Brier Dudley's Blog

Brier Dudley offers a critical look at technology and business issues affecting the Northwest.

October 18, 2006 3:05 PM

Edelman won Vista, Office launch account

PR Week broke the story today that Edelman will handle the consumer launch of both products after beating out Waggener Edstrom and Weber Shandwick for the plum job.

The value of the account wasn't given, but Microsoft's going to spend hundreds of millions marketing Vista and Office 2007 in what's likely to be its biggest product launch since 1995.

Waggener Edstrom remains the "agency of record" handling overall Windows and Office PR, company president Frank Shaw noted in the story.

"The appointment of another agency is to help with the consumer launch of the product Windows Vista and Office 2007 and is supplemental to the great work that is already going on,'' he said.

Comments | Category: Microsoft |Permalink | Digg | Newsvine

October 18, 2006 12:27 PM

Charles Xavier's wheelchair close to reality

Posted by Brier Dudley

The latest amazing neurobionics story: Researchers are developing wheelchairs that can be controlled with brain implants, similar to the way X-Men's Professor Xavier gets around.

Massachusetts-based Cyberkinetics is working on the wheelchairs, but Seattle has a few neurobionic companies making progress. Last week Northstar Neuroscience said trials of its stroke recovery technology are ahead of schedule.

I haven't heard of anybody working on Wolverine claws yet.

Comments | Category: Biotech |Permalink | Digg | Newsvine

October 18, 2006 11:49 AM

Baxter's Snaptune in a dongle

Posted by Brier Dudley

Bellevue-based Snaptune has made a deal with peripheral manufacturer ADS Tech to distribute its nifty FM radio recording software in a USB device. ADS calls the device "Instant FM Music."

The $49 dongle includes an FM tuner and the software, which records FM radio to a PC. Snaptune identifies separate tracks and provides artist information about the music.

It looks like a great way to distribute the free software, which requires users to add some sort of FM tuner to their PC.

The only shortcoming (for those seeking free music ... ) is that Snaptune won't record music at the CD quality broadcast by stations like KEXP. Instead, it records at a lower bit rate and encourages users to buy CDs or downloads of the music they like.

Snaptune was started last year by Warren Burch and Bill Baxter. Earlier, Baxter founded Bellevue embedded software company Bsquare.

Comments | Category: Digital media , Gadgets & products |Permalink | Digg | Newsvine