Five ways the iPad 2 works on the buyer's subconscious

Nothing succeeds like success. This maxim could be tweaked for the iPad 2 to nothing sells like success. That's the opinion of a consumer behavior expert who looked at how the chronically sold out iPad 2 works on the buyer's psyche.

People crave what they can't get--another maxim that applies here. Consumers would happily pay up front to reserve an iPad 2 at their local store. But they can't. Apple isn't doing the reservation thing this time.

So, they wait in long lines (which, by the way, are still forming early every morning at Apple stores in Los Angeles, where I live. And also count me as falling prey to this psychology.)

"Why would [Apple] deny my money and a for-certain sale?"--Philip Graves,who has just publish a book on the psychology of shopping, asks in a publicist's note sent out this week.

"Whatever the cause," Graves says, "here's why the iPad situation works psychologically:"

Heightened desirability: "It implicitly confirms the desirability of the item--it's a way of providing apparent social proof that this is a popular thing, and that's very attractive."

The adventure: "It creates discussion around each sale: suddenly buying one isn't just an acquisition, it's a story about serendipity or determination (or whatever); humans love stories, and the excitement gets attributed (and misattributed) to the product."

Loss aversion: "Perhaps the biggest win is that, when a customer does come across one in stock, his purchase mindset is completely different. The unconscious mind is running a process to protect us a lot of the time (loss aversion)--it's trying to make sure we don't feel bad in the future. Ordinarily, with a regularly available product, the process is focusing on whether we could buy the item more cheaply elsewhere, whether we really want it badly enough, whether we might find a better alternative down the line. When supply is restricted (and you see the same thing in housing booms) the loss aversion is switched to fear that NOT buying the product will result in regret: when will you see one again if you don't grab it now? You don't have the unconscious concern about finding one elsewhere because securing one at all is a result."

Wow factor: "In addition to all the other basic psychological drives that might cause us to want an iPad, you can add in or bolster several others because of the circumstances...now having an iPad (or iPad 2) has extra wow-factor, because it's less likely your friends will pull theirs out and say, 'Oh sure, I have one too.' People who have a strong competitive drive are also attracted to own one because it's a chance to be one up on other people.

The list price becomes a bargain: "Opportunists buy up stocks when they become available and sell them on auction sites like eBay. This creates the sort of price-skimming that retailers and brands could never get away with themselves (where the people with more money pay more because they can). Of course, people see this and you now have a price frame for the store item: people now see that they are getting an item that (some) people are prepared to pay $700 or $1,000 for, at the price of $499. All of a sudden the list price is a bargain.

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Nintendo playing nice with 3DS developers

With the U.S. launch of the Nintendo 3DS just days away, the game company wants to be clear that it's doing its part to help third parties succeed on its newest portable-gaming device.

Charlie Scibetta, Nintendo of America senior director of corporate communications, told IndustryGamers in an interview published Friday that his company is doing "everything we can to help [third parties] promote their products, to get their products visibility" on the Nintendo 3DS.

The 3DS, which allows gamers to play 3D titles without the need of special glasses, is scheduled to hit U.S. store shelves on Saturday for $249. The device launched in Japan last month and sold out in its first weekend of availability.

Third-party development on Nintendo platforms has been an issue that the game company has been forced to deal with over the years. Although its Wii and DS are the world's top devices in their respective game categories, third-party titles haven't reaped the same kind of success as Nintendo's own games.

In January, Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata revealed lists of the top-selling games for all devices. Out of the top 20 bestselling titles in the U.S. last year, 11 of those games were launched on the Wii or DS, and nine of them were developed by Nintendo. In Japan, all seven of the top-selling Wii games last year were developed by the game company, while three of the five top DS games came from Nintendo.

It was a similar story in 2009.

In a company earnings call in November of that year, Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello said the "Wii platform has been a little weaker than we had originally anticipated." He also looked beyond his own company and told investors that across the industry, "very, very few multiplatform titles are succeeding on the Wii so far."

