I've shared my thoughts on smart phones and know that I may just be the minority. But today I can share with you an electronic device I AM interested in purchasing. Only a few days ago I mentioned to a friend that I needed a chip implanted in my arm. While I consider myself responsible, I have a great knack for misplacing my driver's license, bank card and other vital components of anyone's life. In fact, when I'm not at work the phrases, "Have you seen my keys?" and "Where's my phone?" spew from my mouth like a bad habit. And jeeze, it really is an awful habit. I even left my sneakers at the gym yesturday - twice.
                                 
I enter the living room, lift up my niece, do a little dance, toss down my keys, soiree into the kitchen, put down my niece, take a quick bathroom break, wash my hands, transfer my laundry in the basement and come back up to check my e-mails. In those ten minutes, I completely lose all conception of where my keys could be, so after I check my e-mail and am ready to set out for my next destination, I generally have to search every room in the house like a mad woman. Yes I can be a mad woman.
                 
While this new invention can't help with my keys or IDs, it will definitely make holding on to my cell phone easier. I introduce, Skinput. Stomp on your BlackBerry, toss your iPhone in the toilet and run over that Droid with your uncles pick-up. You will no longer be needing these smartphones. Because Skinput is a revolutionary system that turns your forearm into a touch screen. A tiny pico projector is embedded into an armband so that an image appears on your arm and an acoustic detector is used to calculate and relay the location the user "clicks" their arm. Essentially, your forearm is transformed into a touch screen flesh phone.
                         
Unfortunately, in its present stage, Skinput does not yet have a telephone call feature. The designers at Carnegie Mellon University and Microsoft Research are still working on the item and stress that this is only a prototype. Check out how Skinput works here. While its an awesome idea, I wouldn't actually want one of these strapped around my arm. I assume the arm band will be made more sleek in the future but I might as well just rubber band my cell phone to my wrist. Actually, many of our promotional cell phone accessories can be used to mimic the phone on arm technique.
                                           
For now, try not to laugh too hard at my homemade Skinput and look out for updates of this sweet product.
 

Hey guys back with a tech update for you today. I know that majority of us have used a PC one time or another in our lives. I know that when I was growing up my first machine in the house was a Tandy Computer, and then I got a custom rig made, next was a Dell, and finally just yesterday I built a custom PC. Along the way Windows has upgraded its OS, different looks different feels but one thing that has remained basically the same is MS Paint. No matter what version of Windows since it started MS Paint has always remained the one constant with the least amount of change, until now. Code named Project Gustav, the new paint program looks really good with a 3-D feel to it along with multi-touch capability I think this might just be the future of graphic design. And no guys I don't mean like picking up a Custom Bic Pen and start drawing in the air which would be pretty cool but check out the video below and see what I mean.

 

 

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to sail across the ocean to different countries on a garden vessel? Well it actually might be a possibility in the future, Vincent Callebaut has created a whale like floating garden designed to ride through the world's rivers and purifying their waters. The floating garden is a full eco-system that generates all of its energy from the sun and purifies the water through bio-filtration. One man’s vision may someday reduce the amount of energy that consume in a day or even purify the rivers that we take for granted. We can also make a difference one company at a time with purchasing promotional items that are good for the environment, environmentally friendly promotional items.

 

Well we knew this was coming, not too sure if we actually knew it would be so quick, but here it is the new iPhone App from Bing. The official Bing App actually seems pretty well thought out all of the features that you would expect from a search App is available. The App features some very nice features like Bing's image of the day background, voice search, tips, search help and an awesome image search. See some of the screen shots I took from my personal iPhone running the App, be sure to check out our line of promotional cell phone accessories. If you do download the App let me know what you think or how it measures up to the Google search App.

First off yes, this blog is partially inspired by the blogging of one Jenn Jimenez, blogger extraordinare. Recently, Jenn wrote a Pulitzer worthy blog about the newest technology Coca Cola has created in vending soda, the Coca Cola freestyle. Well, recently while at the local Roosevelt Field Mall I came across a Coca Cola machine. Now, it is not a new machine, I have seen it there before. It is a very technologically advanced machine, it operates entirely via digital touchscreen.

