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Not very impressive, if these are the trends occupying the Facebook public mind. BTW (by the way) FML stands for (Fuck My Life). What can that be about? It’s #2 and I’ve never heard of it! It does not sound very positive. Is it the equivalent of whining? It’s a genuine question.Amplify’d from www.independent.co.ukTop Status Trends of 2009:1. Facebook ApplicationsSpecific words: Farmville, Farm Town, Social Living2. FMLSpecific word: FML3. Swine FluSpecific words: Flu, Swine Flu, H1N14. Celebrity DeathsSpecific words: Michael Jackson, Patrick Swayze, Billy Mays5. FamilySpecific words: Family, Mom, Dad, Son, Daughter, Kids6. MoviesSpecific words: New Moon, Transformers, Star Trek, The Hangover, Paranormal Activity and Harry Potter7. SportsSpecific words: Steelers, Yankees8. Health CareSpecific words: Health Care, No one should have to…9. FBSpecific words: FB, FB Friends, News Feed10. TwitterSpecific words: Twitter, RT11. YearsSpecific words: 2008, 2009, 201012. Lady GagaSpecific words: Gaga, Poker Face13. YardSpecific word: Yard14. ReligionSpecific words: Easter, Lord, God15. ISpecific words: I, isFacebook Memology ranks the most commonly used phrases or words in people’s status updates in 2009 and compares them to the trends seen in 2008.Read more at www.independent.co.uk

This weekend in Amsterdam you may see a whole bunch of people waving their smartphones around at once. It’s the first social net/augmented reality flashmob, aka a fabulous way to combine three novel Net memes into one event.“Every square in every major city in the world knows the ‘human statue’ phenomenon,” he notes, so the intention of this weekend’s performance art is to take the human statue game totally into the digital world.have a smartphone that’ll run Layar (i.e. one with GPS).activate Layar, wave your smartphone in the air and ogle whatever strange and wonderful digital statue installations Veenhof’s chosen to populate the augmented space over Dam Square with. There’s a rumor that the Beatles will be showing up in pixel form, to recreate their famous Abbey Road pose.Is this the start of a new trend? You betcha. Flashmobs are still a popular affair, and AR is a tech that’s on the point of exploding into the mainstream public consciousness.

Social networking is a daily activity for most of us. Anyone paying attention knows that sites like Facebook and Twitter have hundreds of millions of users and are extremely popular. But one thing I think we all forget from time to time is that these social networking sites are businesses. They do have employees and they do have costs. So I ask again, how do social networks make money?The short answer is that they don’t, not on their own at least – at first. There are a few different ways social networking sites earn money, with more on the horizon. This article aims at uncovering a few of these methods and answering the questions that many of us are asking.Read more at www.makeuseof.com 

Currency: A formal system for shaping, enabling, and measuring currents (or flows)Currencies involve a number of functions, each of which can be modified independently: unit of measure, store of value, token of status, medium of exchange, etc. Monetary Currency or Money is just a common way of bundling those functions as a medium of exchange for a commercial economy. It is a minuscule part of the full spectrum of possible currencies. In this expanded sense, currencies are tools for seeing and changing flows.One specific way we use them is to create collective intelligence at the level of our social entities and institutions. At the individual level, we see humans born, growing, learning, walking around and dying. However, the state “sees” humans created through birth certificates, their activities and accounts woven together by social security numbers, their communication patterns via cell phone bills, and their discorporation via death certificates.Read more at newcurrencyfrontiers.com 

The Meaning of Being There is Related to a Specific Activation in the Brain Located in the Parahypocampus

Social Presence in Virtual World Surveys

Moderating Effects of Social Presence on Behavioral Conformation in Virtual Reality Environments: A Comparison between Social Presence and Identification

The Internet is a vast mosaic of economic activity, ranging from millions of daily online transactions and communications to smartphone downloads of TV shows. Little is known, however, about how the Net in its entirety contributes to global growth, productivity, and employment. New McKinsey research examined the Internet economies of the G8 nations (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States), as well as Brazil, China, India, South Korea, and Sweden. It found that the Internet accounts for a significant and growing portion of global GDP. Register to continue.

By 2030 we will be able to manage the contents of our dreams as in the movie ‘Inception’.

Remote virtual love making will be possible by 2030, allowing individuals to connect with their partner whilst away from home.

By 2030 it will be possible to diagnose some medical conditions by monitoring sleep patterns. Sleepwear featuring electro-responsive fabrics will enable measurement of skin conductivity (indicating stress or relaxation states), pulse, blood pressure and quality of heart signals.

Source: http://enipedia.tudelft.nl Enipedia is an active exploration into the applications of wikis and the semantic web for energy and industry issues. Through this we seek to create a collaborative environment for discussion, while also providing the tools that allow for data from different sources to be connected, queried, and visualized from different perspectives

We’ve changed how we use RSS

The simple truth is we’re less likely to use RSS or email subscription now compared to our RSS usage in the previous era of the Web.  We’re just less into RSS readers and start pages.

We’re using real-time web & social networking more

The latest wave of social networks document, photograph and broadcast your every move, opening an unprecedented opportunity for small businesses and big brands alike to target consumers based on their whereabouts and activities.Local Response wants to help businesses collect and respond to their customers’ public posts. The platform scans Twitter for explicit checkins to locations, like on Foursquare, as well as natural language that indicates location (ex. “I’m going to…”), and responds with Twitter @mentions on behalf of businesses. Messages most often include a coupon or offer in a bit.ly link.In other words, when customers check into a store on Foursquare, the store can send them a coupon while they are there. If customers tweet a photo through Instragram from a competing store, they might get the same coupon.

