360 DEGREES Weblog

Where Trendstop’s Trendtracker delivers fashion forecasts to anyone with a mobile phone, UK-based Stylesignal just announced a like-minded app for its subscribers that’s delivered on the brand-new iPad.

Stylesignal provides its customers with constantly updated fashion forecasts, trend information, news coverage and inspiration, all for prices starting at USD 99 per week. Now that Apple’s iPad is out, however, the company has ported its full package of coverage to that platform. The iPad’s high-quality display has the same colour acuity and wide viewing angle of ultra-high end photographic displays, the company notes, making it perfect for viewing swatches, photographs and designs used commercially in the fashion industry. Accordingly, instead of just looking at a picture, Stylesignal subscribers can now “pinch to zoom, touch to see a colour palette based on industry referenced colours, or move from street style photos to catwalk pictures at the flick of a finger,” it says. The continuously updated iPad app also serves as a trend book that never goes out of date, the company says. This month and next, Stylesignal is giving new subscribers a free iPad; existing ones can download the iPad app from Apple’s App Store for free.

The “world’s first ride-in restaurant” opens Monday, April 12, 2010 just south of downtown San Antonio, at the location known as the “world’s first drive-in restaurant.”

Frank’s Hog Stand, at 801 South Presa, is a restaurant focusing on serving the motorcycle enthusiast some of their favorite classic American style burgers, fries and fod.
The new motorcycle-themed restaurant will serve classic burgers, fries and other food in a casual dining area and to patrons who arrive outside on motorized bikes.
Owner Frank Arevalo grew up in the restaurant’s local area, now known as South Town, bordering the King William historical neighborhood.
The Pig Stand building started as a new idea 89 years ago by offering curbside service from car hops, who brought the food on trays to patrons remaining in their automobiles. Pig Stands became very famous in the 1920’s and 30’s as it expanded across the country.
Pig Stands were also the first restaurants to have drive up windows. They invented Texas Toast and onion rings in the 1920’s and chicken fried steaks in the 1940’s.
A historical and unique giant pig building, that is thought to have provided shelter from bad weather or hot sun for the cop hops, remains on site.
This location was closed in 2007 and was one of the last few Pig Stands for the company that once had over 130 restaurants during and after the Great Depression.
The newly refurbished restaurant will remain open seven days a week.

Looking for the green shoots of optimism is not easy — especially after two winters of discontent. Yet, there appears to be a resurgence of optimism, a new energy that may have the power to redesign as it redefines new ways of perceiving the idea and the reality of luxury.

On the plus side is the Wall Street Journal. In the 03/08/2010 article entitled The Ten Best Places For Second Homes, Steven M. Sears declared, “At long last, the market for luxury real estate is coming back to life. Prices for primary residences, which plunged at least 20% from the peak in 2007, appear to have bottomed. In some of the snappiest locations, scattered bidding wars are breaking out and prices are turning upward. In Greenwich, Conn., realty brokers say, the final months of 2009 were almost record-setters for sales volume, as two years of pent-up demand was unleashed.”

Also pertinent are data in the newest Wealth Report (3/15/10), with inferences that seem promising: “Retail chains post a 3.7% increase in February comps, with luxury outperforming the overall group. Consumers are again indulging in luxury purchases.”

Could this mean that the 2009 severe recession earthquake is behind us? Well, hopefully. But it’s necessary to remember the concept of false positives. In medicine, economics, statistics, pregnancy tests and LIFE, they are results that look good but, after the dust settles, may not yield the results originally expected. Consistently valid results take time. So with the shoots of hope within the numbers above, there is still room/time for questioning. We receive clearer pictures as time goes on, understanding that hope should be tempered by the economic history of the recent past.

Maybe the consensus of philosophers and economists were right – that it takes trauma to change minds and actions, and because of this unexpected economic jolt, what has also changed over the past 18 or more months is an unexpected evolution in the definitions and dimensions of luxury.

Thanks Luxist

Fashion fanatics have a number of online tools at their disposal—including countless places to design their own creations—but expert industry forecasts have traditionally been available only to paying professionals. Proving once again the increasing clout of the creative masses, London forecasting firm Trendstop now offers a free mobile app that delivers high-end fashion predictions to anyone.

Trendstop typically provides forecasts and analysis to fashion industry professionals, with clients paying some USD 3,495 a year for full access. Now, however, any mobile user with a passion for fashion can download the company’s Trendtracker application for free. Available for iPhone, Android, Blackberry and other mobile platforms, Trendtracker lets users monitor the latest runway looks, fashion news, trend ideas and inspiration right from their mobile phones. Coverage includes daily trend reports, news and photos from fashion shows from around the world, and runway schedules and event guides.

Website: www.trendstop.com/mobile_app

Kim Kardashian has produced a mini-documentary titled The Spindustry about the promotion for Sugar Factory’s luxury lollipops with Kardashian friend Jonathan Cheban of Command PR.

