New media diet suggestion

WIRED put together an illustrated suggestion on how to spend your 9 hours of daily media intake (an average American media consumption number). As a snapshot of daily 9 hour media consumption it’s a pretty sad prospect. Spending this much time glued to a screen when not working or interacting with other human beings in real life is not all that appealing when I think about it.

Practicing good nutrition keeps your mind sharp, your body fit, and your life long. The same could be said for consuming media. (Seriously, knowledge is power.) When you add it all up, the average American spends roughly nine hours a day glued to some kind of screen, and like your diet, quality is as important as quantity. Here are Wired’s suggested servings for optimal media health.

Source: WIRED

Single molecule imaged for the first time

The detailed chemical structure of a single molecule has been imaged for the first time, say researchers.

The physical shape of single carbon nanotubes has been outlined before, using similar techniques – but the new method even shows up chemical bonds.

Crazy. Looks like a trippy glowing caterpillar.

Read more on BBC News

Magnetic levitating toy train

Magnetic Levitating (Maglev) overview with a levitating a toy train.

German version of the video.

Next generation of barcode technology

A replacement for the black and white stripes of the traditional barcode has been outlined by US researchers.

Bokodes, as they are known, can hold thousands of times more information than their striped cousins and can be read by a standard mobile phone camera.

The 3mm-diameter (0.1 inches), powered tags could be used to encode nutrition information on food packaging or create new devices for playing video games.

The work will be shown off at Siggraph, a conference in New Orleans next week.

“We think that our technology will create a new way of tagging,” Dr Ankit Mohan, one of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers behind the work, told BBC News.

Read the rest on BBC

IAB releases interactive mobile ad guide

IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) released a simple guide to interactive mobile marketing. It can serve as a base for a very simple introduction for first-time mobile advertisers. Some compelling stats that highlight importance of interactive mobile marketing are mentioned (most are based on U.S.mobile marketplace):

• Mobile phone penetration is upwards of 4 out of 5 people in the United States and more people now have a mobile phone than have PC-based Internet access. This is especially true for older adults and lower-income individuals.
• Mobile Internet usage continues to grow. Over the last three years usage has grown approximately 25% per year. With smartphones becoming more affordable, advanced, and widely adopted, we’ll likely see a greater increase in 2009. Currently, 40-45 million mobile subscribers use the mobile Internet regularly.
• Minorities are significant mobile data users across all features and applications.
• Mobile is not just youth-focused – texting behaviour may skew a bit younger, but the bulk of the mobile Internet usage comes from 25-44 year olds.

As any stats, these are more likely skewed to reflect IAB views on the topic – it would be nice to see some true number-based stats of mobile Internet users in North America as opposed to rates of regular mobile users who might be accessing online content. And I am sure that these stats are lower in Canada (and a lot of other parts of the world), but the rate of growth in mobile Internet usage provokes some thought. My take on it – the usage numbers  and rates of growth are astounding. No wonder lower-income and minority groups are adopting mobile Internet at a great rate – there is not much need anymore for a bulky hardware investment to access data and information.

I foresee a greater investment in corporate web infrastructure and content compatibility for mobile in the next few years coming from some of the more progressive brands out there. However, much more needs to be done in Canada to allow for more transparency in mobile Internet penetration. Canadian mobile industry is driven by a few telecommunication giants like Rogers (Fido), Bell (Solo) and Telus (Koodo). Canadian mobile Internet access costs are still pretty steep, considering the lack of truly competitive mobile market – so this change in medium habits will most likely be staggered in Canada.

You can find the complete downloadable guide on IAB website.