For 80 years, groundbreaking aesthetics coupled with sci-fi features, such as a CD player that opens with the wave of a hand, or self-equalizing speakers, have given B&O products a magical quality that transcends the stylistic comings and goings of competitors. In the eyes of B&O’s brain trust, making that happen boils down to a shocking, and shockingly simple, strategy: Design always wins.
“Personally, I have no influence on design,” says B&O CEO Torben Ballegaard Sorensen, an always smiling, somehow exquisitely tan, square-jawed Dane. In other words, Sorensen, despite his business acumen (or because of it), serves as little more than a steward whose task it is to ensure that B&O’s design process continues unfettered, as it has since the 1960s. Sorensen runs the company’s operations, but he hands over control of product development and design to one superdominant personality–a freelance designer, no less.
Category: Technology
Fortune 500 Video Podcast – GM
Interesting look to the future – today: GM’s video podcast of their Camaro concept car. Not sure about the car, but it’s interesting that they are getting the word out using these tools.
500 Year Chart of Silver
The Road Ahead: Safer, Snazzier, Smarter Cars
The pace of change isn’t limited to the vehicle itself, but also how it is designed, engineered, manufactured and sold.
With automakers fighting fiercely for new customers in the U.S. market, innovation can mean the difference between success and failure.
“The ability of the industry to create variety at a low cost is greater than it ever has been,” said David Cole, director of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor. “The cost of risk is decreasing.”
Interesting Collaboration Software Approach – P2P
The Berklee College of Music, in Boston, already supplies NoteTaker software to all 3,850 of its students and plans to issue NoteShare to them, too. David Mash, its vice president for information technology, wrote that because “notebooks are immediately available without servers,” students can “collaborate on projects as the ideas hit them.” For instance, they could “drag their music into a notebook, add some comments and ask for criticism” from friends and teachers on the network.
The interesting aspect of this software is that it does not require any expensive/time consuming server tools. NoteShare FAQ.
Tech Winners and Losers 2005
PC World offers a somewhat interesting “winners/losers” list for 2005, with Apple appearing in both categories
San Francisco WiFi RFP
San Francisco’s request for proposal for its citywide network is out: The city published a PDF of the RFP today; responses are due Feb. 21, 2006….
Portland: Open Source Central?
Elizabeth Armstrong Moore. Consider the following:
- Companies like IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and Intel have developed their own open-source labs here.
- Linus Torvalds, author of Linux, the first mainstream open-source operating system, moved from the San Francisco Bay Area to work at the Open Source Development Lab in Portland.
- In mid-October the city hosted the first Government Open Source Conference, a gathering for state and municipal technology managers interested in using open-source software in the public sector.
- Most recently, Oregon Gov. Theodore Kulongoski announced a $350,000 contribution from Google to develop open-source software, hardware, and curricula at Oregon State University, which boasts an Open Source Lab, and Portland State University. Portland’s standing as a hub for open-source development is not lost on the governor, who is eager to bring even more jobs and investment to what he calls a “burgeoning open technology cluster.”
The EFF and Google’s AutoLink (AdLink)
There are many positive aspects to the EFF’s work.
However and unfortunately, they have been silent (or apparently supportive) on Google’s land grab as Dave Winer points out this morning. More from Dave on the Google Toolbar
Google’s toolbar places their links on top of the original author’s hyperlinks (“Autolink”).
I’ve not been a financial supporter since the EFF remained silent on the AutoLink “feature”. Ironically, as Google Watch points out, the guy behind Microsoft’s similar scheme “Smart Tags” now works for Google.
I wonder how far Google will push the envelope when they have to support their sky high 117B market valuation (P/E of 88.6!)?
Seniors Embrace Blogs
AP:
There’s Dad’s Tomato Garden Journal, Dogwalk Musings, and, of course, the Oldest Living Blogger.
“It’s too easy to sit in your own cave and let the world go by, eh?” said Ray Sutton, the 73-year-old Oldest Living Blogger and a retired electrician who lives in Vancouver, British Columbia. “It keeps the old head working a little bit so you’re not just sitting there gawking at TV.”