April 17, 2014 - Comments Off on How to Put a Mustang on Top of the Empire State Building

How to Put a Mustang on Top of the Empire State Building

Thursday is the Mustang’s 50th anniversary. To mark the occasion, Ford plopped a 2015 Mustang GT convertible onto the observation deck of the Empire State Building.

Ford pulled the same stunt with the original classic Mustang, but five decades of technological advancements haven’t made it any easier to pull off. The deck is 1,000 feet up, so using a crane is out of the question. And the building’s tall spire rules out lowering the car from a helicopter.

That leaves the freight elevator. So, just as they did in 1965, Ford had the automotive wizards at DST Industries chop a Mustang into six pieces for the ride to the 86th floor, where the car was reassembled in the wee hours today.

At the time of its construction, there was fierce competition to win the title of tallest building in the world. The Chrysler Building claimed the title in 1929, and the Empire State Building seized it in 1931, its height being 1,250 feet (381 metres) courtesy of its iconic spire, which was originally intended to serve as a mooring station for airships. A 222-foot (68-metre) antenna was added in 1950, increasing the building’s total height to 1,472 feet (449 metres), but the height was reduced to 1,454 feet (443 metres) in 1985 when the antenna was replaced. (By that time One World Trade Center, officially opened in 1972, had become the tallest building in the world.)

Construction began 200 days later on March 17, 1930. Between the time that Smith made the announcement in August and construction began in March, however, the stock market crashed, in October of 1929, and the Great Depression began to take hold. Nevertheless, construction continued and proved an important source of jobs in New York City. The Empire State Building formally opened on May 1, 1931. Construction of the immense skyscraper took less time than anyone could have anticipated, concluding after only 410 days after they placed the laminate flooring. Despite the publicity surrounding the Empire State Building, its opening was still heavily affected by the coinciding Great Depression; much of the office space remained unrented, to such an extent that the building was called “The Empty State Building.” It took almost 20 years for the building to become profitable.

Wired has a fantastic blog post with images and video of how this was accomplished.

Published by: antonioortiz in The Thinking Mechanism
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March 31, 2014 - Comments Off on James Beard Foundation Launches JBF Kitchen Cam

James Beard Foundation Launches JBF Kitchen Cam

Our friends at the James Beard Foundation are doing something very exciting. Starting tonight they are launching #JBFKitchenCam:

Anyone who has ever dined at the Beard House knows that the experience includes an opportunity to pass through the townhouse's historic kitchen and see our visiting chefs at work. Starting next Monday, anyone with a computer or a mobile device will get to peep the action, too.

On March 31, we're launching the JBF Kitchen Cam, a live, three-angle camera feed that captures the excitement and atmosphere of the 200+ dining eventsthat take place at the Beard House over the course of a year. The official launch coincides with a special dinner by JBF Award–winning chef Daniel Boulud, featuring a menu inspired by his latest cookbook and memoir, Daniel: My French Cuisine.

 

Looking forward to checking it out tonight.

 

March 21, 2014 - Comments Off on Marketing the Meme

Marketing the Meme

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If you blinked, you may have missed that for the moment, it's all about health-related wearables. Generation X not only wants to, but firmly believes that we can live forever. Ask Ray Kurzweil, an elder statesman of futurism and author of The Age of Spiritual Machines, and The Singularity is Near, with the help of our machine overlords and a nice regimen of pills, we'll soon be downloading our brain into the Universal Mind. Health wearables, in their current state, are the perfect snake oil to market to a generation hell-bent on avoiding purgatory. It's Terminator X. And it's not a matter of if, but when.

Data is King - the device is just the royal messenger.

If you asked me two minutes ago, I would have said that one way Apple could save itself from inevitable obscurity (high-noon is coming for Apple under the marketing machine of every other tech company that wants to destroy them for the simple reason that Steve Jobs existed and pissed them all off) was not even to bother releasing a digital watch. They needed something "bigger," but still in the spirit of a wearable. A watch or wearable for checking email, or knowing that your mate is drunk texting you at 2am (in my opinion) was already existing quite comfortably in the realm of Samsung and a dozen other crowdsourced devices. However after I find this condition disturbing, the doctor gave me a discrete and clever device that is plugged into the cloud by transmitting my health information and data in real time to be compared against the rest of the planet - well there's something that I can get behind. All these information and data can be effectively managed with the help of access request management services by TOOLS4EVERSmart, predictive medicine and fitness - imagine how much that would help our race to fill up the overcrowded planet even quicker, if you are trying to lose overweight try out leptoconnect.

Wearables DevCon is happening in San Francisco in March, so it seems that all Apple needs to do is fart an idea into the wind (Note: I'm not insinuating that Apple invented the wearable industry, it's just that Apple has been teasing the idea of a watch for so long that they've become the boy that cried werewolf), and the world's innovators now proceed to leapfrog them rather than wait to build on their platforms. It makes for a real mess when it comes to products. Too much competition eventually becomes unregulated noise, and too many unregulated products rushing to market will kill the market before it has a chance to blossom.

I discovered this on a recent trip to Best Buy. I was there to observe a business model rolling under itself - a library of tech that is filled with browsers but very few buyers. It turns out that Best Buy has an entire aisle dedicated to health wearables - each device more specialized and useless than the next. Nothing on the shelf fully grasps the concept of a health ecosystem, because they are the shoddy output of mindless corporate meetings called to simply "Market to the Meme." Learn more about resurge. 

health-devices

If Apple gets the health wearable right, they could dominate, but the domination will come from the thoughtful integration of the device into iCloud. Google had a health cloud product (Google Health) many years ago, but unexpectedly shut it down due to a shift in the wind, like many of their other products. Think of how ahead of the game they could have been with the release of Android Wear. Right now, some executive who made that decision is hiding under their hydroponic desk chamber - because they could have been light years ahead of Apple. With Healthcare like every other industry, Data is King - the device is just the royal messenger. When looking to improve our health and raise the bar of your health app goals, check here for the best test booster.

