Mark Brown, CEO, IdentityMine, explains, “The addition of Kinect for Windows literally transforms the way people engage and interact with computers using natural input including voice and physical body movements. This virtual showroom experience promises to elevate and enable a new breed of vehicle simulation experiences that will allow design concepts to be explored virtually—even before the car is in production.”

Automotive enthusiasts can enjoy discovering the ins-and-outs of a car before it goes into production. This Kinect for Windows interactive experience is bridging the gap between next-generation technology and the automotive consumer. You can read the entire Press Release on the Wall Street Journal’s Market Watch.

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Sr. Director, MEA Region: Daron Yondem

Today, IdentityMine announced the appointment of Daron Yondem as Sr. Director, MEA Region. As a distinguished author of two books and multiple magazine articles, Daron brings with him well over a decade of experience in Microsoft technologies. With this experience comes reward, and for the past five years, Daron has been awarded Microsoft MVP status in Silverlight technology. He will be the second discipline lead at IdentityMine with Microsoft MVP status, along with Sr. Director, Europe, Laurent Bugnion. Combined, Laurent and Daron bring over 30 years’ experience in Microsoft technologies. Laurent has been an MVP for over six years, and was awarded Silverlight MVP of the year in 2010. Like Daron; Laurent is also an author, who has published two books on Silverlight technology, filled with code samples and illustration in full color.

The Microsoft MVP Award recognizes exceptional technical community leaders, who share their deep, real-world knowledge about Microsoft technologies and others. To receive the Microsoft MVP Award, nominees undergo a rigorous review process. A panel that includes members of the MVP team and Microsoft product groups evaluates each nominee’s technical expertise and voluntary community contributions for the past 12 months. Our MVPs’ bring confidence to our customers that every application was built and designed by the best using the latest Microsoft technologies.

If you want to know more about killer UX guys, click on their names to jump to their blogs. You might learn a thing or two (or three)

Come talk with us for more info on what were working on and what we can do for you!

While marketing itself is obviously not a game, the angles from which marketers capture a certain group may involve gamification. In order for it  to work, the incentives must mean something and in order for them to drive an action, there must be an end goal for the user.. This is where marketing strategy trumps marketing tactics and the strategy is the overall picture, from start to finish, of how the user will engage and behave. Marketing tactics within gamification are the incentives that drive the audience to move towards your strategic goal, which can be to create awareness, make sales or identify new leads. The point is not to make a game but to incorporate game mechanics into a marketing effort.

The word “gamification” has been thrown around the blogosphere lately and has mostly been directed towards the consumer web. This is not its only place in marketing and we should soon see an upward trend toward these tactics in nearly all facets of life. According to a Gartner report, by 2015, more than 50% of organizations managing innovation will gamify their processes.

Have you ever been to a sandwich place that rewards you with a free meal for eating there a certain number of times? This is a form of gamification and this strategy has been catering to the “what’s in it for me” generation for a while now. This generational difference has altered many factors that motivate, attract and retain consumers. While this concept has been around us for quite some time, it is only recently that the word has gained traction and experts have emerged.

Gabe Zichermann is an entrepreneur, author, public speaker, and gamification expert. He paved the way by co-authoring the book Game-based Marketing which makes the case to gamify everyday life, the web and business. Gabe states that, “Gamification is what makes the boring tasks like doing taxes and the like easier by making them more like a game than a task.” Check out Gabe’s deep dive video on gamification in marketing.

Companies like Bunchball is a pioneer in the emerging industry for many large consumer and entertainment companies. A representative states that “By implementing game mechanics across websites, social networks and mobile applications, businesses can engage their users in a more meaningful way and reap tangible business benefits.” This trend is steadily gaining traction and could soon be #1 on the leaderboard of marketing trends. Think you need gamification in your marketing strategy? These 4 reasons will tell you all you need to know.

The next big thing is here, the Galaxy SII, and I would have to agree. I live a few blocks away from a Mac Store in the University Village in Seattle and I do have to say that it is hilarious to see the line snake out the door and extend throughout the shopping complex on those special days when the new iPhone or iPad comes out. That’s not to say I’m not a fan of Apple products (I caved in and bought Macbook Pro), but I am not a big enough fan that I would wait in a mile long line; just as waiting in line on Black Friday was not in my plans either.

Whether Samsung is attempting to tap into the loyal Apple market or they are just trying to poke fun at them, the commercial is funny either way. Take a look and let us know what you think.

