At the end of October, the PhotoPlus Expo was held in New York City.  At the expo, hundreds of people demonstrated their technological advances in photography, including new kinds of cameras, lenses, printers, clothing, gear, and many others.  The plethora of items attracted both professionals and hobbyists alike, albeit most came with extremely high prices.  Here are three amazing inventions that were seen at the PhotoPlus Expo.  Take a look at a more complete list here to see an even more detailed look.

Sony DEV-3 and DEV-5 3D Binoculars

These binoculars have incredible photo and video ability, simulating something you might have seen in a recent sci-fi movie.  Only the DEV-3 model was shown, however, the DEV-5 model is more advanced and has more features.  You can use these binoculats as 3D binoculars, a 7-megapixel camera, or a video recorder with 1080i capabilities!  In addition the optical lenses can zoom up to 20 times the magnification.  There is one significant drawback; it costs $2000.  The DEV-3 is a cheaper deal; for $1400, but you only get 10 times the magnification.  If you are looking for a solid multimedia digital camera, these binoculars may be worth checking out.

Gorillapod Micro 250 and 350

The Joby brand is recognized for its popular bendy camera tripods.  However, one of the most interesting devices at their booth was the Gorillapod Micro.  Unlike their typical bendy tripods, these mini-tripods were extremely rigid and could easily collapse under the camera with minimal weight or space addition.  They come in several sizes, and with the ease of transport of your tripod, you can have it with you at all times.

Wacom Cintiq 24HD Pen Display

The Wacom Cintig 24HD Pen Display provides a massive 24-inch display to fit any need, from professional photographers to designers. For those who require precision editing of pictures and designs, it may be well worth the price tag of $2600. Because of their high demand, they’re relatively difficult to acquire though. The display is praised for its snappy responsiveness and exacting detail, making it ideal for anyone in 3D design, animation, industrial design, game development.

The recent PhotoPlus Exposition was aimed primarily to professional photographers, artists and designers.  As a novice or hobbyist, however, it’s always good to keep up with cutting-edge technologies. Here we could only list a few of the hundreds of impressive items like state-of-the-art jackets, lighting, camera bags and gear. Be sure to take a look at other articles about the Expo, as well as reviews on many of the other products on display.

The world is becoming more connected. When we say this, we don’t just mean as individuals. Our devices are becoming more connected to each other as well. This makes our everyday life easier by adding seamlessness to our day that wasn’t present before. Now you can work on a document at work, send it to your smartphone and use a voice transcription app to continue working in your vehicle. This is just one example; this video is Microsoft’s vision of what connectivity will make our future look like. What types of devices, apps, or combination of the two will help create a future like this? Here are a couple I have found, let us know of any you can think of.

iControl

iControl

iControl is a home energy management and security product that Comcast unveiled recently. With this product, people can monitor their homes in real time through video, control the thermostat, and turn the lights on and off giving the “lived in” illusion when away. The iControl software plus hardware and apps along with Comcast broadband make it possible for people to have full control over their homes even when miles away.

Air Sharing

This app is available on the iPad/iPhone and allows your device to act as an external hard drive. Which means you can simply move files to your device, share and access them easily adding mobility to your work habits.

AirPlay

Wirelessly stream music, videos, and photos to Apple TV using Apple’s AirPlay. This allows you to flow easily from your walk, where you were listening to a podcast or audio book, to your home without interrupting your entertainment.

As more gadgets, apps, and software work harmoniously together, I see our day-to-day lives becoming easier and more fluid. Connectivity implies that all elements of our lives are more connected. Hopefully this means that our tech can stay one step ahead of us and if result in less waiting, I am ready for it… how about you?

In 1985’s Back to the Future, we travel through time with Marty McFly in a nuclear-powered DeLorean. Marty is able to do what man has wished to do since the beginning of time: control his destiny. In the first movie, Marty goes back to the past in order to save his parent’s marriage, and consequently his existence. In the lesser first sequel, Marty travels into the future to modify the paths of his offspring. While these films are obviously fanciful, they do present an fascinating question. In the year 2011, would we consider ourselves to be nearer to the technology found in Hill Valley in 1955, or the second film’s futuristic vision?

First, we should ask ourselves where we thought we would be by 2011. Of course we’d have flying cars and hover boards by now, wouldn’t we? Yet here we are, still driving fossil-fuel burning cars, riding scooters and bicycles, all the while wearing fairly normal clothes. Basically, if you took a step back and looked at the way we conduct our lives, much of the technology we use today existed 70 years ago. The television was invented. Cars already had modern features like air conditioning and radios. Movies were shown in color. The Wizard of Oz, made in 1939 has special effects that rival many independent moviemakers today.

