Disney Magic via Big Data and MagicBand

Interesting examples of a company providing magic via big data.  Disney, quite an entertainment colossus now, is known for leveraging emerging technology. Only one example:

" ... Enter: The MagicBand. It's the magic potion, so to speak, for Disney's MyMagic+ initiative. A wearable piece of technology, customized with your color preference and name, and equipped with RFID as well as a (rumored) long-range radio transceiver. While donning the band on Disney property, your to-the-minute behaviors are collected, processed and activated in real time so that Disney can respond more efficiently and relevantly than ever before. It eliminates the need for room keys, parking tickets and credit cards, thus creating the ultimate convenience for park-goers while also providing Disney with critical data on the behaviors of it's customers. ...  " 

End of Build it Yourself Software

In GigaOM:   This has been happening for a long time, but recent excursions through enterprise halls show this is becoming more true.   Much less is being purpose built.  Yet if you look at what is actually done, what people are doing looks much like programming.   Or at least carefully arranging to make sure it works. That often requires a good logical understanding of what works.   Under a particular set of application rules.

Advisory System for Recipes

Bon Appetit articles on the use of advisory systems to build or enhance food recipes.  Including a number of actual recipes created this way.  Are the creative?  How would creativity be built into the problem.  Still awaiting my subscription to this capability to test it further.  Includes an interesting history of cooking with computers.

Linkedin Retiring InMaps

We were exposed to this tool some time ago as a means to gain insight into corporate structure.  Now Linkedin is retiring it.  Would like to hear of cases where it was used practically by organizations, beyond simple curiosity.  The service is now already unsupported.  Linkedin says they plan to replace it with an alternative network visualization method.  Previously here on Inmaps.

Updating Our Address in the Galaxy

I like to know my address.  GPS now provides me with one accurate location metric.  Now Nature reports on another measure: " ... Earth's new address: 'Solar System, Milky Way, Laniakea' ... Analysis of galaxies shows local supercluster to be 100 times larger than previously thought. ... " . Add that to your drivers license.  A nice (Big) data visualization video is included.  Which visualizations describe the results well. .  The clustering methods used made me think of applications to other fields.

Resources for Cognitive App Development

Have been exploring in more depth some of the detail behind IBM Watson/Cognitive.  Particularly interested in how this differs from work we did in the 90s in the field of what we then called  'expert systems', a practically oriented subset of AI.  That work was successful, but ultimately not sustainable and did not meet hype expectations of the time.    Jim Spohrer of IBM sends along a link to some useful introductory video resources. " ...  on developing cognitive apps - part of the Cognitive Computing Courses going on at ten major universities now, with access to the Watson Developer Cloud ..  " 

Capturing Sentiment from Financial News

From the ACM:   Talk on determining sentiment and prediction from text analysis in financial news.  This requires filling out a registration.  " ... Can the choice of words and tone used by the authors of financial news articles correlate to measurable stock price movements?  If so, can the magnitude of price movement be predicted using these same variables ... " 

How Retail Hacking Works: Danger at Point of Sale

A very instructive piece in the Cisco Blog about how retail hacking at point of sale works, and how it can be addressed.  Must reading.   " ... With the announcement that yet another major retailer has allegedly been breached, it is important to review how attackers compromise retail systems and how such intrusions can be prevented. In this latest case, US retailer Home Depot is investigating to determine if a large cache of credit card information offered for sale on the rescator.cc underground trading forum originated as a result of a breach in their systems. ...  " 

Interview with Jim Goodnight

An interview in Forbes with SAS data guru and founder Jim Goodnight.  Met him a number of times during their work with our enterprise, always interesting.  Some useful strategic insight.

Digital Transforming Retail

How digital is transforming retail: The view from eBay
Does mobile commerce spell the end of traditional stores? In this series of short videos, Devin Wenig, the president of eBay Marketplaces, explains the impact of digitization and why retailers must evolve to survive ... " 

Auctioneers Join Forces

More in the auction management space.   Which has many interesting ontological implications.  " ...  Six leading regional auction houses have joined forces to launch the online bidding platform Bidsquare.com. The firms, which include Brunk in Asheville, N.C.; Cowan’s in Cincinnati, Ohio; Leslie Hindman in Chicago; Pook & Pook, Inc, in Downingtown, Penn.; Rago in Lambertville, N.J.; and Skinner, Inc, in Boston, have combined annual sales of roughly $200 million. In a notable display of trust, the sometimes rivals have pooled their client mailing lists numbering 100,000 qualified buyers. The founders are inviting other reputable houses to join their initiative. ... "  

McKinsey on the Next 50 Years

A new collection of articles from McKinsey.   Just starting to take a look at this.  For example: " ... Management intuition for the next 50 years ... The collision of technological disruption, rapid emerging-markets growth, and widespread aging is upending long-held assumptions that underpin strategy setting, decision making, and management. ... " 

Making up Identities

In Wired: Thoughts on what leads people to change their identity, and the implications. " ... Sockpuppetry—using false identities for deception—is centuries old, but the advent of the web has made creating sockpuppets, and falling for their tricks, easier than ever before.

