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Essential Android Apps for Business

I have been an Android user ever since the first day the first Motorola Droid was available for Verizon back in 2009.  Over the years, I’ve accumulated some experience using Android on phones and tablets, and certain apps have made this experience better for me at work.  Here’s my list of essential Android apps for business...

....This list reflects the way I work, and your style of working may require different apps.  I have a lot of meetings (including conference calls and WebEx sessions), travel a lot (locally, domestically, and internationally), and need to view and edit a lot of documents. 

I spend a lot of time with customers, have a quota, and need access to the corporate intranet.  I write a lot of Microsoft Office documents, and read and write hundreds of e-mails per day

Read Dennis Moore's list on the Enterprise Irregulars site

The Big Easy contributes apps to Super Bowl

Nice to see the Super Bowl giving New Orleans developers a chance to show off their talent. If you have been to the Big Easy even outside of Mardi Gras you know how crazy busy its attractions, especially on Bourbon Street (in picture) get.

NOLA on the Codemakers Super Challenge:

“The grand prize (went to) an app to help diners locate open seats at restaurants. Members of the New Orleans Super Bowl Host Committee had sought such a service, saying they hoped to avoid problems that unfolded around the NFL's championship game in Indianapolis last year when some eateries became overcrowded as others waited for customers. The app focuses on promoting restaurants that are not already booked for the football extravaganza. The establishments would update their wait times so Host Committee volunteers could visit congested spots and show people on tablet computers where they can find shorter lines.

Second place went to an app that helps people locate live music taking place across the city. Third place went to a digital tip jar that lets music fans tip performers through electronic payments. And the winner of a special prize, including $1,000 donated by the New Orleans 3D computer modeling firm TurboSquid, went to an app that identifies activities and amenities in parks and playgrounds across the city.”

Bruce’s World

Amazing logistics for an iconic 44 page spread in Vanity Fair by photographer Bruce Webber

“Just consider what it took, in terms of numbers, to complete the project, which stretched over a period of eight days in nine iconic locations in Los Angeles, including the Beverly Hills Hotel, Musso & Frank Grill, and the Hollywood Center Studios’ back lot. Approximately 125 people were photographed, more than 75 of them actors, plus the world-famous U.S.C. Trojan Marching Band and its Song Girls (read “cheerleaders”). In addition to the truckloads of apparel assembled in Los Angeles, 10,000 articles of clothing were shipped from New York in 95 trunks and 19 crates and arranged on 131 racks, with 500 pairs of shoes, hats from three continents (Australia, Europe, and North America), and swimsuits from three as well (Europe, North America, and South America). Approximately $3 million worth of designer jewelry spanning two centuries was brought in to complement the clothes, and everything, including 200 pairs of sunglasses, was carefully laid out on tables in the 11,000-square-foot hangar at Milk Studios in Hollywood, which became known as home base.”

Surf Air: No TSA, no tickets

In Eyerly's mind, fixing air travel meant starting an airline that opts out of the TSA and tickets altogether. The result is Surf Air, the first all-you-can-fly carrier. For $1,000 a month, members will be able to travel anywhere on Surf Air's system as often as they'd like. Beginning at the end of 2012 (pending FAA approval), the airline will link four California regions--Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, Monterey, and the San Francisco area--using eight-seat planes outfitted like private jets. From there, it plans to expand regionally and then nationally, connecting short-hop city pairs such as Seattle-Portland or Dallas-Austin and avoiding congested hubs in favor of small airfields with no waits and no bureaucrats.

Fast Company

Photo Credit

Rethinking China’s Cities

“As China modernizes its agricultural sector over the next 25 years, the number of its farmers will shrink dramatically. And many of those workers will move to cities. Overall, it's expected that China will need to house some 300 million additional people in urban areas. To put that in perspective: Providing housing for that many people is roughly the equivalent of building from scratch all the cities and towns in the U.S. and doing it in only a quarter of a century. The price tag for all this construction is an estimated $160 trillion -- more than 10 times the size of America's GDP.

