Gordon Ng's Blog

So I was reading my friend Graeme’s blog and I came across his post about a cell phone and driving ad. After watching the ads, I felt like I could relate to this because I think at one time, all of us have used a phone while driving. Whether you’re rejecting a call, glancing at a text, or changing the GPS instructions on your phone, that is still considering hazardous and dangerous.

I like the approach of these advertisements, because instead of telling you the reader the situation, they show you their message through the phone. (No pun intended) This method of advertising can really impact that reader in many ways. Not only does it injure the immediate driver, pedestrians and most likely the other drivers on the road, but it also indirectly affect the driver’s friend(s) who they were texting. If the friend found out the driver crashed because they were texting, how bad do you think the friend would feel?

On one of the commercials, the phone’s wallpaper was a picture of a couple. Readers will almost automatically make the assumption that phone belongs to one of the two people. This gets you to think: what will the other person do if their significant other was injured in the crash? What impact would it have on their lives?

It is the small facts like these that will impact you and make you think twice about texting and driving, and that is what makes an effective advertisement.

As some of you may know, Apple’s tablet, the iPad can be classified as a hit in the technology market, and companies such as RIM and Samsung are trying to catch up to it. RIM is promoting its new tablet, the PlayBook in the new year to come. Samsung is promoting their tab along with the Samsung Galaxy Vibrant phone line. Specifications of each tablet and comparisons can be checked out here.

So which of the three tablets do you prefer? From what the blog says, the Samsung Tab seems like the winning tablet out of the three. But it also depends on what the market’s reaction to the new comers is. Apple’s iPad already has the advantage of arriving into the market first, and has a head start in building on a foundation of consumers with the assistance of their iTunes and apps. It even has an attachable keyboard for the convenience of people who want to type on an actual keyboard. The RIM playbook will continue with its line of businessmen using a tablet that is convenient and straight-forward to use, although it isn’t even out yet. The Samsung Tab will boast on having specs better than the iPad, as well as having the most vibrant screen on a mobile device in history.

Only time will tell after all three tablets have entered the market to see who will claim the title of the best tablet.

A bit late on this, but still makes a good blog post nonetheless. The new Xbox kinect gaming system is now out and available for purchase. If you don’t know what the kinect is, you can view the trailer below.

Microsoft has taken wireless controller gaming to a whole new level, but the question is: will consumers like it? The traditional wired-in gaming controllers give you an assurance that every button you press is registered on your gaming console. The newer Wii-mote gives less assurance due to wireless sensors, but gives a new and innovative experience. And then there’s the kinect, where the gamer is the controller, and the motion sensor detects all your actions.

This kinect system can be argued to give people a more healthy experience to game and exercise at the same time than the Wii, it’s main competitor. But the problem here is, the Nintendo Wii came out a few years before the Xbox Kinect, thus the Wii has a competitive advantage over its new market penetrator. Also, the Nintendo Wii has a wider variety of games because of its foundation made a few years back, whereas the Kinect only has the few limited games that are just released.

Was it a wise move for Xbox to release their Kinect so much later than their competitors’ products? I honestly don’t think so, especially with the PS3 targeting gamers who require extreme graphics, and the Wii targeting families. Who’s left for the Kinect to sell to?

I don’t know if you prefer your animated movies in 3D or 2D, but I like mine in Imax 3D to experience the film in its entirety. This may not be new news but electronic companies are coming up with 3D televisions to replace the traditional LCD/Plasma tvs in most homes. A more detailed blog of 3DTVs can be viewed here.

The 3D tv does more than making animation 3D, but they also make reality TV shows look touchable as well. Imagine you’re watching a hockey game, and you have a puck coming right to your face. Amazing stuff! Who needs to go to another live hockey game when they can stay home and watch it on a 3D tv in high definition? Ever since electronic brands such as Sony and Panasonic released their 3D products, more and more people are switching from LCD/Plasmas to the 3D experience.

The innovative television can be seen as a milestone for animated technology, and it could be yours for less than $5000. The only catch is that you need 3D glasses to view your television. But no, you can not use the glasses you get from watching a 3D movie in the theatres, but you have to buy specific pairs from an electronics store. “How much are they? I want to get a bundle for a party at my house” you might ask. Well, a pair of 3D glasses is $150 Cnd, with the additional chance that it may malfunction because it runs on rechargeable batteries.

