In this trendwatching podcast, Cathi Bond picks up on Engadget’s tip on a possible PSP phone.
Meanwhile, Nora Young talks about Pepsi Raw, a new more natural Pepsi being marketed in the UK. Is this another example of customizing mass brands? (via psfk)
In this trendwatching podcast, Nora Young invites everyone to play Robert Scoble’s game of obsolete technological skills. What things can’t you do anymore? Years ago, Nora’s friend, Mark Morley, explained the difference between tools and devices, and the difference between the skills required to improve your abilities to interact with and operate a tool effectively, vs. the world of devices, which run according to autonomous processes.
Meanwhile, Cathi Bond spots another in a series of examples of using passive energy created by, say, human beings, to power things. In this case, the plan is to create a building in Stockholm that will gather the body heat from commuters in a nearby train station. (via Gizmag)
In this trendwatching podcast, Cathi Bond and Nora Young talk about cool tools that Wayne MacPhail tipped them off to, or inspired them about.
Inspired by a 3M product Cathi saw at Wayne’s a while ago, Nora finds the LiveScribe, written up in this Fortune magazine article.
Meanwhile, Cathi tells us that she saw an actual OLPC computer at Wayne’s, and points to the emergence of other inexpensive computers and thin clients, like The Cloudbook, by Everex. Nora talks about the Zonbu, which combines an inexpensive computer with a service pack.
Buy yourself a Blu Ray. Sony’s won the war and experts claim that the best man really did win. There has been considerable back and forth on this issue, but after Sony took the fatal hit in the betamax wars of the early 80s its nice to see the Walkman’s granddaddy back on top.
Thanks for the official heads up Engadget!
In this trendwatching podcast, Cathi Bond talks about something she came across at Gizmag: Energy Island, one of the concepts vying for Richard Branson’s $25 million enviro-prize.
Meanwhile, Nora Young talks about this Times of London article on plans to revitalize the Cheapside area of London. Cathi thinks it’s all about shopping, but Nora thinks it might be worth it to get people back to the core.
In this trendwatching podcast, Nora Young updates her take on ’steampunk’ with this Coolhunting reference to a Neo-Edwardian aesthetic in British fashion. Cathi Bond points out the New York Times’ take on contemporary fashion: it’s all about the 1950s. What’s going on in the zeitgeist? Fear? A longing to return to optimism?
Meanwhile, Cathi Bond pinpoints more great design, this time for babies and their chic parents! The Bloom Baby Chair
In this trendwatching podcast, Cathi Bond updates some recent stories we’ve done on the pervasiveness of “princess” culture among girls and young women. This time, Cathi points to this story in The Japan Times, about a Butler Cafe in Tokyo, where young women are treated like princesses by Western ‘butlers’.
Meanwhile, Nora Young has long been interested in more intuitive computer displays, such as ambient display or pervasive computing. Newsweek has this intriguing story about “zooming” as an alternate approach to getting information online. It’s called Seadragon, and the creator is Blaise Aguera y Arcas. (via PSFK)
In this trendwatching podcast, Cathi has two medical updates. Eureka Alert
has an interesting take on a non-invasive diagnostic tool for detecting surface cancers, and engadget has a story on a camera that’s implantable in a prosthetic eye.
Meanwhile, Nora is wondering about the future of social networking, and whether one option is niche networks built around specific interests, such as the kind that Ning allows you to create, or fohboh.com, which is a site for people in the restaurant industry, as this Red Herring article describes it.
In this trendwatching podcast, Nora talks about this story by a prof at Buffalo State University, Elaine Polvinen, at her Virtual Fashion Technology blog, regarding the creation of a virtual marketplace, built in China, but aimed at consumers around the world. Cathi and Nora discuss the implications of virtual marketing.
Cathi Bond talks about these Vuzix “Jordy” glasses, that aim to give you a big screen experience while gaming. Cathi thinks these kinds of glasses are definitely coming, and definitely a big trend.
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