Group items tagged

"The whole Harlem Shake is way past its expiration date. At least that's what Red Bull thinks."

Another cool YouTube play from Volkswagen, with this 'Hidden Frame' being used to promote their new side assist feature. The Ad utilises a standard YouTube feature, which is the 'frame view' when you mouse over the timeline… This isn't extremely innovative, but it's a pretty smart and fun way to get the message across.

But you might be surprised by the second-leading source of the expected surge in traffic. It won't come from people, but from machine-to-machine communications, or "M2M." Think of sensors in cars and in appliances, surveillance cameras, smart electric meters, and devices still to come, monitoring the world and reporting to each other and to centralized computers what they're detecting. The chart below, reprinted from the Cisco report, shows just how extreme the jump in machine-to-machine communications could be. It is expected to grow, on average, 86 percent a year, and by 2016 it is expected to reach 508 petabytes a month, or half a billion gigabytes.

after setting their standard wakeup time, they indicate how much earlier they'd like to be woken up in cases of frost and snow. During the night Winter Wake-Up monitors local weather conditions based on the user's current location and decides whether or not the user will need to be woken up at an earlier time. When conditions are poor, users will then have the time they need to dig out, de-ice and get to work on time. Users can also choose not to be woken at all when extreme conditions make their commute hopeless.

The aptly named app development firm Hiccup has finally fixed a major meow mixup: The interface in their free iPad app, "Game For Cats," allowed felines across the world to download premium content add-ons by accident. Like many iPad gaming firms, Hiccup opted to go for a freemium profit model. Their game comes loaded with a screen emulating a laser pointer, whose darting red dot is irresistible to most cats. But screens displaying other forms of virtual catnip--a mouse on a string, for example--cost 99 cents as DLC (downloadable content). There was only one problem: Early versions of the game had a user interface that made it extremely easy for cats to purchase the DLC with their paws--taking their human guardians (but not their credit cards) completely out of the equation.

It seems in the extremely competitive coffee marketplace of Seoul, Korea, Dunkin' Donuts wasn't the first place people thought of for their cup of joe. In a bid to correct what is surely an oversight, the Double D created "Flavor Radio" and placed it on city buses. The device looked just like a normal air freshener, but inside lurked the alluring aroma of coffee. At key points during the ride, the air freshener would spill out the fragrance, coupled with a jingle for Dunkin' Donuts. Perhaps not coincidentally, often times commuters would find themselves at a stop that had a Dunkin' Donuts nearby. Oh, you clever mad men! While Dunkin' Donuts claims there are no plans to roll this out here in the States, I'll bet we see someone else using a version of "Flavor Radio" in the future. After all, the company claims visitors to its stores near bus stops rose 16% during the campaign, and overall coffee sales jumped by 29%. It seems the future of advertising includes anything interactive that will get our attention. Not even buses are safe.

"Much progress has been made in the area of HD advertising, with the proportion of HD ads being delivered to TV outlets increasing by 150% between the second quarter of 2010 and the second quarter of 2012, according to a new report from video ad distribution and services provider Extreme Reach Inc. The research also found that 69% of all TV outlets are now capable of receiving and airing HD ads."

The process is extremely simple. When a consumer "likes" a product on Speck's website, a Facebook stream campaign pops up on their Facebook wall and enables their Facebook friends to buy the product directly from the consumer's Facebook wall. The action also appears in friend's newsfeeds.

Not sure if this fits in a "trend" but it's interesting that when communications are essentially instantaneous a company can lose 23 billion in value in 8 hours. 16 hours later it's clear that the bendgate horror was a bit overblown, Apple release an update to the flawed update and the stock recovers about 16 billion of the 23.

Like projection mapping but hand drawn.

The Point is an always-on location tag that works over Bluetooth LE. The beacons are extremely light, measure 3.2mm thick, and look like a guitar pick blown up to two times its size. Each beacon will last 18 months, and they are water-resistant and UV-coated to protect the radios, circuitry, and processor inside. They work up to 50 feet from your phone indoors and 150 feet outdoors - all with an accuracy of under a foot.

The Tamagotchi is a virtual pet that many of us are familiar with. It was wildly popular in the late 90's, and is still doing well in sales. What some of us may not be so familiar with is the tardigrade, a microscopic animal with eight legs that can stand extreme weather conditions and is the only animal known to have the ability to survive in the hard vacuum of space. Combine the two and you have a Tardigotchi- a sphere that houses a tardigrade that is fed via syringe. The Tardigotchi also features a virtual pet that displays emotion. Communicate with the Tardigotchi via e-mail or Facebook, and a lamp will engage to warm the little "water bear," as tardigrades are called. daily 7.30