On to Hong Kong: Engage. Excite. Experience
HP Connecting Your World 2008 was a good three months ago. But HP is still abuzz with excitement…
… in Mongkok, Hong Kong tomorrow… just 12 hours from now, HP will be a launching a whole new range of innovations and technology products. But that’s not the main thing - the company will also be making several announcements that promise to change the way we think about the whole shopping experience.
Experience the event virtually on the event blog…
And HP Berlin lives on… [Videos]
It’s hard to believe that it’s been less than three weeks since HP Berlin!
So many things have happened since then… and just last Tuesday evening, we brought out the HP TouchSmart IQ500 for a preview amongst friends and fellow-bloggers in Singapore. We held the event at a German restaurant – Brotzeit – because the IQ500 was, after all, launched in Berlin! Ahhh… and the beer, sausages and sauerkraut would have been good enough reason anyway…
But before you think that HP Berlin 2008 – the event – is over, think again! We’ve got videos now to remember the event by!
HP Berlin 2008 from HP on Vimeo
Here’s one with my personal ‘Song-of-the-Year’…
You definitely can’t miss Todd Bradley’s Keynote…
HP Berlin 2008: Keynote from HP on Vimeo
And for those of us who were there… living and breathing HP’s ‘Connecting Your World’ event in Berlin, here are some videos of the city, the welcome reception, the gala dinner, and the one-on-one meetings.
See you soon! Some other time, some other country…
Reflections on the Road to Berlin
For the last 10 weeks, we’ve been working to make HP Berlin 2008 a blast; and it’s finally done! What a huge relief!
If responses from the media are anything to go by, it was a huge success… We had about a hundred journalists and bloggers from Asia join us at the event; and many said that they thoroughly enjoyed themselves there.
I must say, I was really concerned about some of the hiccups that took place – lack of signage; IPAQs delayed at the customs. But we trust that they were resolved in time, and didn’t affect the overall experience at Berlin.
A big ‘thank you’ to the bloggers and analysts who joined us at the two discussions – the Analyst Roundtable and the Bloggers meet-up. We truly appreciated the insights… you ask for more video content to be made available immediately; for even more bandwidth on the event floor to post stories and rich content live… we hear you! And will definitely strive to do all of that in our following events.
So once again, thank you… for joining us in this event experience – both in real life and virtually…
And thank you… my two PR agencies who have been working round the clock over the past few weeks to help make this event happen… I know you’re reading this… please go and have some rest now!
The road after Berlin looks exciting – as we bring TouchSmart and all the other cool technology into Asia – but for the next few days… I’ll be taking a much-needed break in UK with friends!
Auf Wiedersehen!
4 pm - HP Berlin 2008 is over!
Bags are packed, rooms cleared and booths taken down…
But although the event’s over, we’ll go on posting to this blog over the next couple of days… sharing some of our thoughts post-Berlin 2008.
And stay tuned to HP, because in the coming weeks and months, we’ll bring the excitement from this event closer to you when the new products we’ve launched - like the HP TouchSmart and Dreamcolor - are shipped into the countries where you are!
Ciao!
HP Labs Break-out Session
Huw Robson led a presentation on HP Labs, and pointed us to some really interesting things that HP has done including the Media Scape project, a pretty fascinating ‘mobile media gaming platform’ at www.mscapers.com.
And one of its showcase is the Alternate Reality Game (ARG) - The Sky Remains.
I’m not much of a gamer (last game played was Dune 2 in the 90’s) but definitely want to see what it is.
Day 2: Connecting Your World
With break-out sessions taking place all over at HP Berlin 2008 today, the Asia Pacific team started the morning with a chat with bloggers we invited from Asia.
Good discussion all around, and we really appreciate them joining us in Berlin to blog and share their perspectives and experience of the event with readers back home in Asia.
A Billion-colour Dream Come True…
Call it a dream come true for graphic and animation artists…no…perfectionists! The crowd here in Berlin is still glazing over the one-billion-color 24-inch widescreen LCD monitor, the new HP DreamColour LP2470zx Professional LCD Display today.
We’re really proud of this achievement… And while we think the one billion colours on this monitor is a Dream-come-true, there’s a reason for the name. The DreamColour is a collaborative effort between HP and DreamWorks SKG – the brilliant guys behind the Shrek series, Bee Movie and the new Kung Fu Panda (I love Jack Black!).
For years, DreamWorks has used HP workstations to power its blockbuster animations. Last November, I heard Kate Swanborg, Technology Executive at DreamWorks, speaking about how many rendering hours went into making the bum fur of the bees look real. I am not a technical person by training, so it was an eye-opener for me! It is the computing power that makes the characters look so real. Check out the fur! It sure looks very real…that takes hours of rendering on our HP workstations.
