Malls are scary: contagion glazed children touching everything, warring tribes of preteens lurking at each right angle, the caustic mix of air between Cinnabon and the perfume display in JC Penny, and of course you’re being followed. Your most trusted companion, your phone, is reporting your every move to servers for Path Intelligence, an England-based company. That little Benedict Arnold…

According to Path Intelligence, their product, FootPath, “can gather information on pedestrian behaviour [sic] and flow on a continuous basis, 24 hours a day 365 days a year, using mobile phone technology.”

FootPath works by placing monitoring units throughout the mall. These units pick up your cell phone signal and triangulate your position to within about six feet, allowing FootPath to track how you move about the mall and understand what makes you tick as a consumer. Do you gorge at Sbarro and then crawl with shame to Champs Sports? Spend an hour in FYE and then sneak out the back?

The malls using this technology do post signage to let you know, and you can turn off your phone if you don’t want to be tracked. Needless to say, there’s been an uproar by people concerned about their privacy, including U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer (D-NY), who sent letters to malls planning to implement the technology. In one letter, Schumer wrote, “A shopper should not have to choose between the ability to be in touch with friends and family in case of emergency and safeguarding her privacy.”

Some plans to install FootPath have been canceled or delayed due to security concerns. Path Intelligence is trying to assure people that the technology is safe. They state on their website, “At no time do we intercept any personal information and that includes mobile phone numbers. At all times shoppers remain anonymous to us.” Path Intelligence also notes that they do not collect or store information that could lead to identification.

Is this less imposing than security cameras that capture images of you and are really watching to see if you’re up to something? It’s a matter of degree. The cameras don’t seamlessly trace your path from the time you walk into the mall until the time you walk out. FootPath does. Like many developments in data mining, it’s the invasive potential of the technology that concerns people rather than the potential for a more feng shui mall experience.

For almost ten years, Pandora has been the biggest, although not the only, gun in town when it came to streaming music. Its utilization of advanced algorithms within the Music Genome Project, pairing music lovers with a deeper connection to what makes them happy using attributes rather than artists, was groundbreaking and ahead of its time. Sure, every once in a while Pandora decided your love of a minor key Stevie Wonder song must mean you love a dirge-like Bauhaus tune. This was the price to be paid. As in everything technological, however, time catches up, and Pandora is under siege by a number of newer and perhaps better alternatives.

Take, for example, Senzari. Still in beta testing and accessible by invite only, Senzari has an impressive number of advantages over Pandora. Most obvious is the selection of music—Senzari’s beta launch boasted 10 million songs (as opposed to Pandora’s roughly 900K), and it is available outside of the United States, something Pandora can’t offer. Additionally, Senzari integrates with Facebook seamlessly, allowing for a user to message friends and view their stations in real time. Although there are bugs to be worked out, the social media applications and the engaging design (including some fantastic artist photography) make Senzari a player. Senzari is scheduled to launch officially on three continents by the end of February.

Also relatively new to the game in the U.S. is Spotify. Spotify, a staple in Europe where it is headquartered, has been met enthusiastically in the United States by users who appreciate its unique part Pandora, part iTunes style. Spotify is downloadable software and can be used to manage an offline music collection as well as stream audio. Unlike Pandora, or most other streaming radio sites, Spotify lets you search for and listen to specific songs. With a base of 15 million tracks and a rapidly growing member base, Spotify is taking on Apple as well as Pandora. The drawback is that some artists are not available due to exclusive deals with iTunes. The Beatles and Led Zeppelin are two examples.

There are several other programs and sites fighting for space, like Grooveshark, Rhapsody and Slacker. But there’s no reason to believe there isn’t enough market share for several to flourish. Nevertheless, one thing is certain: the online music game is changing.

(DETROIT) — Watching a Detroit Symphony Orchestra concert has now become much easier – you can now watch from the comfort of your own home or office.

The Detroit Symphony Orchestra, DSO, partnered with Media Genesis, a Troy-based Internet services firm, to create an interactive viewing environment (www.dso.org/live) to broadcast “Live from Orchestra Hall,” a series of live HD concert webcasts.

The DSO said that it’s the only U.S. orchestra to offer a series of free webcasts and its last webcast was viewed by nearly 5,500 people.  Since launching the series in April 2011, more than 30,000 viewers in over 40 countries have tuned in to Live from Orchestra Hall.

