New Gadgets For Your iPhone

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Though technology is ever branching out into new frontiers, in many ways it’s becoming more unified at the same time. Apple’s iphone has become the platform for much of the latest technology, here’s a few worth checking out:

1. Bladepad. The Bladepad is a slide out game console and controller that allows you to do serious gaming on the ever handy iphone. It’s sleek design leaves your pocket unencumbered, and it’s compatibility with the iphone means that whether you’re riding the train, waiting on an appointment to begin, or have a date running late for dinner, at least you can play your games.

2. FLIR One. The FLIR One connects with your iphone to give you thermal imaging on the go. Whether you’re a secret agent or just want to feel like one, this is a pretty cool gadget.

3. Canary Home Security. The Canary Home Security system allows you to take control of your home security expeditiously from your iphone. Now you can say “goodbye” to the third party security company, and take your home security into your own hands.

4. Parrot Flower Power. Gardening would be so much easier if only we could communicate with plants, and now, we can come pretty close with the help of the Parrot Flower Power. When you stick this device into the soil, it sends information to you iphone regarding a respective plant’s health and needs. You’ll probably never have a conversation with your petunias, but at least now you can optimize their health!

5. Zeo Sleep Manager. With the Zeo Sleep Manager, diabetics can use their iphone to analyse and manage blood glucose, carbohydrate consumption, insulin intake, and exercise. Information can then be shared with family members and doctors through an iphone app.

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Bigger PlayStation4

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If you were hoping for more hard drive space for your PlayStation 4, then you may be in luck. According to recently revealed FCC filings, Sony is working on newer and larger versions of the PS4. The FCC filings show one will come with 500GB of space, the same as the current model, and the other with 1TB of space. Both of the new models are expected to require less power and weigh a little less than earlier models.

As most already know, 500GB can be no match for the avid gamer who truly understands how quickly today’s games max out your space. Many have tried working around the space issue by opening the existing systems and installing their own larger and faster hard drives. This type of maintenance, however, is not ideal for most users. The newer, larger PS4’s will save you the hassle of breaking into and modifying your old one.

This is a beneficial move for both Sony and the users. As games progressively increase in size, more space is simply a necessity. Today’s games are some of the biggest ever developed in the industry. If you provide consumers with the proper tools for the existing market, everyone wins. As a business you want to sell more games, and what better way to boost your industry than by providing users with plenty of space on their PS4 for downloadable games.

More details are expected in a few weeks as we approach E3, the Electronic Entertainment Expo, which will be hosted in Los Angeles this year.

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Who Needs Email?

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A recent article with Entrepreneur.com explored the idea of going an entire year without using email. According to the story, Claire Burge, the owner of Get Organized, wanted to free herself from the burden and anxiety of responding to, and writing daily emails.

As most of us know, email has worked wonders in making our daily work lives easier and more manageable. Email is a brilliant tool that has helped organize our lives for years now, however, data is beginning to support the idea that email can get in the way of our productivity. It makes sense, too. If you consider how often we are checking emails on an hourly basis, you begin to realize how this time adds up. More importantly you begin to realize how you can better spend that time.

There are reports which show that email can even be bad for our health. According to these reports, it causes increased levels of stress and anxiety. Loughborough University conducted a study in 2013 to analyze the effect of email activity on blood pressure, heart rate and stress. They found that 83% of government employees did in fact experience higher levels of stress, blood pressure, and heart rate.

We now find ourselves dancing a fine line between maximizing organization and acting in the best interest of our health. As mentioned above, Get Organized owner Claire Burge was motivated to eliminate this unwanted stress and ultimately decided to rid herself of email for an entire year. According to Burge, email is a waste of time. As a result of being email free, Burge found herself to be more productive and could dedicate more time to propelling her business to the next level.

The Entrepreneur article provides a more in depth of analysis of Claire Burge’s year without email. The idea does beg the question, do we really need email? Can I really do more without email? There is no doubt that it helps organize our lives, both personally and professionally, but the thought of action and doing far outweighs the process of mindlessly checking emails. Perhaps this is an exercise we should all put into practice to some extent.

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The Real Super Bowl Winner

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It’s the day after Super Bowl Sunday and if you’re like many viewers, you watched the game for one thing and one thing only: the commercials. This year, the price was set at $4.5 million for a 30 second spot. Seeing as the game kept viewers interested all the way through to the end of the game, the price seems like a good investment for advertisers no matter where the commercial ended up in the lineup. There were many great commercials throughout the game but the most notable, if you were to ask ad executives, was promoting NBC’s The Blacklist.

