The release this week of the Wolfram|Alpha computational knowledge engine has gotten a lot of attention from the media and Web pundits, and, strangely, lots of these people have gotten Wolfram|Alpha completely wrong.
The most common thing that people say about Wolfram|Alpha is that it is a potential competitor to Google. But Wolfram|Alpha is no more of a competitor to Google than their core Mathematica application is (or for that matter than your corporate sales database is).
First off, Wolfram|Alpha doesn't search the Web. It searches a controlled knowledge database that Wolfram maintains and is constantly updating. And most of the ways that people would use Wolfram|Alpha are different from how one would use a search engine like Google. But I guess because Wolfram|Alpha looks like a search site, some people just can't get over that.
Click here to see screenshots When it comes to demoing a new piece of software, training users on a new application or teaching employees how to follow a business process, there's no substitute for showing them how to do these things directly.
But it isn't always feasible to be face to face in all of these situations. So the next best thing is to be able to create a video of how to use an application, Web service or process and make that available to anyone who needs to see it.
There have long been products, such as Adobe Captivate and Camtasia, that can capture a recording of an application session, record voiceovers, and add educational icons and directions to videos that can then be distributed to anyone who needs them. But these products aren't inexpensive and, since they are geared toward high-end training and testing, can be a little too complex for staff just looking to make a quick application recording.
DEMO 09 launched this morning with Executive Producer Chris Shipley referring to 2009 and its downward spiraling economy as a "reset year." Shipley didn't shy away from the effect this economy is having on tech overall and the on the DEMO show itself, as she acknowledged the smaller size of this year's show.
Shipley though referred to herself as a glass half full type of person and said that there are still plenty of opportunities for smart and innovative companies.
This show is also the penultimate show for Shipley, who is stepping down after DEMOFall 09 and handing the Executive Producer position to Matt Marshall.
Of course, people don't go to DEMO to listen to inside baseball stuff about who is running it, they go to see new companies and new products launched.
The morning session of this year's DEMO definitely got off to a slow start. Not too many of the initial presenters were showing products that made me sit forward in my seat and get excited. Still, some showed a bit of promise.
Click here to see screenshots of JavaFX It was a little less than a year ago that rich Internet application technology finally matured enough to become a usable tool, although it was still very much in the early stages of development.
At the time, eWEEK Labs took a look at the RIA sector and reviewed four RIA platforms, coming to the conclusion that the technology had reached the point where it could be called RIA 1.0.
Now, I'm taking another look at RIAs, evaluating the maturation of the platforms reviewed last year and testing out a new--and old--player.
Click here to see screenshots The National Hockey League has performed a hat trick: scoring new video, content management and analytics capabilities at NHL.com.
Just about a year ago, video on NHL.com was, by the organization's own admission, not thoughtfully implemented, and user information was widely dispersed and not well-leveraged. In a very short time, using a homegrown content management system and a video player built by NeuLion, and with the assistance of design company AQKA, the NHL.com site is running as smooth as, well, ice.
According to many pundits, one of the keys to the future of the Web is video. However, based on much of the current use of video on the Web, this future seems to be a ways off.
True, many businesses today are using video on their sites, for everything from spreading news and company information to handling product demos and walk-throughs. But, typically, there is little or no integration with these videos. They basically live in their own siloed areas of a site, with no connection to other content or online commerce.
While in some ways 2008 has been an exciting and historic year, in other ways it has been a year that many people would like to forget, especially those who have seen their businesses, job prospects and retirement savings shrink or disappear altogether.
But when it comes to emerging technologies, 2008 wasn't just a good year, it was a very good year. The past year saw the rise of many new exciting products and technologies and also saw renewed growth in some areas that had become stale.
Best of all, these technologies of 2008 aren't just limited to this year. Many of them are the building blocks that will be used to create and grow the technologies that will be important in 2009.
Click here to see screenshots With company budgets tightening up everywhere, more then a few common expenses are disappearing from plans. Typical casualties include employee training, product demo road shows and face-to-face briefings.
But the need to train employees to use new applications and products isn't going away, nor is the need to give detailed demonstrations of products to partners and potential customers. This, of course, makes screen recording products that can create rich demonstration and training videos more important than ever.
A longtime player in screen recording products is TechSmith, which recently released version 6 of their Camtasia Studio. Camtasia Studio 6 builds on the product's already good usability and functionality by adding several interesting new features, including the ability to create high-definition video presentations. And at a $299 pricepoint, Camtasia Studio comes in at less than half the cost of main competitor Adobe Captivate.
Camtasia Studio 6 includes several presets to help users create a video presentation geared for a specific format. These presets include options such as DVD, YouTube, iPhone and TechSmith's screencast.com service.
OK, I have a great idea for a new business method patent. It's a system by which customers can select among a prebuilt list of goods or products, and then choose how they would like these products customized and enhanced.
The system is extremely flexible and can be applied to everything from computers to hamburgers. I call it the "Have it your way" method.
I can't wait to get this patent, and I fully expect to get it. After all, if it's possible to get a business method patent for a way to use a playground swing, this should be rock-solid. And, once I get it, I can send out the legal notices to all those computer manufacturers, burger royalty and others violating my extremely innovative idea.
In the eWEEK special report "Technology in 2009", I look at many of the new product and company announcements of recent months and use this information to predict some of the key emerging technology trends that we should expect to see for 2009.
To go along with this special report, I've also compiled this slideshow showing some of the recent and recently announced products that are good examples of the technologies expected to gain prominence in 2009. These products should help, or are already helping, to push these important technologies forward.
At MIT's Emerging Technology conference, I had the opportunity to speak to Matt Glotzbach, Product Management Director for Google Enterprise.
Chief among the new enterprise capabilities we spoke about were the new video features for business that have been added to Google Apps. We also spoke about the potential effect of Android phones on Google enterprise offerings.
