Whatever...

I robot, you Jane?

By Jacqui Depares

Stumbling through a copy of The Times last week, I was drawn to an article recounting Will Pavia’s date with Heart Robot.  Yes, that’s right. A robot.

Heart Robot was, until last week, the main attraction at The Science Museum and is an emotionally literate robot – meaning that he responds to movement and touch, and that his heart beat races should you grip his shoulder, as Will Pavia did. Shocking, given it was only their first date.

The publicity around Heart Robot coincided, quite aptly, with the launch of Disney Pixar’s hotly tipped WALL.E. Here we find ourselves following the tale of a robot called WALL.E who is designed to clean up earth in its polluted state.  WALL.E however falls in love with Eve, a fellow robot on another planet, and whilst I won’t spoil the ending for those of you who haven’t seen it yet, suffice it to say that Disney doesn’t disappoint.

So, what’s the relevancy of this? Well, if Heart Robot shows us anything, it’s that emotionally literate robots, like WALL.E (but perhaps without the Disney charm) – could soon be a reality for us.  Something, which whilst conceptually seems pretty cool, is nonetheless quite something to get our heads round.  And whilst I’d love to think that a future with robots would be more like having your own personal Johnny 5 from ‘Short Circuit’, the reality could in fact be like something from ‘The Terminator’ or Sonny in ‘I, Robot’ gone evil.

Delving into this a little bit further I had a quick search on the net to see what else I could discover on this topic. From a quick search it seems that 18 months ago there was even talk of creating a “code of ethics” for machines to protect them as they grow in sophistication.  Indeed, one professor at the time even asked the question “What happens if robots turn out to be sexy?”, whilst another – the acclaimed artificial intelligence expert David Levy – claimed that by 2050 robot lovers will be commonplace.

Now whilst this is a road I don’t think we should travel down for the purposes of this blog – the point it makes is clear. Robots could in the not too distant future become a part of everyday life.  So, next time you go to the cinema, or settle down on the sofa to watch yet another re-run of ‘I, Robot’, just think – the fiction could soon become a reality.

IT decision makers trust traditional media over blogs

By Mike King

Research carried out last month by Vanson Bourne, the specialist IT and telecoms research firm, gives some interesting insight into which information sources IT decision makers trust the most. 

The research, based on online interviews with 230 senior and middle IT managers in companies with more than 250 employees, found that on average, time is pretty evenly split between reading paper-based and online information sources. Unsurprisingly, over 90% of IT decision makers say they spend more time gathering information online than they did a couple of years ago.

What’s really interesting is that traditional IT publications are still seen as the most trusted source of information for keeping up to date with technology developments (by 81% of respondents), ahead of online only IT publications (66%), industry specific titles (66%) and the business media (65%).

At the other end of the scale, blogs (whether IT or industry sector focused and written by journalists or not) were seen as the least trustworthy source of information (rated as trustworthy by 25% or less of those surveyed) with only 16% making a point of following particular blogs.

Security in progress – do not smile!

By Susan Schier

Having married and taken on a new last name, I recently had the pleasure of diving into a whole lot of paperwork. Or rather, diving online, as most of this bureaucracy has become electronic in the past few years – though this doesn’t really make it any easier.

Security-driven regulations have increased considerably, with biometric data continuously being taken. For example, photographers of passport photos have to be real specialists today – the size of the photo as well as your head on it have to be exact, and you need to look straight into the camera with your hair back, but do not smile! Border officials should not be distracted by a friendly face when trying to spot potential criminals...

Even the smallest municipality in Germany’s countryside is now equipped with devices to take citizen’s fingerprints – just place your right index finger, then your left finger on the scanner. No ink, that’s it.

This made me think a bit about current security developments.

The applications of biometric technology have only just begun. For example, the authorities at the upcoming Olympic Games in Beijing will do their best to prevent ‘fake athletes’ from attending, as biometric technology has been used since Athens 2004 as a security measure against potential attacks. Another prominent example is Walt Disney World - in order to stamp out resold park passes, visitors must now leave their scanned fingerprints in the Disney security system.

However, characteristics such as palm structure, lip movements, keystroke dynamics, brain waves and more have barely been explored. The problem is that many believe the misuse of biometric information can never be completely avoided. 