Though this technology is expensive, keep in mind that it is still new on the market. As of now, only the wealthier consumers can afford to purchase the luxurious products right when it comes out. I guess almost every other consumer have a mindset like me, hoping the prices will drop in the near future.

In this short clip from IBM, you can see how e-business might turn out in the future.

I think a non-checkout grocery store is a very cool and innovative idea, personally because I hate having to wait in line to check out my bottle of water when the lady in front of me is waiting to get her 20 grocery items scanned. The way this video was scripted definitely caught the viewers’ attentions and quickly dragged us into how they want us to view this commercial. As one can see, this business tactic will speed up the check-out lines, cause less convenience for both the customers and the company itself. A self-scanning checkout machine will probably save the company quite a bit of labour money as well.

The biggest downside to implementing these machines into stores will most likely be the price of installing it. How much money will it take to put these machines into grocery stores that earns money over the long run? How long will it take to earn back the profits to cover the costs to install it?

But I want to raise another question: are we relying too much on technology? A prime example of relying too much on technology happened to me a few days ago on the Canada Line, where the skytrain malfunctioned for about a twenty minutes. In just twenty minutes, it was enough to cause huge line-ups at all stations because of the train cars had to stop. That day wasn’t a rush hour time when people had to rush home to spend time with their families, but it was a weekend, and it stalled the plans that people originally made. Once again, innovative technology is not necessarily a bad thing, but we need to know alternative routes we can take, and not over-rely on only one source.

I was browsing through technology-related forums today, and stumbled upon this video clip. I thought it was relevant to all of us in this modern society, so I wanted to blog about it.

I think this video proves a very good point. The fact that our phones are suppose to help us socialize with others was completely turned backwards. The people in the video who were on their phones were completely isolated from the environment they were in. In the society where we live in now, I believe that can be applied to the most of us. A person who posted on the forum listed a very good point. The producer of this video did a lot of research in the market to look at all the phone users, not just teens. The age groups targeted and looked at ranged from a young teenager to a father who was neglecting his daughter.

Being able to see a connection between me and the people in the video, This advertisement made me think a bit more about over-relying on technology, though it may be convenient most of the time. How do you feel about this video? I just think that sometimes it is better to take a step back, to look at the bigger picture ahead.

Upon browsing through my MIS class discussion forum, I came upon a post regarding the Apple iPhone and a credit card reader device known as the Square Up System. The company is called Square, and the main idea that got all of this started was: why can’t everyone accept credit cards? The blog post can be seen here, and it involves attaching a credit card reading device onto an iPhone to read credit cards and take transactions. Yes, it’s that simple! If you’re selling something on craigslist/ebay and making the transaction with your customer in real life, using the Square Up system will convenience both sides of the exchange.

This newfound technology may cause mixed feelings. Some skeptical people might think that this device may be easy to fraud, especially when there is no big bank company to back up the transactions. But isn’t that the same with almost all credit cards? And besides you gotta be a genius hacker to go through all the trouble to get a few extra bucks, that is, if you’re willing to run the risk of getting caught and being thrown into jail.

Square’s system is completely free, as opposed to a normal credit card merchant’s setup and monthly fees. The plug for the iPhone is also free! It is only the transactions that you have to pay 2.75% of the total, with a 15 cent charge, which I’d say is better than using your card on an actual credit card merchant.

Overall I think that this new Square System is very innovative, but perhaps it will take some time for everyone to accept that this technology is trustworthy in order for the world to use it.

As I was reading my fellow classmates’ blogs, I came across a post that caught my attention. It came from Ashley’s blog involving a comparison between two cars from Nissan and Porsche. Having a bit of passion for exotic cars, I instantly thought of the Nissan GT-R and the Porsche 911 GT2, but we’ll get into that later.

