Hasta La Gadget!

Jonas Jäger took the dying business card, rolled it onto its back and placed his palms on its chest. Taking his weight on his knees, he pushed down firmly with the heels of his hands an pumped three times. Leaning over, he put his mouth over the dying card’s face and blew. The card fluttered in the breeze, stiffened and then coughed. It was alive!

And so it was that Jonas extended the life of these ailing slices of dead tree. The Augmented Business Card uses tech similar to that already seen in baseball cards. On the front, it is a normal business card, but – like a mullet – once you get around back the fun begins. The rear is printed with a QR-code, one of those square, mosaic bar codes. Next to that is an AR (augmented reality) marker, a blocky black shape for tracking the card’s movement.

The card-owner uses software to make a presentation which is then uploaded to the web. When the lucky recipient puts the card in front of their computer (and fires up the Flash-based software), the card’s info is read by the webcam and they enjoy a 3D experience overlaid onto the card. They can then twist and turn it to control various parameters.

It’s a great idea, but users still need to navigate to a Web site before they can use it. Once this wrinkle is taken care of, though, the humble businessman’s comfort-blanket can live on for a few more years.

Product page [Toxin Labs. Thanks, Jonas!]

An iPhone look-alike in a nano-sized package with a FM transmitter and Windows Media Player may make for a great gag but the device is for real and available in China and Taiwan. So are fake Blackberry phones and knockoffs of other popular smartphones.

Now Taiwan’s National Communications Commission has reportedly begun a campaign to crack down on the sales of fake handsets, most of which are produced in mainland China. The knockoffs known as “shanzhai” are popular among users who want additional features that may not be found in the real models. Particularly, the iPhone is a favorite since it is not available in China. Apple is yet to negotiate a deal with a Chinese telecom provider to offer the phone to users in the country.

The Chinese phone knockoffs are an annoyance to not just handset makers but also to regulators. The Taiwanese Commission has said the handsets lack tracking numbers and often don’t have valid radio frequencies they can operate on.

The Commission has said, for now, it’s crackdown will focus on those selling the devices. Users of fake handsets will not be targeted. And in what seems to be a strangely contradictory policy, users can continue to bring up to five “shanzhai” handsets from mainland China or Hong Kong. Meanwhile sellers of the knockoffs could face up to a $9000 fine.

No word on what happens to Kindle knock-off.

Photo: A fake iPhone (Andrew Currie/Flickr)

(via Unwired View)

Here’s a tale of bad neighbors waiting to unravel: Microsoft is planning to set up shop right next to its worst enemy, Apple.

In a keynote speech at the Worldwide Partner Conference, Microsoft chief operating officer Kevin Turner told partners that the corporation is planning to open the first of its retail stores next to existing Apple stores.

Turner said Microsoft’s retail locations will not mimic the white, holy aesthetic of Apple’s, but rather it will innovate with the new stores, according to attendees tweeting the conference. He provided no details of how exactly the stores would look.

“As we progress on our retail strategy there will be scenarios where we have stores in proximity to Apple,” a Microsoft spokeswoman told ZDNet. “We are on track to open stores in the Fall timeframe. Beyond that we have no additional details to share.”

It’s unclear whether the Microsoft stores will be selling strictly Microsoft hardware (e.g., the Zune or Xbox 360) and software, or whether it will also be selling products from third-party companies. In the past, Microsoft has said the purpose of the stores was to build the company’s brand name by connecting with customers.

We’re not surprised by this strategy. If you recall, in October a consumer spotted a Microsoft “I’m a PC” recording studio parked right outside an Apple Store in Bullring, Birmingham, England.

Microsoft: It’s not just a store, it’s a branding experience [ZDNet]

Photo: dalertafamily/Flickr

PC sales worldwide are expected to fall 4 percent this year as businesses cut back on IT spending and consumers, as they move towards more mobile devices, buy fewer desktops says research firm iSuppli. And not since the dot-com bust of 2001 are PC sales expected to be so slow, says the firm.

“An annual decline in unit shipments is highly unusual in the PC market,” says Matthew Wilkins, principal analyst, for iSuppli. “Even in weak years, PC unit shipments typically rise by single-digit percentages.”

PC sales are expected to fall to 287.3 million units this year from 299.2 million in 2008. iSuppli had earlier forecast a 0.7 percent growth for the year. In 2001, PC sales had fallen 5.1 percent worldwide.

Poor sales of desktop computers is taking its toll on the overall industry. Desktop sales are expected to fall 18.1 percent this year to 124.4 million from 151.9 million in 2008. Entry-level servers, which iSuppli includes in its definition of PCs, also are expected to suffer a decline, says the firm.

And in news that should surprise no one, notebook sales are expected to grow 11.7 percent to 155.9 million units. Notebook sales will exceed those of desktops on an annual basis for the first time ever in 2009, says iSuppli.

“Mobility is winning out in the PC market,” says Wilkins.

Photo: (Jacob Whittaker/Flickr)

Humans have probably been calculating since the moment that Paleolithic hunters first used a scorched stick to scratch a record of their kills on the limestone walls of a cave.

“Rrrr! Og kill four! More than Zog!”

Fast forward a few millennia to July 7, 1752, when Joseph Marie Jacquard is born. His automated loom, controlled by punch cards that encoded the complex fabric patterns it was to weave, led the way for many subsequent calculating and computing machines.

But Jacquard was hardly the first to conceive of using machinery to enhance the human brain’s computing power.

People have built calculating and computing tools for thousands of years. Let’s take a look at a few of the non-electronic predecessors to today’s silicon circuits.

This page: Babylonian clay tablets

In fact, archeologists still debate the meaning of cave paintings such as those at Lascaux. But there’s less dispute about the meaning of Babylonian clay-tablet writing, which was clearly used to record stores of grain and of beer, circa 2500 BC. It might be a stretch to call these clay tablets “computers,” but their role in tabulating and storing data is clear. Think of them as the ancient world’s first data banks.

This image, from the University of Chicago, is an administrative record of the payout of at least 600 quarts of an as-yet unidentified commodity at five villages near Persepolis in about 500 B.C.

Photo: University of Chicago