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Just off the wire

Michael Jackson's famous move in HTML/CSS.

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Throw away your Smartphone

The world has gone smartphone crazy in the last few years, but in the not too distant future smartphones might be a thing of the past.

Despite their popularity, smartphones have a major drawback - their screens are just too small.

Imagine a situation where your screen and keyboard appears in front of you, but only you can see and control it.

That's exactly what the Microsoft HoloLens project is capable of, and a lot more besides. It's not pie in the sky either - there are already working demonstrations available - watch the Minecraft video demo.

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Online Order, Local Pickup

Do you use online grocery shopping?

We've tried it a few times and no doubt it works pretty well, but for some reason, maybe the extra charges, it's not something we use regularly.

In the US, Walmart are trialing a slightly different strategy - online order and local pickup.

You order and pay online in exactly the same way but nominate a pickup time. Then you go to the store, call up, and someone from the store comes out with a cart full of your groceries.

The key to the service is that there are no extra charges - you pay the same as you would have paid in the store.

Pretty simple differentiator, but it could be a winning strategy for UK chains.

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Google Analytics alternative?

Google Analytics is a wonderful system, but boy is it complicated.

At a Business Gateway event last week, I met Daniel Turner, of Edinburgh software company Quirkos Software. He told my about an analytics system he uses called Piwik.

It works pretty similarly to Google Analytics but is much simpler and 'user friendly'. It's used on loads of sites big and small all over the world.

You can host it on your own system if you know what you're doing with software and databases or you can use Piwik's cloud system to store your data.

We're going to give it a trial this month and report back in the next newsletter.

Await with bated breath....

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