The Kinect Effect – Microsoft on Augmented/Virtual reality

Augmented reality is hot, and the future holds a lot more of this… The Kinect project of Microsoft for XboX is just a small step into real virtual and augmented reality.  Just to get everything into perspective I’m adding a movie and presentation on virtual/augmented reality.

The Kinect effect from Microsoft shows us what Microsoft’s real deal is with the Kinect tool….

The slideshare shows what Augmented reality is all about, or can be about (and what’s not augmented reality!).

I’m a fan, and believe AR will be the future of web 3.0. It will get us engaged, enriched and active in a whole new dimension….we’re only waiting for the right devices, since I don’t believe we’ll be running with our smart phone in front of us! Once this technical ‘problem’ is solved (with glasses, ….) while truly enter the augmented reality era! Something to look forward to!

Interesting Times – Skype, Cloud, AVOS

Again 2011 is an exiting year for online (social) media…roumours of a new bubble, take-overs, new players, ….

You probably read it, heard it, … tweeted about it…but Microsoft has taken over Skype for a staggering $8.5 Bio. Giving the former owner eBay a huge return on investment. But why did Microsoft want to buy Skype? Microsoft needed a glue between his different components regarding video, voice and sharing technologies. Skype will probably be embedded and integrated in different Microsoft applications like Hotmail, outlook, live, … but will also enter the living room through the kinetic and Xbox. This means that online communication, video conferencing, phone calls, .. just entered millions of living rooms, and become accessible for a whole new audience. (And off course Google did get it….yes competition is always around in the flat world.)

The huge amount, $8.5 bio, again starts discussion about a possible (social media) internet bubble.  LinkedIn also is hoping to collect $3.3 bio through an IPO later this month.  If you know LinkedIn has only got 1/13 or $250 mio on revenues…you just wonder. How and why would they want to collect so much money? But with this IPO out, LinkedIn is the first social media company who officially (over)values his assets, technology, …. I’m not investing, since Facebook is aiming at the professional market as well, and therefore LinkedIn will get into troubled times.

Avos is a completely different story…2 of the original entrepreneurs of YouTube, Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, are again entering the social media world. First with the acquisition of Delicious from yahoo, and just yesterday with the take over of Tap11 an analytics platform…and what’s next! It’s for shure that the sky is again the limit for those boys…intergrating bookmarks and analytics is probably the first step into an integrated service they want to offer their customer. There will probably be a good insight on customer added value to be reached through a combination of this services. As they write in their press-release: “create the world’s best platform for users to save, share, and discover new content” Which content is a bit flew right now, but wait and see….to be continued!

After Amazon Google launched it’s cloud player this week….we all know cloud is the future of storage and access, but I didn’t Amazon and Google to be the first companies offering this services… I was convinced Apple would be the first mover, but Amazon has first mover advantage, and even had a back door open to integrate the Amazon Cloud on iOS devices today. I’m looking out for the Apple move on this…will they be able to beat the first mover?

Interesting Times, and for sure to be continued !

Mobile World Congress – Integration on softwarelevel! [updated]

Mobile =near Future, but mobile needs its upgrade off course.

Since devices can handle a lot of flat world traffic, networks are getting better so connection is almost everywhere available….it’s time for the next step:
The software – update….The first signal on this new era was given by Nokia an Mircosoft, last week, when they announced they would make an integrated smartphone of the Nokia hardware knowhow, integrated with the microsoft software, and therefore developing an new mobile ecosystem! People have already called it  the cooperation of the losers….because both companies didn’t do well in the mobile world, where Apple and Google (with the Android platform embraced by Samsung, HTC and Sony Ericsson) are setting to lines!

And if we look at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona (14 – 17 February 2011) we see a huge accent on mobile software. The Apps stores a making money big time, 15 billion dollar as predicted for 2011 (according to a Gartner study)…..

Android taking over the world!

1 out of 4 smartphones is running the Android system (when one year ago onolu 1 out of 25 was). Samsung was alraedy running Android, and will introduce an updated version of the Galaxy Tab in 2011 (price unknown). But the next big implementation of the Android platform will be the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play, the PlayStation Phone…runnin all major games, and is a SmartPhone! The market is open and will be a playing field for Google (Android), Apple (iOS) and Microsoft (Windows Phone)….but in the end consumer will win, and choose the best system for his personal use, interest and needs.

Mobile Internet Explorer 9 on its way

Microsoft will launch an new veriosn of Mobile Internet Explorer in 2011, and will run on Windows Phone 7. It will be equiped with Twitter, a copy/paste application, ….

If you ‘re at MWC…please inform us on what you think is the future of mobile!