The Weekly Round-Up: 31.10.08

Over the centuries, humankind has turned to animals for a number of purposes. Food, clothing, companionship, more food and sport to name but a few.

More recently we've been exploiting our furry friends for other reasons, some of which have a business and technology leaning.

Back in February, came the news that scientists were attaching RFID chips to the backs of unsuspecting bumblebees in an attempt to better understand how data packets might travel more effectively over networks. No really. You can get a research grant for anything these days. But that's not all.

This week there was the news that polar bears will benefit from business analytics technology. Seriously, some weeks the Round-Up just writes itself. Which is just as well as on Friday mornings the Round-Up often feels a bit like this.

The WWF (that's the wildlife charity not the wrestlers) has long used analytics to determine when to best send out requests for donations.

And this week its chief marketing officer Terry Macko revealed: "At this point what we're looking at across the organisation is what applications there are beyond direct marketing."

It should be pointed out that the organisation isn't planning any direct marketing activity at polar bears - that would be silly. After all, research shows that above-the-line marketing campaigns are much more effective at growing brand recognition with the bear demographic.

Instead, the WWF is trialling the use of business analytics with some of its conservation work. One application under consideration is using analytics around data collected by staff - WWF scientists who track a number of species in their habitats using GPS-embedded collars.

The collars are on the animals, not the scientists, just to be clear.

Macko told silicon.com the data collected from the collars gives the organisation a host of information about the species being tracked. Throw some analytics tools into the mix and that data could become useful in new ways.

"[The data] can help us understand migration patterns. We could crunch that data and get the range of an animal," he said.

Analysing such data and similar information on where polar bears go to eat, relax and shop could help the WWF to influence public policy. For example when an oil company applies for leases in areas where polar bears are active.

The WWF has also used business analytics technology to make their direct marketing more effective by working out which "spokes-species" should peer endearingly out at you from a leaflet beneath a banner asking for cash.

Of course - jokes aside, the WWF is a wonderful organisation that always needs donations and it's great news to hear that it's using technology to improve its funding.

So cough up some cash to save a baby polar bear. Alternatively, you could volunteer to actually put the collars on the bears and jaguars…

If you've been forced to sit through a presentation on web 2.0 innovations in the last couple of years, you may well remember a slide on the 'wisdom of crowds'.

The idea is that lots of people often come up with better ideas than just a few people. Many websites and portals have put this to good use and with good results.

Now, PC manufacturers are getting in on the act having realised they needn't spend millions on research and design when they can just ask their own customers.

Intel and Asus have launched a website that solicits ideas from consumers with the goal of producing what they call "the world's first community-designed PCs".

What could go wrong? Well, if you've ever seen The Simpsons episode where Homer is offered the chance to design a car for his brother's company you may get an inkling. That said, Homer was just one man, albeit an 'everyman', and what Intel and Asus are trying to harness is the creative force of its online user bloc.

WePC.com divides its focus into three "conversation groups", in which consumers work together to design netbooks, laptops and gaming laptops.

(A minor digression - speaking of strange ideas, this week silicon.com took a tour through 10 of the best patents from Apple. )

Anyway, not surprisingly many suggestions offered to Intel and Asus are common to many PC users' wishlists: more powerful batteries, less shiny screens and lighter overall weight.

Some have specific desires for processors, while others have asked for high-definition displays and 3G connectivity (to balance out the powerful batteries).

However, there have been some creative suggestions that frankly start to tread the thin line between marketable and rubbish.

One suggestion asked for a durable notebook that was waterproof with a "night-time look to glow in the dark".

Another suggested (perhaps after reading too much William Gibson) doing away with the laptop's buttons and screen for a virtual reality experience and said: "I know that the technology for plugging your nervous system directly into your brain is very far off but we've got some fairly cheap technology that could be applied to a computer that would be fairly awesome."

Another reader suggested telepathic communication that would rely on the sensing of brainwaves.

But some ideas were genius. Not so much pushing the envelope but firing it out of a cannon and into space.

One visitor, with a bright future ahead in product marketing, said: "I like the idea of a laptop that has hair on it.

"You can then...cut said laptop's hair to your liking. The hair of course grows so you can have multiple haircuts a year."

A laptop with a mullet, exactly what we all need in tough economic times...

Finally, the Round-Up would like to share an Apple Store moment with you.

Having bought an iPhone the Round-Up thought it would be nice to have a little docking station for it, like the ones that used to come free with iPhones just last year.

Having selected the dock, the nice sales girl asked me if I had an iPhone, which on the face of it was a pretty redundant question but there you go.

She then asked brightly and right in the middle of the busy store, what I thought of it as she was "really torn" between buying an iPhone and a BlackBerry.

"Go for the iPhone," the Round-Up advised, "they're great - apart from the battery life."

"Hm, I'm still not sure," she added as she stood in front of the iPhone display and magically produced a sales receipt from under the table.

The burning question is: should the Round-Up get some sort of commission in the event of a sale?

In other news of note this week:

Information Commissioner Richard Thomas has told CEOs in no uncertain terms to deal with the risk of "toxic data" in their organisations. Or else. Find out what the Round-Up's favourite civil servant is talking about here.

Tory populist policy opportunity of the week: "Stop the surveillance abuse!" Pull the other one.

The first views of Windows 7 have arrived.

And of course, test your wits with the silicon.com weekly caption competition.