During that call, he promised investors that he would work with Nintendo to try to solve that issue. But just a few months ago, he told IndustryGamers that he believes Nintendo does "less to promote third-party content" than its own games.

"I can come up with a dozen titles in the last decade, but it's really tough to come up with a dozen great titles that have been platform-defining for them that weren't their own," Riccitiello told IndustryGamers. "I don't care whether it's Mario or Twilight Princess or GoldenEye, it was their own content. I'm going back to [Nintendo 64], and I can go back to [Super Nintendo Entertainment System] if you want, but they've never really been a heavy third-party supporting system."

When it comes to the 3DS, however, it seems few developers are as willing to take issue with Nintendo. The portable-gaming device will have 18 games available at launch, and another 12 that will arrive in the next few months. And as Scibetta pointed out to IndustryGamers, "only five of those are from Nintendo."
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Will Japan's nuclear crisis affect U.S. energy debate?

Americans' concerns over nuclear power have spiked in the wake of Japan's ongoing nuclear crisis, but how the events will affect the long-term discussion over sources of energy is still unclear.

In a USA Today/Gallup poll conducted with 1,004 adults last week, about 70 percent of American's said that they are now more concerned with a nuclear disaster occurring in the U.S. In that same poll, 47 percent of respondents said they oppose construction of nuclear power plants in the U.S, compared to 44 percent who favor it.

A survey done before the Japanese earthquake and tsunami found that 57 percent either strongly or somewhat supported "the use of nuclear energy as one of the ways to provide electricity for the U.S.," with 38 percent strongly or somewhat opposed. Support for nuclear energy peaked last year, with 62 percent voicing support. Overall, support has been over 50 percent for most of the last decade and is higher now than it was a decade ago.

In its analysis, Gallup said that short-term worries over nuclear disasters may not affect Americans' support for nuclear energy over the long term.

Still, a look at the media coverage and discussion during the crisis shows that the incidents have served as an unhappy reminder of the risks of nuclear energy, which will likely cause regulatory reviews of nuclear safety at a number of U.S. plants. The nuclear crisis also appears to have rekindled people's awareness of radiation and the sources of the country's energy, all of which have trade-offs.

Few options
Not surprisingly, the future of nuclear power in the U.S. was one of the top topics for Sunday morning talk shows, with Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), and Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) all scheduled. Chu is a strong supporter of expanded nuclear power, particularly smaller, modular reactors that could get built quicker and for lower overall investment.

He said that existing plants, including the Indian Point power plant near New York City, will be reviewed and that the location of future sites will be influenced by the Japanese crisis, according to an Associated Press report. "Any time there is a serious accident, we have to learn from those accidents going forward," he said.

Nuclear opposition groups, such as Physicians for Social Responsibility, echoed previous arguments against nuclear energy, including the health risks, costs, and security concerns from terrorist attack. But even groups that have envisioned some role for nuclear in the country's future energy mix have pushed for greater scrutiny.

Frances Beinecke, the president of environmental advocacy group the National Resources Defense Council, said that the problems in Japan demonstrate that U.S. plants need to reconsider contingency plans in blackouts and other safety mechanisms. "As we learn hard lessons from the crisis in Japan, we must move, in this country, to a complete review and reassessment of the nuclear safeguards we rely on to protect us from the risk of catastrophe," she wrote.

Some people have started to speculate that nuclear power growth in the U.S. could be slowed or stopped. Nuclear power now supplies about 20 percent of the U.S. electricity and a number of existing plants are seeking to extend their licenses to operate. In terms of construction of new nuclear power plants, which will require loan guarantees from the federal government, Sen. Bingaman said Japan's crisis could be a "significant impediment," according to E2 Wire.

Cutting back on nuclear energy, even as demand for electricity continues to rise, would mean an increase in fossil fuels and potentially more solar and wind energy. Solar and wind are growing rapidly but are still a small fraction of the overall energy production in the U.S. and do not supply the steady "baseload power" that nuclear or fossil fuel plants do. Even before the Japan disaster, the use of natural gas, which burns cleaner than coal and is a domestic source of energy, was expected to grow in the coming years.

