Trends

Hello Kitty earns her stripes with the new 2010 Tora Kitty Collection featuring a Mascot Ball Chain, Netsuke Strap, Plush Doll and Plush Pouch.

An actual research study titled "Cyberchondria: Studies of the Escalation of Medical Concerns in Web Search" was recently conducted by Microsoft researchers Ryen W. White and Eric Horvitz to analyze how the Web enables those obsessed in researching illnesses. A survey of 515 Microsoft employees determined that Internet surfing regarding health issues is on the rise. Inquiring minds want to know what's ailing them and why they are obsessed with tracking down health symptoms online from the common cold to cancer.

In the days of yore (3 years ago), when social networks were first making their mark on the digital landscape, there was a divide between those networks you chose for business and those selected for fun. Today, those worlds collide, as LinkedIn and Twitter formally get "linked" to each other. And the combination is sweeter than PB&J.

On November 9, EcoGreenHotel announced the official launch of it’s new online store, EcoGreenHotelStore.com. It's virtually a green marketplace for hotels and a one-stop marketplace of over 1000 products and services for the green hospitality industry. As more and more hotels become green-certified and more guests request "green" accommodations, the EcoGreenHotel Store is satisfying the needs of both the hotelier and the traveler.

Not only are teenagers 17 and younger allowed to watch certain movies, Xbox 360 just banished them from accessing social networks. Strange that the teen demographic that is the target market for Xbox systems are restricted from from the Xbox Live's new integration of Facebook, Twitter and Last.fm. And with Christmas right around the corner!

Ridgeblade® is the kind of invention that looks so obvious, so natural, and so simple, anyone could have invented it.  In all that's been dedicated to the exploration of wind energy, no one saw this elegant,  natural, and efficient solution to "micro-wind" or home energy creation.

"Baby and Me for Wii", set for release this December in Australia, is the latest and perhaps the strangest application yet for Nintendo's popular Wii game console. "Bring your baby to life with your Wii remote"... and with that, let the creepiness begin!

When Rod Serling first uttered, "there is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity...this is the dimension of imagination," he might  have been giving us a prescient glimpse into the future of Junaio.

Mattress maker Simmons and electronics giant Panasonic are set to split the sheets, begetting what might just be the world's most expensive bed. Eleven thousand dollars gets you more than just a mattress, however... MUCH more.

With the heightened buying frenzy surrounding the launch of Google's new smartphone, the Droid, it was no surprise that someone would piggyback off of the hype! While Google conducts its first-time TV advertising, Flipswap, a trade-in service aggressively jumped into the foray with a unique offer to swap cash for your old 'clunky' iPhones. ( Where was the Administration on this one?)

When you've got the mother of all headaches, you want relief and you want it NOW. Bufferin Plus S has been specially formulated to dissolve twice as fast as ordinary pills, thus delivering its four active ingredients to the bloodstream quicker than you can say "not tonight, honey".

Meet 'Foldy', a laundry-folding robot designed by a team at Japan's Keio University. The small, inexpensive robot doesn't just learn how to fold laundry, it remembers its lessons in time for the next load.

The Internet of Things is fast approaching and with it comes Web 3.0, where "social awareness" will replace "social networking." Soon tweets and status updates will become fully automated and generated by the world around us versus us ever having to touch a keyboard again.

Nintendo just can't enough of a good thing and either can buyers of its popular DS-series portable gaming consoles. The answer, in the form of the big-screen DSi LL, arrives in Japan this November 21 but Americans will have to wait until 2010.

November 5: Twitter rolls out Project Retweet to a limited audience. According to their recent blog post, the Twitter echelon wants to see how it  will "work in the wild," before offering it up to the Twitterverse.

When is a chair not a chair? When you're not sitting in it, it seems. That's the case with the Breathing Chair, an solid effort from Taiwan's Yu-Ying Wu who seems to have been inspired by a block of springy tofu.

Your photos are in color, so why not your camera? That's the question Pentax is about to answer with their new K-x DSLR cameras, available in a rainbow of shades including a limited edition version sporting Robotic Colors.

Many have tried, but it's been over a decade and none have succeeded in out-Googlin' Google. Yet here we go again, with yet another search engine entering stage right trying to capture our "attention-deficit" attention. Repackaging online search as something new infers the Web has evolved. And while real-time and social search have certainly changed the alchemy of search, what does Leapfish know that has eluded Google et al?

While branding oneself takes time and effort to spin out a new product, re-branding can take several washes to redefine that same brand. Take for example the work United Airlines had to accomplish after breaking someone's guitar. Let alone the number of Twitter apologies issued forth by Chris Brown and Kanye West. But when others do it in reverse and run their good-guy image through a darkside wash cycle, the task might be a little easier. Such is the case with the re-engineering of one Mickey Mouse.