Five years ago today, Apple changed the world – again — by launching the first iPhone. The press release for the 6:00 p.m. EST, June 29th, 2007 launch noted:

iPhone introduces an entirely new user interface based on a revolutionary multi-touch display and pioneering new software that allows users to control iPhone with just a tap, flick or pinch of their fingers. iPhone combines three products into one small and lightweight handheld device—a revolutionary mobile phone, a widescreen iPod®, and the Internet in your pocket with best-ever applications on a mobile phone for email, web browsing and maps. iPhone ushers in an era of software power and sophistication never before seen in a mobile device, which completely redefines what users can do on their mobile phones.

Since then, the smartphone marketplace has changed considerably thanks to its innovation and design. And Apple has reaped the rewards, pulling in $150 billion from the iPhone alone — and creating an "app economy" the likes of which even Steve Jobs couldn't have predicted five years ago.Continue reading...

Sunday's New York Times magazine paid tribute to "32 innovations that will change your tomorrow" (and let designers hack its logo as part of the package). Best Buy's new ad campaign also pays tribute to student innovators, while the electronics retailer tips its hat to phone innovation, below.Continue reading...

Apple's latest TV commercial pairing iPhone's Siri with a celeb stars John Malkovich, above. He's the third celeb to test Siri's voice recognition chops (and sense of humor) following Zooey Deschanel and Samuel L. Jackson. Malkovich is the first celeb, however, to get two spots: "Joke," above, and "Life," below. On a more serious note, the security of Siri's voice data is also raising concerns in some quarters.Continue reading...

Apple nearly went out of business back in the late ’90s, but the creation of the iMac helped save it. Of course, then the iPod, iPhone, and iPad came along, all of which didn’t just change the revenue stream at Apple, but helped the change the culture overall.

Even though it’s already had such recent success, Apple’s SVP of Industrial Design, Jonathan Ive, tells the Telegraph in part two of an interview (here's part one) that the company is still working on its “most important and best work.”

The London-born Ive, who goes by Jony, was back in his homeland for a momentous occasion — the newly minted knight is now Sir Johny Ive, thank you very much. Not that the soft-spoken Brit would want to be called that back at the office.

“We have become rather addicted to learning as a group of people and trying to solve very difficult problems as a team,” the design guru said of his colleagues at Apple HQ in Cupertino, CA. “And we get enormous satisfaction from doing that. Particularly when you’re sat on a plane and it appears that the majority of people are using something that you’ve collectively agonized over. It’s a wonderful reward.”Continue reading...

The assembly-line process made famous by the Ford Motor Company that ushered in an era of mass production that enabled consumers across the globe to have the same products at the same time is about to change.

Assembly-line jobs used to be the backbone of the working class. But now robots are entering the picture more and more and Canon claims that it will have its digital-camera assembly line in Japan completely automated as soon as 2015, according to The Toronto Star. As it is now, jobs have been moving out of the country to China, India, and elsewhere in Asia due to the high price of labor expenditures.

Employees of Canon needn't be alarmed. “When machines become more sophisticated, human beings can be transferred to do new kinds of work,” said Jun Misumi, a spokesman for the company, commented to the Star.Continue reading...

As Walmart battles the damage to its reputation in the wake of the Mexico bribery scandal, in the United States there's still nothing as golden for small vendors as getting a go on the shelves of Walmart stores across the country. With one deal, personal fortunes are made and entrepreneurial success stories are written.

That's why the sky is now the limit for a trio of startup brands that won valuable shelf-space via Walmart's first "Get on the Shelf" crowdsourcing contest: HumanKind Water, Plate Topper and SnapIt Eyeglass Repair Kit.

More than 4,000 inventors, entrepreneurs, and small businesses entered the contest with video submissions for products ranging from household wares and children's toys to organic food and green items, Walmart said in a press release. The winners' products will be carried on Walmart.com and at Walmart stores in the United States.Continue reading...

Disney's R&D unit, the Pittsburgh-based Disney Research, is described by Extreme Tech as “the bleeding edge guerilla technology arm of The Walt Disney Company.”

Disney Research describes itself thusly: "a network of research labs that collaborate closely with academic institutions We're able to combine the best of academia and industry: we work on a broad range of commercially important challenges, we view publication as a principal mechanism for quality control, we encourage engagement with the global research community, and our research has applications that are experienced by millions of people. We're honoring Walt Disney's legacy of innovation by researching novel technologies and deploying them on a global scale." Or as its logo states, it's "The science behind the magic."

One of its latest innovative novel technologies has the potential to make all button interfaces obsolete: Touché, which senses hand gestures and turns the human body and everyday objects into virtual touchscreens. The possibilities are huge, as the presentation below at the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems in Austin, Texas, has demonstrated.Continue reading...

Ford isn't obscuring its brand identity in its new "Go Further" campaign because executives are afraid of American consumers' preconceived notions about Ford. They're pretty happy with Ford's brand equity in its home country right now, thank you, after Ford relied on its own resources to lead the Detroit Three back to financial soundness and market-share gains over the last few years.

But Ford does want to tease viewers into taking a close look at the Ford products and features highlighted in the ad, unaffected by overall brand impressions. So Ford isn't named in the ad, and its iconic blue oval logo isn't shown either.

"The idea was to start out to get peple talking and then introduce slightly different versions of the ads later on, with Ford front and center," Mark Schirmer, a Ford marketing spokesman, told brandchannel. "It allows the product to shine without any feeling left, right up or down. There is no branding involved."Continue reading...