Microsoft QR Reader Now Works Universally

January, 2012

Microsoft has relaunched their QR reader to work more universally, thus alleviating the need for multiple apps for different codes. The new reader will recognize barcodes, QR codes and NFC URLs in a matter of seconds. In addition to reading a multitude of codes, the app also features an ROI mechanism to measure metrics. The app works with most smartphone platforms, including Android, iOS, Blackberry and Microsoft. Please visit PopSop.com to learn more.

PayPal Mobile Simplifies Payments

July, 2011

PayPal is implementing near field communication technology (NFC) with its mobile devices through a new update. This technology will allow users who own a phone with NFC features to make peer-to-peer payments by touching two phones together. This ‘bump-style’ technology will be available late this summer with improved speed capabilities over the previous version. For more information, please visit Mashable.

Intel Creates Interactive YouTube Video

July 2011

Intel creates an engaging and interactive YouTube video, The Escape. The video allows the consumer to become a part of the story, with the capability to connect to their Facebook account, further personalizing the experience. With the power to fight villains, and unlock doors and content, the video is like no other for YouTube viewers. The Escape gaming experience is a part of a campaign for Intel’s 2nd Generation Core processors. For more information, please see TNW.

Apple goes live at music festival

July, 2011

Apple is hosting a music festival in London this summer and launching an app to go along with it. The series of concerts, the iTunes Festival London 2011, will reach those with and without a ticket through the likely named application. Users will be able to see and hear the music in HD from anywhere in the world on their mobile device as well as play it back On Demand. Streaming the shows in real-time, Apple is stepping out of their box in innovation and hoping to improve the future of iPad and iPhone by leaps and bounds. This instant share of music is also relevant and quite important to the musicians themselves as they always strive to connect with their fans on a more personal level. The app also offers more information on the songs and artists along with a link to iTunes to purchase music if they are interested. For more information, please see The Wall Street Journal.

Automatic Screen-Fitting for Smartphones

June 2011

Google has released an automatic screen-fitting feature to the “Google Sites” service. Google Sites is a service that offers the tools to tweak your website to appear better on smartphone devices.  With this new feature, the width of the website will automatically fit to the width of your screen, as well as updates made to the sidebars and dropdown links to make them appear more clearly. For more information, please visit Mashable.

Intel Launches Facebook “Museum of Me”

June, 2011

Intel has recently launched a new Facebook application to promote Intel’s new Core i5 processor that creates a personalized “Museum of Me” for users based on their interactions on Facebook. According to Intel, their aim was to “create a virtual archive of your social life.” Users connect to the app through Facebook and Intel downloads your Facebook data to create the “museum”.  The app produces a video tour of your museum, complete with music by Takagi Masakatsu as well as images of people standing in your museum looking at your exhibits.  The “exhibits” show you data such as your most interacted with friends, profile photos, and words you use the most on the social site. For more information, see PC World or Intel’s Museum of Me site.

Call of Duty Announces “Elite” Social Add-On

June, 2011

Activision has announced that it will launch “Elite”, a new social media add-on to its popular Call of Duty game.  According to Activision, Elite was designed to unite the large community of Call of Duty players across all game platforms and provide new tools for users to improve their gaming skills.  Elite will be divided into “Career”, “Connect”, “Compete”, and “Improve” sections and will include links to Facebook for users to link with friends and other players using the service. The platform will also include “groups” that users can join that will allow users to compare themselves to their mini communities and connect with other players with similar interests.  These groups will work similar to Facebook fan pages and can be based on any interest.  The Elite platform will be available as a free limited service or a full premium paid service.  Set to launch in November, the service will be available for console, web browser, and mobile app players. For more information see Mashable.

Nook Color Adds Apps And Video

April 2011

Barnes & Noble is upgrading the Nook by adding an application store, an e-mail program, and the ability to play Flash video on its web browser. Consumers have been “rooting” the Nook software for months, voiding the warranty, to make the e-readers more tablet-like. With the new changes, consumers will be able to play games like “Angry Birds” and send emails on the device automatically without losing their warranty. At $249.00, the Nook Color will be hundreds of dollars less than other competitor tablets, although the alternatives do have advantages including a wider selection of apps and cameras.