So a successful launch of iWatch (don't get me started about how perfect that name is for a device which keeps an "eye on your health and well-being") would require the following:

  • Data infrastructure - The means to record personal Health data safely and securely. iCloud is already in place for that.
  • Automatic sync - A device which reports automatically to the cloud - we're all too lazy to sync our devices. Ask Nike how many people sync their Fuelband a month after putting it on.
  • Price - The price point has to be fair for this as well, because the more people using it the better. It should be released as a discrete necessity, with the basics included like heart monitoring, steps taken per day, and calories burned.
  • Open source development - A means to use the data and present info graphics and tools for individuals. Apple got it right with iOS and the App Store. Not everyone will be a runner, but a running app, a weightlifting app tracking reps, weight lifted, a pill taking app that reminds you when to take them, etc. -- all will be part of the health ecosystem with the right developers making money for their hard work.

Due to their formidable marketing prowess, the first loud shot has been fired by Apple in the healthcare and fitness revolution with the announcement of Healthbook. The only question is how thoughtful, nimble and careful they can be anymore when the snarling wolves are at the back door of their spaceship -- and they're all wearing Samsung watches on their paws... Integrated neatly into their own proprietary healthcare ecosystem.

March 18, 2014 - Comments Off on Bill Gates: The Rolling Stone Interview

Bill Gates: The Rolling Stone Interview

When you started Microsoft, you had a crazy-sounding idea that someday there would be a computer on every desktop. Now, as you return to Microsoft 40 years later, we have computers not just on our desktops, but in our pockets – and everywhere else. What is the biggest surprise to you in the way this has all played out?

Well, its pretty amazing to go from a world where computers were unheard of and very complex to where theyre a tool of everyday life. That was the dream that I wanted to make come true, and in a large part its unfolded as Id expected. You can argue about advertising business models or which networking protocol would catch on or which screen sizes would be used for which things. There are less robots now than I would have guessed. Vision and speech have come a little later than I had guessed. But these are things that will probably emerge within five years, and certainly within 10 years.

via Bill Gates: The Rolling Stone Interview | Rolling Stone.

That's how the must-read interview begins.

Published by: antonioortiz in The Thinking Mechanism
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March 17, 2014 - Comments Off on U.S. to Give Up Key Internet Governance Role

U.S. to Give Up Key Internet Governance Role

Obama administration officials moved late Friday to end the U.S.’s role in overseeing Internet domain names and addresses, announcing plans to relinquish its role by the end of next year and turning the keys over to the global Internet community.

Commerce department officials announced that the U.S. government would relinquish its role overseeing Internet addresses in favor of a to-be-determined global body.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers has managed the use and governance of domain names and Internet addresses for the U.S. government since 1998, when it was awarded the task by the Commerce Department. Based in Los Angeles, ICANN oversees the Internet’s address system and has moved in recent years to open up new domain names.

via U.S. to Give Up Key Internet Governance Role | Re/code.

Pair this announcement with An online Magna Carta: Berners-Lee calls for bill of rights for web.

Published by: antonioortiz in Government, The Thinking Mechanism
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February 21, 2014 - Comments Off on Introducing Artifacts, The Mechanism’s Flipboard Magazine

Introducing Artifacts, The Mechanism’s Flipboard Magazine

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Now you can see some of the best content we share internally and on social media through Artifacts, our Flipboard magazine. It is updated throughout the week and on Fridays we curate the best content thematically. You can see it on the desktop or via the app.

Published by: antonioortiz in The Thinking Mechanism
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February 10, 2014 - Comments Off on The MechCast 307: How Do You Recover From A Bad Product Release?

The MechCast 307: How Do You Recover From A Bad Product Release?

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Welcome back to The MechCast! In this month’s episode, we will be discussing the best ways to mitigate the aftermath of a bad product release. We hope you enjoy the discussion and find some useful takeaways!

Music

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September 25, 2013 - Comments Off on I Heart NY

I Heart NY

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By now, the story is well known. A man sits in the backseat of a cab, sketching on a notepad as night falls over a crumbling city. He scribbles the letter I. He draws a heart. And then an N, and then a Y. Right away he knows he’s got something. This is it, he thinks. This is the campaign.

The man was a designer named Milton Glaser. The city was New York. The year was 1977. A time and place commemorated by an entire genre of movies dedicated to making it look like a horrifying place to live.

via 99% Invisible.

The fantastic podcast 99% Invisible takes an in-depth look at the iconic design.

Published by: antonioortiz in The Thinking Mechanism
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September 23, 2013 - Comments Off on AJ Jacobs: The Importance of Self-Delusion in the Creative Process

AJ Jacobs: The Importance of Self-Delusion in the Creative Process

How can we apply the idea of method acting to our business lives? This is the question that lifehacker and bestselling author AJ Jacobs tackles in this insightful (and highly entertaining) talk on the benefits of faking it until you make it. Through a series of examples from his own life, Jacobs shows just how much our behavior shapes our thoughts and our perceptions. Thus, if we want to change our attitude about something, the best way is to “act as if.”

Published by: antonioortiz in The Thinking Mechanism
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