Dude, You just got Chipped!

“Shopping is not a trait, it’s a spirit. You are to enjoy as it happens”
– Vasanth G.Benjamin

Tell me about shopping and I will tell you how amazing it can be. There’s so much fun in shopping that sometimes I exceed the ladies when it comes to enjoying the moments you move when you’re by the window watching your favorite watch or that Levis jeans which is up for grabs.

But not everyone loves shopping, and I agree, we cannot have the same tastes and spurs of everyone around us, and that exactly is what makes shopping fun. It’s about the people, the millions who walk around us, the million wants they offer for the all the businesses that spring all around us. And how on earth do you get the shopping experience fulfilling for all of these people? I know it’s very difficult but then, there has to be someway when it comes to giving the best of a shopping experience to a world of people.

Welcome to the “Real World Interface or the RWi” it’s the technology which am most awaiting and I want to see it come and happen by the time I wind up away from Earth; for good!

So what on earth is RWi? Well to tell you the start of how RWi can be put to work, we should go to the very start of how mankind will be fundamentally integrated into this technology by the years nearing to the 2030’s. Since the human and machine interface will pretty much conquer the whole of the worldly space in general, we think of a retail technology which will well integrate well with the human interface and it should be able to figure out the most valuable data needed for that retail interface.

The start of the Chip age:

 When a child is born, it gets digitally chipped into a single data chip which will be integrated to its body; this chip will integrate all the information of the human being and will serve as a single chip which will help the human receive data from its interaction with the outside world.This chip will contain information ranging from personal, office, banking, and finance, social and other required data. This chip will also work on a responsive basis and will learn our liking’s over the years through which it will enable its artificial intelligence to analyze and help us understand and filter information from and within the outside world.

Bio Metric – Smart Chipping:

Today’s shopping isn’t the way it was 10 years back, and that gives us enough evidence that it wouldn’t be the same in 2030. Technology back then would be so improved that the machines; both in us and beyond would understand and help us in reaching out to the products much easier than today’s world. The smart chips will wirelessly code in the contents of the thread and follow a computation of patterns and store them in their databases. It neatly organizes the product list, the brands and the places we go to shop most or like most. It gets the data embedded into its list and keeps a track of the newer ones and assorts the list by itself. In this way, RWi and the Smart Chips work in tandem making it one of the best shopping experiences for a human being.

Shopping 2030:

By the time we reach the year 2030, the way shopping is carried out would be a lot through e-commerce and would use a vital space of technology within. Every business would invest a lot on their vital nodes of technology enabling the best of e-commerce to work in tandem with the RWi and make it easier for customers to get in touch with the product.
Every business in the mall or on the street, will have RWi windows, which project all their products over the window, where customers can have a digital interface of connecting and knowing more on the product by just clicking on the info and the store displays its information on the product and also allows customers to know if the required product is available or no.
The moment you stand close to a RWi window of a store, the store’s feed detector, scans your Smart Chips and welcomes you with your name and other information and automatically scans if that brand is part of your favorite list and also informs you of upcoming or interesting products that may interest you based on your like list.

When the customer is willing to buy a product, the digital automatically scans the financial scenario and the bank details and also offers options on other special offers which can be included into this sale. Based on the options chosen by the customer, the product is bought right there with additional options on change of address, or delivery date etc. Once the sale is done, the system registers the e-comm sale and delivers the product on the said date and during the delivery, the Bio Metric – Smart Chip acknowledges the identity of the person and the sale to the incoming courier company which delivers the required product.

The Experience:

With technology taking the giant leap for mankind, it’s made the whole shopping experience, simpler, better and much efficient than before. And moreover, every shopper feels special on his own account, with technology assisting his every move when it comes to his favorite brand and how to get it at the earliest. Every product will now reach its favored customer much faster than before. And customers on the other hand will be happy on the personalized approach of their shopping experience, thus making the whole shopping experience a very fulfilling one.

E-Papers & Multi-User Interfaces:

With the help of assisted technology, there is no need for newspapers, reaching your space at home, the news paper and the other manuals can be a single slate of glass fitted with a MUI which has the ability to derive content from earlier subscriptions and bring you the latest of news, in the touch of a hand. With these kinds of platforms, the customers are branded with the latest on what’s happening in their favorite stores on what’s the upcoming news from their most likable brands.

