I received an AR Drone to review from Parrot a few weeks ago and i have to say what an amazing toy!
We have been witness to many outlets selling these units and were extremely excited to get the chance to fly one.
Like many RC toys the unit does have a few downsides but this has to be one of if not the best RC heli's we have flyed.
Upon opening the box we were a little surprised with how big it was, the outer foam that protects the unit is quite large but none the less very exciting.
We also noticed that the unit was extremely light which made flying enjoyable due to being easily manoeuvrable
For those of you who don't know much about the Parrot AR Drone, here is some information directly from the Parrot website.
First quadricopter that can be controlled by an iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad
Thanks to its on-board Wi-Fi system, you can control the Parrot AR.Drone using an iPhone®, iPod Touch®, or an iPad®. It was initially designed for the Apple platforms and will be also available on other platforms in the next few months.
You can also control the Parrot AR.Drone from a Linux PC and a joystick with the software AR.Drone Navigation designed for application developers and available for free.
Play with other users via a Wi-Fi network
Another major feature is the use of several AR.Drone on a network.
Thanks to its own generated Wi-Fi network, players can create a game party where others players can join and play against each other.
The multiplayer game, named AR.PURSUIT, makes it possible to have a battle between two AR.Drone. Hulls are available in three different colors to easily identify your AR.Drone
Although we didn't get the chance to play a multiplayer game we have watched many videos and if you and a mate are considering buying them as a pair we are sure you will enjoy yourselves 10 fold.
We have flyed RC helicopters quite a bit in the past and the thing they have lacked has been more excitement, although they are fun this is better.
The AR Drone has both a front and bottom camera so flying around the house becomes simple (as long as your connected via wifi).
Upon downloading the AR Drone iphone app and connecting the iphone will portray what’s seen in the front cam. You will be given an option to lift off which in my thoughts is fantastic as the drone just hovers allowing you to maintain control and get the feel of things.
First Flight:
Now you can go crazy or you can do it the right way. Going crazy will no doubt only land you into a wall or a TV (trust me we know).
I recommend lifting off and hovering for a moment then going back and forth slowly, up and down slowly. You will soon find that it's quite easy and that the drone has limits. The drone isn't the most responsive unit so getting used to it is a must.
The downfall with the AR Drone is by far the battery, it has a short life span so if you’re serious about getting one, invest the extra $50 for another battery, in my case I will be buying 2 as I hate down time.
Dom
Google is introducing a new interface for adwords. This is a big deal for Google, the adwords product is still an unrivaled revenue stream within their business and they have not made any significant changes to the existing interface since 2003.
The official launch for the big change is at SES NYC on March 24, however, those who are interested can sign up for the new adwords beta and have a play with the new system, switching between the old a new interface at will.
The new interface incorporates a number of updates including:
A little bit of research suggests that the new interface has already been tested by our English counterparts late in 2008. Have any of you had a play yet? If so what are your initial thoughts?
If you are a regular user of Twitter, you may notice that the majority
of the tweets do not in fact come from the web, but instead one of the
many Twitter designed apps available. The core reason for this is that
logging into your Twitter account whenever you feel like 'tweeting'
something does take a little bit of time, while using your mobile phone
or an app does make it a whole lot easier.
Not yet to take up Twitter on my phone, I am a FireFox user and managed to come across a great app, it's called TwitterFox. This app sits in the status bar of the browser and allows you to easily view everyone's latest updates, as well as make updates of your own.
Since installing the app I am much more frequent on Twitter and find it a much more powerful social networking site. It is now obvious to me it is not Twitter itself that makes it so popular, but the many ways in which you can use it.
I recently discovered a company called Video Infusion who specialises
in the making of interactive videos - videos that enable viewers to be
able to view, click and buy products right from within the video. This
type of technology is similar to Youtube's click-to-buy where if you
are not familiar users are able to buy songs and movies via Youtube
videos using link overlays (links that appear in the video). Currently, as far as I am aware Youtube is
only testing this in certain countries and as yet is not available in
Australia or New Zealand.
It will be interesting to see this technology evolve as so far Video Infusion seem to be main player offering more then just songs and movies. I feel it will not be long before Youtube too enables the purchase of not just songs but any products. My guess is Google Checkout will somehow be involved.
To give you an idea of how the technology works, have a quick view of the below video, courtesy of Video Infusion.
I would be interested to hear from anyone who has seen this technology used anywhere else.
It is now 2009 and depending on who you speak to regarding the future
economic situation in Australia, you will hear a variety of different
answers. In my view, I believe the worst is yet to come and I think
2009 is going to be a year off despair for many Australian businesses.
I think what we have seen to date is no where near the worst of it and
people who say otherwise are only avoiding the truth, 2009 will be a
great test for many.
Now in any economic downturn there are usually businesses who actually benefit, fast food outlets such as McDonalds are a good example as people look to save money by eating cheap takeaway. Like McDonalds I think that many Australian and International online businesses will actually benefit as well, as people look to save cash by buying from online retail stores who have less overheads and are usually much cheaper opposed to your local bricks and morter retailer.
According to Hitwise, traffic to the Appliances and Electronics sector in Australia grew by 27.2% comparing December 2007 to December 2008, showing a massive increase in the span of just one year. It was also very interesting to note that the major driver for this traffic increase was paid search, many online businesses made big investments in paid search which goes to show a lot about the quality of this traffic.
I believe there is a major opportunity ahead for online business in Australia, and I predict the online shopping market will continue to hold strong in 2009 and into 2010, as many other big Australian retailers such as Harvey Norman continue to struggle.
When developing a shopping cart for a client who wishes to sell online,
there is usually one issue I don't agree on with the client, and that
is if you should make registration mandatory in order to checkout and
purchase something from the store. If you have done any online shopping
you may notice that many of the big players in fact do make
registration mandatory, and if you want to buy anything you must
register. So if all the big players are doing this surely its a good
business model right? Wrong. Let me tell you why.
Bill is surfing the net one Saturday and visits a online shoe store from whom he has bought shoes from before. Naturally, like many shopping carts it requires registration in order to purchase something, and because Bill has shopped here before he already has an account with them. Bill then decides on which shoes he would like to purchase next, and proceeds to the checkout. On arriving at the checkout, the site asks him to either log into his already created account (which he has) or create a new account, so he chooses to log into his previous account and enters his details, only problem being he has forgot his password. Now again like most shopping carts, there is a password reminder feature that will email his password to him, but there is one more issue, where Bill is currently he does not have access to his registered email address, and cannot get the password reminder.
As you can see Bill has just been stopped in his tracks from ordering his next pair of shoes, simply because he forgot his password. Now I am not saying that all shopping carts that employ mandatory registration work exactly like this, however the majority do, and even if your cart does have a way around this issue, in my mind it is still a bad idea.
When designing a eCommerce website or any website in fact, you need to ask your self important questions like what is the point or purpose? In any eCommerce store I am assuming the primary purpose is to make sales. So once you have this in mind you then go about building the store in order to make it as easy as possible for people to complete your goal, which in this case is make sales. Once the user has decided to trust you and make a purchase, making them sign up for an account is only giving them one more reason to leave your website and not make the sale.
Now I am not saying that account registrations are bad, all I am saying is that forcing the user to register is bad, and will hurt your conversion rate. If you feel that allowing a user to register in order to have their account details saved for a next purchase is a good idea (and in many cases it is) then by all means do that, however make it optional. You can promote the account registration in many ways including the checkout process to remind users of the facility, but don't force them.
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