The back-to-work jet lag has gone into hyper drive, but that hasn't dampened our enthusiasm for a little trend tracking. So crystal balls at the ready... what will be defining our world in 2010?
Poor little Joe McElderry. Thanks to a cleverly orchestrated Facebook campaign, Rage Against the Machine's angst-ridden Killing In The Name Of ensured that Cheryl Cole's X Factor pop pet was an early victim of online collaboration. We're talking galvanising large online communities (using Facebook, Twitter, MySpace et al) to champion causes, to celebrate, raise awareness, anything with a common spirit. And it's likely you'll be part of it this year.
Wonderful as burgeoning online relationships and allegiances are, sometimes it's good to get a proper hug. And thanks to our much beloved mobile phones, most of us can ditch the confines of the desktop and still access the internet. This is set to kick start a meeting and mingling trend, where more of us will use mobile internet to hook up in real life. Friends and strangers alike. It's just a big love-in.
And speaking of love and other nice things, 2010 is the year to exercise your inner philanthropist. Think simple yet effective initiatives that make giving easy and accessible. Well, if that isn't like the Orange RockCorps volunteering programme, then you could knock us down with a feather. Give, get given? It's all still happening with the Orange RockCorps Collective, so trend setters should sign up right now.
Shameless plugs aside (!), we are genuinely excited to see how 2010 takes shape. And where will we be at the end of the year? Still blogging, that's for sure :-)
Augmented Reality – in which information and graphics are overlayed on what you see in real time – has long been a sci-fi staple. If you haven't seen it already, rest assured it will be coming soon to a phone near you – allowing you to point at the world around you and see all kinds of useful stuff. To round off the week, we thought we'd take a look at some of the amazing things you can, can't and can almost do with the latest interactive technology on handsets like the Apple iPhone and Nokia's range of smartphones.
Firmly in the middle category, at least for now, is the Nude It app – a marketing joke that had people clamoring to download the make-believe x-ray software.
A little more educational but no less amazing is GoWeb3D's Wikipedia – which shows real-time points of interest all around you. Click on one of the little W's and your iPhone will either show you its Wikipedia entry or take you right there. The same company makes one for Flickr photos too, while a whole bunch of people are competing to make the best Twitter apps, which show you who's Tweeting nearby.
Foodies and those in search of a good pub are also spoiled for choice, with big names like Urban Spoon and Yelp offering real-time augmented reality restaurant reviews, but the coolest stuff we've seen so far comes in the form of games that let you use your phone to interact with objects in 3D, and this demo of possible future social networking app.
For the truly futuristic, though, look no further than these augmented reality contact lenses – very sci-fi and not a little scary!
It's nearly four o'clock on a Friday. That means time to down tools, kick back and relax with some great weblinks and distractions.
How are feeling about Facebook these days? Is your love fizzling out? In the wake of several high profile desertions, the BBC are asking whether Facebook is fizzling out. Bill Gates recently dumped the network after complaining he had "too many friends". Are you going to join him?
A big study was released in the US this week showing how dangerous it is to text and drive. Risk of collisions, the research discovered, rocketting 2300% when a driver was SMS and steering.
To prove the point, the NYT TImes develop a cool simulator for you to see yourself.
When you think movies, you probably think Hollywood right?
But let us swivel your head in the direction of something quite different in the film world. The little screen, the one hiding out in your pocket. Yep, that's right, the one on your mobile. Because over in Japan (where else?) there's an innovative movie-making trend growing rapidly.
The idea is not to try and make a miniature version of a silver screen classic, rather to capture footage from angles and directions only something as neat and compact as your handset can.
Bearing in mind these movies are not only shot on mobiles, but are made to be viewed on them too, this is a film genre in its infancy that's set to intrigue and delight.
The video above shows two award-winning mobile movie makers explaining how to get the best out of your camera phone. And they show off a bit too.
Seems like Twitter is everyone's favourite new technology toy and the latest trend to emerge is Tweeting literary classics.
Think Joyce, Austen, Dickens, Lawrence... they're all poured into the Tweet condenser, whizzed around and come out the other side all nice and bite-size.
Whether you think the Tweets in question are any good at imparting intricacies of plot and characterisation is really by-the-by... we've come to the conclusion they're a lot of fun. Think digital haiku.
We had a go at doing a couple of our own...
Oliver Twist: workhouse orphan wants more, artfully dodges his demise with Nancy's help, finds long lost family and prospers.
and...
The Hobbit: Gandalf tricks Bilbo, Thorin & gang into treasure hunt. Elves, goblins, Gollum, Smaug they meet. Thorin dies, Bilbo rich.
Fancy doing one of your own? Leave it in the comments for everyone to see :)
Stuck for stocking-filler inspiration? Lovely as tangerines and chocolate coins are, there's only so much of those you can get away with before the family start questioning your imagination.
An incredibly popular festive gift - or indeed at anytime of the year - is a mobile phone. Here's how you can impress with a gift of a nifty handset and still have change left over for a glass of mulled wine and a mince pie...
For most of us text messaging is as much a part of everyday life as brushing our teeth. (Well, we hope it is!) Most of you will have resorted to substituting you for u, or to for 2, at some time. There's few better ways to get your message across in record time.
Texting and the inevitable use of 'txt spk' has come under fire in the past for dumbing down the English language. Particularly when it came to education and teaching, there seemed to be a genuine fear that we were hurtling towards an uncivilised future where vowels were disregarded, and 'proper' English was wickedly abbreviated by the questionable editorial judgement of the SMS generation.
But as mobile technology moved on, so predictive text increasingly became the norm. And while the airwaves were buzzing with impeccable spelling, something new and exciting was happening: the Book/Cool trend.
Predictive text isn't perfect, so when you write 'cool' usually the first suggestion given to you is 'book'. If this happens enough the meaning of 'book' gradually changes to adapt to the technology, not the other way around. As The Times says, it's easier for texters to reinterpret the meaning of a word than hit the options button repeatedly.
This evolution is being led from the front by teenagers and it's fascinating to see the profound effect technology can have on shaping written communication. Indeed, some linguistic experts say this inventive approach to language requires a high level of literacy in the first place. We like this new way of thinking. After all, if you don't know the correct meaning and spelling of a word, you're not going to be able to change its use very effectively.
Will these new words stay with us in the future? Will they become a permanent fixture in how we all speak? Or will they be dropped and forgotten?
At The Feed we think some words will stick as slang terms, but not permanently. What do you think?
We've got our beady eyes on the future