Back to the DreamColor display. A year ago, Jeffrey Katzenburg and his CTO Ed Leonard came to HP with a request. They felt HP had responded so well to requests for workstation and other technology advancements as their artists had requested them, that they wanted HP to address a different problem: accurate, affordable colour during the production process. None of the current flat panel or LCD technologies could accurately and predictably represent colour through the creative process. And the displays that could produce the kind of colour they wanted cost up to US$25,000! It was amazing…their IT team had been trolling eBay, buying up all the old, used CRT displays they could find, and stockpiling them in warehouses to burn through one by one, for as long as each one would last. You see, the DreamWorks Animation artists prefer 100-year-old technology - yes, that’s the Cathode Ray Tube technology you remember from the early days of television - because it gave them more accurate colour than any current affordable, flat-panel or LCD screen could do.
I think it is in HP’s DNA to bring meaningful innovations to our customers. In this instance, HP pushed the limits of technology to enable new heights of creativity. The new display delivers the colour spectrum our customers need at a price they can afford (it’s a fraction of the cost of most high-end, studio-quality LCD displays today!). Now they can get affordable, accurate colour from computer to monitor to printer to big screen, every single time.
- With one billion colours, you can see richer colours, whiter whites and darker blacks.
- Factory presents for all colour ranges specified by the NTSC, SMPTE, sRGB, Reco. 709, Adobe RGB and DCI industry standards
So who should get this LCD screen? Well in all honesty while you’ll love gaming on it, you probably wouldn’t want to pay this amount of money. But if you’re an animation artist, photographer, work in the graphics field, film/video post or the new media and advertising creative types, then this needs to sit on your desk!
Quick fact: 1 billion colours = 64 times the number of colours supported by traditional LCDs!
Check out product details here!
From Conformist to Business Chic
Just over 3 years ago, a typical HP business notebook would look like this:
… a sombre looking box, very sturdy in construction but some may feel, looking a tad conservative and boring.
How we have come a long way since then….
Looking at the 2008 range, especially the recently-launched HP Mini
which was voted CNET Asia’s top 5 sexiest notebook and our latest premium notebook, the HP EliteBook 6930p.
I can now say that HP business notebooks are now finally starting to look yummy. Dressed in what we call brushed aluminium, the chic metallic look is a timeless design and the new must-have executive jewelry.
Besides looking desirably cool (it feels cool to the touch as well since it’s real metal), the new EliteBook also has the trappings of a luxuriously designed gadget. Even as you open and close the display enclosure, you will be rewarded by a nice solid sound, much like how the car doors of a well made European luxury automobile sound when you close it. We call this reinforced latching which provides extra security and durability to the display enclosure but it’s really all about precision - you know your EliteBook will shut and sound the same way every time you close and open it.
And PRECISION is one of the design goals behind the creation of the new EliteBook.
Our HP designers say it is inspired by aircraft design and engineering (sounds very impressive, right??) but truly, their attention to minor details and hard work have finally paid off with a mobility gadget that is pure streamlined precision. It can withstand extreme temperatures (minus 29 degrees and over 60 degrees) and has been put through the rigors of tough military standards tests for vibration, dust, among other things.
Inspiration for the design of the EliteBook was culled from a variety of sources - from well designed consumer gadgets that are works of art in their respective categories like Leica cameras/Bang & Olufsen products to attending events like the Milan Furniture Fair. A considerable amount of time is taken by the HP designers for the creation of every notebook - talking to retail consumers all across the globe and deploying tests and good human factors and visual cues to enhance not only the form factor but the overall user experience.
This is definitely one cool and great looking tool that corporate warriors will long for.
And more on mobility… we’ve also launched the our new 3G SmartPhone - the HP iPAQ 912 Series Business Messenger. It’s the easy to use QWERTY keypad with a jog-dial that allow you to work effortlessly which is the real winner. Design wise - it comes dressed in a shiny piano black finish. Thumbs up in the looks department.
Notice any Envy?
A photo I took of the Envy yesterday… at a quick glance, would you have spotted the notebook?
A lot of buzz going around on the Voodoo Envy 133 notebook that was launched yesterday… Fortune.com headlined their article: HP launches rival to MacBook Air.
I’m interested to see how this plays out.
Updates: Van and I just HAD to go take a photo with Rahul Sood - the man behind the Envy.
And when we asked to pose with his Envy, we made the chance discovery of… the Box! A classic cardboard box with a conceal base for accessories.
So here… Rahul tells us that this is the first photo of the Envy in the box.
Phil McKinney Keynote: HP Future Concepts
Day 1 ended with a fascinating keynote by HP VP and CTO, Phil McKinney.
He talked about the Perfect Storm of Innovation; and shared some insights on HP’s R&D… fascinating fascinating talk…
I’ve got a whole section on HP Future Concepts down on video; but it may take a while to edit and upload; so stay tuned…
There was a scramble up on stage after the keynote - to look at the mock-ups of some innovations Phil mentioned. Photos here; and more coming up.
This post - like all innovation - is work-in-progress.
Update: Ubergizmo did an excellent job of capturing the keynote live here, and elaborated with pictures here.
Update: Finally got my video uploaded:
