360 DEGREES Weblog

It’s perhaps the worst kept secret in Silicon Valley right now: Apple’s upcoming music phone. Nobody seems to have seen it, at least nobody who’s talking. Nobody quite knows what it will look like or how it will work. No one even knows what it will be called.
But just about everyone — consumers, analysts, investors — is convinced that Apple’s working on one. And many are betting that the Cupertino company is going to unveil it at the Macworld conference in San Francisco next month. (THE MERCURY NEWS, SAN JOSE)

This action consisted of three different child faces of ethnic backgrounds: Asian, Black and Indian. The mouth had an opening just where the coin to release the supermarket cart is inserted. Each coin would symbolically feed a child. Under the image, it says ” You can feed a child for two days with what you spend renting this cart. HELP

China bought nearly 60 percent more Rolls-Royce cars this year compared with last year, becoming the British luxury carmaker’s fastest growing market, the company’s chief executive said Thursday. (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

Alliwantforxmasisapsp.com was a marketing campaign fronted as an independent blog, whose authors supposedly had a friend (“Jeremy”) that wanted a PSP for Christmas. Suspicious net-goers, however, found that the website was registered to a marketing company called Zipatoni, which has offices in St. Louis, Chicago and San Francisco. The firm was also behind a related YouTube video featuring a guy referred to as “Cousin Pete” who was rapping about the handheld. Sony’s PlayStation brand is listed on the “clients” page of Zipatoni’s website. (BUSINESSWEEK)

Yes, you who made the Youtube founders rich are the Time Person of the Year.

Time magazine specially mentions Youtube, MySpace and Wikipedia as examples that you changed the information age.

The newsstand issue of Time Magazine shows a mirrored computer screen. So you will see yourself on the Time magazine cover

Since hotel rooms have mini-bars, why not shake things up and create a bar with room-service? Located in New York’s Flatiron District at 35 E. 21st Street, Room Service is a new nightspot with 9 curtained-off rooms ranging from petite intimate chambers to a roomy presidential suite that offers guests a grand 15 by 20 feet.

The private spaces are furnished with couches, chandeliers, a mini-fridge, dvd player and a drawer stocked with mouthwash and condoms (one assumes for patrons to use after they’ve left the premises). Most importantly, guests are appointed a personal butler/bartender who’s instructed to cater to any whim a guest may have — whether it’s a tailor-mixed cocktail, a pair of silk pyjamas or a manicure.

Founder Chris Reda came up with the idea in part because he was fed up with bottle service policies at upscale bars and clubs, where patrons buy bottles of liquor or champagne to secure a table or VIP seating. At Room Service, guests rent a room for the evening (USD 350-800) and can then consume as little or as much as they please.

It’s a fun idea for the hospitality industry and presents a new approach to VIP treatment. Affluent consumers will no doubt enjoy another opportunity to feel like celebs, with the added amusement of coming up with unusual challenges for the butlers.

It seems like Kevin Rose isn’t the only person with “insider” knowledge of the iPhone. Morgan Stanley analyst, Rebecca Runkle, has come forth with further details on the infamous phone. (How she got the info is anyone’s guess). Unlike Rose, Runkle says the phone will cost $599 for the 4GB model and a whopping $649 for the 8GB version. She also claims it’ll be wider than an iPod Nano, but narrower than the 5G iPod. It’ll have a nice 3.5-inch display and will come in multi-colored aluminum shells like the Nano. Ah if only this could be true we all could say bye bye to Nokia and the likes.

Popular in the 1970s, watches that incorporate unusual minerals into their faces are in style again, both in vintage models back on the market and in lines like Classic Stones from Jaquet Droz.
“It used to be that people would look at watches with inlaid mineral dials and say, ‘They remind me of my mother,’” said Gus Davis of Camilla Dietz Bergeron, a husband- and-wife company in New York that specializes in buying and selling antique and estate jewelry.

“Now they want this,” Davis said of a Cartier watch on a gold chain necklace with a tiger’s-eye dial and of a vintage model featuring coral and diamonds. “The 1960s and ’70s look is so hot right now, and the trend will continue. You don’t want a typical watch. You want it to be fun.” (INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE)

1. Selk Bag 2. Pinel bike 3. Pool lamps 4. Keyboard bag 5. Kids love Pee & Poo 6. Hot ties 7. Star Wars game 8. Little Globetrotters 9. Oh! La Vache 10. Microblaster 11. Customize hoodies 12, Retro Gucci bag 13, Kids paper chair, 14, Valextra wallet 15, Miss Bibi

Thanks to our friends at Coolhunting.

Tourfilter is one of those innovative new business ideas that came about because a smart entrepreneur wanted to solve a personal problem. Founder Chris Marstall kept missing gigs by bands he liked, and needed an easy way to track concert listings. When he couldn’t find anything user-friendly or complete enough, he built his own service.

The concept is simple: a user sets up a (free) account, picks his/her own city, and then enters all of the bands he or she would like to see in concert. Twice a day, Tourfilter’s software crawls through live music venue listings for each city it covers. If it comes across a band people are tracking, it sends them an email, and lets them receive show updates via RSS or iCal. Entering a list of bands is fast and easy, with the system giving instant recommendations based on other users’ lists. Users can also listen to thousands of MP3 and RealAudio tracks by bands with upcoming shows, and browse recent music blog listings, organized by band.

Not in a hurry to make money with Tourfilter, Marstall isn’t very focused on revenue generation. Of course, it isn’t hard to imagine this type of service bringing in money. Recording artists are seeing concerts as a much bigger source of income than CD sales, so advertising would be an obvious start, as well as add-on services such as sms/text-alerts or ticket sales.

Great example of simplifying and streamlining information, of using technology to service local markets at low cost. And of an entrepreneur building a service for the fun of it, without focussing on immediate returns. Do what you love, and the rewards will follow. Yep, our motto !