that there is an explosive growth in people who watch TV while connected to social media on smartphones and tablets. David Bauder of the AP, said “Nielsen found that one in three people using Twitter in June sent messages at some point about TV shows. And that was before the Olympics, which was probably the first big event to illustrate the extent of second screen usage.”
The study also found almost one-third of people between 18 and 24 used social networking sites while in the bathroom. At least once per day, about 41% of tablet owners and 38% of smartphone owners used their devices while watching TV.”
Yes, the world is very different and is evolving all the time. Don’t be one of those fuddy duddy seniors who can’t appreciate change.
I dare anyone to tell me there is no such thing as global warming. Go ahead, try it. After Hurricane Sandy, when our shore lines rose several feet and ruined the lives of thousands upon thousands, I just can’t imagine that there is anyone still in denial. Just in case there still is, I want to tell you the story of James Balog, an acclaimed environmental photographer for National Geographic who traveled to the Northern Glaciers to document their disappearance. The daring Balog and his adventurous crew actually installed 25 time-lapse Nikon cameras across Greenland, Iceland, parts of Alaska, and Glacier National Park in Montana to capture how the landscape was changing.
The Nikons were stationed for three years and snapped pictures every hour as long as there was daylight. That was a pretty risky move considering the cameras were delicate and the weather conditions were the harshest conditions on the planet. The Northern climate is not the nicest environment for technology. The stationary pictures, plus the dare devil shots the crew took on visits to the area, became the focus for a riveting and award-winning documentary called “Chasing Ice.” The 75-minute film won “Excellent in Cinematography” at the Sundance Film Festival. The movie was a real eye opener that should inspire each of us to start making a difference. Scarlett Johansson and Joshua Bell performed the theme song, “Before My Time” by J. Ralph Feat.
The documentary opened up nationwide the other day and it is not to be missed. The entire project started in the Spring of 2005 when Balog was assigned to tell the story of the Earth’s changing environment for National Geographic. At first Balog was slightly skeptical about climate change. On his first trip he realized that what he was witnessing could be the biggest story in human history. “Chasing Ice” depicts a photographer trying to deliver evidence and hope to our carbon-powered planet.
I first heard about the documentary from my daughter Whitney, who made me promise that Eliot and I would not miss it. I want you to make me the same promise. Go see it. It will change your life as it changed ours.
I am so happy that the Museum of Modern Art in New York is adding video games to its collection. Some of the games I have seen over the years contain the most dramatic and imaginative art. Finally they are going to get the recognition they deserve. MoMA is going to start with 14 games and then increase to 40.
Paola Antonelli, a senior curator at the museum, said, “The list of video games were selected after evaluating each work based on “behavior” (the behavior a game elicits from a player), aesthetics, space (physical environments built by code), and time.
MoMA is not the first museum to honor video games. The Smithsonian Museum just showcased “The Art of Video Games,” an 80-title exhibition. MoMA is proud to join in. Most of the games were donated.
This initial group will be shown in the Museum’s Philip Johnson Galleries, March 2013. The lineup is:
Over the next few years, MoMA would like to complete this initial selection with Spacewar! (1962), an assortment of games for the Magnavox Odyssey console (1972), Pong (1972), Snake (originally designed in the 1970s; Nokia phone version dates from 1997), Space Invaders (1978), Asteroids (1979), Zork (1979), Tempest (1981), Donkey Kong (1981), Yars’ Revenge (1982), M.U.L.E. (1983), Core War (1984), Marble Madness (1984), Super Mario Bros. (1985), The Legend of Zelda (1986), NetHack (1987), Street Fighter II (1991), Chrono Trigger (1995), Super Mario 64 (1996), Grim Fandango (1998), Animal Crossing (2001), and Minecraft (2011).
He may not be the first man to walk on the moon but he is just as proud to be the first man to wear a sanitary napkin. Arunachalam Muruganantham of India was on a mission when he learned that women in under-developed countries around the world were still wearing rags rather than sanitary pads.
He recently told his story at a Ted conference where both men and women applauded him because he not only invented a very inexpensive sanitary napkin but is putting thousands of people to work in poor countries. They are needed to operate the mini sanitary napkin-making machine that he made as well.
