Things to Watch

• Non-virtual valentines
  February 15, 2012 | 1:45 pm

  

  In the digital era, saying “I love you” has become so easy, there’s even a Facebook app to do it for you. But these days people are craving physical tokens rather than virtual ones: The idea of Objectifying Objects is one of our 10 Trends for 2012, and stationery is among our 100 Things to Watch for this year. As we noted last November, various digital services now help people send real-world messages. For Valentine’s Day, eHarmony Australia developed an easy way to create a keepsake. For those who “like” the online dating site’s Facebook page and fill in the relevant details, eHarmony’s “Calligraphy Cupids” will craft a handwritten love letter and deliver it. —Will Palley

  Image credit: facebook.com/eharmonyaustralia

• Cervecería 100 Montaditos
  February 6, 2012 | 11:45 am

  

  Dubbed “a Spanish Starbucks for sandwiches” by Bloomberg Businessweek, this 11-year-old chain is now targeting international customers with its cheap menu and environment that encourages lingering with friends. Its numerous “montaditos”—a tapas staple that here takes the form of mini-sandwiches—are just €1 in Spain, while beer is €2. 100 Montaditos ventured outside Spain in 2010, opened in Miami in 2011, and plans more North and South American and European outlets for 2012. Watch for others to jump on the montaditos bandwagon. —Jessica Vaughn

  Image credit: 100montaditos.com

• Tomorrow’s remote control
  January 31, 2012 | 12:30 pm

  When the remote control was brought to market in the early 1960s, it reshaped the way we watched television, creating legions of “couch surfers.” Fifty years later, several alternatives to the traditional touch-button remote are coming to market, positioned as easier, more intuitive means to control the screen.

  At this year’s CES, two major brands showed TVs that integrate voice recognition. LG debuted a remote with voice recognition for its Smart TV, with users able to search the Web, tweet and post to Facebook, by speaking rather than typing. They can’t change the channel or control the volume, however. Most ambitious is Samsung, which released a range of televisions that integrate voice-, gesture- and facial-recognition technologies. Built-in cameras recognize viewers’ faces, automatically signing them in to their user profiles; users can then control the TV via voice commands or gestures.

  As these developments continue, watch for the next generation of easy-to-operate consumer electronics to come to a store near you. —Will Palley

• Microwork
  January 30, 2012 | 2:00 pm

  Knowledge-based work and routine tasks will increasingly be sliced, diced and contracted to the lowest online bidder as companies and consumers post micro-jobs like proofreading, translation, coding, doing laundry and much more. Coffee & Power, Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, Freelancer.com and others are creating the next assembly line, splitting up knowledge-based assignments. Companies like TaskRabbit, available in five U.S. cities and aiming to expand to 12 this year, focus mostly or errands. Employers get connected to the cheapest global vendor, while hungry workers willing to put in hours can rack up a modest living. —Deanna Zammit

• 4G for all
  January 25, 2012 | 12:00 pm

  

  Fourth-generation wireless communications will reach most parts of the globe by the end of 2012. In the BIC markets, China Mobile has started trials in China; in India, several major telecom providers will launch 4G in the first half of this year; and Sky Brazil launched a 4G-based mobile broadband service in December. Meanwhile, more manufacturers are releasing 4G smartphones, including RIM, which debuted the first 4G Blackberry in August. Apple is expected to dive into 4G with the iPhone 5 sometime this year. —Marina Bortoluzzi

  Image credit: digitpedia

• Wrist wallets
  January 17, 2012 | 11:15 am

  The latest innovation in contactless payments may be a throwback: microchip-embedded wristwatches that enable small mobile payments. Watch2pay, which has adopted the tagline “Time is money,” uses MasterCard’s PayPass technology and comes with a reloadable, prepaid MasterCard (the watches are made by LAKS). So far it’s available in Poland and the U.K., where it launched in November for £99. A few other markets have introduced similar watches in recent years, including Turkey, where Garanti bank has been offering the “Bonus Trink Watch,” which it describes as a “watch-shaped credit card.” —Will Palley

• Snail meets email
  January 12, 2012 | 10:45 am

  

  As the U.S. Post Office makes plans to scale back services, there is at least one startup that sees opportunity in the business of snail mail. Austin, Texas-based Outbox plans to soon start testing a service that would intercept mail at local post offices, scan it and send it to a digital mailbox. The target is busy moms, who can use bits of downtime on the go to peruse their paper mail.

  While a few other companies receive and manage bills online, such as Hearst’s Manilla and two-year-old Zumbox, they bypass the post office altogether, setting up a direct line between customers and companies. Outbox assumes there’s still a place for real, honest-to-goodness mail, even if it comes via a digital screen. We’ve written about people creating analog greetings via digital devices—now, ironically, that snail mail could become digitized once again before it gets to its destination. —Patty Orsini

  Image credit: Carlota Soc

• Lana Del Rey
  January 10, 2012 | 11:00 am

  

  After a radical rebrand in mid-2011, 24-year-old singer Lizzy Grant re-emerged with a sultry American-retro look and a new name. A few months later she posted an emotionally charged video for her single “Video Games” on YouTube, then promptly sold out an upcoming show in minutes and won Q magazine’s “Next Big Thing” award. The media is abuzz, despite some online griping about her authenticity. Del Rey recently secured a modeling contract, and her debut album, Born to Die, is due Jan. 31. —Will Palley

  Image credit: facebook.com/lanadelrey

• Armageddon Marketing
  January 3, 2012 | 10:15 am

  The debunking of the notion that the Mayans predicted the world would end in 2012 isn’t going to get in the way of marketing. Mexico, home to part of the Mayan civilization, and its hospitality operators have been using the doomsday story to draw tourists. Axe has been having fun with the idea for a while, creating a Final Edition body spray. With the likes of Harold Camping predicting end times almost daily, some brands with an edge may look to add a little tongue-in-cheek urgency to their product messaging. —Aaron Baar

• Direct-to-consumer content
  December 22, 2011 | 3:30 pm

  Earlier this month the comedian Louis C.K. announced he would sell a concert video directly to fans online for $5. The novel idea has been a hit: Grosses have already topped $1 million. Watch for more such moves as new distribution models, technologies and consumer habits translate to bypassing the traditional middleman between content creators and their customers.

  In music, for example, services like VibeDeck and Moontoast for Music (Billboard’s No. 2 Top Music Startup of 2011) allow bands to easily sell to fans on Facebook and elsewhere. And authors are using Amazon’s Kindle Direct, Barnes & Noble’s PubIt! and similar platforms to bypass the traditional publishing model. —Marian Berelowitz

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