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FONTE: www.financialexpress.com
Reebok Inc would look back at 2005 as the year when a NASA engineer and an MIT-trained team of engineers helped it fight back into the $16.4 billion sneaker industry with a technology that reinvents the 1989 wonder product – the Pump. While atheletes today look for a customized “perfect fit”, the $ 100 Pump provides a custom fit by surrounding the foot with an automatic, form fitting air chamber. Inflating the chamber causes the shoe to form to the exact shape of the athlete’s foot. A large volume Pump actuator inside the heel of the shoe causes the shoe to inflate when the athlete takes approximately five steps. This inflation causes the shoe to form to the exact fit of the runner’s foot. This would take on the spring loaded shocks and computer chips that rivals Nike Inc. and Adidas-Salomon AG are embedding in their shoes. Clearly, technology is the driver from NASA’s space ships to the humble footwear.
Forget small, that’s passe. The in thing with cell phones in 2005 was a slim body. Pushing the envelope in this connection was Motorola with its Motoslim phones. The idea? Combine the best of features with a sleek body. Customers have lapped up the concept. And Motorola has just launched an even slimmer model – the thin, slab-style SLVR L6 – which is lighter than the popular RAZR V3. Possible because cameras, chips have all just shrunk to fit the slim phone.
Avid gamers swear by the Japanese giant, Sony Corporation’s Play Station. However, this year, the PS3 which is due for a launch in March 2006, was pipped to the post by Microsoft’s X-Box 360 which was launched On Nov 22, a month before Christmas. The company expects sales of 2.75-3 million units in the first 90 days of it launch. While Sony says it has sold 6.5 million PS2 units since its October 2000 debut, and maintains it has sold more PS products than all rivals put together, it is still a fact that it did not meet the peak sales season in US, Europe and Japan with the PS 3, which is expected to be a superior product to the MS X-box.
Zipping on hybrid wheels
What Xerox is to photocopying or Post-It is to tiny note pads, the Toyota Prius is to hybrid car technology. So synonymous is the car to the segment. The 2005 European Car of the Year, the Toyota Prius, which is a petrol-electric hybrid, has redefined luxury and fuel efficiency. Not surprisingly, the car has a long waiting period, and the price is predictably steep. Launched in 1997 in Japan, Toyota has sold over 180,000 Prius cars till date. In 2006, the company will begin hybrid production in the United States. At the same time, the mid-sized car will undergo some design and styling changes to suit customers in ’06.
Spot your location virtually
The free beta version of Google Earth was launched in June ’05, and critics are already raving about it. The broadband, 3D-based application combines satellite imagery, high-tech mapping and Google’s searching prowess to deliver geographic information at the click of a mouse. An optional upgrade called Earth Plus comes with the application, while a second upgrade called Earth Pro is targeted at professionals. MSN, interestingly, has reacted to Google Earth by previewing MSN Virtual Earth this year, while Amazon.com has also launched a mapping device.
Casting for the Pod
While Apple is yet to wipe the smirk off its face with the success of the I-Pod, the Nano and the Video version, there is a host of industries that have cropped up to service the growing legion of i-Podders When podders are in plenty can podcasting be far behind? The year 2005 has seen podcasting come into its own and become a part of a computer freak’s lexicon. Basically an amalgamation of two words — Apple’s iPod and broadcasting— it, however, has nothing to do with either.
A podcast is a web feed of audio files, that is placed on the Internet for anyone to download. This can be done directly from the
Net or via special programmes called podcatchers. Podcasting, incidentally, is designed for offlin listening. Its major attraction is the aggregration of programmes from multiple sources.
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