Moving away from nuclear power, which has no emissions during operations, would have a negative impact from an environmental point of view, according to one analysis. The Breakthrough Institute found that if the U.S. greenhouse gas emissions would increase with a complete phase-out nuclear power, even with a sharp increase in solar and wind, and increases in fossil fuels. It found the same is true in Germany, which shut seven of its 17 nuclear plants indefinitely.

On Sunday, there were reports that Japanese engineers at the Fukushima plant were making progress in averting larger radiation leaks by containing the heat from the damaged reactors and spent fuel containment pools.

If the situation becomes under control in the coming weeks as everyone hopes, media attention will likely move to the devastation in the country from the earthquake and other events. Without a doubt, this incident will have a significant impact on nuclear regulators and, most likely, plant operators. Now, we'll see how attitudes change toward nuclear over time and whether people will maintain attention on the pros and cons of different energy sources.

Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-20045161-54.html#ixzz1HBCru2qK

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Kembali ke Index Topik Pilihan Anjing Korban Gempa, Simbol Kesetiaan

dua ekor anjing yang tersesat setelah gempa dan tsunami di Jepang telah membantu para korban mengatasi kedukaan mereka.

Dailymail, Jumat lalu, melaporkan, dalam kondisi gemetar dan kotor, salah satu dari kedua anjing itu menjaga temannya yang terluka di antara puing-puing sebuah desa di timur laut Jepang. Di tengah penderitaan manusia, usaha anjing-anjing yang menjadi korban tsunami tersebut menjadi simbol bagi orang-orang Jepang.

Kesetiaan merupakan tema yang kuat dalam budaya Jepang dan para komentator memakai dedikasi sang anjing pada temannya sebagai sebuah simbol bagi masyarakat untuk saling menguatkan dalam menghadapi tragedi tersebut.

Ribuan binatang peliharaan menghilang dalam gempa dan tsunami, dan banyak lagi yang terpisah dari pemiliknya. Menurut para saksi mata, anjing-anjing dalam video ini telah diselamatkan dan diletakkan di tempat penampungan walau tampaknya akan sulit untuk mengidentifikasi mereka.

Sebuah kisah favorit Jepang yang telah difilmkan di Amerika Serikat adalah tentang seekor anjing bernama Hatchi yang pemiliknya tiba-tiba meninggal akibat serangan jantung. Anjing yang setia itu setiap hari pergi ke stasiun kereta, berharap dapat berjumpa dengan tuannya sampai anjing itu pun kemudian mati.
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High School Students Awarded $ 100,000 from Intel

High School Students Awarded $ 100,000 from Intel – 1001zones, Naturally Science deserves high appreciation. A high school student in the United States (U.S.) are entitled to U.S. $ 100,000 prize after becoming champion Intel Science Talent Search (Intel STS) 2011.

Winner of $ 100,000 that was Evan O’Dorney (17), from Danville, California. He managed to amaze the jury because the project is to compare 2 ways to take account of an Integer Square Root and discovered the quickest way to obtain results. For those who do not understand

mathematics and calculus was confusing, but such equality is very important in intelligent computer programming. Even Evan found the formula to encrypt from the formula.
Intel STS is the most prestigious annual contest for students in the sciences at senior secondary level in the U.S. Since 1942, the contest was the first time in close cooperation with the firm Westinghouse in 1998 and began working with Intel Corp. SSP provides the opportunity for high school students who are gifted and intelligent to prove itself in competition with presenting original research that is recognized by experts in the world.

Not only U.S. $ 100,000 prize for first prize. Intel poured a total of 1.25 million U.S. dollars of funds to 10 winners and 30 finalists. The second winner who received 75,000 U.S. dollars is Michelle Hackman (17) from Great Neck, New York, with a project studying the psychological effects of the teens in the U.S. if they do not use the phone and studied the level of anxiety. Michelle is a blind student, who managed to train 10 staff to help him do his research and data collection.