Many movies in the past, however, have prophesied some of the advances we use today.  Arnold Schwarzenegger was caught carrying a gun through a full-body x-ray machine trying to board a plane in Total Recall.  Airports are now employing very similar tech. In Minority Report, Tom Cruise deftly moves from image to image, mirroring the type of touch screen technology, 3D monitors and holograms that will exist – if they don’t already – in the very near future.  In 2001: A Space Odyssey, Pan Am flies the common man to outer space.  Virgin Atlantic is making that possible today for that same traveler, though they need to shell out $200,000 for a seat.

Some of the most amazing futuristic technology is used everyday:  Video phones and “Skyping” people on the other side of the world for free are commonplace.  We are able today to clone sheep, cows and mice.  Are humans next?  The ethical dilemmas surrounding genetic engineering are being discussed right now.  However, if you looked out the window in the world we reside in today, does it look more like 1955?  Does your mental picture of life in 2011 match up with the reality?

In many ways, the future is now:  Video billboards, the internet following us wherever we go, mining data to learn how to relieve us of our advertising dollars.  We have 3D televisions and binoculars.  We can still go out to the movies, but it might very well cost you over $50 for a family of 4. Yet here is where the more things change, the more they do stay the same:  Chevy is still making fuel-burning convertibles, Universal is still cranking out movies, and you can still watch Back to the Future.  Only now you can watch it any time you want, anywhere you want – on your phone.

Do you find yourself agonizing over every little detail? Does it take you three times as long to accomplish a task because you are trying to get it “just right?” If so, you might be a perfectionist? It’s not an uncommon personality trait to see in the business world and it can help to push individuals to strive to do their best. In extreme cases, though, it leads to wasted time and resources.  The outcome usually doesn’t justify the immense effort that went into it. If you find yourself in the web of extreme perfectionism, here are a few tips that can lead you out.

Make a Decision and Stick to it
You make good decisions; that is why you’re managing the projects you are working on. So when you make a decision, stick to it. Try not to second-guess yourself – this just wastes time. Who’s to say your fourth or fifth decision will be any better or beneficial? If you start that second-guessing game, it can spiral out of control!

Trus t your Employees
Listen to the input from your employees when you have unveiled your plan. They are great resources and will inform you of what is possible. If they like the plan then it’s probably worth using. Their support will help prevent you from sliding into the second-guessing game that I previously talked about. Another way to prevent wasted time is not to micromanage your workforce. When you have assigned tasks, take a step back and let them manage those tasks. You hired them for their competence in the first place, right? And before you execute your plan …

Have a Plan B
You never know what’s going to happen! An obstacle may arise that can’t be overcome, so make sure you have a plan B. A backup plan will help you from getting entrenched to deeply in your first plan and devastated if things go wrong. The more flexible and ready for change you are, the easier it is to adapt to things life throws at you.

There is a fine line between perfectionism and having a critical eye. It’s important to always strive for the best, but worrying about getting something perfect is damaging to the project and your mental health. The steps I’ve outlined above will help you to free yourself from the perfectionist mindset, if you find yourself there. Here is a great article about avoiding the pitfalls of perfectionism completely.

Everyday, it seems, a new technological advancement pops up in news-feeds and broadcasts everywhere. In homage to these inventions and innovations, the Technological community all comes together to vote on the most cutting edge of these advances, and the winners are announced at the T3 Gadget Awards Ceremony. Over 960,000 votes were cast this year, and the winners ultimately chosen with the help of a 6 person expert panel.  Here are a number of interesting—and sometimes ironic—choices for winners.  Please visit the full list of categories and winners here. 

Ironic Winners

One of the most interesting aspects of the Awards are the categories themselves. They run the gamut of technology, and aren’t completely focused on gadgetry. For example, there’s the Best Retailer award and even the Gadget Personality of the Year award.  It is in this category that one can find an ironic choice: Mark Zuckerberg.  Although his influence on modern communication can’t be ignored, few would argue that he’s got Clooney-like charisma. And then there’s the category of Best Commuting Device in which anything that helps you get from here to there can be included. So, the electric bicycle nominee may seem like an obvious choice. The winner, in fact, was the Amazon Kindle — which makes “getting there” easier, as long as you’re not riding the electric bicycle while reading it!

Influential Winners

Another interesting revelation can be found in the voters’ decision that Twitter is the “Digital Media Service of the Year.”  Sure, Zuckerberg’s got the Personality, but Twitter won the bigger battle. To be sure, the principals of large corporations like Apple, Google and Facebook are most likely not crying themselves to sleep because they didn’t win a Gadget gong. It is notable, however, that more votes were generated for Twitter than any other medium by the tech community themselves. Those in-the-know with plenty of sway ought to be taken very seriously by the tech giants. Quite simply, Facebook can’t rest on its laurels (just look at MySpace for reference).