The Blacklist, whose midseason return happened right after the Super Bowl, was able to pull in a huge viewer base of 13.5 million this year. The only thing to really beat this was a few years ago when NBC premiered The Voice after the game which received a whopping 20 million viewers! Along with the surge of viewers from the post-bowl spot, The Blacklist is promoting itself with a national scavenger hunt in various cities around the U.S. Essentially, the show’s social media accounts will give viewers and fans clues to find doppelgänger of the show’s man character, Red Reddington, throughout their city. Lucky fans could win up to $500 for finding these look-alikes.

Though The Blacklist got a lot of hype from the Super Bowl this year, many other usual contributors didn’t. Since NBC raised the price of an ad spot this year many top brands who generally advertise publicly took their money elsewhere. Auto manufacturers Ford and GM were the most notable companies who decided that the money just wasn’t worth it for them this year. Since there was more room though, some businesses like Mophie and Loctite got a lot of mileage out of their advertisements. Though their commercials happened in the fourth quarter, since the game was a captivating one it didn’t really matter.

In the end, the advertisements were a huge success. NBC crammed the airwaves with promotions for its shows like Allegiance, The Voice, and The Blacklist. There were also many cross promotional advertisements for their other properties. The most apparent ones were for Furious 7, Ted 2, Pitch Perfect 2, and of course Fifty Shades of Grey (which comes out next Friday).

Overall, NBC made a bold move upping the price of a Super Bowl spot this year and many brands didn’t think that it would be worth it. Though for the companies that did take the plunge, the fact that the game was entertaining the entire way through made it a worth-while endeavor for those ads who were featured near the end of the game. Good work NBC!

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Seth Godin on the Future of Online Education

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Seth Godin is considered a marketing expert and innovator, credited by many marketers as an influential figure in how people think about marketing in the 21^st century. With 17 bestselling books and what many people consider the most popular marketing blog in the world, American Way Magazine has considered Godin “America’s Greatest Marketer”.

Godin recently partnered up with Skillshare.com, an international community of knowledge seekers, to release a repertoire of marketing comprehension as an online class called “Modern Marketing Workshop.” This class would act as an interactive way for students to understand a marketing framework to make the right decisions, measure the correct metrics, and fight for what they think matters.

In an interview with Forbes, Dan Schawbel catches up with Godin to ask him about the future of education, the marketing world today, and how to prosper in our current economy.

The first question Dan asks is weather the future of education is heading towards online education and who the winners and losers are. Godin explains that education now a day is about compliance and proving that students know how to obey. Online education “is offering classes for people who want to learn, instead of those being forced to comply. What it does is open the door for people who realize that gaining skills (as opposed to memorizing facts) is a shortcut to achieving their goals.” With this accessibility of education and freedom of education, motivated learners will take advantage of online education to learn problem solving and leadership skills, while lesser-known educational institutions might suffer from student backlash.

Dan’s next question has to do with why Godin decided to create this online class over writing another book or adding to his blog. Godin’s primary response is simple. He knows what his consumers need of him and he’s notices a large scale uptake in interactive online education. Another point Godin makes, “is that it’s hard to read a book ‘together’ but it’s really natural to take an online course together. What I learned from the first Skillshare course I did was that the people who got the most out of it were the ones who helped other students the most, who did the work and also contributed to others doing the work. Can’t do that with a book.”

The last crucial question Dan asks is what three marketing shifts in the last decade are crucial for an entrepreneur to know. Godin lists them: 1) Advertising and marketing are no longer the same thing. 2) All media is voluntary. 3) The network effect is the most powerful force in the world.

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Venture Capital Recovery

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The good news: VC firms are pouring more money into startups than they have been in recent years. IPO demand is way up, 222 last year- the most since 2000.

And the bad? Some experts and analysts are warning that it may not be the best of ideas for some firms to hop on the train of investing in the the most valuable startups.

Well, its not that it’s always a bad thing. Just that reacting only to the public market could be potentially damaging for the firm in the long run. The most valuable companies have an incredible amount of influence, and smaller companies definitely aim to emulate them. Peter Delevett at San Jose Mercury News has recently reported that this waxing IPO demand is comparable to the dot-com bubble of the 1990s. Delevett cites quite a few statistics in his report, but the biggest take-away might be this: though CB Insights reports that 25 private companies were valued above $1 billion dollars by their investors in 2010 alone, only 45 companies managed to seal a merger deal or IPO of similar figures within the past ten years.

Delevett’s sources are just encouraging VCs to be responsible. After all, everything is dependent on just how hot the IPO period is; once the market begins to settle, a company may find itself having a hard time recouping those monetary losses. In a market so historically volatile, it just is not recommended to rush into an IPO if the company is only dealing with a fund of a few hundred million dollars.

Maybe this all does seem like common sense. But it must not be, for so many experts to comment on the dangers of following the leader. Not every company is a “unicorn” (a term used to describe financially promising, and therefore rare, companies) like Snapchat. It’s oftentimes best to wait and feel out the situation.

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