RWi Technology:

The Real World Interface Technology is very futuristic to the current world and it ascertains a change like no other where the technology thoroughly takes over the research factors of a business, by tracing the customers to what he or she likes or dislikes and what are the brands they would like to know more about. Technology would work hand in glove with the human sense and make tomorrow’s businesses reach to the far corners of the earth with as easy as just a click.

The future of shopping is here! :

“I love shopping. There is a little bit of magic found in buying something new. It is instant gratification, a quick fix.”
― Rebecca Bloom, Girl Anatomy

P.S : The above article was written in view for ebay.in for their blog on “The Future of Shopping” under the category of Lifestyle>Shopping.

Please do vote for this entry if you like it. Thanks to Indiblogger and ebay.in for the opportunity.

Note: The pictures used in the above article are for illustrative purpose only and are not to be used, copied or manipulated. I do not take ownership for the pictures and I sincerely thank the owners for their cooperation and sharing of above used pictures.

My God Wore a Gućći

LinkWire ® has always been a dream for me – A multicultural and multinational agency which works on Innovation – Creation and Communication. Below is a fictional drama of how it all happened.

                                                                                                    Enjoy the read!

I’ve always heard Rahul say ““Efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right things.”  That is so true! Back here in the office, we were starting to have troubled times unfold with the new software upgrade suggested by the not so helpful I.T team. Myself Vasanth Benjamin as Group Communications officer it really concerned me that inability amongst the staff is a major communication trauma for a big design agency like ours.

LinkWire ® is one of the biggest communications agencies to name from and Rahul Metha headed it as the CEO and I backed him up with the communications while Arjun headed the operations and last but not the least, Ms.Swetha headed the creative and production department.

With 5 branches all across the world, all of us had to keep travelling and all our toes were always filled with work either from clients or from internal work delegations. My team was based in Delhi, but the majority of the production team was based in Bangalore. Rahul operated a lot from New York and Swetha shuttled from Hong Kong literally every month. With this setup it was very difficult for each of us to maintain a business strategy on how to optimize and effectively handle all parts of a global agency from different parts of the world, right on the move.

Rahul believed that style and sense mattered always while at work, he always chose to work with Apple products and would vouch for them anytime. He loved his mac and never ever wanted to work with any other product. He was certainly convinced that it was the best. On the other hand I was a hard hat PC guy who had just fallen in love for the all new Windows 8. I believed more on simplicity, productivity and mobility and Windows 8 gave me all of it. I was someone who did a lot of intercity travel so I was more on phone and tablets than the regular PC, but Swetha and Arjun were more glued to PC usage than the walk and talk I routinely took.

Recently LinkWire ® spent close to half a million dollars due to security and software upgrades and for an agency like ours, our data was vital. Not only was our work important, but our client’s confidential files had more value and cannot be compromised. Just a week ago, the I.T head informed us that we need to do a software migration, because of the constant glitches which happens between teams of those where half use Apple and the other half use Windows. And Rahul was always annoyed at the stalemate which happened between teams which resulted in poor performance and longer deadlines.

One fine day my Lumia 920 lighted up with the news of a management meeting confirmed for Monday morning, where all the heads were called in for a total discussion on what can be done and how all of the current stalemate can be resolved for a smooth execution at the agency.

Rahul entered the meeting room, with all of us seated in a circular fashion at our Pearl Board Meeting room. Rahul looked tensed and was frustrated that a lot of business was lost or disintegrating due to the mess which has happened on the I.T side of the business.
In just 15 minutes, the arguments, blames and the denials kept flying in the air and each of us was arguing on the facts that we knew best. But nothing seemed sensible enough to resolve all the points which we wished to highlight. And finally the door banged open….

Swetha entered in with a dark blue coat and a guilt free smile even though she was 20minutes late for the meeting. Poor soul has come directly from the airport for this meeting. I looked at her and smiled back. I realized that she had a different smile today. A smile which held a lot of answers to something big. I knew something big was about to happen today. Something which can change the entire way we can do business.

I waited for her to say it herself.  Impatiently!

And Swetha finally spoke out to the crowd: “Listen everyone, she cried…….”
What are we arguing for in this meeting? Am sure you all have valid points and I know each of those points are very important in adding value to our business, but how do we integrate all of it and also enjoy each other’s private interests. Has anyone here heard of “Office 365”?  Anyone?