The third winner to receive 50,000 U.S. dollars, is Matthew Miller (18), of Elon, North Carolina, the project found that bejolan lattice-bump from wind turbines can affect the aerodynamics and this lump could also enhance the ability of electricity.

“Creativity and leadership from 40 finalists who are gifted in Mathematics and Science are potentially huge future for the country and the world,” said Intel Corp. President and CEO Paul Otellini during award presentation on Tuesday (15/03/2011) in Washington.

Contest in 2011 was followed by 1744 students from across the U.S.. We’ll wait hopefully it goes Intel is also considering to hold similar events in Indonesia.

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Zoom H1 records high-resolution audio for $99

The Zoom H1 Handy Portable Digital Recorder is exactly what the name claims. Measuring just 8x2x5 inches it's very portable, and this little thing records high-quality WAV files at 44.1- to 96-KHz sampling rates with 16-bit or 24-bit resolution.

If you're more interested in maximum recording time, it can also do MP3 files at 48Kbps to 320Kbps. The H1 records on microSD cards and comes with a 2GB card. Step up to a 32 GB microSD card and you'll get over 50 hours of recording time at 16-bit/44.1KHz.


I first wrote about Zoom products in late 2007, and came away really impressed with the company's H2 recorder's sound quality. The H1 doesn't replace the H2, but it's a more evolved design, and goes for just $99!

Connectivity is pretty basic; there's a 3.5mm mic input, a 3.5mm headphone output, and a USB 2.0 port. You can monitor the H1's sound over headphones, or in a pinch with the recorder's tiny built-in speaker. Zoom claims the single AA battery should last 10 hours, but I only got 5 or 6 hours.

All record functions are at your fingertips, such as track marker, autorecord, low-cut filter, record level, and volume controls.

Build quality isn't robust, so I doubt the H1's lightweight plastic body will survive too many drops onto hard floors. The plastic case picks up handling noises when you hold the H1 while recording; I'd recommend getting Zoom's $24 accessory kit, which comes with a windscreen, power adapter, USB cable, semihard carrying case, tripod, and mic clip. The little tripod eliminates handling noises while recording, and the windscreen is essential for outdoor recording (any air movement results in loud buffeting noises).

I recorded some musicians in the New York City subway, but the subway stations were too noisy to seriously evaluate the H1's sound quality. So I headed over to see my musician friends Gene and Beth with the H1, and they played a bunch of tunes for me. Gene is an audiophile, so we played the recordings back over his MartinLogan electrostatic speakers. Gene knows the sound of his 1930s-era Gibson Mastertone banjo and 1958 Gibson Southern Jumbo and 1931 Martin Herringbone 0028 guitars, and he felt the H1 did a great job of capturing their sounds. But Gene and Beth's vocals were too thin and distant-sounding, so I changed the mic position and we recorded a few more things. The new mic position helped flesh out the vocals a bit. Overall, Gene felt that for a $100 recorder the H1 was a great buy.

He thought it would be ideal for young players who want to document a rehearsal or club date. We compared the H1 recordings with some recordings Gene had done in his apartment with a $1,000 digital recorder and a $300 Audio-Technica microphone. The sound was much better, mostly because it was more naturally balanced overall, but the recording gear was 13 times more expensive! We all thought the H1's microphones were the weak link, but you can hook up a better mic to the H1. By the time we finished recording Beth was considering buying a H1 for herself. If you're in the New York area and dig bluegrass music, check out their band, Minetta Creek.

Beth and Gene really liked the H1's simplicity of operation; its one-button record system is a breeze to use. Later on I used the H1 to record interviews, and I'm also sold on the little recorder.
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Star Wars Uncut creators wow SXSW with crowdsourcing tales

AUSTIN, Texas--There's no denying that most of us are "Star Wars" fans, but how many of us ever thought our own work could complement George Lucas' immortal screenplay? For thousands of people, the wonderful Star Wars Uncut project has been the key to pretending, even if for just 15 seconds, that we've got a little Lucas in us.