Doodle Jump Expanding

March, 2011

Having just reached it’s second birthday and reaching over 10 million iOS and Android downloads, Doodle Jump is one of the most popular iPhone games to date. Following Angry Birds, it is planning on expanding to more platforms, both in the mobile gaming world and out. The game will soon be available for the iPad, and a version for the Xbox Kinect, a line of toys, and a comic book are also planned.

Apple’s Pop Up Store At SXSW

March, 2011 Apple joined those among SXSW this weekend with a pop-up store in downtown Austin.  The assembly of the store, which took three days, provided Apple with a great way to showcase the new iPad 2 with it’s smaller body and faster processer.  Hewlett-Packard also created a pop-up store which is referred to as the HP Mobile Park, which is described as, “”a temporary live-in community for artists, bloggers, and trendsetters from the fields of technology, music, film, and pop culture.”  To read more, visit <http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-20041598-71.html>

Rayovac’s Snowball Tweet Campaign

March, 2011

Rayovac and Circle PR recently launched a real-time social media campaign centered around the great U.S. snowstorm of February 2011. On February 2, the day the most snow was to hit around the country, the battery brand launched a snowball fight via Twitter, with over 1,000 users participating on that day. To engage in the fight, users were asked to change their profile picture and throw #snowballs at their friends. In addition to the snow fight, users could engage with Rayovac by sharing the weather conditions where they lived. Results showed 1,188 click-throughs for downloading the Twitter profile picture, #rayovac made its first appearance as a top-ten trending topic worldwide, and the brand saw a 30% increase in followers.

Computer beats humans on Jeopardy

February, 2011

Super computer “Watson” was the winner in a 3 day Jeopardy competition against 2 of the greatest human champions on the show.  The computer, designed by IBM, took years to build and has the ability to calculate hundreds of complex algorithms simultaneously in order to find the correct answer and understand intricacies of the human language including puns and slang.  The total winnings by the computer were $77,147 while the two other competitors Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter earned only $24,00 and $21,000 respectively. For more information see Mashable.

AT&T’s “Shout Your Love” Campaign

February, 2011 Have you ever wanted to profess your love for someone on top of a mountain?  AT&T’s latest Valentine’s Day promotion aims to do just that.  Users can visit the company’s Facebook page and post their declarations of love.  Those declarations that are selected will be “shouted” by mountain men (or paid actors) with HTC Inspire 4G phones in hand on Mount Baldy in Southern California today.  All of the “shouts” can also be seen streaming live on the AT&T Facebook page.

Gaga for Polaroid

January, 2011 Polaroid announced at CES that they are partnering with the pop-star Lady Gaga, their new creative director, on a new line of products.  The product line is named Gray Label, or GL, uses Polaroid’s Zink (zero-ink) technology.  One of the GL products includes the GL20, which are a pair of picture-taking sunglasses.

Blackberry to Launch Tablet

May, 2010 Blackberry is set to launch an 8.9-inch tablet later this year. The tablet will be able to utilize  existing Blackberry connections via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. E-books, emailing, web browsing, and photo viewing will also be available.

Sony Mobile Campaign

November, 2009

Sony is advertising its BRAVIA HDTVs through mobile video content on India’s popular Reliance Communications website. The videos include Bollywood concerts and international fashion shows wrapped in 15-second video ads from Sony. According to Reliance Communications, 30,000 people are exposed to the mobile video ads each day. The campaign is supported with mobile banner ads, an SMS campaign and links on several mobile sites.

HP’s Snapfish Launches Mobile App

October, 2009

HP’s Snapfish launches a mobile app for general consumers to share via SMS. The app allows consumers to access their photos through their mobile device and send to others using an SMS messaging platform. The technology also enables full album sharing via a link to the sender’s WAP site. The app is targeted at texh-savvy consumers who have a mobile storage device with them at all times and wish to connect with others. The SMS sending also gives HP free consumer-based advertising and a greater word-of-mouth spread. Visit HP’s Snapfish site for more information.

Canon Shows New Camera to Football Fans

September, 2009

Canon utilized their ling-time relationship with the National Football league with the launch of their new product to emerging consumers. The new camera’s promotion “Why do you love football?” is aim at capturing moments from the unprofessional aspect. The promotion features photography from amateur photography of youth or high-school games from any arena either backyard or field. Consumers can submit entries from now until December 2^nd. The contest will be advertised on scoreboards and video screens during football games. The aim is to interest emerging consumers to have their love of sports drive their usage of a product.