In the past it has always shown Coca Cola commercials and Simon mall gift card commercials when not in use (ironically I have never seen it show the Coke commercial that is supposed to take place INSIDE a vending machine!). However, during my last visit to the mall, and this machine specifically, I noticed something different, an additional sign on it. Now, when you purchase a Coke Zero you can "unlock" exclusive clips from the upcoming movie Avatar. For those who are not familiar,Avatar is supposed to revolutionize the movie cinema with its state of the art special effects while Coke Zero is a brand new diet soda.

Well I say, touche to Coca Cola for always knowing how to take promotion to the next level. I'm sure there are many thirsty people in the mall curious about the movie Avatar, why not sell your new experimental drink to them! Excuse the cliche, but the future is now. Take a tv show, say...I don't know...Heroes wants to attract more viewers. This Coca Cola machine could offer a free promotional bottle opener for everyone that buys a soda, answers a trivia question correctly and puts in their address. The possibilities are endless with a completely customizable interactive soda machine. Congratulations to Coca Cola for taking promotional soda-vertising to the next level. 

If you're an on-line networking savvy technology lover looking for a little adventure on Saturday, gear up for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA )Network Challenge. Starting a 10 a.m., groups will begin their scavenger hunt to find 10, 8-foot wide red, weather balloons.

Spokesperson for the DARPA, Johanna Jones said, "It's an opportunity to reach out to groups that are very comfortable with social networking." She continued, "Reaching out to some of these groups, they may actually come up with some great ideas for the future." With this year as the 40th anniversary of the ARPANET (the original internet), DARPA decided to intrigue scientists and web brainiacs alike with this social networking challenge.
                                       
How are some of the over 1,000 registered balloon hunters strategizing for this event? Many have created website and twitter accounts to connect team members from across the United States. The 10 balloons will be tethered in areas that have lots of traffic so that it isn't impossible to spot them.  Others are planning on doing the obvious, looking up.

Advances in technology like iPhones and GPS's are definitely going to come in handy during the hunt for these gigantic balloons. While the balloons aren't imprinted with DARPA, their advertised red color will function as the perfect exposure device. When you're looking for the home where a party is hosted, promotional balloons mark the spot. Likewise, each of these large red balloons will unmistakably be identified as a part of DARPA's Network Challenge.
                                           
In the end, DARPA is hoping to promote advancements for communication amongst geographically separated groups. Norman Whitaker, who led last year's DARPA Challenge said, "Future innovation depends on the upcoming generation of technologists who are discovering new, collaborative ways to approach problems that were not dreamt of 40 years ago."

Good Luck to all you balloon hunters. With some groups planning on donating the winning $40,000 to charities, there may be an awareness event coming your way- or perhaps you'll get you're own enormous, red promotional balloons imprinted with a special message of your own.

Now I have to admit I haven't seen anything quite like this before but I have to say I am very impressed. Let us say that you are a pet owner and you have to go away on vacation for about a week or two but you have no way of feeding the dog or cat, what do you do? Well Mathew Newton has actually put together a very cool DIY internet enabled cat feeder. According to Engadget.com, "When it's feeding time the user logs onto a web interface to choose the dispensing quantity, or you can also have an automatic feed schedule set up if you trust the system..." Hey if he can mass produce this it will make for one hell of a promotional pet product, but if you still doubt the whole internet feeding aspect check it out for yourself.

I'm sort of a floater. I don't enjoy the idea of being tied down when it comes to my extracurricular activities. Working 9 - 5 helps me to maintain some sort of schedule in my life, but the rest of it is really all up in the air. After work, there's no telling where I'll be. I may ride right over to a friends or it's possible I'll cart around my nieces and bring them on a play date. Sometimes I crash over at my Nanna's in Smithtown, and other times I hightail it to the city for a concert.

It'd be safe to say that I spend more time in my spacewagon than in my bedroom, and because of that, my parents never really get in the way of my morning routine. If I happen to make it back home for a lovely slumber, I wake up, shower, make some breakfast and head out. But on rare occasions, my parents will wake up first and knock on my door to see if I'm awake. It's very grade school of them and I appreciate them looking out for me. There was one time that my alarm didn't go off and my mother actually saved me from being late.

However, when I'm woken by my parents, I immediately panic. Since I'm not used to them getting me up, I always assume the worst and in the first few moments of being awake, after hearing, "Jeeeeennniiifffeeeeeeeeer" it's likely that I yell, "Oh Sh**!" My eyes open wide, my muscles tense up and in a rushed panic I jump from my bed.
                    