For those unaware of it, Star Wars Uncut is an ongoing project that tasked fans with recreating 15-second scenes from the original film in any way they can think of. Fans responded by the thousands, and thanks to a savvy system built by its creators, the best takes on each scene are the ones that have made it into the dynamically-constructed new version of the movie.

On Saturday at the South by Southwest (SXSW) conference here, the three lead creators of Star Wars Uncut took the stage before an adoring room and explained, often to raucous laughter, just how they turned to the global community of "Star Wars" fans and created what turned out to be an Emmy-winning and outright terrific new version of the classic 1977 movie.

Watching Star Wars Uncut is about as much fun as one can have at the movies. As part of their presentation, the film's creators showed the first 15 minutes, which are a cacophony of fantastic artistic styles, outrageous takes on the famous "Star Wars" scenes, and side-splitting inside jokes. And all done in a way that's entirely faithful to Lucas' original script. Think R2D2 as a Red Bull can, or the Jawas' transport as a Barbie car. Think beautiful animation, 8bit graphics, babies dressed as Stormtroopers, and much, much more.



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Star Wars Uncut creators wow SXSW with crowdsourcing tales

AUSTIN, Texas--There's no denying that most of us are "Star Wars" fans, but how many of us ever thought our own work could complement George Lucas' immortal screenplay? For thousands of people, the wonderful Star Wars Uncut project has been the key to pretending, even if for just 15 seconds, that we've got a little Lucas in us.

For those unaware of it, Star Wars Uncut is an ongoing project that tasked fans with recreating 15-second scenes from the original film in any way they can think of. Fans responded by the thousands, and thanks to a savvy system built by its creators, the best takes on each scene are the ones that have made it into the dynamically-constructed new version of the movie.

On Saturday at the South by Southwest (SXSW) conference here, the three lead creators of Star Wars Uncut took the stage before an adoring room and explained, often to raucous laughter, just how they turned to the global community of "Star Wars" fans and created what turned out to be an Emmy-winning and outright terrific new version of the classic 1977 movie.

Watching Star Wars Uncut is about as much fun as one can have at the movies. As part of their presentation, the film's creators showed the first 15 minutes, which are a cacophony of fantastic artistic styles, outrageous takes on the famous "Star Wars" scenes, and side-splitting inside jokes. And all done in a way that's entirely faithful to Lucas' original script. Think R2D2 as a Red Bull can, or the Jawas' transport as a Barbie car. Think beautiful animation, 8bit graphics, babies dressed as Stormtroopers, and much, much more.




But before showing the excerpt from the movie, the team behind it revealed a series of clues that could help anyone, at least anyone with the right kind of media project, figure out how to harness the power of the crowd.

As someone whose profession involves studying the Internet and how and why things become popular, Star Wars Uncut co-creator Jamie Wilkinson said he quickly understood why it had struck such a chord with people all over the world: "My first observation [was] that 'Star Wars' is very popular," Wilkinson said, stating the entirely obvious.

One of the things about that popularity, he continued, is that all manner of "Star Wars" related projects have fed off that success, making it possible, for example, to get "a room full of slave Princess Leias," if that's your cup of tea. Similarly, of course, there's a worldwide network of devotees of the Dark Side known as the 501st Legion, members of which can often be found arriving in full Stormtrooper gear at events of all kinds.

At the same time, Wilkinson said, the rapid advent of crowdsourcing has made it possible for those with infectious ideas to rope in people from all over the world to help out with something. For example, he pointed to 2007's White Glove Tracking, an effort in which tens of thousands of people were willing to help out by isolating "Michael Jackson's white glove in all 10,060 frames of his nationally televised landmark performance of 'Billy Jean.'"

"And so, as we got into this project, and it started to balloon," Wilkinson said, "we were just talking about tapping into the creative drive of hundreds of thousands of people around the world. We were just giving them something to do."

