E Cube

  Nowadays,as we all know, each 5 stars hotels room has a mini-bar which contains alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks for the guests. Every morning a persons comes and fills your room bar with drinks that the guest had comsumed during the last day.
  The process of filling the fridge might be stressfull in one way because the respansable person never knows what quantity and which drinks are missing from the bar and he might loose a lot of time in one room, and also it creates disconfort for the guests. That's why the eCube was invented.
  "The eCube was invented by bartech according to the requirements of the hospitality chain "Accor" for their Sofitel concept room. This small futuristic design is equiped with the same detection capabilities as other automatic mini-bars within the Bartech range. It can cool and control up to 9 small bottles:" (www.bartech.com) which provides a total control on the guest necessity.
  In my opinion eCube it's a usefull concept because of their inovative system:

•  will reduce the consumption of electricity and will reduce the costs for it, this will have only positive affects on the hotel.
• has a modern and attractive design
• will provide more comfort for the guest because their missing item will be quickly replaced by a new one.

                                                        

                                            
 
 

Social Media

     In the given video we see a roughly description based on a Social Media research:

  - Motivation to engage in Soacial Media:

• Direct contact
• Information
• Modern image
• Interaction
• New channel
• Feedback
• Buzz creation
• Trafic

The researcher followed a pedefined Social media Strategy contracting online marketing agencies to cover specific predefined target markets, invests up to 10 hours per week or SMM.

  An other interesting part is:

 - Blog Success depends on

• Getting the permission to puch content
• Growth of RSS feed subscribes over time
• net feed subscribers added  over time
• The number of unique blogs that link to your blog
• Ability to influence others and create conversation in the ecosystem.

    The number of user comments per post trended over time. It represents the success at engaging visitors with your unique content and getting them to contribute their thoughts. i.e in the most social of social environment your ability to create meaningful conversation.

    My opinion is that the researched did a good job on a topic that is interesting for everybody and we can learn a lot from his presentation because his information is interesting, based on facts and usefull.

                              

Podcasting

A podcast is an audio file that are released episodically and often downloaded from web-sites.
  Podcasting began to catch hold with public in 2004,though during 1998-2001 dat.com era there were multiple podcasts done by major companie,such as Real Networks and ESPN. Many individuals and groups contributed to the emergence and popularity of podcast.
  Nowadays, through evolution of the internet capabilities, along with cheaper hardware and software, audio podcasts are doing what was historically done through radio broadcast stations.
  The mode of delivery differenciates podcasting from other means od accessing media files over the Internet,such as direct download or streamed webcasting.
  A list of all audio files currently associated with a given series is a mantained centrally on the distributor's server as a web feed, and the listener employs special client application software  known as podcatcher,that can access   this web feed, check it for updates and download any new files in the series. This process can be automated so that new files are downloaded automatically. Files are stored locally on the user's computer or any other device.

Smartphones

Smartpones are mobile phones that have advanced functions,more like computers.
  First smartphone was called  Simon, it was designed by IBM in 1992 and shown as a concept product that year at COMDEX, the computer industry trade show held in Nevada. It was released to the public in 1993 and sold by BellSouth. Besides being a mobile phone, it also contained a calendar, adress book , world clock, calculator, note pad, e-mail, send and receive fax, and games. It had no physical buttons to dial with. Instead customers used a touch screen to select phone numbers with a finger or create facsimiles and memos with an optional stylus. Text was entered with a unique on-screen "predictive" keyboard. By today's standards, the Simon would be a fairly low-end product. However, its feature set at the time was incredibly advanced. 
  Nowadays, the technologies are developed very good and the best smartphones are Iphone, Blackberry,Nokia,HTC, ect. that provide the owner with functions like: Flashlight,Wifi, Market,Youtube,FM radio,Maps,News,Weather,Voice recorder and many other functions.
  To have a smartphone is it very convinient because they really offer us everything a computer offers,but the dimentions are smaller and more practical.
 In general,a smartphone will be based on operating system that allouds smartphones to run. 
  While almost all cells include some sort of software,a smartphone will have the ability to do more. It may allow you to create and edit Microsoft files. It may allow you to download applications,such as personal and business finance managers.Or it may allow you to edit photos,get driving directions via gps and create a list of digital tunes.
  The smartphones are really usefull things and may offer you a lot of help if something helps (via free internet and GPS)

   

Photosynth

http://photosynth.net/view.aspx?cid=5ce28fe8-3f14-464c-b3f4-1178c501dd99

Does IT matter?