Media Genesis designed the webcast page to immerse the viewer in the concert and give them the illusion of watching right from one of Orchestra Hall’s red theater chairs. Viewers can even dim the lights to imitate the lights lowering in a real concert.

Media Genesis built and programed the webcast page to give users to the ability to Tweet comments about the concert, interact with other concert viewers and follow the #DSOLive feed – all from the same page.  Views can also click to see a full schedule of upcoming webcasts and add them straight to their online calendar.

Check out the next free webcast titled “Ravishing Rachmaninoff” at 10:35 am on February 10.

Media Genesis services more than 300 companies and nonprofit organizations. An in-house team provides a wide range of services including web design, search engine optimization, social networking and design and development of e-learning systems, mobile applications, intranets and content management systems. For more information on Media Genesis, please visit www.mediaG.com.

A rapid increase in “Cloud” technology in 2011 changed the way users accessed their music, movie and web connections — it was only a matter of time before video gaming too moved to the heavens, so to speak. With the recent launch of services like OnLive, OTOY and Gaikai, this has become a reality that may change video games and their consoles forever.

Cloud computing is a phrase used to describe technologies hosted on a platform somewhere other than a user’s local machine, hence, ‘the sky.’ While the concept of using centralized technology for other users to access is the base foundation of the Internet, several technical aspects kept more advanced sharing concepts from being used, in particular, the advancements in the speed of processors and memory. Broadband connection speed and popularity and overall size of storage drives has allowed for items that were once best maintained locally to be broadly accessed in rapid speed using the Internet as a true conduit.

Enter gaming: long limited to local consoles due to the size and speed necessary for optimal graphics and gameplay intelligence. Cloud gaming now allows for a user to access games from anywhere with an Internet connection and viable graphics interface. There is no need to install software or insert a disk — it’s nearly instantaneous game play. Leading the charge is OnLive, a cloud gaming system that has already drawn rave reviews from industry insiders including Macworld and CNET. The user joins a subscription based service that gains them access to the OnLive game center where a user can play any of an impressive number of popular games including Assassin’s Creed II and Batman: Arkham Asylum. The OnLive center is accessible from computers, smartphones, a special OnLive gaming console and even some newer televisions. With such high critical praise and industry buzz, it is only a matter of time before others throw their hat in the ring.

Does this mean the death of traditional consoles? Not necessarily — traditional consoles still offer a wider breadth of titles and options like motion controls and Blu-ray playback. But there is no doubt, more and more users are giving cloud gaming a try and it may certainly be a game changer.

2012 is now here, but check out some noteworthy happenings within the technology world in 2011 that you may have missed.

Twitter Revamped

In its attempt to become more user-friendly, Twitter has gotten a redesign. The most notable change is to the navigation. “Connect” and “Discover” sections have been added to the top of the page. The “Connect” section allows you to easily see what is being said about you on other tweets and adds more user- friendly searching for companies and people.

The “Discover” section allows for better hash tag searching and tailors information over time to be based on your personal interests.

“Who to follow” has been added to the sidebar and is a way to discover people who have similar interests and are close to your network.

For businesses, Twitter has rolled out branded pages to make Twitter more enticing to potential advertisers. Currently, there are only about 20 companies that are able to expand their profiles, but the feature will soon be available to all companies. Twitter also added the ability to have a customized banner beneath a company’s account information.

More information: http://mashable.com/2011/12/08/twitter-launches-major-redesign-video/

Pandora has Competition: Senzari

Senzari, a Miami-based start-up has recently launched a private beta version with 10 million songs. Pandora, falls short at 900,000. Senzari has $2 million worth of private funding and features:

• Rights for radio webcasting in the U.S, Brazil and Spain
• The stations are personalized to each individual, not just your playing behavior
• Heavily integrated with Facebook, including messaging with Facebook friends
• Incorporates Flickr and Last.fm photos to complement the music

More information: http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/02/with-2-million-in-funding-senzari-prepares-to-take-on-pandora-with-a-larger-catalog-international-focus-invites/

New YouTube Design

YouTube has gotten a facelift and is growing in similarity to its owner – Google. The homepage has been redesigned to feature a left sidebar allowing you to create, personalize and easily add your YouTube channels. It is now geared to help you find the most relevant channels and videos for you. You can also browse recommended channels, personalize your home page feed, and link to Facebook and Google+.