To prove this, German hacker group “Chaos Computer Club” published a fingerprint of our Home Secretary Wolfgang Schäuble in its magazine Die Datenschleuder. Vendors, therefore, are continually being challenged to better protect this data.

It’s certainly a controversial subject, but sometimes it’s easy to forget that most of these measures are ultimately designed to increase our security – and there’s nothing wrong with that. After all, wouldn’t it actually be really nice to feel completely secure when travelling, attending large events, accessing your employer’s network or making purchases via the internet?

Nike takes a stab at smart PR… and fails

By Jonathan Mathias

Before last week, I bet you'd never heard of the Nike Air Stab.  But as a bit of a trainer fiend, I was well aware of this decidedly average design of shoe, first released in 1988, and one of the many old designs that Nike has been reissuing in recent years (because it can’t come up with any decent new trainer designs). 

Yet suddenly, and without apparent provocation, Nike announces that it’s doing all of us a favour by withdrawing these widely unknown trainers from sale because they happen to be inappropriately named due to the current, arguably over-reported, climate of knife crime. 

What’s all that about then?

Call me cynical, but I reckon this was a stunt and, in my opinion, it backfired badly – someone in marketing hurriedly decided that, under the guise of CSR, it might be a good idea to pull a product that wasn’t doing terribly well just to get some quick column inches. 

But is this really a good thing for Nike?  Why did they even feel the need to announce it rather than just discreetly removing the offending product? Nike doesn’t need this kind of publicity - if anything, people are now more likely to subconsciously associate Nike with teenagers killing each other.  Not exactly great branding.

PS: Being even more cynical, if Nike were hoping to artificially create some kind of cult status around the Stab, it looks like they’ve got a long way to go yet.

PPS: For all the trainspotters – the name ‘Stab’ is a reference to the enhanced stability that the shoe claims to give its wearer. 

Game on: next gen beat ‘em ups vs. trad platformers

By George Mensah

The evolution of the gaming industry has brought with it a whole new level of engagement - motion joypads, exercise boards, high definition graphics, online multi-player capabilities, to name but a few.  However, as if that wasn’t enough, the next generation of games publishers are driving a new trend in multi-channel, digital crossover.

The FT reported that Activision Blizzard are currently developing an online music platform for ‘Guitar Heroes’, set to rival iTunes. At first glance, this might seem like nothing more than a pipe dream - but given the company’s business connection to Universal Records, the Activision platform would not only have a captive audience, but could also have access to a vast music library, advertising and distributing tracks at will.

So what does this all mean for game players the world over?

The Activision initiative is just one example of the battle in the industry between traditional platform publishers and new-style ‘jutsu’ publishers, emerging with ‘beat ‘em up’ distribution techniques.  The industry is now teeming with e-commerce activity, with digital reality environments breeding concepts such as virtual currency and property. But of more interest are the new methods of game player targeting and cross-selling opening up online.

Publishers and gaming corporations are now focused on developing tools and capabilities online that allow consumers to access games and associated collateral in more diverse ways.  With Playstation currently at the forefront of downloadable titled games, it wouldn’t be surprising if before long, we see a lot more media available through this channel. Revenues that were once driven by shelf sales are now increasingly being managed through online selling, and innovative payment methods like micro transactions mean that purchases can take place a lot faster and more efficiently. 

Granted, not all publishers or companies may decide to develop a platform as innovative as Activision. However, what we can be sure of is that consumers will continue to tap into alternate channels for games, music and videos, and that the makers will not want to miss out on these new ways of targeting and securing customer loyalty – otherwise, it could be ‘Game Over.’

The freetards are winning – and I blame society

By Joe Banks

More hoo-ha this week about, as Telecom TV puts it, ‘all the nasties being smuggled through the European law-making machine as part of the so-called European Union telecom package’ (or ‘telecom packet’, as the BBC amusingly refers to it as).

What’s that? you ask, stifling a yawn.  Well, it’s a series of measures that’s designed to standardise telecoms regulations across the EU (you know, the type of thing that would have your average UKIP member foaming at the mouth), but which a lot of people have interpreted as the thin end of a wedge that’s going to force ISPs to penalise customers who illegally download or share copyright material.

Yes, we’ve been here before on the JK blog, but this latest development got me thinking about the wider issue around this subject, namely our culture of increasingly expecting something for nothing.

