... a deeply immersive in-store experience. 

The AdWeek article cites the experience of an 85 year-old, self-described, “computer illiterate”, Martin Shafron, as he steps into the rotunda-like entrance of AT&T’s flagship store in the city’s high-end retail district.

Although Mr Shafron doesn’t realise it, he is in the midst of a global retail revolution, show-casing its gadgetry and pageantry from Chicago to Beijing.

As Shafron waits for one of the iPad-wielding sales associates to assist him with his first iPhone (which he’d purchased from the store the day before), he is sprinkled with what AT&T calls “innovation sounds” - best described as raindrops going pitter-patter on a digital rooftop interspersed with wind chimes producing cyber inharmonic spectra.

The highly stylised retail space offers a feast of digital eye candy competing for Mr Shafron’s attention as he waits, including an 18-foot video wall equipped with motion-sensory software on which a couple of kids are playing a game.

But although Shafron is seriously wowed by the space, he says: “More than anything, I appreciate the hands-on help.”

And such help is readily at hand thanks to the fully digitized face-to-face element customers like Shafron demand.

According to AT&T's President, Retail Paul Roth: “We want to transform the traditional website experience into the physical experience. It’s all about creating interactions rather than just transactions.”

And interacting AT&T most certainly is.

Its flagship store attracts an estimated 30,000 customers per month, many drawn in by bells and whistles like that giant interactive screen, which lights up the cityscape on Chicago's so-called Magnificent Mile.

The store has only one traditional retail counter, and the cash registers are tucked away in stylish wood cabinets.

Sales associates access the registers not with a key but via biometric fingerprinting software and not while standing behind the tills - instead sitting on a couch face-to-face with the customer.

Read the original unabridged AdWeek article.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... arrived and is here to stay.

Noel Ackerson, a 33-year-old software developer in Washington DC, who has been trialling Google Glass over the past several weeks, claims to have developed his own "common sense" etiquette for Google's new digital headset. 

Glass, which sites a small computer screen above one eye, also features a built-in motion sensor, camera and microphones, acting as an extension of a person's smartphone.

It enables the user to take photos and record videos by touching the side of the device or speaking commands aloud, as well as allowing him/her to give other web users access to the device's camera so they can "see" what the wearer sees. 

Developer Ackerson's self-imposed niceties require him to take Glass off in a public restroom, in a movie theater and in casinos, where having such a device could give him an unfair advantage.

Says Mr Ackerson: "Google Glass has technology that isn't new, and the etiquette we've applied to existing technologies should roll into it." 

Glass-wearers also can use the device to make phone calls, access Google's web search, get turn-by-turn navigation information and receive text messages on the screen, as well as send texts using their voice.

Currently unavailable to the general public, Glass is scheduled to launch some time in 2014.

Read the original unabridged WSJ.com article.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... stand the test of time.

In his Huffington Post blog Mr Yuill writes: "My prediction is firmly guided by data. ComScore recently reported that Americans watched 11.3 billion video ads in December, setting a new peak, and a sharp 10% rise from November's 10.3 billion."

December 2012 ad views were twice as many as in January 2012, representing 59% year-on-year growth. Video ads accounted for 22.6% of all videos viewed in December, and 1.9% of time spent viewing video online. 

Now three months into 2013, I feel ever more confident [about my prediction] given the astronomical speed at which video advertising has grown in popularity. All signs point to the death of banner and static ads. Here's why:

1. Consumers love video; not just cat memes, but original content. And they watch a lot of video online. Nielsen says Americans spent more than 360 billion minutes online in December 2012 and streamed 24.6 billion videos.
    
2. Consumers watch video ads. After 60 years of television we have learned to watch the ads to get to the content. Yes, we know you want to get to your show, but often the ads are entertaining, visual and mercifully brief - and getting more interactive by the day.
    
3. Advertisers like video ads because consumers watch them. From August this year, market research company Nielsen will validate the astronomical shift to online video by including videos viewed on tablet and mobile devices in their ratings measures. This will provide advertisers with the data they need to shift their spend to online video in even greater numbers.
    
4. Consumers are buying (lots of) tablets. The global market for tablet computers surged 78.4% last year, according to research firm IDC, and sales are on schedule to pass PCs by 2017.
    
