Zhu Zhu

Are they not adorable? These little toy hamsters are the hottest gifts for children this Christmas. Their listed price is $10 per hamster. And yet they are going for more than three times that amount online. Shoppers are scrambling to purchase these tiny critters, and paying big bucks for them. The demand is so high that retailers just cannot seem to keep the pets in stock.

A recent report announced that an estimated 6 million Zhu Zhu hamsters have been sold this season. The toys are interactive, emitting chirps, little phrases, and soft noises when their backs are stroked or their tiny pink nose is pressed. The Zhu Zhu's wheels allows them to zoom in all directions - if they happen to bump into something, they simply back up and strike out in a different direction.

It should come as no surprise that they have accessories out the wazoo. For crying out loud, they even snore. Another plus: they don't bite, they aren't smelly, and [my personal favorite feature] they don't poo. That is my kind of pet. Low maintenance.

Good luck if you want to find one. They are just GONE. As I said, retailers cannot keep them in stock. I really wanted to purchase some of these cute critters for my younger sisters, but I can't seem to find Zhu Zhu's anywhere. And I am really not to keen on paying $42.50, which is how much they are selling for on the Web. I think I'll just bide my time... When the dust settles, I'll walk out of Target with my very own virtual pet. Then I'll stroke my little Zhu Zhu's back just to hear its response. And I'll smile, remembering the frantic frenzy of the holidays, and recall all the fuss that people made over such a silly little toy.

Pass It On

Ever wished for a site that offered you the ability to engage in conversations with a select group, either based on a location or a specific event? Look no further, for such a site actually does exist. Hot Potato, recently launched at the TechCrunch Crunchup, was created for just that purpose. Hot Potato takes a different approach to creating conversations centered around places and events.

The service allows you to create a public chatroom built around an event or location. For example, during the weekly episode of Bravo’s “Top Chef,” a group of six friends created a Hot Potato room and shared thoughts on the show from their respective locations. Comments focused on the show’s cast and how tasty the pork belly and Brussels sprouts looked. There were also separate chats about holiday parties in New York and San Francisco and a discussion about the re-launch of AOL that was geographically centered on AOL’s party at the New York Stock Exchange.

Currently, Hot Potato works through its Website, Facebook, or a free iPhone application. Hot Potato is not trying to compete with Facebook or Twitter. Instead, Justin Shaffer, the founder and president, is attempting to "facilitate collective storytelling" and encourage group discussions around events.

Hot Potato hopes to launch versions of the service for Google's Android and Research in Motion's BlackBerry platforms by late February 2010.

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Powerful Flower

The Fitbit is one hot item. There are not enough Fitbits to fill everyone's stocking this Christmas season. Even though there are similar products, Fitbit fans are willing to wait for the back-orders to be filled. What makes this technology so special?

Part of Fitbit's appeal lies in its simplicity. A sleek, clip-on sensor, it keeps track of the wearer's movement, distance traveled and calories burned. This slim device also features a small button on its exterior that flashes several displays when pressed: total distance traveled by wearer, number of steps taken, calories burned, and one slender blue flower.

Interestingly enough, the height of the flower correlates with how active and healthy the wearer of the Fitbit is. When all is well, the bright blue flower will unfurl and stretch up along the length of the device. But late nights, bad sleep patterns, and unhealthy lifestyles cause the flower to wilt and shrink.

The design of this technology can influence and change behaviors. Flower psychology. Fitbit's slim blue flower motivates it's wearers to stay in shape in order to keep the pretty flower alive. A gentle persuasion.

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Classic Magic

Old-fashioned, nostalgic. Sweet. And it is not 3D. There is something captivating about Disney princess movies. Princess and the Frog is the number one movie in America right now, grossing $25 million in its first week of release, blowing out Twilight's New Moon.

This just goes to show that audiences are still charmed by classic 2D animated films. Princess and the Frog is like a breath of fresh air in an industry that has become overrun with computer animation and 3D technology.

Disney's holiday remake of Charles Dickens' classic tale, A Christmas Carol, was released before Thanksgiving. After six weeks, the film has grossed nearly $125 million. With all of its bells and whistles, which include the novelty of a 3D movie experience, it may yet be surpassed by the success of Princess and the Frog.

It was a good move on Disney's part to pull out another animated film. This holiday season, they have put out two films. One is based on a classic story, featuring new technology. The other, a classic princess tale, complete with their trademark animation and a happily ever after ending. Both take viewers on a magical journey. They just use different mediums to achieve the magic.

Blow Me Away

Is music still music when the instrument is an iPhone? IPhone applications that turn phones into instruments are becoming very popular downloads for both amateurs and professionals alike. They are fairly easy to learn.

Taking it a step further, however, Stanford University has put together a chamber music ensemble. Get this, their instruments are Apple iPhones. Holding the phones with fingerless gloves attached to small speakers, the 'musicians' play the phones. They are the Stanford Mobile Phone Orchestra.

Sound interesting? Why not watch them in action?

The mobile phone orchestra's pieces range from electronic renditions of popular songs to avant-garde compositions written for iPhone instruments that have been created and built by the musicians. Traditional musicians do not expect the iPhone to replace violins anytime soon, but many are curious about the instruments' potential.

Will this become the first musical instrument, electronic or otherwise, that millions will carry in their pockets? Some have already begun to make that claim. I for one thought that the harmonica had already occupied that position - but I will concede that there are not millions of people who possess harmonicas, and those that do own one do not always have it in their pockets. Now, technology offers people the chance to easily transport music with them wherever they choose to go. La la la...

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Whispers in the Dark...

Tech realms have been abuzz with the rumor. So I want to know for sure...whether the sources are true or false. These rumors claim that Google is planning to market its own smartphone based on its Android operating system. If true, then this would mark a more aggressive move on Google's part, for up to this point Google has relied on other partners to build and market Android phones. Not only would Google become a force in the area of mobile phones, it could also put Google at odds with those partners. Those other companies include Verizon Wireless and Motorola. Such a also venture has the potential to sharpen Google's competition with Apple, whose iPhone dominates the high-end smartphone market in the United States.

On December 11th, Google began distributing new phones to their employees, who in turn posted comments on Twitter about the phones. Apparently, some referred to the devices as the new "Google phone."

Then, on December12th, Google confirmed that they are testing a new concept in mobile phones:

We recently came up with the concept of a mobile lab, which is a device that combines innovative hardware from a partner with software that runs on Android to experiment with new mobile features and capabilities, and we shared this device with Google employees across the globe. This means they get to test out a new technology and help improve it.

Unfortunately, because dogfooding is a process exclusively for Google employees, we cannot share specific product details.

The new device appears to have impressed some of those few individuals who have laid eyes on it. A touch-screen device that has no keyboard and resembles the HTC MyTouch, Google's mysterious new phone is causing quite the stir. The Twitter user GreatWhiteSnark said of it: “A friend from Google showed me the new Android 2.1 phone from HTC coming out in Jan. A sexy beast. Like an iPhone on beautifying steroids.”

So it will be interesting to see what all this hype is about. I am looking forward to actually seeing 'an iPhone on beautifying steroids." Hmmmm...should Apple be concerned? How will they respond to Google's latest challenge? They may just have to spar it out with Google. May the best smartphone win.

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Favorite Places

Bar codes aren't just for items any more. Get used to seeing them on places. These one-inch-squares featuring pixilated black-and-white cubes are QR codes. In the coming weeks Google plans to send out 100,000 of these stickers, each with their own QR code, to a new demographic of businesses Google is calling "Favorite Places". These favorites are based on search results from users interacting with local business listings on Google Maps.

QR Codes have been around for several years across Asia. They are a source of instantaneous information. Mobile phones read the codes and display the information with the click of a button. Here in the U.S., however, the process is a bit more complicated due to privacy concerns.

As of right now, in order to view the information from the QR codes here in the States, you first have to download the right code reader for your specific mobile phone. Then, when you see a code in a window, you have to start the correct code-viewing application, allow that application access to your camera, take a photo of said code, and then agree to allow the application to use the image to open the particular Web page with the additional information. This laborious process could take as longs as 45 seconds to achieve the result.

Overseas in Japan, however, nearly all phones ship with an embedded QR code reader, and activating the code is a one-click affair. When this application works, it is usually incredibly rewarding. In Google's case, you will be taken to an associated mobile Web page with rich information about a specific venue, complete with user reviews, star rating, maps, contact info, and a link to the Web site of the business.

Google is also promoting another great use of these codes by allowing businesses to share mobile coupons. Following the same process, you end up with a coupon that is redeemable at the respective store. How cool is that? Saves on paper for one thing, and ensures that you never lose the coupon for another. A very handy idea.

So keep your eyes peeled for QR codes. They will be popping up everywhere. Soon, we will have bar codes on almost everything. Mark my words. Information has never been so accessible.

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The Good, The Bad, And the Ugly

So I didn't realize until this moment that one of our in class assignments was meant to blogged about. My bad. As instructed, I will post the assignment. Judge for yourselves whether the designs are an improvement of what you are about see, and prepare yourself for something dreadful... For this project, I was instructed to find three horribly hideous websites. Once I accomplished this (and believe me, I had a lot to choose from), I was to take a screenshot of those sites, copy them into Powerpoint, recreate the basic shapes, and then rearrange those shapes into a better layout.

