Confined by screens no longer!

I always found a huge problem with my television, laptop and iPad—a screen confines them. What if we could turn an entire room into a monitor, where you can have the news on your kitchen table while you place a video call on your fridge? And when you’re done, you can swipe everything away, like Tony Stark in “Iron Man” or Tom Cruise in “Minority Report”.

Imagine looking up at your kitchen ceiling for a moment. See those lights? Well, they aren’t light bulbs; they’re projectors that can display your email inbox or a website anywhere in the room. There are also cameras inside them that translate your simple gestures into computer commands, like going back a page in your browser. No need for a television in this household. It’s on your cabinet. Or your counter. Or the back of you hand for that matter. The combination of microphones and cameras built into your outlet allows you to talk to your computer more naturally. Instead of saying, “Computer, turn off the kitchen light,” you can just point and say, “Shut that off, please.” Because your computer screen is no longer a square, if you are making pancakes, the measurements and instructions could appear next to each ingredient instead of being grouped into a list.

Anyone reading this post enjoy video games? I thought so. Well, imagine playing Halo or Call of Duty, and being able to see an enemy approaching from your peripheral vision. How about being able to look over your shoulder to see how close your competitors are racing in a game? Imagine—instead of seeing a chair painted with light, the projected image would just automatically adjust in order to help your furniture blend in. Sounds exciting, doesn’t it? Kinect is a motion sensing input device by Microsoft for the Xbox 360 that might be able to accomplish just that in the near future.

The possibilities with this are endless. Let’s change the world.

A Clutch of Break Goodies

Here is just a clutch of good randomness that has been accumulating on my desktop…

PS featured image is Simon Johnson.

Bucknell and Truth

Bucknell gets unexpected reward for being honest about a mistake.  Is this worthy of an ethical snap?

Net Neutrality?

What the hell is net neutrality?  Baratunde Thurston  one of our tech/no speakers, explains it so well, it got picked up by Raw Story.   I love how Bucknell can be a producer of information and wisdom and not just a user. 

Organization Theory is Cool

A book review about organization theory I really need to read.  Orgtheory.net is the one blog I wish I read more.

Learn from Nice Rich People

Lessons for failure and management from philanthropists.

We are drowning in deficit! (are we?)

Compare your answers to the US public and, um, the reality.

Change Doesn’t Happen.  Until it Does.

From AFL-CO vs Home Depot, through Frank-Dodd, to Citigroup.  Is corporate governance and executive compensation changing?  Maybe.  Read abotu some pretty big changes at the link.

Is a Tax Better than Regulations?

You want policy ideas?  You like finance? You dislike “regulation” that tries to dictate firm behavior?  Try this one.  Instead of trying to tell financial firms what they can or can’t do, how much capital to have on the books, and so on, how about you tax a vice- like we do with alcohol and tobacco- and simply tax financial transactions to make trading for the sake of microscopic gains on immaterial price shifts non-economic?  Read. here about Europe’s experiment with a different, and I would argue,  less intrusive form of regulation to change financial markets and firms.

You want even more financial regulation news?

You are really, really troubled.  I hope Vinny, Loukas, Mike, and… (who else are finance jocks?) are reading this. Simon Johnson.  yes, THAT Simon Johnson, had this blog post about the 12 “angry bankers” of the Fed and their ideas to push for transparency in money market fund valuations as part of the (yes, that same one) Frank Dodd bill reforms that created the systemic risk council.  In a nutshell, the financial industry does NOT WANT such valuation while the regulators do.

I am never surprised when practicing “capitalists” fight against actual free markets (with liquidity and transparency).  Businesspeople are often, perhaps usually anti-capitalist if you define capitalism not as maximum wealth accumulation, but as free markets that expand the prosperity of a society.  Am I alone in seeing this?

Related articles

• Simon Johnson: “Some of These Institutions Have Become Too Large” (huffingtonpost.com)
• Goldman Sachs Releases Dodd-Frank Act Stress Test Disclosure (fool.com)
• Does Dodd-Frank really end ‘too big to fail’? (washingtonpost.com)
• Baratunde Thurston explains what the hell net neutrality is (rawstory.com)
• HedgeFundMarketing.org Forecasts Bigger Legal Departments in Wake of New Regulations (prweb.com)
• New SEC Chief Arrives with Gold-Plated Resume, but Much of Dodd-Frank Remains Unimplemented (forbes.com)
• Comedian Baratunde Thurston – ‘Perception and Comedy’ (fora.tv)
• FCC Chairman takes the hot seat at wireless gathering (reviews.cnet.com)
• $ustainability (bizgovsocvii.wordpress.com)

Guy Kawaski isn’t just Some Guy

This Guy character really knows his way around.  Guy is the co-founder of Alltop.com which is an online magazine rack of popular topics all over the web.  He is also a founding partner at Garage Technology Ventures and previously he was the chief evangelist of Apple.  Guy has also written ten books including: Enchantment, Reality Check, The Art of the Start, Rules for Revolutionaries, How to Drive Your Competition Crazy, Selling the Dream, and The Macintosh Way.  Aside from being the author of 10 books you might as well say Guy is the author of innovation.   

By no means did Guy have what would be considered a textbook Bucknell lifestyle.  He grew up in a tough part of Honolulu and his parents constantly had to make sacrifices in order to support him.  Upon graduating high school Guy was admitted to Stanford where he studied psychology and then went on to get his MBA at UCLA.  Then, Guy went on to work for Apple where he created a lot of different software and then went on to develop a Macintosh database company known as ACIUS.  This company published a product called 4^th Dimension which still remains a great database to this day.

As of now, Guy is a founding partner of Garage and a co-founder of Alltop.  In addition to his business life Guy is a father, author, speaker, and avid hockey fan.  I think it would be amazing to have Guy come as a speaker to Bucknell.   He is someone who is extremely innovative and someone that all Bucknell students have a lot to learn from.  Not only does Guy run his own companies but then he writes about it, and then he teaches you how to write the book and sell it.  This Guy truly is amazing.  Check out this list below of companies that Guy has consulted for or invested in:

Alltop – Stay on top of all the topics.

Evernote – Remember everything.

BagTheWeb – Find, bag, and share websites and articles.

Garage Technology Ventures – Raise venture capital for your tech company.

Paper.li – Publish social-media newspapers.

Sixsense – Control your game like never before.

SocialToo – Engage people at social media sites like Twitter.

Status.net – Make an Open-Source Twitter for your organization.

StumbleUpon – Find interesting stuff on the web.

TicketLeap – Sell and manage online ticket sales for events.

Triggit – Make real-time bids for online ad space.

Tynt – Trace who’s using your website content.

uStream – Stream video live.

Visible Measures – Monitor how people interact with online video.

Guy is an extremely knowledgeable person who has experiences in many different fields.  In this crucial time of our lives, when we are so close to graduating I think that Guy is someone who could really make an impact on many of us.  He would have suggestions on the course of action we should take and would then go so far as to give advice on how to fulfill these courses of action.  If all this wasn’t enough for you please check out this short video below: