Google Glass Will Be Able To ID Someone In A Crowd, Based Only On That Person's Clothes

A new technology designed specifically for Google Glass could identify you solely based on your fashion sense. InSight, which is partly funded by Google, recently unveiled an app for analyzing the clothes and accessories people wear to later identify them, Paul Marks of New Scientist reports. Sure, there's already facial recognition, but clothing recognition can help you identify someone even if they have their back to you. The app creates a "fashion fingerprint" of what a person is wearing by taking photos of people as they use their smartphone. It then creates a file called a "spatiogram" to document colors, patterns, and other design elements from a person's outfit. Used in conjunction with Glass, you would easily be able to locate friends in crowded area, like at a music festival, for example. But once someone changes their clothes, Insight can no longer identify that person. That means the fingerprint is only good for a day or so, but at least it protects a person's long-term privacy. The system works 93% time, based on some early test results. InSight was developed by Srihari Nelakuditi at the University of South Carolina, along with fellow professors from Duke University.

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These Computer-Generated Women Look Real

RoartyOver at 3D graphics blog CGTrader, they've rounded up an eclectic collection of computer-generated images of women for International Women's Day.
 
Some are humorous and cartoony, but some are borderline photorealistic.
We've gathered some of the most impressive displays 3D graphics for you here.

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Google Maps Might Be Banned In Germany Over A Patent Dispute

The German courts are on the point of banning Google Maps over a patent dispute with Microsoft.

A judge in Munich has told Google and its subsidiary Motorola Mobility that he is inclined to hold them responsible for infringing a key mapping patent, it has been reported.

The patent refers to “a computer system for identifying local resources”, according to patent expert Florian Mueller.

Google has been unable to convince the court that the patent does not apply to the technology used in its mapping services.

Microsoft is seeking - and very likely to obtain, according to Mr Mueller – an injunction against the Google Maps service.

In order to comply with the likely injunction, Google would have to disable Google Maps from all computers using a German IP address.

It would also have to stop shipping the Google Maps Android app and only distribute web browsers in Germany only if they used internet filters to block access to Google Maps.

Microsoft originally only sued Motorola Mobility and its German subsidiary over the distribution of the Android app. It only engaged Google as a defendant after Motorola executives denied knowledge of how Google Map servers operated.

In order to maintain the service, Google would have to pay royalties to Microsoft for the Microsoft intellectual property that it uses for its maps. Samsung, HTC, LG and other makers of Android devices have already recognised the patent applying to the Microsoft technology and taken out licensing agreement.

The report comes as Google is accused of “arrogance” in the UK after it apparently ignored requests for privacy and published photographs of their homes from its Street View service. 

 

 More than half a dozen homeowners in Surrey asked the web giant not to post images of their properties online after it introduced Street View to Britain in 2009 over fears they could be used by burglars. Google duly blurred the pictures, only to republish fresh, unblurred ones later.

In separate news, it has emerged in a company email that Motorola Mobility is to cut more than 10 per cent of its workforce as Google moves to streamline its mobile phone business.

Google bought the loss-making Motorola for $12.5bn last year, its largest ever acquisition.

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Social Media is an Important Part of Your Marketing Mix, but Not the Only One.

Social media marketing is not a replacement for other marketing tactics and we highly recommend that you continue to do what has worked for you in the past.

Traditional marketing activities that still work for you, like advertising in a newspaper, sending direct mail and attending networking events, are still essential.

However, for most, social media marketing is now a critical component of an effective marketing strategy.
In fact, social media marketing works best when combined with other marketing activities, especially email marketing.

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Traditional vs. Social Media Marketing

Traditional Marketing 101

Most everyone thinks of marketing as the business of promoting and selling products or services.

Marketers commonly refer to a “funnel” to describe the way they attract new prospects and convert them into customers.
What Do We Mean By Funnel?

Traditionally, we've prioritized our limited resources and time on trying to find and convert new prospects (the top of the funnel).

Keeping those hard-earned customers (the bottom of the funnel) has often been an afterthought.

That’s because, until recently, there was little we could do to keep existing customers that was drastically different from the tactics used to attract new ones.

