Playing by hand

The Nintendo Wii has clinched it. Motion sensing is the future for video games. And an Israeli company, 3DV Systems, is looking to take it one step further. Imagine a boxing game in which you just throw punches into the air, or a flight sim that lets you fly with your hands alone. Forget the controller. With ZCam, a 3D camera that plugs into a PC, you can use hands only. It allows you to move up and back in ways not before possible. Bill Gates has hinted that such technology may be built into Microsoft’s video games.

Dyslexics, it turns out, make great entrepreneurs. Why? They have incredible listening skills, tend to easily grasp the big picture, and have great persistence and creativity. A recent study shows that 35 percent of entrepreneurs in the United States show signs of dyslexia. Dr. Sally Shaywitz recently cofounded the Yale Center for Dyslexia & Creativity. Her goal? To "change the way dyslexia is viewed in the educational system and the business world." One project will be training executives to recognize out-of-the-box thinkers who don't perform well on standardized tests.

Phil Wainewright of ZDNet mulls the concept that the computing grid has the potential to be held by "a handful of huge data centers," and he warns against the rise of a "techno-utility complex." Nicholas Carr doesn't think distributed computing is going away, but agrees there are great economies of scale in centralizing computing assets, and it "provides for a more flexible means of sharing information." But they agree there are probably dangers. And while the scope of the danger is uncertain, there may well be a time when allowing the complex "to get its way will prove contrary to the true interests of society." Sounds like Dwight D. Eisenhower and the warnings about the military-industrial complex all over again.

NapAd brings "marketers' messages directly into the hands of urban consumers when they're relaxed and uninterrupted by other media." When is that? When they're at a bar, of course. NapAd provides napkins free to a network of bars, nightclubs, and lounges and then sells targeted ads to advertisers. The napkins are photorealistic, so they get noticed. NapAds are making the rounds in New York.

Consumer Reports Magazine reaches millions of people each year, in print and online, but makes no money on advertising. It gets revenue from consumers directly, who pay to read the results of unbiased product tests - the same consumers who don't want to pay for other forms of content online. CR may be nonprofit, but it's profitable: $208 million in revenue on a $28 million operating budget. (The extra cash funds consumer advocacy work.) While ads make the offline side more valuable for all other forms of media, "Consumer Reports actually makes more money from readers on its Web site, because it avoids printing, trucking, and mailing costs."

Hosting pictures is a profitable business. Why? The cost of disk storage has rapidly decreased, social networking has boomed, and online ad spending is up. Witness that picture hosting service Photobucket was acquired by MySpace for $250 million. So if picture hosting pays, you can see why shareapic is trying a new tack to get a piece of the action. Store your pics with them and they'll pay you a cut of all ad revenue. Duncan Riley expects more sites to adopt this model.

Ann Handley says there's one way to know when an online campaign is truly viral. It's when "my nongeek, nonmarketer friends pass it along to me." Handley sends kudos to Office Max for ElfYourself, a holiday site that allows you to turn up to four people into dancing elves. Don't like elves? Try ScroogeYourself, OfficeMax's companion site. While Handley can't say if this will sell office supplies, she bets "they are more effectively engaging than a slew of TV spots."

UK department store chain John Lewis says that for the first time, "women will overtake men as the primary buyers of electronic gadgets" this holiday season. Saying that gadgets are "more fun for women than ever before and no longer had a male, geeky image," the chain says women are racking up sales of digital radios, iPods, and digital photo frames.