The results of the mobile retail report shows that 38 percent of smartphone users have made at least one purchase during the course of their device ownership. “Fueled by smartphone adoption, mobile is becoming a central part in the shopping funnel for many consumers,” said Mark Donovan, comScore senior vice president for mobile. The fact that there are 90 million smartphone users in the U.S., shows retailers that do not have a well-planned mobile strategy are at risk of losing a massive sector of customers. Over 30 percent of smartphone users made their mobile purchase while in a physical brick and mortar retail space, which shows that many people are probably using their mobile devices as real-time price comparison tools. While the types of products purchased by mobile devices was a little less impressive than the amount of people purchasing products in a physical retail location, the survey does offer insight on the types of industries that should consider a comprehensive mobile retail plan.

Microsoft announced yesterday that the newest update to their game console, the Xbox 360, will include an update to Kinect integration centered around the user’s digital entertainment. Microsoft states, “Xbox 360 is transforming how you enjoy TV entertainment and is giving you the power to control it with your voice.”  With a Kinect unit for Xbox 360, users can now universally control every aspect of their Xbox 360 experience with their voice; Bing search integration, custom applications for on-demand TV, movies, sports and more. Not only did Microsoft update the way users interact with their Xbox 360, they also changed the user interface of the Xbox Live marketplace to a metro style, replicating the look and feel of the current Windows Phone platform. This is great because Microsoft is releasing an application that allows Windows Phone users to search for shows and control the Xbox from the phone, much like the Xfinity application for Android and iPhones.

You say it, Xbox finds it

The power of Kinect with Bing integration will allow any user to discover endless amounts of entertainment in one central location using one controller; your voice. Effective December 6th, this update will completely change the way users interact with their Xbox 360 and the way they discover digital entertainment.

Evolution of TV and Entertainment Infographic

Microsoft wants to convert your Android or iPhone into a Windows Phone and all you have to do it go to this link while on your mobile internet browser and away you go. Once you enter the webpage you will be able to run your Android or iPhone as a Windows Phone device with a basic user experience; make calls, emails, messages, scheduling, contacts, and nearby search. While the experience is much different from my Android phone, I can say that it was a welcomed change that I wouldn’t mind using more often. I enjoyed the Metro UI and the look/feel of the live tiles on my 4.3 inch screen.  Will this change the minds of die-hard Android or iPhone users? Possibly not, but I do believe that the average smartphone user (such as me) should definitely take a look at a Windows Phone when it comes time for an upgrade.

Michael Halbherr, Executive Vice President for Location аnԁ Commerce, stated that the release of Microsoft’s Apollo on Windows Phone will be sometime between Q2 and Q3 in 2012. Along with revealing a proposed release date, Halbherr also stated that Apollo will be a “very different game” when compared to Windows Phone Mango, which alludes to the fact that this release will be very well aligned with Windows 8.

Back in June, a few Apollo features were leaked; Localization, an Inspiration Engine, One handed input, Next-gen soft keyboard, and Voice Typing but this is all still speculation. While there is no concrete list of features included in Microsoft’s Apollo on Windows Phone, Halbherr mentioned that he was working on convincing Microsoft to include Near Field Communications (NFC) and a “positioning network” which would align Windows Phone to work better with Navteq, Nokia’s navigation and location-based service solution. Nokia is getting a better hold on the Windows Phone market and is more tightly knitted with Microsoft’s Windows Phone teams, which will definitely help with deeper integration of proprietary applications on Nokia Windows Phones. In an interview with Tech Radar, Niklas Savander, Executive VP of Markets for Nokia, stated “When you look within the Windows Phone ecosystem and compare how the Lumia performs, there we have a contractual agreement with Microsoft for a certain amount of engineering which we can use for differentiation.” Nokia shied away from making their Lumia line of phones significantly different from other Windows Phones for fears of fragmenting the developer ecosystem. We will really see the differentiation Nokia brings to the Windows Phone market when Apollo is released.

Scientists at a Madrid University have developed a computer that is “used to automatically adapt the dialogue to the user’s situation, so that the machine’s response is adequate to the person’s emotional state.” This computer program is meant to alleviate the annoyance of interactive voice response systems that can easily anger a user after repeating a response multiple times. In order to detect what emotional state the user is in, the program analyzes up to 60 different acoustic perimeters.

For those that want to better understand how this computer program works, view the video above and tell us what you think!