Surprising Winners

If you were to question the average passerby which phone would win Phone of the Year, most would probably say the iPhone 4.  Again, though, because a very tech-savvy crowd cast the votes, the votes went to Samsung’s Galaxy S II.  Google won the Tech Brand of the Year, beating out rivals Apple and Facebook.  Although it’s just the “T3 Gadget Awards,” Google is in a far better position amongst the tech community in terms of brand recognition and perhaps overall importance.

In the final analysis, the 2011 T3 Gadget Awards provided some fascinating insight into where technology is headed.  Some of the winners were surprising, with Samsung taking a number of Awards, showing that it’s not just the Giants in the industry making all the waves.  Please take some time to check out the complete list of Awards, categories and nominees.  You can even go back to 2008; the first year votes were cast, and see how much technology has changed, who the winners were in the past and whether or not they’re still relevant today.

Becoming “greener” has been a hot topic nowadays, not only amongst the public but also in high-tech companies. Many businesses are looking into green tech as a means to save energy , save the environment, or to simply save money. One of the first things you must know when looking into conserving energy is what uses the most energy?

At the CEATEC conference this month in Japan, Toshiba and Intel announced a few of their upcoming plans to better allow companies to watch their energy usage. In this “Green Age,” it’s no surprise to see major players in the technology world coming forward with big developments that allow more regulation and monitoring of the amount of energy being used. Here are a few of the ecologically-forward changes and additions these two companies announced they will be implementing in 2012.

Intel

Intel has created an application that grants PC users the ability to monitor the energy consumption of their PC. One of the more user-friendly aspects of the application is the dashboard, which displays readable graphs and statistics making the data simple to comprehend quickly.

Toshiba

You may have read that Toshiba recently acquired Landish Gyr, a company that specializes in smart-meter tech, Toshiba is utilizing this as part of a “smart home” offering. This will allow people to more easily monitor the energy consumption in their homes. They are also developing cloud technology for a variety of verticals, including city infrastructure and health companies.

It is interesting to note that while these two companies are pushing energy monitoring as a large platform for 2012, a few large tech companies in the US are moving away from it. Microsoft is one example of this; in June they announced that they are discontinuing their Hohm energy-monitoring service. Google is another large US company that is easing out of the green game by closing Google Powermeter.

Will the green technology world head in the direction of energy monitoring or something else entirely? If you have any speculation or ideas on the direction this may take; please share them with us.

Apple is known for its forward thinking, cutting-edge and revolutionary inventions.  From the Apple IIe to the iPad, Apple has always been at the forefront of computing and communicating.  However, it has set the bar so high that even Apple finds itself hard to beat.  A good example is the recent release of the iPhone 4S – a truly impressive product using the latest and greatest technology available.  But to its loyal fans, people who are always expecting a revolution instead of an evolution, some might have found the launch of an upgraded/evolved iPhone 4 rather than a revamped and brand new iPhone 5, to be less than remarkable.  However, the 4S does present 3 very impressive upgrades, of which should inspire die-hard Apple users to seriously consider purchasing the iPhone 4S.

Software

Maybe the most noticeable of the iPhone 4S upgrades can be found in its speed and power.  The 4S features a dual-core A5 chip found in the iPad 2, which makes opening apps, loading the browser, scrolling through home screens and countless other operations much faster and smoother.  Apple states that the iPhone 4S is twice as fast as the iPhone 4, and exhibits seven times its graphical prowess.

Siri

Perhaps the most interesting addition in the 4S is the introduction of Siri, a voice controlled personal assistant that can help you schedule lunch dates, find restaurants or see what the weather is like in Denver just by talking to it in a conversational voice.  “Tell Jodi that I’m running late and need to reschedule my meeting” is a good example of how Siri can parse your information, find a specific person and complete the task for you. A down-side, however, is that it is still a work in progress, and many times Siri can’t handle the information in the question, and just gives you a comical reply.  Which is funny at first, but loses the humor after a couple of weeks.  Here’s another take on the topic: http://www.forbes.com/sites/benzingainsights/2011/10/17/is-siri-seriously-awesome-or-seriously-flawed/

iCloud

Similar to MobileMe, iCloud allows you to access all of your most important data, pictures, apps, music and photos from any device, whether you access it from the device the content was created on, or if you want to use your iPad to show your friends a picture you took using your iPhone. One downfall, however, is that for users used to MobileMe’s specific syncing procedures, the user id it created doesn’t “play well” with iCloud. At the same time, iCloud doesn’t recognize email accounts like Yahoo or Gmail as they don’t contain a me.com email address.  Although it’s fantastic technology, the fact that it still has what seem to be fairly obvious faults makes it that much more frustrating to Apple enthusiasts.