IT's evolution had closely mirrored that of earlier infrastructural technologies. Its buildout had been every bit as breathtaking as that of the railroads. During the last quarter of the twentieth century,the computational power of a microprocessor increased by a factor of 66.000. In the dozen years from 1989 to 2001,the number of host computers connected to the Internet grew from 80.000 to more tha 125 million. Over the last ten years,the number of sites of the World Wide Web has grown from zero to nearly 40 million. And since the 1980s,more than 280 million miles of fiber optic cable have been instaled-enough,as Business Week recenty noted,to "circle the earth 11,320 times".

 As with earlier infrastructural technologies, IT provided forward-looking companies many opportunities for competitive advantage earlu in in its buildout,when it could still be "owned " like a proprietary technology. A classic example is American Hospitality Supply. A leading distributor of medical supplies,AHS introduced in 1976 an innovative system used proprietary software running on a maniframe computer,and hospital purchasing agemts accessed it through terminals at their sites.Because more efficient ordering enabled hospitals to reduce their inventories-and thus their costs-customers were quick to embrace the system.

  AHS gained a true competitive advantage by capitalizing on characteristics of infrastructural technologies that are common in the early stages of their buildouts,in particular their hight costs and lack and standardization.

IT management should bdcome borring. The key to success,for the vast majority of companies,is no longer to seek advantage aggressively but to manage costs and risks meticulously. If, like many executives,you're begun to take a more defensive posture toward IT in the last two years,spending more frugally and thinking more pragmatically,you're already on the right course. The challenge will be to mantain that discipline when the business cycle strenghtnes and chorus of hype about IT's strategic value rises anew.

Global Distribution System

GDS is a worldwide computerized reservation network used as a single point of acces for reserving airline seats,hotel rooms,rental cars and othertravel related items by travel agents, online reservation sites and large corporations.
GDS is a permanently up-to-date database that is accessible to its subscribers through computing terminals.
A GDS provides all kinds of tariffs and tourism services to subscribes everyday,allowing the users to make,change and cancel reservations,as well as to print tickets and avail themserves of any kind of rights,related to services and products.
The premier GDS are Amadeus,Galileo, Sabre and Worldspan owned and operated as joint ventures by major airlines,car rental firms and hotel groups. Also called automated reservation system(ARS) and computerized reservation system (CRS)


Major GDSs.

• Sabre: American Airlines, All Nippon Airways,Cathay Pacific Airways,China Airlines,Singapore Airlines. It owns Travelocity.com
• Amadeus: Air France,Iberia,Lufthansa and SAS. Serves more than 57.000 travel agency locations and more than 10.500 airline sales offices in approximately 200 markets worldwide,including 58.000 hotels and 50 car rental companies,ferry,rail,cruise,insurance and tour operators.
• Galileo: 11 major North Americam and European airlines: Aer Lingus, Air Canada,Alitalia,Austrian Airlines,British Airways,KLM Royal Dutch Airlines,Olympic Airlines,Swissair,TAP Air Portugal,United Airlines and US Airways.
• Worldspan: Delta,Northwest

Smaller or regional GDSs, including SITA's Sahara,Infiny(Japan),Axess(Japan),Tapas(Korea), Fantasia(South Pacific) and Abacus(Asia/Pacific)

The future of GDSs.

• Continue to evolve their technological experience
• Reduce utilisation costs
• Simplify the utilization process
• Enlarge the products and services range
• Establish strategic alliances with the new competitors
• Develop a more relational marketing policy with travel agencies.