Muruganantham of Jayaashree also developed a business model that allows women’s groups to invest in their own sanitary napkin-making unit that is designed to employ up to ten women. The new invention is capable of making 120 napkins per hour.
“‘My vision is to make India a 100% napkin-using country,’ said Muruganantham at a conference in Jaipur. ‘We can create 1 million employment opportunities for rural women and expand the model to other developing nations.'”
I knew that my business friend Franklin Karp lived in Long Beach, Long Island, but it didn’t occur to me that he must have been a victim of Hurricane Sandy until I passed his name on my email contact list earlier today. I sent him an email to find out how he made out. An hour later he allowed me to interview him via telephone so I would get the scoop on what it was like being surrounded by water water everywhere but not a drop to drink.
(Watch the video below for an emotional recap of what happened in Long Beach.)
Frankin and his wife Caryl live on the sixth floor of an apartment building located just a few feet behind the Long Beach boardwalk. They have a magnificent view of the ocean. They moved to Long Beach in July of 2008 from a big house in Roslyn in order to be closer to the water. Ever since they moved to Long Beach, they feel like they are on a permanent vacation, even though they both work in Plainview for Audio Video Systems. They both grew up in the consumer electronics industry with me, so I have known them for decades. (Put on your thinking cap.) Franklin ran Harvey Electronics for 16 years and, for 19 years before that, he worked at Rabson’s on West 57th Street and at Stereo Warehouse in Brooklyn (same company).
My being an Internet addict, one of my first questions was, “How did you live without Internet?” For the next hour I received a good life lesson about what it takes when your world gets turned upside down yet you remain firmly balanced on both feet ready to deal with whatever forces come your way. “We love Long Beach and so do most of the people who live here,” commented Franklin. “I haven’t heard anyone who said they are moving away. Yes, houses were destroyed, but most want to rebuild, so it is just a question of when and how much.”
Question: “I would have been scared to death sitting next to the ocean watching it rise. What were you thinking?”
Franklin: “We were pretty calm. Everyone in the building was. Granted the building was vibrating a little but nothing to be alarmed about. It wasn’t till the next morning when we went downstairs did we know the extent of the destruction. When I saw a Nissan Pathfinder float by I realized we were in big trouble. Parts of the 2.2-mile-long boardwalk had washed several blocks away and landed by the Long island Railroad station. The majority of the sand on the beach was washed into every Long Beach Island street. Most who had first floor apartments were totally flooded, and countless homes were destroyed. Hundreds of cars were totaled. There was so much water and sand in them that they were never going to work again.”
Question: “What were the living conditions?”
Franklin: “At that point, we didn’t have electricity, water, or heat. You were not concerned about the Internet. You were concerned about the bare necessities to live. The worst part for us was to live without toilets that flush. You can live without electricity (strong flashlights), heat (gas fireplace and range), and even taking a shower every day, but you draw the line at toilets that don’t flush. There were signs in the street that basically told us all when we could flush. That is an image that will stick in my head for a long time. “Flush.” “Don’t Flush.”
Question: “What did you do at night?”
Franklin: “We had Hurricane parties. You got to know your neighbors. We had wine, great conversations, and planned for the future. Fortunately, it wasn’t that cold so it was not that uncomfortable. You learn to live with what you have. You make do. Even the people who lost everything were taking care of business. When I walked the streets, I watched people sorting though their life belongings, deciding what stays and what goes. All you can do is help them and find ways to move forward. Another tough situation was the fact that you couldn’t drive off and on the Island. If you had a car that worked, you could drive off, but the authorities would not let you drive back on. We also had a curfew. No one was allowed on the streets from 6pm to 6am. This was to prevent looting.”
Question: “What do you think you have learned from all of this?”
Franklin: “Hurricane Irene gave us a false sense of security. We thought that wasn’t so bad. In the future if the weather forecasters tell us a category two hurricane is approaching, we will get the heck out of there. Hurricane Sandy was a category one. Other than that, we learned that we still love living by the beach. I thought about why we would never leave. We are more physically active and alive. Living there is very therapeutic. My son lives in an apartment a few blocks away, and he wants to stay and so do most of the residents. This was a horrible situation, but the good years sure outweigh the bad. And yes, Lois, we are happy that we have Internet once again.”