Office 365 is a subscription-based service which offers access to various services and software built around the Microsoft Office platform, which we all are using right now. It works on the same way as a Microsoft’s Business Online Productivity Suite, it also includes hosted versions of Exchange, Lync, SharePoint, Office Web Apps, along with access to the Microsoft Office 2010 applications as well. Right now, as we speak, Microsoft has released the Office 2013; Office 365 expanded to include all the new applications with 3 different product lines, which is the home use, the small business and the mid business.

Let me put it straight on what it does and how it will work wonders for us:

• Office Anywhere – Everywhere: Rahul, you or anyone in this room can access Microsoft office suite virtually anywhere, across devices, so that everyone here has the freedom and flexibility to be more productive wherever you might be working. Plus, you can customize and set it the way you prefer it to be.
• It’s in the Cloud: Everything you ever work on is put up safe in the cloud. Just sign in to SkyDrive and you can catch up from where you left it.
• Walk and Work: Using the new Office on Demand application you can stream Office to any Internet-connected PC running Windows 7 or Windows 8.2. And yeah, Rahul, for an Apple geek like you, you can experience Office on your Mac, iPad and other select devices. So enjoy the walk no matter what device you have – You still have it!
• Big is Better: With everyone hooked to this setup, using Outlook should be a problem between teams. They’ll never worry about client files with a 25 GB mailbox and shared calendars, scheduling, and task-list tools. Isn’t that amazing?
• Either Rahul or Vasanth or myself, where ever we are, be it at the airport or at a coffee shop, we can always gear up for online meetings. Office 365 gives you HD video conferencing, real-time note taking, and screen sharing with Lync Online. You’d never miss my face ever again, LOL!
• Like we discussed earlier, our client files are very important and its security is prime. Now, we can communicate more securely with our client and partners using shared documents from a single location from SharePoint Online. It can’t get better than this!
• And each team gets its own productive mailbox which it can collaborate and work out their deadlines. Let them use SharePoint and edit them from Outlook using a single project-specific mailbox.

So guys, I see that all of you are awe struck with this deal, let me end this talk with a little extra information for Rahul.  It just may be the deal breaker what he wishes to hear.

We have invested enough on software upgrades and security checks, and its high time we make a move to avoid software management overheads. This setup allows automatic updates and never annoys anyone with updates in the middle of their work. And the IT team can manage the email accounts, set IT policies to its users and all of that can be done with a few minutes time. All our company phones can be wiped of confidential data if a phone should be lost. We can at least be happy our latest Ad campaign won’t be copied by some other agency. The Mid-Size Business Edition comes with full office tools, file storage of 25GB, a public website, Web conferencing, instant messaging, Mobile Apps, security and full time support. And most of all, Office 365 is under compliance from all governmental and industrial sectors, so there shouldn’t be a problem with regulations at all.

So my summary is, Office 365 gives everything what we need. It’s simple, stylish and the most productive and effective option I propose for LinkWire ®

The next day morning all of us received an email from Rahul addressed to Arjun. It read “Please implement Office 365 for all the offices of LinkWire ® effective immediately”

• One month later, Rahul bought his first Windows 8 PC
• I introduced the LinkWire ® newsletter across all the offices
• Swetha went on to become LinkWire’s ®  Group Creative Director
• The I.T Team never had an operations shutdown post implementation of Office 365
• Arjun submitted the Operations budget with 30% lower overhead costs that following year
• LinkWire ® opened its newest branch in Birmingham, United Kingdom

Change has just begun !

P.S : The above is a piece of fiction conceived from imagination was written in view for the Your Dream Business’ contest under the category of Computers- I.T. Please do vote for this entry if you like it. Thanks to Indiblogger and Office 365 [http://www.office365.in ] for this opportunity.

The Scent of the Future – an Innovation by Vasanth G.Benjamin

It’s 2010, and there are already a zillion different technologies that are updating themselves for the current economy and I am certain that by 2020, there will so many different entities of technology that every form of movement in this world will be guarded by technology and its roots.
Since technology has already taken so much of our lives at stake, it’s just a matter of time when and what will happen in the near future. But until then, man is just going to strain himself in creating a newer mass of technology which will make his life better and lazier….

