Gregg Eldred

Several Palm sites have mockups of their best guess as to what the new Palm Nova smartphones will look like:


---Photo source:TreoCentral

TreoCentral opined:

We heard yesterday that Palm's new smartphone will be a vertical slider with a flush, capacitive touchscreen like the iPhone and that it will feature some pretty snazzy transitions and animations and packs a lot of "wow factor".

The release of these design mockups have created quite a stir on the Palm sites. I have linked to a few of them, below, if anyone is still interested in offerings from Palm. The real deal is revealed in a couple of days.

Link: gadgetell:Is this the new Palm Nova phone? iPhone killer name dusted off?

Link: IntoMobile: New Design Mockup of the First Palm Nova Device

Link: TreoCentral Thoughts on the Vertical Slider, Plus PIC Lists 7 Things Nova Should Have

Link: PalmInfoCenter: Light at the End of the Tunnel: 7 Things We Need From Nova

Technorati tag: Palm Palm Nova

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If you are looking for some reasons to change your standard corporate web browser, a newly published TechNote may help:

Problem
Lotus Domino® 8 supports a key length of 2048-bits but when users request an Internet certificate for Microsoft® Internet Explorer™, it is only possible to choose 512-bit and 1024-bit.

Resolving the problem
Only 512-bit and 1024-bit certificates are allowed with Internet Explorer. This issue was reported to Quality Engineering as SPR# MNIR78XMPX and currently there are no plans to address this issue.

Work around
Mozilla™ or FireFox™ be used since these browsers have the capacity to request an Internet certificate with a key length of 1024 and 2048 bit.

What about Firefox 3 and iNotes? There is another TechNote addressing that very question. :-)

Link: Server key length differs between Internet Explorer and Domino

Link: Firefox 3 support availability for Domino Web Access (iNotes)

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Three years and millions of dollars later, Martin Lindstrom presents you with a book on neuromarketing, a technique using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and steady-state typography (SST) which measures conscience and subconscious  reactions to marketing, advertising, products and  brands. SST provides real-time information from the brain, while fMRI maps the areas of the brain that are active at the time of the stimulation. Together, these techniques provide insight into the motivation for items that we buy. Neuromarketing goes beyond the simple interview process, focus groups, and the like, and determines the actual triggers in the brain that cause us to feel the way we do toward brands, advertisements, and marketing.

Contents:
A Rush of Blood to the Brain: The Largest Neuromarketing Study Ever Conducted
This Must Be The Place: Product Placement, American Idol, and Ford's Multimillion-Dollar Mistake
I'll Have What She's Having: Mirror Neurons at Work
I Can't See Clearly Now: Subliminal Messaging, Alive and Well
Do You Believe in Magic?: Ritual, Superstition, and Why We Buy
I Say A Little Prayer: Faith, Religion, and Brands
Why Did I Choose You?: The Power of Somatic Markers
A Sense of Wonder: Selling to Our Senses
And the Answer Is . . . : Neuromarketing and Predicting the Future
Let's Spend the Night Together: Sex in Advertising
Conclusion: Brand New Day
Appendix
Acknowledgements
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Martin Lindstrom, the author of Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy, reports on the results of his study of brands, advertising, and marketing using a combination of fMRI and SST. This new technique, neuromarketing, delves in the mind of the consumer to determine which areas of the brain are affected and then to develop a campaign that leverages the real reasons why a person chooses a particular brand over another. In Lindstrom's study, he used his volunteers to examine some very popular brands, discovered why warnings on cigarettes are actually contributing to a rise in smoking, and looked at subliminal advertising (it is alive and well), among other things. The result is an incredibly interesting look at the base reasons why we buy; the subconscious is making the decision for you even before you have time to recognize that you are looking at competing brands of soda. Further, Lindstrom shows that combining smell, touch, and sound has an effect on our purchasing patterns.

