QR Code for the masses

I was very busy since my last post, lots of events, meetings and one Geekcon (wait for special post soon). But one of the events I remember the most is the presentation of ScanLife - the compnay that want to bring the QR Code to the masses. I'm sure now days almost everyone heard about or saw it, it's look like this one:

Scan me :-)

It used for one important purpose, to connect between offline and online. Or in other words, to make it easy and quick for the user to do that. For example, you see an ad and want to know more about the product, instead of typing the web site address of the product, you just scan the small QR Code on the ad with your cell phone and it will navigate you to the site automatically. Another example, there is an ad with a lottery where you need to send SMS with specific word to specific number. Instead of typing all the information, you just scan the QR Code and you have the SMS ready with the phone number and the text, all you need to do is just to click Send. And there are lots of other good examples.

ScanLife Logo

The irony is that the QR Code created by Toyota subsidiary already in 1994 (more on Wikipedia) and became popular only in the last few years thanks to companies like Google and ScanLife that pushed it to the users, as you know it's all about marketing (and timing). And there is also one important aspect that I like the most. Unlike in the online ads where you can measure everything, how much you spent on each ad and how much users you have from each ad or campaign, in offline ads you almost can't do it, you just put your ad on the billboard or in the bus station and hope that someone will see it.

No. of scans for each bus station for example.

Well now you can, with the ScanLife management system you can see exactly how much people scan each of your ad, and it can help you to save money, by putting targeted ads exactly where your audience is. Viva la Revolution!

Motorola is back

Nostalgic Intro (Already become tradition for this blog :-)

In the early 90s, when I was young (younger than now :-) computers were expensive and rare, one per home/family, if any at all. In the late 90s they became cheaper and popular, so I had 2 in my room, one in my brothers room and one sort of HTPC in the family room, I even was the first one in my area to setup wired network for Internet sharing, that was very cool, but there was one big problem with that, and it was even bigger a few years after that at work, when I had 2 desktops, laptop and cell phone - files and data synchronization.

The comeback logo?

I'm sure most of you spending lots of time in coping data from cell phone to laptop, from laptop to disk-on-key etc.. No wonder there are so many companies and products trying to solve this problem; SanDisk U3, DropBox, Google Bookmarks, Chrome Sync, Chromebook and the whole "Cloud Computing" concept in general. But it's still not the same like using only one device. That's why when I first heard about the Modu (RIP) one cell phone that you can use as your main device, I liked the idea, but not the implementation, guess I was not the only one, since the company was closed this year and even their site is down.
(Irony #1, in the Modu Wikipedia article, there is a link to Motorola Atrix in the See also section, saw it after I almost finished this article.)

Charlie Henderson, GM EMEA Region at Motorola

Last week I was invited to the presentation press conference event of the new products line by Motorola Mobility (Now independent company) Milestone 2 bussiness smartphone, Xoom tablet and the Atrix high-end smartphone, when about 90% of the time spent on the Atrix, and there's a reason why, this phone is AMAZING. It's Android based, dual core processor, 1 GB DDR2 RAM cell phone with the regular features microSD, 5.0 MP camera ..

Motorola Atrix

But the major two features of this phone IMHO are; First, it's extremely fast, you can see it by the spec already, at least at the demo it runs HD and multitasks very good. Hope I'll get him soon and will be able to really test it and write about it (Ahm Ahm ;-) Second, are the Accessories, and that's why important that this phone is fast, with the Standard dock or the HD multimedia dock you can easily turn your phone into a home media center with HDMI and remote control or to a home/office Webtop, and with the Lapdock to a fully functional laptop, and there is also Vehicle dock for you car.

HD multimedia dock

Now imagine, you wake up in the morning, eat, drink and all the blah blah, drive to the office using waze while talking on the same phone, in the office you use the same phone as your computer, on the road you use the same phone as laptop, in the evening at home you use the same phone to watch movies, no need to copy or synchronize anything. When you break or loose your phone, you get new one with all the "lost" data from the Cloud backup. O and yeah, no one can use your stolen data since there is fingerprint scanner on the phone! I think my dream is coming true ;-)

Giveaways, should I make it to another blog's tradition?

