Paul Wallbank – Brilliant Communications

Category: computers

  • Hotels and 3D printing

    Hotels and 3D printing

    One of ADMA Forum’s second day speakers, Phil McAveety, EVP of Starwood Hotels, had a look at the hotel of the near future.

    In Phil’s view, the key to success in the hotel business lies in providing in a unique guest experience as the world’s middle classes explode.

    The role of the 3D printers in the hotel experience where guests can order a pair of sneakers or swimming goggles to be printed up when they’ve forgotten their own is one of Phil’s fascinating views on how technology will change the hospitality industry.

    Its a shame that most hotels have old style door keys, All Things D looks at a start up called KeyMe that stores details about door keys on the cloud which customers can download 3D printing files.

    These two examples illustrate just how a technology like 3D printing will change industries.

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  • Our hackable lives – why IT security matters.

    Our hackable lives – why IT security matters.

    Two stories this week illustrate the security risks of having a connected lifestyle. Forbes magazine tells in separate pieces how modern car systems can be overriden and how smarthomes can be hacked.

    Smarthome system security is a particular interest of mine, for a while I was involved in a home automation business but I found the industry’s cavalier attitude towards keeping clients’ systems secure was unacceptable.

    The real concern with all of these stories is how designers and suppliers aren’t taking security seriously. In trading customer safety for convenience, they create serious safety risks for those using these system. It’s as if nothing has been learned from the Stuxnet worm.

    A decade ago, a joke went around about what if General Motors made cars like Microsoft designed Windows. Like all good stories, it had a lot of truth to it. Basically, the software industry doesn’t do security particularly well; there are developers and vendors who treat security as a basic foundation for their work, but they are the exception rather than the rule.

    That may well be a generational thing as today’s young developers and future managers are more aware of the risks of substandard security in the age of the internet.

    Rather than seeing security as something that is bolted on to a product when problems arise, this generation of coders are having to treat security as one of the fundamental foundations of a new system.

    What is clear though is that the builders of critical systems are going to have take security far more seriously as embedded computers connected to the internet of machines become commonplace in our lives.

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  • Blocking the bad guys – listeners’ questions from ABC Nightlife

    Blocking the bad guys – listeners’ questions from ABC Nightlife

    Last night’s ABC Nightlife looked at how email is evolving but most of our callers were concerned with configuring their email, anti-virus programs and blocking adverts on the web.

    The audio of the program is available through the ABC website.

    As usual, it’s tough to answer all the questions on live radio so here’s the ones from listeners Tony and I said we’d get back to.

    Ad blockers

    Website owners are desperately trying to find ways to make money from their sites, unfortunately its proving difficult so we’re seeing increasingly intrusive ads trying to distract us while we surf the web.

    A number of Tony’s callers asked about adblocking programs to get rid of these irritating ads and there’s a few paid and free solutions available for computer users.

    The most popular solution is Adblock, a plug in available for Firefox, Chrome, Opera and Android. The developers have a handy video guide to installing and configuring their product.

    For Internet Explorer users, Simple Adblock is a plug in that should work with their browser.

    Be aware with ad blocking programs that they may change the layout of the sites you visit so be prepared for some strange looking pages.

    Also keep in mind that website owners are desperately trying to find ways to pay the bills, so you won’t stop the more cunning ads or sponsored content that pretends to be real news. You might also put a few online media sites out of business.

    Anti-Virus programs

    One common question from Nightlife listeners are what anti virus programs should they use.

    Probably the simplest for Windows users is Microsoft Security Essentials or the free AVG Anti-Virus. For OSX Users, Clam AV and Sophos’ Free Anti Virus for Mac will do the job.

    If you have Norton or McAfee anti virus programs on your Windows PC, then getting rid of the software is not straightforward. After uninstalling the software, you’ll have to run their removal tools which are available from the Symantec (Norton) or McAfee websites. Read the instructions carefully.

    Switching to Hotmail

    A curious thing about Microsoft is how they like to irritate loyal customers with interface changes that leave everyone confused. Hotmail users are among the latest victims after the company migrated them to the Outlook.com platform.

    Deborah called in to ask how she could switch back to Hotmail from Outlook.com – sadly the official line from Microsoft is “you can’t”. It appears that all of the work arounds to get Hotmail back have also been closed down and the old service is no more.

    For Deborah, the choice is to either get used to Outlook.com or investigate other online mail services like Gmail or Yahoo!.

    The next ABC Nightlife will be on in around five weeks. Hope you can join us then.

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  • Google and Microsoft show how online business is changing

    Google and Microsoft show how online business is changing

    Both Microsoft and Google yesterday reported their second quarter earnings for 2013 and both missed the targets expected analysts. Does this really mean anything?

    Microsoft’s earnings were particularly notable as they included a $900 million dollar write off on Surface RT inventories, this almost certainly means a key part of the company’s tablet strategy has failed.

    What’s striking in Microsoft’s earnings report is the terrible performance of the Windows Division which saw sales increase 10% year-on-year to 4.4 billion dollars, but earnings collapse by over 50%. Excluding the Surface RT write off, the division would still have seen a ten percent fall.

    The company’s statement emphasised how the division is struggling with increasing costs.

    Windows Division operating income decreased $1.3 billion, primarily due to higher cost of revenue and sales and marketing expenses, offset in part by revenue growth. Cost of revenue increased $1.2 billion primarily reflecting product costs associated with Surface and Windows 8, including the charge for Surface RT inventory adjustments of approximately $900 million. Sales and marketing expenses increased $344 million, reflecting advertising costs associated with Windows 8 and Surface.

    At Google, the company’s 2nd Quarter report show trend is still upwards but the core business of online advertising is showing some cracks as the total number of paid clicks grows, but the value of each falls. At the same time traffic aquisition costs are rising at the same rate as revenues.

    This could indicate that advertisers’ appetite for online links is fading. For smaller businesses, the cost of adwords campaigns has been escalating to the point where the old days of newspaper classifieds and Yellow Pages listings start to look cheap.

    Couple the cost of advertising with the inevitable ‘ad blindness’ that web surfers have developed and a worrying trend for Google starts to appear. Overall Google’s net profit margin was 26%, down from 31% a year earlier.

    While both companies remain insanely profitable – Google earned $14 billion this quarter and Microsoft $6 billion – both businesses are showing stresses as their markets evolve. It proves no business can afford to be complacent in these times.

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  • Five years of the app store

    Five years of the app store

    It’s been five years that the Apple App Store has been open for business. in that time they’ve revolutionised the smartphone industry, reinvented the tablet computer and had fifty billion downloads.

    While the App Store wasn’t an original idea, plenty of telcos and handset manufacturers, had them, Apple were the first to get the formula right for the iPhone.

    Their success in changing the smartphone industry lead to their dominance of the tablet industry, another sector which had settled incumbents who were disrupted by Apple’s entry into the market.

    It’s notable how in both the smartphone and tablet markets, the established incumbents were struggling with the same business model that Apple got right. This is something other industries should pay attention to.

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