Check out the redesign at: http://www.youtube.com

Spotify Emerges as Another Music Streaming Option

Spotify started in Europe and made its way to the States in July 2011. It is a free, ad-supported music streaming service. It’s different than Pandora in that it allows you to create your own playlists and it needs to be downloaded onto your computer. It allows users to sign in with their Facebook accounts and share playlists with friends. Spotify is free, but there are paid options as well. Recently, it announced it would open its technology to software developers and media companies so they could build apps to work within the Spotify system. When Spotify integrated more closely with Facebook in September, it increased by 7 million users, 500,000 of which were paying subscribers.

Check it out: http://www.spotify.com/us/

Flash Takes a Back Seat to HTML 5

Adobe announced in November that HTML 5 is now their preferred solution for developing and releasing content in the browser for mobile devices. Because of this change, Adobe will no longer continue to develop the Flash player to be compatible to work in browsers for new mobile device configurations. Adobe said HTML 5 is fast becoming the new standard and is universally supported on major mobile devices. The last release of Flash for Adobe will be version 11.1 for Android and BlackBerry PlayBook.

Read more: http://blogs.adobe.com/conversations/2011/11/flash-focus.html

Anyone working in the print or design industry knows about lorem ipsum. It’s dummy text, meaning text you throw onto a page to hold the place of future copy. Dummy text lets you set up layout and design features without distracting the reader with temporary copy, but what is lorem ipsum?

Printers have been using lorem ipsum since the 1500s. The name of the printer who started it has been lost to history, but lorem ipsum has survived into the digital age. But, again, what is lorem ipsum?

Lorem ipsum is scrambled text from a work by Cicero written in 45 BC, de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum (On the Ends of Good and Evil). It’s mostly about pleasure and pain. And, so you can get a feel for what it’s all about, here’s a translated passage from which some of the text (pre-scrambled) was taken:

“But I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system, and expound the actual teachings of the great explorer of the truth, the master-builder of human happiness. No one rejects, dislikes, or avoids pleasure itself, because it is pleasure, but because those who do not know how to pursue pleasure rationally encounter consequences that are extremely painful. Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but because occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure. To take a trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain some advantage from it? But who has any right to find fault with a man who chooses to enjoy a pleasure that has no annoying consequences, or one who avoids a pain that produces no resultant pleasure?”

Circumstances in which toil and pain procure great pleasure?  Yep, that’s pretty much the life of a designer.

Siri is changing what it means to be mobile. The more we’re on the move, the more ridiculous it seems to have to stop and type on a tiny, clumsy keyboard to look something up or make an appointment. Now, if you have an iPhone 4S, you can just tell Siri what you need.

Tell Siri you want Italian food, and Siri will tell you where to get it along with restaurant ratings. Tell Siri you need to hide a body, and Siri will give you a list of reservoirs, mines, dumps, and swamps (really).

Siri, for the first time, makes voice a viable user interface. Earlier technologies were awkward, imprecise, and single task oriented. Siri is smart. It learns your habits and can answer questions based on context. It can distill what you want out of your natural speech, and the more you use it, the better it gets at understanding you and your user trends. Siri will update your calendar, transcribe and send email, check the weather, find a bookshop, make a call, or look up talking points on Wikipedia. It’ll even talk to you and read your messages to you.

Everyone expected Apple to get into the search game, but no one thought it would be like this. Apple slyly jumped into search under the guise of a voice activated assistant. Sneaky. We think Siri and its kind will forever change the way we search. It also means that Google won’t always be the gatekeeper since Siri also uses local and user-review sites like Yelp.

Eric Schmidt, Google’s chairman, went so far as to say Siri could pose a competitive threat to Google. Why? Because when you ask Siri to look up that seafood place at the intersection of Main and William, you don’t need to see a Google ad for Red Lobster. Siri bypasses user interaction with Google, which includes bypassing Google’s ads. But remember that we’re talking about Google here. Google’s been the reigning champ in search for a long time, and competition will only push them to do what they do best: innovate. Google, however, may be obliged to share a piece of the pie.