Historically, the best you could do after turning a prospect into a customer was to provide a great customer experience and just hope they come back to buy more—and bring their friends with them.

But technology, namely social media and email, has changed the game.

There’s little doubt that technology has changed our lives, the way we are influenced and how we influence others. But for marketing, it’s more than just doing the same old thing using new tools. Social media marketing isn't your grandmother's marketing—it's different from what most of us have traditionally learned about marketing.


Social Media Marketing — Flip that Funnel
Social Media Marketing is about recognizing that your existing customers are your best assets.

And technology now enables us to influence consumer behavior both before and after the sale.

With low-cost and easy-to-use tools like social media and email, you no longer have to hope that customers come back and bring their friends with them.

Now you can reach out to your existing customers to remind them to come back, and make word-of-mouth as easy as clicking the share, like, or tweet buttons.

Bottom line: successful businesses understand that marketing does not end with the sale, but rather it begins after the first sale (the bottom of the traditional sales funnel).

Joseph Jaffe, one of our favorite authors, calls this "Flipping the Funnel." (We just call it smart.)

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Social Media & Email Marketing Go Great Together

A report from Monetate, an e-commerce software firm, has found that email marketing is still driving more overall sales than social media efforts.

But there’s no need to start grappling your forehead and deleting Facebook Pages left and right. It’s important to keep in mind that all of these channels work together, not against each other.

Social media sites, in general, are a far more casual environment that can help build brand awareness, provide bite-size bits of industry information, and create communities among your customers.

That said, email has the advantage of directly reaching a single person. Not only that, you can use analytics to see what that person clicks and opens, which are statistics you can use to segment your list and direct different customers to personalized destinations.

So, if you're asking yourself the question, Don't be late contact us.

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Google Once Again Claims 67% Search Market Share

It’s hardly headline news that Google is by far the most popular search engine for users in the U.S. and most of the world. But what is headline worthy: for two of the past three months, Google has owned 67 percent of the U.S. search market.

Google hit the unprecedented search market share of 67 percent for the first time in November 2012, then dipped slightly to 66.7 percent in December, only to rebound to 67 percent in January, comScore reported.
In January 2012, Google’s search market share was still the far and away leader in the U.S., at 65.6 percent.
As we reported earlier this month, Google is the most popular search engine globally. That same report also revealed that Yandex had passed Bing to become the fourth most used search engine, behind Baidu and Yahoo, respectively.

Despite a renewed push with TV commercials promoting the Bing It On challenge, it seems U.S. users aren’t being convinced to break the Google habit. But it’s not all bad news for Google’s closest U.S. rival.
Bing reached a new milestone as well – 16.5 percent (up from 16.3 percent in December). In January 2012, Bing's U.S. search market share stood at 15.2 percent.

Microsoft’s search engine is still miles behind Google, even when you add in Yahoo’s Bing-powered search market share. Search results powered by Google totaled 69.3 percent in January, up from 69.1 percent in December, while Bing-powered searches held steady from December at 25.6 percent.

As for Yahoo, CEO Marissa Mayer has made no secret that she’s not happy with the Microsoft-Yahoo search deal, which has seen Yahoo and Bing basically swapping search market share over the past two years, rather than eat into Google’s gigantic lead. Holding to form, Bing went up, and Yahoo went down in January.
Yahoo’s search market share dropped from 12.2 percent in December to 12.1 percent in January. Yahoo’s search market share stood at 14.1 percent in January 2012. Yahoo has lost search market share 13 out of the last 16 months and has been dropping year-over-year dating back to January 2007, when Yahoo was at 28.1 percent.

Ask’s search market share dropped to 2.8 percent in January, down from 3 percent in December. AOL also declined – from 1.8 percent in December to 1.7 percent in January.

The number of core searches jumped to 17.6 billion in January, an increase of 11 percent compared to December. Google sites led the way with 13.1 billion searches (up 11 percent) followed by Microsoft sites with 3.2 billion searches (up 12 percent), Yahoo sites with 2.3 billion (up 9 percent), Ask Network with 536 million, and AOL with 331 million (up 7 percent).

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