Nostalgic Outro aka Irony #2
The big irony that my very first phone was StarTAC by Motorola, yes not Nokia 5110 ;-)
I bought it in 1997, one year before the Nokia boom. It cost me around 3,000 NIS, you actually need to double or even triple it to get the price it would cost now days. Ahh for a high-school student it was well spent money that I earned very hard, and I liked him very much. Since than I never used another Motorola phone (except the Motorola Spirit device in the car and if you read this article you know why I hated every moment of it. Yes, since I had to synchronize all the contacts between the 2 phones every time)   After the StarTAC I used only Nokia, Nokia, Nokia, iPhone (very short period ;-) Samsung, Nokia and now BlackBerry, although I'm very happy with this device (Yes I really do!) I think it's time for Motorola to comeback,  and maybe people will really start to "Think Different".. (Irony #3)

Update 03/08/2011 16:30:
That was fast, less than 24 hours from this post and I got this one for test ;-) Thank you!

Motorola Milestone 2

Update 15/08/2011 14:30:

Google buys Motorola Mobility for $12.5bn ;-)
A few friends reported that this page is already offline so just use Google search:
Google buys Motorola Mobility

Here are some more links:
http://investor.google.com/releases/2011/0815.html
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/08/supercharging-android-google-to-acquire.html
http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/15/breaking-google-buys-motorola-for-12-5-billion/

P.S. My post title was sort of predictive.

P.P.S. In the next few days I'll post my Google Milestone 2 review :-)

Ferrari & Kaspersky

What's the connection you ask? (Except the fact that they're both very famous last names ;-)

I'll explain, but first I have to take you about 10 years ago, when I was huge Ferrari fan. No, the truth is that I have to take you a few years before that, late 90s, when I still wasn't F1 fan. While my only 10 years old brother used to watch it regularly, and I asked him every time, "what's so interesting in watching 20 cars doing almost the same for more than 2 hours?" Until once he said, "Just sit, watch and you'll see!" Since then I was hooked up for the next few years.

Shame on me for abandoning this hobby for the last few years blaming lack of time and other excuses.. Anyway last week I saw a few photos on Facebook from the Moscow City Racing and wrote "I want to be there!!!" Lucky me and 2 days after that I was invited to special Ferrari & Kaspersky event in Israel.

Dancing Camael pub and brewing company

At the very unofficial event, that took place at the Dancing Camael pub and brewing company, Alexander Moiseev from Kaspersky, the man behind the partnership between Kaspersky and Ferrari explained that it's more than regular sponsorship, Ferrari F1 cars even use some special software by Kaspersky, apparently this guy is also race driver by himself. And I thought to myself, isn't that cool when you can combine your hobby and work, or to sponsor your childhood favorite team, Ferrari for example ;-)

Alexander Moiseev

After that, Ilan Froimovich from Power Communication - local Kaspersky distributor, explained that all the hype around the "Cloud computing" in the last few years is nice, but you still want local software to protect you, totally agree with that! What reminds me that it was very long time since my last laptop/cell phone/email local backup, and what about you?

Giveaways: Condoms, Kaspersky Internet Security Special Ferrari Edition and Official Ferrari Cap

They also presented the Kaspersky Internet Security Special Ferrari Edition and gave us a copy. So now after I have Ferrari Cap I think it's time to back to this hobby and maybe even buy some tickets for one of the next season races.

Ferrari F150 Simulators at the event

And finally, If you will have enough money/time/power what team/company will you sponsor and why?

Update 26/07/2011 13:00: 
This morning I twitted about this post, 5 minutes after that I've got email with the subject:
"Eugene Kaspersky (@e_kaspersky) is now following you on Twitter!" he also retweeted my post:

Twitter

Really nice, this is how top companies and their CEOs should act these days.

Update 31/07/2011 12:30: 

Anonymous source sent me this print screen and wrote that Kaspersky Lab even used my blog for good internal case study:

Kaspersky Intranet/Newsletter

WOW! Thank you guys! I really appreciate it.