In the fast-moving world of Internet innovation, the search for the winning combination of strategies often means companies are continually rolling out features to match their competitors.Take local deals, territory that Chicago-based Groupon claimed with its launch more than two years ago. Google, Facebook, Yelp, OpenTable and a host of other Web-based companies have introduced their versions of discount offers since then. And many of these players have started allowing users to "check in" to local businesses on their mobile phones, a concept popularized by Foursquare and other location-based services.This ongoing flurry of activity is underpinned by a common desire to conquer three important categories of growth for consumer-oriented Internet companies: mobile, social and local commerce. The race to find the right mix is crucial for capturing revenues and the loyalty of consumers whose sources for information and entertainment are becoming increasingly fragmented.

"A mobile and social Web, both on the advertising side and e-commerce side, is going to be more highly monetizable," said Mendez, whose private-equity firm focuses on privately held companies such as Facebook. "It's more likely to turn eyeballs and visitors into transactions and dollars spent."Companies are building on the three pillars of mobile, social and local commerce in different ways, focusing on core strengths before adding other capabilities.

Groupon, for example, built its business model on the idea of social plus local commerce, creating a group-buying platform as a new form of local online advertising. Last week, it launched a mobile application called Groupon Now that delivers deals to consumers based on their location.

"With cybercrime now the second largest criminal activity in the world, measures such as the creation of an 'Internet Interpol' and better cooperation between international law enforcement agencies are needed if criminals are to be curtailed in the future, Kaspersky Labs founder and security expert Eugene Kaspersky has argued. He said, 'We were talking about that 10 years ago and almost nothing has happened. Sooner or later we will have one. I am also talking about Internet passports and having an online ID. Some countries are introducing this idea, so maybe in 15 years we will all have it.'"

"After years of dominance in computer chips, Intel now is chasing the mobile chip market and trying to redefine its future. During Intel's financial analyst meeting Monday, CEO Paul Otellini announced that he is refocusing the company, moving its 'center' from PC processors to processors for the burgeoning mobile market. 'I think Intel recognizes that they absolutely have to get a win here,' said analyst Rob Enderle. 'All the activity is in mobile. A post-PC era would be a post-Intel era if they don't get a beachhead established.' Earlier this month, Intel made a move in this new direction when it unveiled its new 3D transistor technology that is expected to position the chip maker to grab a piece of the mushrooming tablet market."

After completing a two-year project involving the use of an active RFID mesh network to track conditions that could degrade its stone walls and artwork, the Tower of London continues to utilize the technology to track the environmental cycles of ambient and surface temperatures, as well as humidity, at two towers. This information could then be compared against the conditions of the tower walls and a painting located within the stone structure. The system, known as FlatMesh and provided by Senceive, was put into place in 2009 as part of a research project that the fortress' caretaker initiated, seeking wireless solutions for environmental monitoring in areas in which thick walls can obstruct transmissions.

For the emergent generation of adolescents and pre-adolescents, at least in developed economies, constant high-speed internet access and online networking have become the very air they breathe. A new study, however, has some cautionary advice.The study, published in Acta Paediatrica, has renewed concerns about how digital life has led children off the playground and into the computer room… permanently. The study concludes that the average 10-year-old today

For the emergent generation of adolescents and pre-adolescents, at least in developed economies, constant high-speed internet access and online networking have become the very air they breathe. A new study, however, has some cautionary advice.

The study, published in Acta Paediatrica, has renewed concerns about how digital life has led children off the playground and into the computer room… permanently. The study concludes that the average 10-year-old today is far weaker physically than his counterpart just a decade ago. His arm strength has fallen by 26%, he can do 27% less sit-ups, and he is less likely to be able to hold his weight hanging from a bar.

Entrepreneurs who incorporate LinkedIn into their B2B online marketing initiatives will likely be ecstatic to hear the social network has been deemed the most important social site. According to a survey conducted by Performics, which polled nearly 3,000 active social networkers, 59 percent said it is the most important to have a LinkedIn account. Half of respondents (50 percent) say they visit the social network at least weekly, while 20 percent log in daily.

"The role of social media is to get everyone to know that we all share the same problems, we all share the same needs, we're all asking for the same rights," says Amr Salama. After using social media to follow and participate in demonstrations that ultimately helped topple former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian filmmaker has now used Twitter to gather over 300 gigabytes of documentary video of demonstrations at Tahrir Square and elsewhere as part of a new film about the revolution that may soon be making the rounds at film festivals all over the world.

Wal-Mart’s social and mobile plans are starting to take shape only two months after acquiring Kosmix of Mountain View, Calif.

When Kosmix was purchased, it was building a database called the social genome project, which kept track of what people were interested in and what products people were talking about.

the executives say they are hard at work defining how the mega-retailer — with $419 billion in sales and 1.5 billion online visits a year to its Web site — will address the two very disruptive platforms: social and mobile.

"With a seemingly continuous wave of attacks hitting the public and commercial sectors, there has never been a more prodigious period for hackers, argues PC Pro. What has led to the sudden hacking boom? Ease of access to tools has also led to an explosion in the numbers of people actively looking for companies with weakened defenses, according to security experts. Meanwhile, the recession has left thousands of highly skilled IT staff out of work and desperate for money, while simultaneously crimping companies' IT security budgets. The pressure to get systems up and running as quickly as possible also means that networks aren't locked down as tightly as they should be, which can leave back doors open for hackers."