This exact occurrence actually happened today when my dad decided to wake me up and really, it's not a very nice way to wake up. It's just an automatic burst of stress that generally leaves me with a head ache to look forward to during the morning commute.

It's known world-wide that stress causes head aches, and with a strange brain conditional already, I do my best to avoid it. Still, when stress hits, there's little left to do- except calm down. But now, thanks to the brand new Stress Watch, I can monitor my stress levels. These cool gadgets show the real time status of your stress by measuring heart rate, temperature and other relaxation/stress triggers.
        
The dial is used to point out a stress specific color that will reveal your stress level. Now, when you see it raising, you can take a breather immediately. Creators, Michael Mathis and Gerda Hopfgartner said "Let’s just add some more functionality to them [watches] since they have an advantage of tight contact with the human body.” It makes perfect sense to me, and they even come in two different colors just in time for use as corporate gifts. Everyone loves promotional watches in time for the New Year. And with the added stress of the holiday season, these stress watches may just prevent some freak outs and stress related industries.

Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang just visited Dubai yesterday to give a speech at American University of Dubai. After which he sat down and had a round table discussion where he voiced his love for all things Apple, Jen-Hsun Huang said "My son has two Macs, my daughter has a Mac, there's an extra Mac just in case and my wife has a Mac. It's just Mac, Mac, Mac! Because I know it's got the best stuff inside." But while he was having the discussion you couldn't help but notice the Apple Tablet Prototype on the table. Hmm this would make for an awesome corporate gift wink wink. 

 

 

Some of you may know that I spend a night out at my nanna’s condo every few weeks. Like many elderly people, she is widowed and often lonely. Unfortunately, my nanna is a fairly, "difficult" woman. She tends to voice her opinions when they aren't asked for and she could be considered a professional in gossip. The voicemails left on each of my family members cell phones always include a, "I know you're busy...but you never call me back," and a bundle of other guilt inducing words. When everyone hears these voicemails...they tend to stay away from her even further. I guess it's kind of like that crazy girl that keeps calling after that one night at the bar - except in a more matriarchal way.

I however am the nice guy, the one that calls the girl back and appeases her until eventually lying and saying he's moving out of the state to take care of his sick aunt - minus the lying part. Like all of my family members, I love my nanna. But unlike my other family members, I am able to deal with her shenanigans. It's been said that I'm her favorite. I bet it's because she knows I work for a promotional products company. FREE STUFF! That'll garner a #1 grandchild badge for anyone.

My nanna enjoys playing cards and teaching religious education to a class of 20 second-graders. She will only have one glass of wine, "With Ice!" and always points out, "How many young people there are!" whenever we go out. "Because you know Jenny, I am still young. I'm sharp!" she tells me. It's no surprise that she likes being around young people, as many of her friends and neighbors have been falling ill. It keeps her in good spirits to do things the "young people" do.

So when I saw an article about the latest trend in nursing homes, I decided I had to have my nanna over for a game of Wii bowling. Across the nation, the Wii game system has been gaining players. In fact, the first-ever national Wii League competition for senior communities is just taking off. It invited all seniors from assisted living homes to adult day care centers to join in on the virtual sport.
   
Some senior homes have adopted new Wii Wednesdays, where seniors enjoy games of Wii sports. There are even Wii family nights that invite all ages to join in on the fun. Henry Milliken, an 81 year old hadn't bowled in 40 years but bowled three strikes in a row when he picked up the Wii remote. This great liberation for many wheel chair bound and arthritis stricken adults is just what they need. I bet getting my nanna to throw some strikes at the virtual bowling alley could help to put her in better spirits too.

I think I may have even found her a bowling buddy. Sheila Perry, 72, a resident at Plymouth nursing home in Massachusetts said she was secretly practicing her skills on Wii. "I'm not telling my grandkids," she said. "I'm just going to go over there and play." Sounds just like the scheming nanna gets herself into. Now senior homes should start looking into promotional apparel imprinted with the Wii logo. Soon enough I'm sure we'll be seeing uniforms and the whole sha-bang. Maybe by then I'd have gotten my stubborn nanna to agree to join a league.