A strange side effect of the pervasive spread of the internet is that we’ve all become used to being able to find everything pretty much at the click of button.  It’s given us ‘freedom of information’ in its purest sense, unlocking a deluge of words and images on a scale that’s unprecedented in human history.  And for many people, particularly the ‘younger generation’ J who don’t even remember a time before the internet, this breadth and ease of access is regarded as an absolute right.

A knock-on from this is that freedom of access to other digitised materials such as music and film is also seen by many as a right – or at least as something that needn’t trouble their wallet.  The Register has memorably described such people as ‘freetards’ – much to their annoyance – but the fact remains that despite, on the one hand, appeals to their conscience, and on the other, the threat of legal action, there’s a significant chunk who can’t see what’s wrong with getting cool stuff for free.

The problem is, how do you get the genie back in the bottle?  I think that, unless you bring in some super radical measures that are going to put everybody’s nose out of joint, it’s just not possible.  The nature of the internet and the digital format of so much entertainment these days means that people will always find a way to ‘steal’ content – cos only mugs pay for things, right?

Of course, it’s not just the internet that’s given rise to this culture of entitlement.  In fact, it could be argued that the internet has merely been a perfect vehicle for the practice of an impulse that's been rife in consumer society for decades now ie. living on the never never.  Why save up your hard-earned cash for that car/three-piece suite/exact reproduction of Stonehenge in miniature when you can ‘buy now, pay later!’  Only this time, you don’t even have to pay!  Avoid the credit crunch altogether!

And finally, before I sink into a morass of cynicism (I love it really!), and getting back to my original jumping off point of the telecoms packet, isn’t it odd that while we hear lots about the content providers gnashing their teeth with rage and the ISPs worrying about potentially having to dob in their own customers, we don’t actually hear much from the telecoms operators themselves, who in a way have more to gain than anybody from measures that restrict P2P activity on their networks?

Damn, cynical again...

The song remains the same

By Tom Kirkham

Having previously talked about ‘the subject line of death’ from the journalist perspective, I started thinking about the PRO’s equivalent.  One candidate has got to be “Major press outreach planned for release v1.5307”.  Receiving this email from a client is sure to strike fear into the heart of even the hardiest B2B tech PR practitioner because, while Coldplay would appear to be living proof that yes, it is possible to release the same thing over and over again and still get reams of press coverage, this isn’t necessarily the case in our line of work.

Pressure to publicise a particular product/upgrade can come from many places within an organisation, and not necessarily from the people controlling the marketing calendar.  From a technical standpoint, there’s often good reason for this – v1.5307 may look identical and do essentially the same job, but behind the scenes, months of hard work have gone into tightening virtual nuts and bolts in order to make it more efficient and secure. 

Problem is, most IT journalists are not code junkies, and no amount of spin is going to make them cover a new software release on its own.  But this is often a hard lesson for companies to learn, because even if v1.5307 has sunk like the proverbial

le(a)d zeppelin, there’s every chance you’ll soon be asked to announce v1.5308 and v1.5309 as well. 

So, where should the line be drawn with these things?  I mean, from the amount of downloading my computer does, it seems as though Vista is being updated every single day, and with many security apps, there are new malware definitions rolled out every five minutes.  What’s worth announcing and what’s not?

The simple fact is that while technology is constantly being improved, development happens gradually. No bad thing in itself (if it ain’t broke...), but from a messaging perspective, it can be quite difficult to keep people interested.  Subsequently, one of the biggest challenges of tech PR, and indeed of tech journalism, is to continually find new angles on and new ways of talking about what are often the same old topics. 

What this means is that companies have to look outside of development cycles and production schedules if they want the world to care about what they do.  They need to understand that they don’t operate in a vacuum, and that context is everything – could their latest software release be important in terms of new legislation, changing market conditions, or an emerging trend? 

And this is where the good PRO can earn their stripes because often, it’s up to us to make these type of connections, particularly in local markets.  Believe me, it’s not only good PR, but it’s better for your sanity and general self-esteem.  That is, unless you enjoy the sound of journalists’ phones being slammed down before you can get to the end of that release number...

A recipe for making popcorn… or PR corn?

By Alexandra Radius

Here’s what’s been causing a stir the past few weeks in France: a video on YouTube showing some people putting corn in front of their mobile phones – and ending up with popcorn thanks to the radiation emitted during a call!