So, should you upgrade to the iPhone 4S? It depends on the type of user you are.  If you’ve shown up at midnight for previous Apple launches, you won’t be disappointed with the 4S.  It is faster, more powerful, has impressive upgrades like Siri and iCloud, and we didn’t even mention the improved camera and editing features.  But if you’re satisfied with the phone you’re using now, and it does all you want it to do, you could easily wait until Apple’s next revolution – which, knowing them, is right around the corner.

Many industries have changed due to the cloud. Massive amounts of information can be stored and shared easily in the cloud. And with the popularity of tablets people can access it quickly. This has improved the way creative people do business, below are a few examples if this.

Portfolios
The size of someone’s portfolio was previously limited to what they could physically carry.   Because of this size limitation, there were limitations to the content as well. Now, thanks to the cloud, they can create separate files tailored to every client’s needs, which they can quickly access from a tablet. This mobility can lead to more business more quickly.

Creative Collaboration
Collaboration once was a word that had spatial limitations. You could easily work with individuals in your immediate vicinity, but working with someone across the globe was time intensive and difficult. It required sending huge files back and forth, often producing duplicate copies and confusion. Now, it is possible to work on the same file simultaneously with only one copy being updated. By dropping the previous restrictions, creative collaboration has not only become easier, but faster as well.

Brainstorming
Similarly, the cloud has improved the way groups brainstorm together. By creating mind maps in the cloud, everyone can work on a concept together. By accessing the mind map on a tablet or other handheld device, you can get opinions from colleagues and update the shared file with ease. Breaking down the distance barrier allows skilled individuals who previously could not contribute to do so.

With the expansiveness of the cloud and the mobility of the tablet, there are almost no limitations to where creativity can happen.

Computers are prized possessions, regardless of what they are being used for. They provide a practical value with regard to the processes that they allow us to automate, but there is also a monetary value which should be considered. The high price level carried by computers means they are tempting targets for any thief. Below are a few quick tips to consider when beefing up your computer’s security.

Physical Security

The appeal of most personal computers is that they’re portable. Even desktops can be moved easily with a few cord disconnections and a quick pull. To make sure both your laptop and desktop computers are secure inside your home or workplace, consider buying a strong, keyed cable lock. Essentially, they help chain your pc down in a way that makes them very difficult to steal. These items can run for an average of $40, but they provide a priceless feeling of security.

Data Security

Computer’s are worth more than the sum of their physical parts. When a computer is stolen, the thief may have access to your personal information and data. Even if your computer is password protected or your data is encrypted, the data stored within could, in theory, be accessed. Because of this, it’s a good practice to store your bank account, credit and social security information in a different location. Having your identity stolen on top of losing your computer would only add insult to injury.

Keeping Track

There have been a large number of great computer tracking apps developed in recent years. While these apps need the hard drive to remain intact to be able to work, if you act quickly, they highly increase your chances of recovery. There have been numerous cases in which a stolen laptop has been found using one of these services. While your laptop’s return may not be promised, it’s still a great safety measure to take.

While all of these tips are useful in keeping your computer safe, there is no replacement for common sense and reasonable vigilance. Make sure to take good care of your computer; chances are it takes good care of you.

Your company can benefit greatly from workplace education programs (WEP). Morale will improve, employees will feel cared for as individuals, and they will strengthen your team. WEPs can be carried out in a small-scale way with educational handouts or in a large-scale way by providing half or full day classes. It doesn’t matter how you want to implement educational programs, learning interesting things keeps employees fresh and inspired.

If workplace education programs don’t have an element of play, they can be boring and demotivating. Classes ought to be challenging, but not so hard that they make your employees feel like they’re hitting a brick wall. You want your staff to feel pleased with the job they’re doing and have fun doing it.

Here are some suggestions to keep education programs interesting and fun.

Group Employees into Teams – Teams stimulate healthy competition, which can lead to better employee collaboration. They can also strengthen your team, as employees will develop stronger relationships as they get to know each other better on a more personal level.

Provide Incentives –Incentives are a good way to motivate your workforce. They work well regardless if you have a team structure or your employees work independently.

Create Games – Incorporating a game when people learn improves how much they will retain. Games also develop team-building skills and keeps learning light and fun.

Employees appreciate workplace education programs when implemented properly. They break up the week, keep things interesting, and support personal development. Education in the workplace doesn’t have to mean a huge endeavor; it can be scaled to fit your company and your recourses. If you choose to institute a WEP, remember that the more fun and interesting it is the more successful it will be.