Kim Kardashian has her own line of lollipops with the company. The pops each have crystal-covered sticks and interchangeable color-coordinated heads. Former Spice Girl Mel B also has a line of the pops. The Pussycat Dolls and Britney Spears had lines of the lollipops to support their most recent tours. The Couture Pops cost $25 each and additional heads are $12 for three.

Virtue may be its own reward, but that doesn’t mean tangible prizes won’t make the deal even sweeter. Just as SmartyCard uses gifts from popular vendors and family sites to reward kids for completing educational games, so Switch2Health uses much the same approach to motivate them to exercise.

New Jersey-based Switch2Health now offers the S2H REPLAY, a fun and innovative wrist-worn device aimed at tweens and teens that allows them to quantify their level of physical activity. In addition to displaying the date and time, the device also tracks and registers continuous, moderate-intensity activity, subdividing each hour into 20 three-minute segments. When users complete a full 60 minutes of physical activity over time, the device generates a reward code that can be uploaded and converted into points on the company’s website. Those points are redeemable for items such as gift cards or free months of membership at sponsors including Barnes & Noble, GameStop, Best Buy, Webkinz and Club Penguin. Consumers can also set each other specific challenges and reward them for success using S2H REPLAY. No cables or software are required, nor is there any need to recharge the device’s battery. Available online for USD 19.95, S2H REPLAY is water-resistant and available in three sizes. The device comes with a blue silicone band, but alternate colours are available for USD 2.99 each. A fully brandable device is also available for use in corporate promotions.

As part of a recently announced partnership with Boston Celtics captain Paul Pierce, S2H REPLAY will soon be incorporated into Pierce’s FitClub34 from Harvard Pilgrim.

If you are wondering what the future of kitchens will be, well, we have seen it and it’s high-tech. Offering a glimpse of trends of what our kitchens will hold in the future, “Kitchen Concept 2015″ focuses on design, convenience, ergonomics, electrification and multimedia networking. Designed by Hettich, the Kitchen Concept 2015 has utilized the electric kitchen furniture elements along with the possibilities in many application scenarios. Disguised as a piece of modern art, the concept makes extra effort not to become a social gathering spot of the house rather it is integrated in the home environment to limit the space needed by appliances. While the concept looks forward to more innovations as the technology makes improvement, it already looks closer to reality than it appeared at the first glance.

Professionally made desserts are all very well, but for true bake-it-yourself types, there’s nothing like a homemade confection. Much the way Sprinkles Cupcakes mixes aim to give baking enthusiasts a way to emulate professional results in their own kitchens, so Ticings allow them to add a dash of photographic-quality art.

Ticings are edible images that can be applied to cakes, cookies, brownies and cupcakes. Users need only peel them from their paper backing and then press them onto a baked confection. Whereas some baking embellishments drag when cut, Ticings merge with soft frosting to create edible art that creates no resistance for the knife. Launched last month, the US-made decorations—which are FDA approved, kosher certified and gluten free—are available from LA-based Ticings in sheets of 12 2.25-inch images for USD 15.95 or 35 1.25-inch images for USD 22.95. Themes include birthdays, weddings and seasonal motifs; shipping is available only within the continental US. Coming soon from the company are gourmet artisan sprinkles.

Giving crafty consumers yet another way to make it themselves—upgraded to help them compete with the professionals—Ticings will soon also be available through a bakery in northern California.

www.ticings.com

When companies search for a new salesperson, you know they scrutinize each candidate’s track record before making an offer. When consumers hire a real estate agent to sell their home, however—probably the biggest asset they own—the choice is often made by chance. Enter Homethinking, a site that aims to bring transparency to U.S. real estate agents so as to help homeowners pick the best one for them.

New York-based Homethinking puts agents under a spotlight so consumers can quickly identify the ones that shine. Toward that end, it crawls the web to find out what each agent has accomplished in the past, including how many houses they’ve sold, in what areas and for what prices, and how the actual sale price compared with the one that was advertised. Homethinking also interviews the people whose houses the agent sold for information such as how well he or she interacted with prospective customers, how they set expectations around the sales price and how responsive they were when questions arose. It then presents all the resulting data for consumers’ perusal, in an easy to use form that’s browsable and searchable by city, state and ZIP code. When they’ve found one who looks promising, consumers can contact him or her at their own initiative.

Of course, it’s not just consumers who stand to benefit from this new transparency. Realtors themselves can claim and edit their profiles, contribute neighbourhood reviews and otherwise showcase their talents; they can also upload their listings and have them syndicated for free to Craigslist, Trulia and Zillow. And that, in turn, is where the transparency tyranny becomes transparency triumph.

I do my best to avoid McDonald’s whenever I can. No, it has nothing to do with eating healthy or anything like that. Rather, I spent the better part of my teenage years working at one of those fine establishments and as a result have had enough of their food to last a lifetime. I will say that I now have a good reason to visit the golden arches; the free Wi-Fi.

On Friday McDonald’s opened up their Wi-Fi connections at 11,500 of their 14,000 US stores. That means there’s a good chance you’ll have unlimited free internet at your local McDonald’s restaurant. If you want to be absolutely sure before packing up your laptop and heading out, you can double-check which stores in your area are giving away free internets using their handy online tool.