Lots of journalists have taken this video and created a real buzz around it, particularly as a new way to talk about the risk of mobile phone radiation.  Plus, word of mouth works very well with new technology, so guess how I first received this video?  On Facebook of course!

Of course, inevitably, it’s a hoax video for a brand of Bluetooth headset designed to scare people into thinking that mobile phones emit a dangerously high level of radiation and that they really should use a headset.

But I’m asking myself, is it really such a good marketing tool to scare customers into thinking they need a product? I’m pretty sure that French mobile carriers wouldn’t have been too happy to see the video on the internet, especially two days after a report by scientists showed the possible negative effect of mobile phones on your health.

Simple coincidence? Maybe, but it creates a real fear about mobile phones and I’m beginning to wonder how far is too far with a buzz campaign? Is the main purpose of communication to get your brand talked about even if it’s in connection with something negative? Is there really no such thing as bad publicity?

I’m not so sure, because in a Web 2.0 world, blogs and forums can very quickly turn consumers against a brand by generating negative buzz too.  There is a very fine line between buzz marketing and scaremongering techniques, and companies who cross it do so at their own risk.

Judgement Day for MS OS – will Windows be terminated?

By Jonathan Mathias

Well, the answer is no, but Windows XP, which you are most likely using as you read this, more or less will be.  Yes, Microsoft, like some ruthless mother hen, has decided that 30 June is the day when all new chicks must migrate to Vista. 

Having gone through the transition from XP to Vista at Johnson King, I can say that, though the road was unsurprisingly bumpy, we got there in the end and it’s not that bad. 

Although I miss the simplicity of XP, I’ve become quite accustomed to the face of Vista – much of the apparently pointless superficial gloss actually does make for a more pleasant user experience, even though it’s a pain having to make allowances for the fact that the grand majority of people won’t be able to open the spanking new Word document you’ve just sent them. 

But with the Vista kerfuffle barely subsided, we’re hearing more rumblings from Microsoft about the imaginatively titled ‘Windows 7’ – anyone would be forgiven for thinking that Vista wasn’t quite ready when it came out.  Of course this is nothing new for Microsoft, as the same thing happened with Windows98. 

But perhaps a bigger question is will people keep buying Windows when Linux is free? 

Though it’s not always been plain sailing, it’s relatively easy to get programs and devices working with Windows.  However, while open source software has historically not been for the faint of heart, that’s starting to change. There are now open source operating systems and applications that are equally as well documented as their commercial alternatives, and the bugbear of compatibility is being tackled head-on.

Almost a hundred years ago, Henry Ford supposedly said, “a customer can have a car in any colour, as long as it’s black”.  Back then, a Model T was pretty much your only option, but as we all know, things change.  Windows may have only just turned twenty, but I wonder if it’s time we started to see some big changes on the desktop?

Peers go Web 2.0 – Lords help us!

By Tom Kirkham

When I saw the headline ‘House of Lords reaching out to young with YouTube', images of Peers breakdancing, knocking back absinthe and playing air guitar to Sweet Child O’ Mine flashed through my mind.
 
Imagine my disappointment then on finding that it was actually about our second chamber’s decision to embrace ‘the internet’ in a bid to shake off apparently outdated stereotypes and provide engaging, thought provoking content for the youth of today.
 
The news seems to typify the now commonplace notion that if your organisation feels out of touch with the younger generation, starting a blog or posting an online video is a sure-fire way to win them back.  It implies that, in an era of increasing political disaffection in the UK, the Lords' lack of youth appeal is nothing to do with the fact that it’s an archaic, unelected body composed mainly of slumbering landed gentry. On the contrary, it's because it isn't on YouTube!
 
I don't wish to slate the actual videos that Parliament has made available - when I typed 'House Of Lords' into YouTube I found the ensuing content both compelling and hilarious.  But I do think the prevailing attitude that, invariably, youth = Web 2.0, is pretty patronising, and serves only to reinforce the fact that yes, these organisations are completely out of touch!
 
Generally speaking, there’s already a massive gulf between the way young people are perceived, and the way they actually are.  Simply using online communications channels to rehash the same tired messages is… well, a phrase involving an old dog and new tricks springs to mind.
 
So I don’t really see the House Of Lords’ move into the world of social media making all that much difference.  After all, surely the young people of today are far too preoccupied with roaming the streets in gangs and stabbing one another to read about the lobbying capabilities of our honourable Peers?