Posts Tagged ‘productivity’

High-tech melktert

// November 16th, 2011 // No Comments » // Food, Tech

Earlier this year, around September 2011, I attended the Compubrand Brand Summit in partnership with Microsoft.

One of the presentations by Microsoft’s Alexandre Michelin (Executive producer MSN EMEA) really grabbed my attention. He stated that, “Brands needs to reinvent themselves in this new digital world and find new ways to re-engage consumers in order to enhance brand loyalty, otherwise, consumers will desert them.” Which is particularly true and very challenging.

That aside, he played a video clip of Microsoft’s productivity future vision. A high-tech representation of how technology could transform the way we get things done at school, at work, and in the home over the next 5 to 10 years. That video was released back in 2009.

Productivity Future Vision (2009)

Fast forward to 2011 and Microsoft has just released the latest edition of this futuristic view, with a surprising addition. South Africa features with views of OR Tambo International airport, Johannesburg and melktert. Yes, you read correctly, melktert.

Melktert, for the uninitiated, is loosely translated as milk tart in Afrikaans, and is a traditional South African dessert. It is a sweet pastry crust containing a creamy filling made from milk, flour, sugar and eggs. The ratio of milk to egg is higher than in a traditional European custard tart or Chinese egg tart, resulting in a lighter texture and a stronger milk flavour.

Skip forward to time code 05:31 and behold high-tech melktert. Not exactly melktert made by small nanoprobes, but rather an interactive recipe with video and some cool infographics depicting the ingredients and method of cooking.

This is certainly not new. iPad apps such as Epicurious and Jamie’s recipes already offer some of these features. However, if we have this kind of technology at our disposal now, I get extremely excited about what the future may hold.

High-tech melktert Productivity future vision 2011

iPhone applications

// April 13th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // iPhone

My iPhone recently had to go back to Vodacom for an issue with the vibrate button. The thing broke off after only 2 months out the box. Something that’s completely unacceptable. Unfortunately the only thing to do was to book it in at Vodaworld, figuring it will be resolved fairly quickly.

In the initial three days I received a few messages informing me of the progress of the job, until it had to be sent back to the supplier. Around two-and-a-half weeks of silence ensued before I was finally notified that it was ready for collection. As expected (and welcomed), they exchanged the phone with a new unit.

One thing I must commend Apple on is how well the restore function works. Surprisingly enough it restored every setting, archived sms and application back to the last known state. Pretty amazing, considering I’ve never been able to do so with my Windows Mobile phones.

Funny thing about restoring your phone is that you notice how much nonsense you had on there in the first place. I took the opportunity to do some housekeeping and removed some unwanted / unused applications.

Below is a list of some of the more oft used (and mostly free) applications still on my phone.

    Photography

  • Flickit – Flickr uploader
  • PanoLab – Capture panoramic images
    Productivity

  • Discover – Mobile file manager
  • Road Trip – Best travel logbook application by far
    Social Networking

  • Brightkite – Location based networking
  • Facebook – What? Never heard of Facebook? Welcome to earth.
  • Fring – Instant messaging across multiple services
  • LinkedIn – Professional networking
  • Skype – Free calls and instant messages
  • Twitterfon – Twitter client
  • Twitterrific – Twitter client

Unfortunately some of the better apps in the iTunes App Store are still not available to South Africans, so we’ll have to make do for now. But here’s the question, are there other apps out there that I should have on my phone? What do you have on yours?

Afrigator