This is more than a simple marketing or business book. Lindstrom shows how advances in technology are allowing companies to leverage specific feelings toward products and people to separate you from your hard earned dollars. While some of the results are startling, such as the rise in smoking due to warnings on the packages, others reveal a lot about the way people think and remember, and how that affects our buying patterns. Lindstrom also shows how YouTube is changing the way that companies market, specifically by allowing fans of a product to produce their own advertisements. This is a powerful new medium, as it allows people to connect with similar individuals, which helps the brands and products. But the most fascinating aspect is when he goes into the lab to see how brands affect specific areas of the brain. This book is all about the results of the lab work, very little time is dedicated to the actual data or the science. For those that need additional information, Lindstrom provides very good Notes (all accessible on the internet) and a Bibliography. Both are excellent resources for those that need more of the science involved.

While this book may frighten you, as it reveals new methods of marketing and advertising, it also provides you with the tools to recognize neuromarketing and allows you to gain some insight into how your brain works. You may not be able to combat neuromarketing, but you may be able to distinguish it and curb some of its effects. After reading this book, I have a new appreciation for the shopping experience as well as a better understanding of the advertisements I see on television and in print. I also know why there is major brand placement in movies and television shows. Buyology has provided valuable insights into the mind and marketing.

Technorati tags: book review Martin Lindstrom Buyology
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A while ago, there was an interesting conversation among the people I follow on Twitter. They were discussing books, and several people commented that one of the best books they had read was Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card. A book in the science fiction genre, that had quite a following, I found. I put it on my list of books to find at the library. About a month went by, as I had other books that needed to be read and reviewed. But with a holiday season coming up, I thought that it would be nice to have some "recreational reading." I checked out Ender's Game from the library on December 30 and finished it on January 1. I would have finished it earlier, but I needed to sleep and attend work, family, and New Year's Eve activities.

Somewhere in the future, children are bred to defend Earth against a hostile alien's next attack. By law, families can have only two children. The parents give up rights to the children for a while, as they are tested for their fitness to defend Earth. Part of the testing is to discover if a particular child can lead armies and have the fortitude to make hard decisions concerning the future of the human race. However, if the government decides that the parents have a good genetic base, they may authorize a third child, as the first two show excellent results, but not quite "perfect." The problem with this is that the family must absorb burdens placed on it by society. And the child is referred to as "Third," a term of derogation, noncompliance. The Wiggin family has a Third, Andrew "Ender" Wiggin, who is six when the story begins. Ender, the government hopes, will strike a balance between his older brother, Peter, who is dangerous, given to fits of anger and destruction, and his sister, Valentine, who is empathetic. All three, however, are extremely smart. It is with Ender that the government pins their hopes of victory over the aliens.

The copy of Ender's Game that I borrowed from the library is a part of the "Gift Edition," which includes a new introduction by Orson Scott Card. While I usually enjoy these new introductions, Card, I felt, explained too much about Ender, his writing style, and how this book has affected the readers. I think that his publisher should have included Card's thoughts, but as an Afterword. It would have had more impact. Now that I have that out of the way, I need to tell you that this is, simply, one of the best books I have ever read. The hero is gifted, but alone. His intelligence makes him an outcast at school. Because of this, he doesn't really relate to any of the children in his class. The government builds on his isolation, so that he can make hard decisions with little thought to the feelings of others or to change his thinking due to friendships. But there is a humanity to Ender that endears him to the reader. The adults in the novel may think that they have control over him, but they are allowed to believe that, if it serves Ender's goals or objectives. I used to read a lot of science fiction, but have moved to other genres; this book has restored my interest. While Ender is six, Card never patronizes the reader or his characters. Ender is a well crafted character; intelligent, warm, and, when the situation warrants, tough. Your preconceived notions of children, and gifted children, will be tested. But the payoff is that you may realize that you have read one of the best science fiction books. Not only is worth your time, it is a book to share with your children.

