When the U.S. Air Force launched its secret space plane last month,speculation about the X-37B’s true purpose ran wild.
Alpine Access: A work-from-home call center revolt | money.cnn.com
When Jim Ball ran a traditional call center in Golden, Colo., in the late 1990s, employee turnover was rampant. Often, Ball was forced to hire just about anyone who walked in the door because few people were willing to commute to the call center and sit in a sterile cubicle for minimum wage.
When Ball and his partner Steve Rockwood sold the call center in 1997, they decided the next business would be radically different: Customer service agents would work from home.
Bury My Heart at Conference Room B: Sweat Time at Microsoft | Fast Company
“You just did a very bad thing,” said Bill Gates, reacting to a presentation of Stan Slap’s suggestions. In this excerpt from his upcoming book, “Bury My Heart at Conference Room B,” consultant Stan Slap relates how Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, and a room full of Microsoft execs loved and loathed the concept of leading with your values.
CUT green yacht by Christian Peetz | Yanko Design.com
No math involved. Just cruzin on a boat. Y stands for yacht. And this yacht goes by the name “CUT.” It’s not only made for rippin up waves, it’s green.
Orchestra Uses Own Heartbeats to Create Music and Visuals | Co.Design
Live heartbeats become the raw material for for an orchestral score.
Musicians have toyed around with music based on the human heart for decades, but we’ve never seen anything quite as ornate and mind-blowing as the Heart Chamber Orchestra. Read More.
FBI Flashes Badge at Wikipedia, Ignores the Internet | Fast Company
If you were tasked with finding an image of the FBI’s seal, where would you look? Likely, you’d head to Google or Bing, where a quick image search would return tens of thousands of results. But shhh, don’t tell the FBI about those. Out of all the images of the seal sprayed across the Web, the FBI is faulting Wikipedia for displaying it, and even threatening legal action.
Read More.
7 Ways Real-Life Crime Fighting Mirrors “Minority Report” | Fast Company
Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report wowed audiences with its futuristic tech: flashy hand-gesture computers, flex-screen displays, holograms, and Lexus-designed auto-piloted vehicles. The sci-fi flick also showed the world a dystopian, draconian picture of a crime-free society: “precogs” predicting murders, eye-scanners dotting the streets and subways, a jet-pack-toting police force, and a public seemingly deprived of any right to privacy. Spielberg envisioned this for 2054, but advances in technology are bringing that future sooner and sooner. Here’s a look at some of our own sci-fi crime fighting tools.
Read More.
Hacker Spoofs Cell Phone Tower to Intercept Calls | Wired.com
Just turning on the antennas caused two dozen phones in the room to connect to Paget’s tower. He then set it to spoof an AT&T tower to capture calls from customers of that carrier.“As far as your cell phones are concerned, I am now indistinguishable from AT&T,” he said. “Every AT&T cell phone in the room will gradually start handing over to my network.” Read More.
Gen X as a Target Customer – Part Two | Lydia Mehit
Continuing our discussion of Generation X as our target consumer, we have gathered a variety of facts about our subjects and now need to use those facts to answer the following questions.
- Why do they buy?
- How do they buy?
- What do they buy?
- Where do they buy?
- Where do you find them?
- How do you reach them?
Let’s answer the questions using the information we’ve learned about Generation X.
Continue reading “Gen X as a Target Customer – Part Two | Lydia Mehit”
2010’s Best Designed Products | Fast Company
The winners of the 2010 International Design Excellence Awards can help you ride the waves, grill a burger, catch varmints, and save the earth.