The Beginning:

Back in 2002, one fine day, my uncle who lived in the US called me just weeks before his arrival to India. And he asked me what I wanted for my upcoming 20th birthday, and I gladly replied I wanted a nice perfume for my birthday. And two days later, he called me and said he had got me a perfume from Dun-Hill and I was very excited about it. Little did I know that once I smelt that perfume it was going to become the worst ever perfume I’ve ever owned in my life. That day, I sat and wished, for a technology which can send or help people across the world by making them smell the exact scent of a perfume through the internet via their own PC’s, and that was the beginning of my so called new and innovative technology called Aroma Pro™ which apparently I think will be one hell of technology if it can come true one fine day…

Well…..Like I said, I have a very innovative and creative technology at hand which which I am letting out to this whole wide world for the first time after 8 years… Say hi and hello to Aroma Pro™ v 1.0™. The first and the finest in the world which has the EAST™ Technology (Electronic Aroma Suppressor Technology™). EAST™ is a very advanced coded program which synthesizes each and every molecule of a fragrance and develops a programmed code form for each scent through which it creates a pattern and stores it in the mainframe system.

What is Aroma Pro™ :

Aroma Pro™ is a very advanced program which also has an inbuilt Web 2.0 capability through which this technology can be integrated into the current .Net package by which millions of user across the web can easily and effortlessly access their favorite range of perfumes and order in from online. Many of the global and most renowned perfume companies can employ this technology onto their websites and start an efficient E-Commerce business application by which people from all over the world can access their new range of perfumes without waiting in the stalls to get a pinch of their favorite smells. And especially the error of choosing the wrong perfume over the net can be 99% reduced with Aroma Pro™ technology.

How it works:

When the perfume manufacturer creates a new brand of perfume, the EAST™ technology is applied and the perfume is broken down to a million codes and each code is stored as an electronic form in the database, where EAST™ creates a digital scent map of the perfume and inputs the programmed scent code into the Web based applications which are then loaded into the manufacturers website for the world to smell.
When the user opens the site, he just has to click the name of the perfume he likes to smell and once the click is given, the EAST™ gives out the codes to the ESSA™ (Electronic Scent Sensing Adapter™) which is fitted in the user computer, this ESSA™ adapter re-generates the scent from the codes and releases the exact smell of the perfume via the internet across to the user right to his/ her location.

Why Aroma Pro™ :

• It’s the one and only application which uses EAST™ Technology which is the world first inbuilt scent sensing technology.
• Version 1.0 provides a basic feature for users to smell the product once and select their perfume of choice.
• The users don’t have to waste their time going to shop or wait for their favorite perfume to reach the stalls.
• The whole process takes less than a click of a button.
• EAST™ can be integrated into any medium of technology like .Net, Linux or Mac
• Once the EAST™ technology and ESSA™ adapter are installed, the system can manipulate close to 1 million scents and smells.
• EAST™ can also be structured into the E-Commerce module for efficient and innovative business practices.

The Future for Aroma Pro™:

Aroma Pro™ v 1.0 is going to take the global E-Commerce technology by storm with its really efficient and innovative service and a lot of the global web users are apparently going to be very happy when Aroma™ soon will be showing off its next new gen version the Aroma Pro™ v 2.0 in the World Global Technology Conference. Aroma™ has purportedly finished making the final patch of the software kit so people can get a little glimpse of Aroma’s big plans for the future and also get a little idea of what it would for the world biggest perfume brands to adapt to version 2.0.

As for competitors, Aroma™ knows that even though an equivalent technology is currently not available in the market, if a company does wish to try and adapt to Aroma’s technology, they will be surely suffering from arduous compatibility issues with .Net programming environment and the language itself. But this might help remind Aroma™ that whilst it’s sometimes good to have your head in the clouds, it’s also important to lookout on who’s looking from the ground.

Well…… in the end, all of this just does not exist, but its just a technology which I wish did exist. Or who knows, might be there is someone who can come to me and we shall make this dream come true after all. I really look forward for a day to come, when all of this will be true and very much a reality. Until then I’m just going to keep my nose to God’s finest creations of nature.

With Love and Innovation

– Vasanth G.Benjamin

Copyright  and Legal Information:

Aroma™
Aroma Pro v1.0™
Aroma Pro v2.0™
EAST™ (Electronic Aroma Suppressor Technology) ™
ESSA™ (Electronic Scent Sensing Adapter) ™

Above all products and services are Trademarks of Aroma Inc.
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