So how is the future looking now that Siri is in the picture? Search will start to change rapidly. Not only is Apple building up an immense amount of data on how people use Siri and how they can improve it, but competitors have been given a spur in the side. Search is about to change in two big ways: this new way to interact with our machines will breathe a second wind into the already powerful trend toward mobile.  With a lot more of the process happening behind the scenes, Apple and Google will need to focus on both online and offline user experience to survive, which is good for us.

Siri is still technically in beta and the voice recognition can trip up on accents. The integration and interaction with databases and other iPhone applications make talking to Siri a meaningful exchange. And on a less technical note, Siri has personality.

Siri’s personality is probably what, at least in part, has fueled the rumors of the name. Siri was created by Dag Kittlaus, a Norwegian man who co-founded Siri in 2007 and got a fateful call from Steve Jobs last year with an offer to buy. While Siri, in Norwegian, means “beautiful and victorious,” there were rumors that Kittlaus named his company for Siri Kalvig, a business woman and famous meteorologist with whom he worked at Telenor. This caused some to theorize a co-worker crush. According to Kittlaus, however, he wanted to name his daughter Siri, but he had a son, so the name went to his company. And now, Siri may become a household name.

The technology industry lost a great innovator when Steve Jobs died this year at the age of 56. Jobs was known to demand center stage, which may have overshadowed the passing of Dennis Ritchie, Jean Bartik and Michael Hart. Without these visionaries, our favorite technologies, like Apple’s iPhone and Amazon’s Kindle, may never have existed. Each contributed a unique and vital part to the history of technology, from the infrastructure to the language to the idea of freely sharing content. We would like to honor these giants of technology.

Dennis Ritchie (1941 – 2011)

Dennis Ritchie developed the C programming language, which was a new philosophy in programming as much as it was a language. Concise and elegant, C and its progeny (including Java and C++) make up the world’s most popular programming languages. From this foundation, Ritchie, along with colleague Ken Thompson, developed UNIX—the predecessor of Linux and the heart and soul of many operating systems, including those of Apple.

Without Dennis Ritchie, personal computers and the Internet would not be what they are today.

Jean Bartik (1924 – 2011)

Jean Bartik was a lead programmer, one of the world’s first, on ENIAC (Electronic Numeral Integrator and Computer), the first all-electronic digital computer. Bartik, with a B.S. in mathematics, was employed by the Army as a computer (when the term referred to a person) to program ENIAC. She went on to help convert ENIAC into a stored program computer, reducing program set-up from weeks to hours, and later worked on UNIVAC, the first commercial computer.

At the time, Bartik and many other women programmers were not given the recognition they deserved. Bartik and her colleagues are now celebrated as pioneers of modern computing.

Michael Hart (1947 – 2011)

Michael Hart was the father of the e-book. On July 4^th, 1971, he typed the Declaration of Independence into a computer and made it available for download by users of Arpanet (a precursor to the Internet). This was the beginning of Project Gutenberg. Hart went on to hand type several books, including Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and the King James Bible. He saw that information sharing was the future and he continued his work for decades before the world caught up.

Currently, Project Gutenberg offers more than 36,000 e-books in several languages. According to Hart, one of the goals of Project Gutenberg is to “help break down the bars of ignorance and illiteracy.”

Every year, someone says social media is a fad. People said the same thing about the Internet, computers, televisions, telephones… You see what I’m getting at. Social media is here to stay, but it is going to change and grow and there will be winners and losers.

So who’s on the move? Google+ had a strong start but is slowing down. Is a second wind possible? Twitter’s still on the rise and they have a lot of growing room, especially in mobile. Facebook’s rise is not what it used to be, but that’s only limited by the planet’s population, and everyone is holding their breath for the IPO. YouTube is still the preferred way to share video content through these other services, and finally, could MySpace be headed for a comeback?

Get your social media stats fix.

Google+

Google+ gained 10 million users within the first 16 days after its private, “invitation-only” launch.  Within the 100 days after its public launch, Google+ gained 40 million users!  Consider this, Facebook and Twitter both took more than 730 days to hit the 10 million user milestone. This makes Google+ the fastest growing social network in the history of the web!

However, it looks like Google+ is starting to coast. Web analytics firm Chitika reported in October that interest appeared to have faded for Google+ one month after its public launch, with traffic down 60%. Google+ is a superior product in many ways, but it needs to find its niche. Facebook controls most of the market and users aren’t likely going to use multiple personal social networks.