The nerds have all the fun. I decided to run a DigiDame holiday contest that will award a Westinghouse portable wireless sound system to the person who emails a picture of the most unique Menorah or Christmas tree. You can either make it yourself or take a picture of one that you saw. Email to Lois@digidame.com. Here are some photos to inspire you. Every one was produced by a techie. Let the creative in you pop out. Readers, don’t let me down.
I remember 17 years ago when my younger cousin, Eddie Young, thought I was so cool because I knew something about “Green Day,” the rock group. He was shocked that a “square” like me would know the up and coming musical group. I am not sure why I knew them but I did. It was probably related to work somehow.
Today, all DigiDame readers need to know who Psy is and what he has accomplished in the last few months. Psy is truly the new king of YouTube. Five months ago no one knew who this guy was and today he is on top of the charts all because his video was recommended from person to person faster than anyone could ever imagine. Psy now holds the record for most YouTube video views, with over 830 million hits. The 34-year-old Korean native first appeared on the scene just four months ago when he posted his now famous YouTube video. Within weeks, the video went viral; and Psy’s “Gangnam Style” is currently at 833,499,683 views, while his overall YouTube channel has over 1 billion views.
Psy’s music is also the rage at every wedding, Bar/Bat Mitzvah, Sweet 16, birthday party, confirmation, and college bash. It’s the new Macarena. When you see young adults jumping up and down like they have an itch in their pants to music that sounds like it’s constantly repeats itself, you will know it is “Gangnam Style.”
I became familiar with Psy months ago because our Korean client, iriver, told us about him. We help write their music blog and Psy was the subject of one of their posts. I looked at the video, thought it was cute, wrote the blog post and moved on. Since then I witnessed the power of YouTube first hand. We did a followup post on Psy and his famous Gangnam style dance this morning.
I want to share it with you. Be sure to watch the video.
The famous Gangnam Style dance has taken over the world and many parodies of the video have been filmed including by the US Navy, Baby Gangnam Style, country music stars Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood, and even Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center inmates. YouTube released the news of Psy’s latest success as he passed teen sensation Justin Bieber’s YouTube video “Baby,” which previously held the record for most views.
Formerly known as Park Jae-Sang, Psy comes from a wealthy neighborhood and family which were the inspiration and story behind the hit song. He came to the United States with the intention of studying at Boston University so he could return to Korea to take over his father’s company. However, he quickly became disinterested in the business aspect of life and decided to drop out and pursue his music career.
After spending his parents’ tuition money on music equipment, Psy tried his hand at Berklee College of Music. Yet, after a few courses there, he decided that wasn’t what he wanted either. With that, Psy dropped out of his second college and retreated home to continue his music endeavors there. In the summer of 2012, Psy released his sixth album, the one that finally brought him worldwide fame and recognition.
Since the release of “Gangnam Style,” Psy has been featured on Saturday Night Live, The Today Show, X- Factor, Extra, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, and many more social platforms.
He has released several apps, video games, a “Psy” underwear line, and is ready to continue with new music as well. He is currently writing his next hit song, which he promises will be in English. Although he explains that the pressure to exceed expectations after “Gangnam Style” is a lot to handle, he is ready for the challenge.
I want to be sure that you didn’t miss this milestone in advertising history. This post falls under facts that every DigiDame reader should know.
For the first six months of 2012, Google generated more money in advertising revenue on a global stature than all of the U.S. print publications put together. Do you realize what that means? A company that most people never heard of 14 years ago just sold more advertising than every newspaper and magazine sold on your newsstand in the first half of this year. Google brought in $10.9 billion in ad revenue, while U.S. newspapers and magazines brought in $10.5 billion.
The people working in print media are all scratching their heads over this one. Who ever thought this would happen so fast? Don’t underestimate the power of the Internet.
Speaking of the Internet, I also want to be sure you know this statistic as well. Cyber sales were up this year 30 per cent on the Monday after Thanksgiving. That is another strong indicator that more and more Americans are getting used to the Internet and enjoying the comfort it brings them.
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