As of now, I just wanted to share some insights on what Ashley had to say. In the commercials, The Nissan Rogue was displayed as a family vehicle, where the mother had a lot of items to put inside, and using the car as a means of running errands for her children and family. Whereas for the Porsche Cayenne, a lone man decides to take his car for a stroll late out at night because he felt like it. Comparing these two displays of the vehicles, we can see the the Cayenne is placed in a significantly higher place luxury wise than the Rogue. But I also thought about the situation. What if the woman wasn’t bound by her family? What if she was a tad bit richer, just enough to afford a German car instead of a Japanese brand? Would everyone choose a Porsche over a Nissan if they didn’t have to worry about how much it costs? The man driving the Porsche in the commercial wasn’t even seen with a family member, which may indicate that he is a care-free bachelor and would spend excess money to show his status. But setting the car specs and features aside, the difference in these two cars’ prices is what a family or an individual is willing to pay to get that extra bit.

Now what if we look at a different scenario? Let’s compare a Nissan GT-R to the Porsche 911 GT2. Both are exotic racing cars are priced significantly higher than the normal cars on the road, and are both meant to conquer the road. The GT-R starts at $84,000, while the GT2 is priced at $297,000. Well, being a German car that is three times the price of a Japanese car, the GT-2’s performance should be way above the GT-R’s, right? Wrong. The GT-R and GT2 aren’t actually that much different, aside from the costs.

If you think that the $200,000 difference in cost is worth that 2 second difference in time, then obviously you have a very high opportunity cost to consider. But overall I believe this is a much better comparison between two brands of different origins, serving in the same category rather than comparing utility to luxury.

As an Iphone 4 user, I like my phone to be unique and distinguishable from the other Iphone 4s out there, since it is one of the most populated phones in this generation. With over 200 000 apps on the iTunes store, it’s not a surprise why people would want the iPhone. However, not all of the apps are available to everyone. A fair amount of apps require the purchase of the product via the store, and prices of these apps range from $0.99-9.99, and the extremes of almost $100 for the GPS apps. “Just get the free-version apps then” one might say, instead of buying the pricey apps. But there is a value you get from a bought app which you can’t get from a free app.

With such high costs for apps, why would people still want the iPhone? The answer is very simple: jailbreak. Jailbreaking your apple product allows your device to download most apps for free, but it can also tweak the internal details of your phone, changing the interface to further customization. But the downfall of jailbreaking your device means you can’t upgrade to the most updated operating system that apple supports until a newer jailbreaking program comes out.

The newest iOS is at 4.1, while the newest jailbreak program is at 4.0.1. But according to a technology blog, everything is going to change, again. Click here to view the post. Another jailbreaking program, limera1n, will be available within the new day and claims to be able to jailbreak Apple’s newest iOS 4.1.

This raises an issue involving the ethics of this practice. While jailbreaking benefits the consumers on having to spend less for apps on the product that they already bought for a few hundred dollars, Apple and the creator of the apps (EA for sports games, Popcap for games, Tomtom for GPS etc) are losing money due to jailbreak programs. Despite Apple’s attempts of preventing the jailbreaking by constantly coming up with new operating systems, it will just keep being solved by programs to be jailbroken. Now is it ethical to jailbreak your phone to download apps that you were suppose to buy to get them? Can it be seen as equivalent to stealing from the iTunes store?

There is an Arabian Dairy Company from Egypt who has been promoting their product, called Panda Cheese. The advertisements are somewhat entertaining, but at the same time wrong. Wrong in what way, you ask? These commercials involve a character being asked if they want some Panda Cheese, to which they politely refuse. As a result, a panda would appear out of nowhere and release a bit of rage because his cheese was denied.

These commercials range from a father and son shopping at a grocery market to a pizza factory to a hospital. Another blog had posted up a link to watch the supermarket commercial; you can watch it here

Yes, at first you might drop your jaw in awe at what the panda does, because such a cute panda is doing something so horrid and out of the norm, which is why you’re attracted to this product. But if you watch the other commercials on youtube, the panda’s actions start to go overboard. It includes ruining the pizza store’s products, and even detaching the hospital patient’s equipment. As I watched these commercial, my thoughts of the panda being cute quickly changed to the panda being somewhat like the devil’s reincarnation. It’s almost as if the panda is forcing you to buy their cheese, or else it will come ruin your life. Is this advertisement beginning to go too far? I don’t think that I’ll be buying this product anytime soon because of the mental threat this panda has given me.