Twitter

Twitter speed! It took 3 years, 2 months, and 1 day from the first tweet to the billionth tweet; now it takes one week for users to send a billion tweets.

Recently, Twitter acquired a start-up company, Whisper Systems, that makes software to improve security and privacy for smartphones and other mobile devices. With this new gain, Twitter increases security for its fast-growing tweets and gets some highly respected experts in the arena of online security.

Currently, Twitter has more than 100 million active users and more than 400 employees; a far cry from its launch in July 2006!

Facebook

Diageo, maker of Smirnoff and Guinness, spent more than $10 million on Facebook ads in September 2011. Sony Corporation is shifting 30 percent of its traditional ad budget into social sites.

An official registration for an initial public offering has yet to materialize, but people are gossiping about a Facebook IPO and a rumored $10 billion estimate as if it’s certain.  The longer Facebook waits before entering the public markets, the more money an eventual deal could bring. However, Facebook doesn’t even have to go public at all to raise money, given its track record in private markets.

Interesting fact: 1 in every 13 people in the world is on Facebook!

YouTube

The inspiration for YouTube as we know it today is recognized as a result of two events experienced by the three founders:  First was Karim’s inability to find footage online of Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction,” and the second was when Hurley and Chen were unable to share video footage of a dinner party due to e-mail attachment file size restrictions. Regardless of the reason, the company fetched $1.65 billion 20 months after launch.

The most watched video (other than music videos) is “Charlie Bit My Finger,” currently with 317 million views.  The most watched music video is Justin Bieber’s “Baby,” which currently has more than 536 million views!

ComScore’s October analysis puts YouTube in the forefront of online video media, hosting 49.1 percent of all videos viewed online in the US. There were 42.6 billion videos viewed in October!

The Return of MySpace?

MySpace has been sold!  An advertising network called Specific Media bought MySpace for $35 million—a major value drop from the $580 million acquisition by News Corp. in 2005.  Also, Justin Timberlake will take part ownership in MySpace and play a role in its hazy future.  Here is the vision for the new MySpace: Timberlake and Specific Media plan on focusing the site on entertainment, aiming to make it the place to go for original shows, videos, and music, a mix of YouTube and old school MTV.

According to MySpace, we should know more about Specific Media and Timberlake’s vision for the company by summer 2012.

(TROY, Mich.) – Antoine Dubeauclard, President of the Internet services firm Media Genesis, has been selected to serve as a representative for Detroit’s CEOs for Cities in the Talent Dividend Competition.

The Talent Dividend Competition will award $1 million to the participating city that achieves its Talent Dividend and shows the greatest percentage increase in post-secondary degrees over a four year period.

The Talent Dividend is a 1 percent increase in four year college attainment. Each percentage point is estimated to increase annual regional per capita income by $763. Achieving the Talent Dividend could translate to $3.4 billion for Detroit.

“What is exciting about this initiative is the collaboration among workforce development, non-profits, leading academic institutions and corporations all seeking to increase the rate of graduation in Michigan and increase the marketability of our workforce,” Dubeauclard said.

The Talent Dividend Prize is the result of collaboration among CEOs for Cities (www.ceosforcities.org), the Kresge Foundation (www.kresge.org) and Lumina Foundation for Education (www.luminafoundation.org).

The winning city will be announced in September 2014 and the prize money will be used for a national campaign promoting talent development.

“There is a huge demand in Detroit for qualified applicants in the IT field. So my participation in CEOs for Cities and in the Talent Dividend Competition isn’t fully altruistic; it is key to the continued growth of that sector and my own firm,” Dubeauclard said.

CEOs for Cities promotes the development of great cities. It has identified critical areas to urban success, including talent, connections, innovation and distinctiveness.

Other organizations that have participating members in the Talent Dividend Prize include the University of Michigan-Dearborn; Michigan Future, Inc.; Global Detroit; the Michigan Economic Development Corporation; and others.

Media Genesis is a leading Internet services firm based in Troy, Michigan. Media Genesis services more than 300 companies and nonprofit organizations. An in-house team provides a wide range of services including web design, search engine optimization, social networking and design and development of e-learning systems, mobile applications, intranets and content management systems. For more information on Antoine Dubeauclard and Media Genesis, please visit www.mediaG.com.