Ouch. This does not require an explanation. No comment.

For the re-design, I changed up to layout to something more attractive. The color scheme was toned down, and while not a fantastic site, it is now at least not an eyesore to the public. Overall, the re-designed site is more appealing, better organized, and more functional.

My dad's hometown tourism site. Let me tell you, there isn't much to see. And the website is dated. The graphics are blah. And the layout is rather dry.

My proposed re-design spices it up a bit. The look is cleaner, more spread out, and is artistically attractive. It looks more like a tourist site. How successful it would be at luring visitors to Princeton, Kentucky, I honestly couldn't say.

And ahem, yeah, it is a very pathetic Hannah Montana website. Epic fail, right?

The re-designed site adds some pizazz to an otherwise bland page. I chose a bolder color scheme, and rearranged the shapes to form a more interesting layout. The new page is tweener friendly and more balanced than the original site. If you want to add to your lousy three member following, my advice is to spice up the site. Make people look at your pages. Choose better images, and have more content. I wanted the page to pop.

While none of my re-designs are marvelous, professional grade works, they are most certainly an improvement to what was there before. And considering that Powerpoint was the program that the re-designs were created in, I was very pleased with the outcomes. Just so you know, these are actual screenshots of real websites. Scary, or what?

Sink or Swim?

It has been in the making for a decade. Ten years. The technology of James Cameron's "Avatar" is being called groundbreaking before it has even launched. It is already approaching the $500 million dollar price tag, making it one of the most expensive movies ever. Throughout his career, Cameron has used eye-popping digital effects to create worlds and characters audiences have neither witnessed nor imagined. But he has never tried anything as creatively and commercially ambitious as Avatar, a combination of 3-D film-making, photo-realistic computer animation and live-action drama that opens Dec. 18.

Some people wonder if Avatar's plot - dense with action sequences and special effects, but also featuring a love story between two 10-foot-tall blue aliens - will resonate with a wide enough audience to steer the movie into profitability.

Cameron's Avatar is a type of film-making that has never been done before. While most movies add all of their visual effects in post-production, Cameron was able to see fully composited shots in real time: The actors he was directing may have been performing in front of a blank green screen, but Cameron's camera eyepiece - not to mention giant 3-D television monitors - immediately displayed lush, synthetic backgrounds.

Avatar is set on a distant moon under siege by humans determined to pillage its natural resources. It required the reinvention of bulky 3-D cameras - which had to be downsized to fit into smaller spaces and move with fluidity - and lengthy experimentation with improvements in motion capture animation, which superimposes animated characters onto real actors, as in the current Disney movie A Christmas Carol.

Can a film like this succeed? Will it forever alter the history of films? Is this our generation's technicolor? Personally, this type of genre is not my cup of tea, but I may warm up to it. in time The aspect of the incredible technology featured in the film could change my mind. I think I'll wait for the reviews to trickle down. If it is worth seeing, I might just fork out the cash to experience it for myself. For Cameron's sake, I hope this movie soars...

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[very] Bright Idea

This Christmas, get used to seeing ultra bright lights. LEDs, light-emitting diodes, are replacing incandescent twinkle lights. The new technology has softened the harsh blue hue of earlier LEDs, but the lights are still intense. Be that as it may, LED light strings use 80 to 90 percent less electricity, making them environmentally conservative. In this day and age, anything 'green' sells well. Pre-lit LED trees have fewer bulbs than other artificial trees, but they put out more light. Another plus: their bulbs are practically indestructible and will last for decades.

LEDs are a hot item. They are highly energy-efficient. Theme parks and shopping centers have already begun to switch over to LEDs and are reaping huge savings in light bills. Screw in LED bulbs are coming soon. LED lighting is 'the wave of the future.' Cordless LED wreaths, garlands, and tabletop trees are going to be a trend for 2010. This year's trend? Self-shaping trees. Apparently, a self-shaping tree uses memory wire. When removed from the box, it shapes itself. When I read about these, I just had to see them for myself. Imagine not having to fluff out the artificial branches? I'm waiting for them to come out with a remote control. That way, a click of the button saves me from having to put any effort whatsoever into putting up my fake Christmas tree.

Back to the lights... What's not to like? It seems that some really like LEDs, while others are put off by their intensity. But if you can get over the glare, LED lights are the perfect Christmas lights for a nation drowning in debt. Why wouldn't you want to save on your electric bills? Help out the environment, conserve energy, and be the first on your block to put up the brightest lights the neighborhood has ever seen. May your days be merry and [ultra] bright, lit up by the L E D light.

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