5. Tablets and smart phones make watching video easy in the bedroom, train, couch, park bench, and, ahem, bathroom.
    
6. Tablets make shopping easy and you can bet your last dollar that online retailers took notice last Thanksgiving and Christmas, so expect a monumental change in online sales strategies this year and increased consumer purchases via mobile and tablet.
    
7. If consumers are buying on their tablets, guess where advertisers will want to run their ads?
    
8. 4G will make watching video anywhere seamless. Did someone say "conversation killer?"
    
9. Banner ads do not work, but you already knew that.
    
10. Advertisers Can't Ignore The Numbers. As advertisers are beginning to embrace tablet advertising in virtually every case they want video in their ad units. Consumers are watching those video ads hundreds of times more than they are clicking on banner ads.

Read the original unabridged HuffingtonPost article.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... 2.3% increase in 2013 for overall US ad spending - down from the 3.9% increase in 2012. according to an average of spending forecasts compiled by Ad Age.

Comments an AdAge article: "The sports jump is all the more remarkable considering that 2013 is bereft of big events such as the World Cup or Olympics.

"But the bottom line is that in the DVR age, marketers continue to be drawn to live events, whether it's activating massive league deals -- such as National Football League partnerships -- or individual team sponsorships."

 But as they spend more, marketers are demanding more, often making sponsorships part of an integrated campaign that includes multiple channels such as digital.

The upshot is that the deals - which used to be negotiated between a marketer and a team or a league - now involve a multitude of players, including media buyers and TV execs.

Says Jim Andrews, VP-content strategy at IEG: "In the past [such sponsorships] "kind of lived off to the side."

"But now you've got the senior advertising people, brand people, the media buyers in there who are now saying, 'We want to look at that kind of stuff.'

The interest has really risen because they've seen that these type of partnerships really do make a big difference as part of an integrated marketing platform."

Read the original unabridged AdAge article. 

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... such a law "would threaten its very existence".

However, Culture Minister Filippetti is unmoved by the Mountain View mammoth's plea. She told a parliamentary commission that a 'pay for news search tax' is "a tool that it seems important to me to develop".

Google France, ever mindful of the general good, pleads that the plan "would be harmful to the internet, internet users and news websites that benefit from the  substantial traffic" garnered by newspapers via Google's search engine.

Google claims it redirects four billion clicks to French media pages each month.

While Google would comfortably survive any such move by the French government, it would not be unscathed.

The real threat to the search engine's global dominance and profitability lies in the adoption of similar legislation across Europe and other world regions.

Read the original unabridged BBC article.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... tried to use a similar approach, but require viewers to be in a particular spot to see a 3D image.

This would not be possible in a cinema where the audience needs to be able to watch the screen from a wide variety of angles.

Writing in Optics Express, the international online journal of optics, the researchers explain: "Over the past few years the field of stereoscopic display has developed greatly, including display hardware designs and computational image processing designed to relieve consumers’ eye fatigue."

Two wide-spread methods used in stereoscopic displays use two projectors with polarizing glasses or a high-speed projector (in excess of 120 Hz) with shutter glasses.

To avoid a flash from the projector and to increase spacing efficiency, frontal projection-type stereoscopic displays are used in a projection-type stereoscopic display. In such a system, the observer and two projectors are placed side-by-side, as shown in the following diagram:

Fig. 1 Two representative projection-type 3D displays: (a) the polarizing glasses method and (b) the parallax barrier method.

According to Professor John Koshel from the College of Optical Sciences at the University of Arizona, who edited the study for publication: "This new method seems to be a viable one for providing glasses-free 3D environment with front-projection technology - instead of using multiple projectors, it only uses one."

To read the original unabridged article click here.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... "all devices to the potential of being connected all the time." 

Freescale's Geoff Lees told the BBC: "It's allowing us to provide connectivity everywhere. So anything from consumer appliances, MP3-music audio docks, kitchen equipment with displays right through to remote sensors in rain monitoring equipment or personal medical devices - an area where ultra-low battery life allied to high performance and safety is becoming more and more important."

"The 'Internet of Things' will change the world as we know it, improving energy efficiency, safety, and convenience," says Tom R Halfhill, a senior analyst with The Linley Group and senior editor of Microprocessor Report.

While ARM's director of embedded marketing Gary Atkinson claims that the firm's architecture could herald a new generation of smart energy systems.

"Every developed nation has a graph showing electricity demand is going to outstrip supply at some point in the next twenty years unless we do something different," he said.