This unprecedented demographic shift presents the Chinese with a chance to rethink their cities, making them more sustainable. That's something that's not lost on Peter Calthorpe, a world-class urban designer who has been hired to develop plans for six new cities in China. His Berkeley-based firm, Calthorpe Associates -- which has redesigned urban landscapes in California, Dubai, and Rotterdam, to name a few -- focuses on creating mixed-use, pedestrian-oriented places that are affordable and energy-efficient.”

Fortune continues with an interview with Peter

Photo Credit: Calthorpe Associates of the Ellipse Gateway at Yuelai Eco-City being planned in northern Chongqing, China

Mid-level recruiting goes more social

GE has built an internal recruiting staff of about 500 in the last six years. In 2012 the team, helped by LinkedIn (LNKD) and BranchOut (a Facebook app) filled most of GE’s 25,000 openings, about 10 percent of which were executive and senior professional positions. They completed most searches in about 73 days, compared with the average 170 days it takes outside firms. “We still use outside recruiters but only when they’re absolutely required—for confidential searches or very specialized jobs,” says Steven Knox, who heads recruiting at GE for markets outside the U.S. and Europe.

The company’s cost savings have been substantial—close to $100 million last year in search firm fees alone, according to a person familiar with the matter who wasn’t authorized to discuss it publicly. Even more important, Knox says, GE is able to keep attractive candidates on its radar for future searches and find hires who better fit its culture. Explains Knox: “Our recruiters know what it takes to work here.”

BusinessWeek

Photo Credit

Your Tax dollars at work

For MIT Technology Review a nice historical summary of US R&D spend via agencies like NASA, DoD etc. Click on image twice to enlarge.

 

Filming the Giant Squid

Watch the full program on Discovery tonight at 8 eastern

Scientific American on the Medusa camera which was used in the filming

“Although very little sunlight penetrates to the deep sea, many deep dwellers produce a bioluminescent light…Widder and her colleagues therefore fitted Medusa with an electronic device that mimicked the bioluminescence that jellyfish produce when attacked to serve as a lure. It worked: Medusa first encountered a squid during its second deployment, igniting jubilation on the ship. “I just was blown away,” says Widder,” I couldn’t have been happier.”

Medusa ended up encountering a squid five times, culminating with a full view of one apparently attacking the camera system in a manner consistent with the alarm hypothesis. The squid was about 4 meters long, although giant squid can grow as large as 10 meters or more.

During a dive about a week after the first Medusa success in their Triton submersible, Kubodera and pilot Jim Harris had a face-to-face encounter. Once they had taken enough low-light footage, they turned on the sub’s bright main lights, expecting to spook the squid. Instead, the animal continued to feed on bait tied to the sub. For 18 mesmerizing minutes the pair watched as the huge animal’s skin shifted between unexpected gold and silver metallic hues.”

The Argus-IS “super camera”

Amazing 1.8 gigapixel camera that I saw in a Nova show on drones – extract in video below.

Here is how DARPA describes ARGUS

“The Autonomous Real-time Ground Ubiquitous Surveillance-Imaging System (ARGUS-IS) program is developing a real-time, high-resolution, wide-area video surveillance system that provides the warfighter a minimum of 65 VGA video windows across the field of view.  Each video window is electronically steerable independent of the others, and can either provide continuous imagery of a fixed area on the ground or be designated to automatically keep a specified target (dismount or vehicle) in the window.”

The DARPA web page also shows a  (somewhat) high resolution of the Quantico, VA map shown in the video.

This will change surveillance, pipeline monitoring, drought tracking and so many other non-defense related activities. Also imagine the Big Data projects that the stored images will spawn!

A scanner for the TSA to consider?

Most customers VOLUNTARILY go into this Me-Ality Scanner

"A wand rotates around the body and, in about 10 to 15 seconds, the machine takes measurements from over 200,000 points. Once you've finished the scan, a list of clothes  from partnered retailers will populate on Me-Ality's website -- which can be printed or emailed."