Technorati tag: book review Ender's Game Orson Scott Card
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Let's end the year with a review of Microsoft's Vista Operating System, courtesy of Lawrence Walsh at eWeek Channel Insider:

Two years on, Vista is nothing short of an incompressible failure. According to Net Applications, Microsoft’s iron grip on the desktop showed signs of weakness in 2008 as Windows market share slipped below 90 percent market share for the first time in more than a decade. More worrisome is Apple’s OS X—the preferred operating system for the Mac—increased to nearly 9 percent, unprecedented considering that it wasn’t that long ago that Apple needed a cash infusion from Microsoft to stay alive.

...Reality check, nearly two years have passed and business users continue to avoid Vista like the plague. One report even stated that despite Microsoft’s client division increasing revenues by 14 percent in 2008, much of that gain came from corporate clients that paid for access to Vista but chose not to deploy it. No wonder solution providers, system builders and distributors hailed XP’s latest extension.

Link: eWeek Channel Insider: Lawrence Walsh: Ode to Broken Windows

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If you thought that only IBM's Lotus brand has vocal users, the i5 has a few (but none are aggregated on a "Planeti5" site). In a wide ranging post, David Vasta points out some failings in the marketing of the venerable System i and points to Lotus Foundations and some initiatives from the Lotus brand, to get the word out.

Over the years the “i” people have wanted for many things. The want list is long and heavy every year with the same things, and every year like a fat person on a diet for the first two days of the year, it falls apart the first time you drive by Krispy Kreame and the “HOT” light is on. Every year at COMMON we get what we want and hear what we need to hear and then NOTHING happens.

More >

For those of you non-i5 people, COMMON is to the i5 as Lotusphere is to Notes/Domino. I have many fond memories of the COMMON conferences I have attended (I was fortunate to have been selected as a speaker one year), as they have a similar feeling as Lotusphere. That is, an energy and passion for the product. And David shows it in his post. :-)

Link: David Vasta: What "i" Want in 2009
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As a follow-up to yesterday's post, How Palm Could Change Everything, Motley Fool looks at the flip side with "How Palm Could Lose Everything:"

It simply can't be a coincidence that Palm's openness has followed its decline. Nova offers an opportunity to reverse the slide, to close the platform as Steve Jobs cut off Mac cloners shortly after returning to Apple in 1997.

. . . Or as blogger Josh Catone of sitepoint.com predicted recently, "The Nova operating system will look like something that could challenge Android, Blackberry, and the iPhone in the mobile market, but success will depend on the hardware." [Emphasis added.]

Let's hope not, Josh. If the history of mobile computing tells us anything, it's that neither hardware, nor software, but the whole product matters most. A closed system, self-contained and elegantly designed.

Ship anything less, Palm, and this Nova will burn you.

Personally, 2009 will be very interesting for me in the smartphone area. I recently realized that my carrier, Alltel, was bought by Verizon. If anything comes from this merger, it will be my ability to have access to a better, wider array of smartphone choices. With a carrier that is usually offering new products much sooner than Alltel. I would expect that Verizon will be a reseller of the Palm Nova. But it will have to compete against a Blackberry, which, at this time, will be my next smartphone.

Link: Motley Fool: How Palm Could Lose Everything

Technorati tag: Palm
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The Motley Fool has weighed in on the upcoming Palm Nova announcement, January 8, at CES, with the first of two articles.

Nova could also resuscitate Foleo. This is what I mean when I say "extensible." Platforms always are. Here, a Nova-powered netbook would be set apart by Graffiti. So would a Palm tablet. Or a new Treo. And each device would be interoperable with the others, because they'd have been built using common interfaces to the Nova OS.

There's a market for this. Palm's new Software Store already hosts 5,000 applications, and Linux is a popular OS with coders. Nova just has to be novel and have good tools for developers to work with. Handwriting recognition could supply the novelty; Palm will need to supply the tools.

But will it? I hope so. If our 125,000-strong Motley Fool CAPS community is any indicator, and it usually is, this is Palm's last shot at survival. Nothing less than a game-changer will do . . .

After the announcement, the subsequent analysis, general availability, and retail locations, January may see me leaving Palm after using their products since 1997. I expect to be rewarded for my loyalty (or futility) or I move on.

Link: Motley Fool: How Palm Could Change Everything

Technorati tag: Palm
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