"What we need to do is something called 'design response' - where all the devices on the network can make a decision as to whether or not to come on in order to smooth out peaks and troughs in electricity demand.

"So [manufacturers] should add connectivity to things like fridges, washing machines, freezers and dishwashers. If the wider electricity network is being very heavily used and if the element in your dishwasher could go off for two or three minutes to alleviate that - well then that would make a big difference."

ARM expects the microcontrollers will sell for around £0.132 each plus a 1-2% royalty fee and a licence charge.

Although the sums may appear small, the firm notes that Ericsson recently predicted there will be 50 billion connected devices by 2020, compared to 10-15 billion at present.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... "[in which] the technology has advanced to the level where anyone can do it.” 

It seems Mr Spangenberg is not exaggerating. For example:

• Singapore Airlines uses a scent called Stefan Floridian Waters to perfume the cabins of its airplanes.
• Samsung has reportedly pumped the summery scent of honeydew melons into its New York flagship store.
• British Airways diffuses the fragrance of meadow grass in business-class lounges.
• The Mandarin Oriental Hotel in New York greets guests as they step in from the street with the aroma of Sequoia, a scent designed by Lorenzo Dante Ferro. 
• Victoria’s Secret and Juicy Couture customers just walk into the stores and sniff the air, no longer having to hunt-down a sample bottle of the stores’ branded perfumes to experience their aroma.

Says Andrew Kindfuller, ceo of ScentAir, the largest manufacturer of scent diffusers in the US: “Brands realize now that this is a part of doing business. We’re implementing these systems in many different environments—not just hotels and retail—but funeral homes, retirement villages, and medical and dental and law offices.”

Reports AdAge: "According to Zev Auerbach, executive creative director for Miami-based Zimmerman Advertising, an ambient scent works best when it evokes imagery that’s tied to the merchandise.

“If you see a bathing suit in a store, and you smell the scent of ocean, you’re more likely to want to buy the suit and go on vacation,” he says. “It’s the combination of the see and the smell.”

Auerbach points out that such a connection isn’t just anecdotal. “This is pure science,” he says.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... that only18% of respondents believed interaction with a larger company or its brands on social media would encourage them to buy from that business again.

Social media were deemed even less effective for smaller businesses, where just 15% of respondents said it would encourage their loyalty to a company.

States the Pitney Bowes report: “These findings will give decision-makers pause for thought. Businesses can be forgiven for getting swept away by the hype surrounding social media and wanting to invest in such activity as soon as possible.

"But [survey] results show that those businesses tempted to lead with such techniques will quickly find themselves out of step with customer thinking.”

"Other communication techniques are far more likely to resonate with consumers and encourage them to do repeat business with companies. These techniques include:

• A home-delivery option;
• Having a say in products and services;
• Control of channels and frequency of received communications;
• A choice of channels to contact a company."

In each case, nearly half or more of the respondents said the above tactics were preferred and effective for small and large businesses alike.

In a summary of the survey's findings, Pitney Bowes states: “All of these practices are aimed at increasing brand loyalty and retaining customers.

"However, sophisticated social media and web interaction can be time-consuming and expensive and outcomes are difficult to measure.

Businesses are quickly having to learn the ‘customer dance’ - when to lead and when to follow - if relationships are to be nurtured" [MarketingTomorrow's italicisation].

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... potentially media owners and advertisers.

What have previously been considered mere visions, are now translated to reality thanks to OLEDs created by the Dresden team. For example, luminous wallpapers and windows covered in OLEDs could soon be illuminating living rooms of the future. The technology also opens the gates to flexible computer screens and electronic paper [the resuscitation of ailing print media?]. 

Another future-determining option is the creation of an organic solar cell that harnesses power from light. Instead of a layer that reflects light, the new OLEDs are outfitted with a light-absorbing layer, which paves the way for windows of the future to actually generate energy.

But for that to happen, the current pilot projects have to yield stable mass-production systems - now the primary target of the Dresden team.

Over the past few years, the Dresden Institute garnered international awards in recognition of its work and earned a global reputation, thanks partly to its successes with the invention and patenting of a methodology that increases light output.

What’s more seven ideas ready for marketing have already been transferred to start-up companies such as Novaled, which since 2003 has been working on supplying the worldwide lighting industry with knowhow and production technology.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.