Risk versus reward

For Casey Pugh, the original creator of Star Wars Uncut, a primary thing to consider when imagining a potential crowdsource-based project is the risk versus reward balance. For something like Google's Image Labeler, which tasks two users with adding a tag to a photo--and then using their tags for similar photos if both people add the same one--the risk is low, as is the reward. For something like the Netflix Prize, which asked people to create a system for better movie recommendations, the risk is high--in other words, the effort was extremely difficult, but the reward was large: a $1 million prize.

And in most cases, Pugh said, there's a linear relationship between risk and reward, and people's passion for something. But with Star Wars Uncut, he argued, the linear element went out the window: The risk wasn't great, the reward was somewhat substantial, but people's passion for being involved went through the roof.

That, of course, would not be an easy dynamic to reproduce, given that there are few things for which people have more passion than "Star Wars." Perhaps, Pugh suggested with a slide early in the presentation, Jesus may be one of the few things on Earth more popular than "Star Wars."

Winning an Emmy

The final member of the creative team behind Star Wars Uncut to speak was Annelise Pruitt. She explained how she'd come on board with the mandate of rebuilding the project's Web site, in the process making something that could both handle the expectations of thousands of participants, and also their content.

One of the first tasks, she said, was building a system that would allow users to search through all of the hundreds of 15-second long scenes from the original film, as well as the users' submissions of their interpretations of those scenes.

As well, they had to create a pop-up viewer that was findable throughout the site. The result was a tool they called Vader. And then they realized they wanted to incorporate one of the hottest social media elements, badges. The solution there was to give participants a badge for every "Star Wars" character they fit into the scenes they submitted.

"I'd never seen anything like it," Pruitt said. "People from all over the world responded and wanted to be a part of it."

These days, one of the selling points for the Star Wars Uncut project is that it won an Emmy award. But Pruitt explained that the team didn't beat out competition from the producers of "Dexter" and "Glee" for the content itself. Rather, she said, the team was rewarded for the innovative dynamic playback system that they built and incorporated into the site.

The idea here was that because users were able to give a thumb's up or thumb's down to any submitted clip, Star Wars Uncut should be able to feature the currently highest-rated version of each 15-second clip in the film, thereby ensuring that it's always the best possible version of itself.

The result is a beautiful piece of filmmaking, as it were. As is the official director's cut of the movie, which is what the 15 minutes the audience was shown was from. Cue the familiar John Williams score, and then the first surprise: The Twitter page for @StarWarsUncut, with "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away," being typed into the text box.

Then, the oh-so-familiar "Episode IV" rolling text sequence laying out the context of the "Star Wars" story. I was confused: This was straight from the movie itself. Until the text ended, that is, when the next thing we see is "First!" and a whole series of the kind of comments one would find in a blog comment thread. The audience was already losing it.

Lucasfilm support

As much as I love this project, the first question on my mind was how in the world Wilkinson, Pugh, and Pruitt were able to make Star Wars Uncut without incurring the wrath of Lucasfilm. And when the floor opened for questions, it was clear others were wondering the same thing.

Pugh summed it up succinctly: The project is a non-profit with no ads. In fact, Pugh said, Lucasfilm was "in love" with Star Wars Uncut and even flew him to headquarters in San Francisco to talk it over. But he also explained that Lucasfilm worried about potential branding issues that might arise with obvious logos in the 15-second clips, such as a soda can. "That was their main concern if we actually started distributing it," he said.

Similarly, Pugh explained that Lucasfilm had no interest in the film being a commercial project, even if it got its share of the profits. That's because, he said, the company is wary about being seen to be making money off of the fan community's efforts. Still, he said, Lucasfilm has a long history of working with the makers of fan films.

The Star Wars Uncut project is now about 18 months old, and with an Emmy in the creators' back pockets, one might well ask what they can do to top their initial efforts.

That is, of course, until one remembers that there are five other live-action "Star Wars" movies. Cue The Empire Strikes Back Uncut. Selengkapnya...