We can’t physically meet most of the people we interact with on the internet. So we create avatars who represent us in the online world, personae that are designed—on some level, conscious or subconscious—to shape others’ ideas about who we really are. Indeed, it’s natural for us to create avatars that represent what we want to be rather than what we are. And it’s only a short step from there to manipulating others’ perceptions of us to give ourselves an advantage of some sort, to deceive. To become puppet masters.  ... " 

Human Computer Interaction: Present and Future

In Computing Now:  Very good,  extensive view of the topic. Increasingly important was we use systems in new ways. Current and future trends.

" ... Human-computer interaction (HCI) is a multidisciplinary research area focused on interaction modalities between humans and computers; sometimes, the more general term human-machine interface (HMI) is used to refer to the user interface in a manufacturing or process-control system. In other words, the HCI discipline investigates and tackles all issues related to the design and implementation of the interface between humans and computers. Due to its nature and goals, HCI innately involves multiple computer science-related disciplines (image processing, computer vision, programming languages, and so on) as well as disciplines related to human sciences (ergonomics, human factors, cognitive psychology, and so on). Research about HCI primarily concerns the design, implementation, and assessment of new interfaces to improve the interaction between humans and machines. The term improve can be related to several aspects, including intuitiveness of use and interface robustness ... "  

A Dictionary for Text Mining

An interesting article on the topic.  You need some sort of domain area ontology to understand what you are mining.  We built similar dictionaries for parts of an enterprise.  Not sure now practical this is for an application, but worth understanding.

Intel Unveils Bracelets

New kind of wearable, the bracelet.  Intel unveils a 3G simple wearable.  No phone tether required. Message display with a jewelry look.   I know people that are using wearables in watch form that like the idea.

Honda as a World Class Innovator

Bob Herbold uses a recent book to show how Honda is a world class innovator.  Well and simply put.

Partnerships Between Unlikely Brands

In ClickZ.  Becoming more common.  Makes the case that the future is creating opportunities for new connections.  " ... So what's fueling these partnerships? Empowered consumers with the knowledge of the world in their pockets who can force organizations to operate in an ever-more transparent fashion, and expect immediate responsiveness. Customers are expecting seamless experiences. And these expectations of seamless experiences go beyond the boundaries of a business' purview. We see the need for organizations to partner to create engagement ecosystems with companies that may provide a service that somehow relates - and sometimes doesn't - to their own customer value proposition. ... " 

Business Process Management

Looking at Business process modeling.  It seems this technique is less mentioned these days, although it can be a key way to connect business decision process and analytics.  Consider its use.  Even simple applications can lead to improved process.

Reciprocity Advantage: Innovation and Organization

New book by my two former colleagues: The Reciprocity Advantage.

" ... Bob Johansen, best-selling author and Distinguished Fellow at IFTF, has partnered with innovation expert Karl Ronn to uncover what they believe will be the biggest innovation opportunity in history in their forthcoming book, The Reciprocity Advantage. Through illustrative examples from leading organizations and an eye to the future, Johansen and Ronn present a four-part model that shows how organizations can give away assets to form partnerships, leading to collaborative experimentation and scalable new business opportunities.  ... 

" ... Johansen and Ronn explain that reciprocity, an old concept, will be reimagined within a future context of connective technologies, generational shifts, and new organizational models to provide a distinct competitive advantage. To win in this world, businesses will need to  (1) uncover their right-of-way, the underutilized resources they already own that they can share with others; (2) find partners who can help them do what they cannot do alone; (3) experiment to learn through cloud-based systems; and (4) scale the results, but only when the business’ reciprocity advantage is desirable, viable, and ownable. If it’s not scalable, it’s not worth doing—and the authors describe technologies that make scaling up faster than ever. .... " 

More and pre-order information.   Video.   I plan to read and comment here later.