Shops track customers via mobile phone

CRM, Tech, Thought Provoking

The Times reports signals given off by phones allow shopping centres to monitor how long people stay and which stores they visit

The technology can tell when people enter a shopping centre, what stores they visit, how long they remain there, and what route they take as they walked around.

The device cannot access personal details about a person’s identity or contacts, but privacy campaigners expressed concern about potential intrusion should the data fall into the wrong hands.

Now this is what I call responding to your market.

In the case of Gunwharf Quays, managers were surprised to discover that an unusually high percentage of visitors were German – the receivers can tell in which country each phone is registered – which led to the management translating the instructions in the car park.

Natascha Kampusch Purchases Kidnapper’s House

Thought Provoking

From Spiegel

Austrian kidnapping victim Natascha Kampusch has purchased the home in which a man held her captive for over eight years in a cellar dungeon. “I know it’s grotesque — I now have to pay the electricity, water and taxes on a house I never wanted to live in,” she told the German magazine Bunte. But she said she would prefer to own the home herself to protect it from vandals and keep it from being torn down to build row houses.

The questions I’m asking are
Where did she get the money?
Who got the house after her kidnapper killed himself?

It’s all over

Football, Germany, Munich

Normally, I would jump at the chance of a ticket for a Bayern game. Not tonight. The race for the Bundesliga title is already over and while the game is interesting for the relegation battle that Armenia Bielefeld are involved in, I’m just not interested enough to spend €20 to see it.

iProd?

Tech

The New Scientist reports

Apple has filed a patent application on a hand-held, touch screen gadget that will provoke you to take some exercise – or some other activity you’re interested in.

It looks a lot like an iPhone or iPod Touch in the diagrams. The user would first answer questions about their nutrition and health history, which allows it to work out a personalised fitness programme

eee 900 reviewed

Tech

Trusted Reviews have got their hands on the new 20Gb model of the eee. It’s a very positive review with the only downside, according to the reviewer, that the battery life is pretty much the same as before.

Verdict

Asus has done a brilliant job of updating an already great product. The engineers have clearly listened to all the comments regarding the original Eee PC and attempted to put them right. The 1,024 wide screen makes the Eee PC 900 a joy to use, especially if you spend a lot of your time in a browser window. The extra memory and storage are also very welcome additions, and help make this version of the Eee PC a real alternative to a fully featured notebook.

Yes the price is higher than the previous model, but I personally believe that the Eee PC 900 still represents staggering value for money. Ultimately, if you want a notebook that’s small, light and still very affordable, the Eee PC 900 should be top of your list

New EEE announced

Tech

The Guardian has details of new eee pcs that will be launched in the UK on May 1. It seems that all of the gripes that I have heard from various people who have slobbered over my one at work has been answered by this release. Availability is going to be very tight!

ASUS Eee PC magic continues with its next generation dubbed ASUS Eee PC 900. It offers several stunning updates and improvements. The screen size grows from 7″ to 8.9″; the RAM size grows from 512MB to 1GB, all supported with larger storage of up to 20GB. All the new models are Windows ready and come with a built in webcam (growing from 0.3m to 1.3m pixel), 4GB of SSD and a superb battery life of 3.5hrs. Finally, the weight stays below 1kg making it the ideal fusion of mobility and computing.