Widgets

Granted, an Anglo-Saxon smartphone, an iPhone, a Google phone and their ilk can be handy on the road but they lack, so far, many of the tools so useful to travellers in Japan on their so-called feature phones.

Location-based shopping app provider shopkick has scored another big retail win: all Crate and Barrel locations in the U.S. will begin offering walk-in rewards and special deals based on its platform. This follows another major client coup, albeit a name not immediately recognizable by the average consumer - Simon Property Group, the largest owner of shopping centers in the U.S.

Honda has put out an interesting commercial for their Honda Jazz campaign called "This Unpredictable Life" that is interactive if you download an iPhone app and swing it in front of the commercial to grab certain objects. The campaign was designed by W+K London and explores ACR technology (audio content recognition) that can track/read what you are watching and trigger something on your app.

Many are struggling to work out how to make their websites pay their way. Advertising revenues may not cover the bills, and are dependent on the amount of visitors to their site.

Digital video networking specialist, BigBand Networks, says that it will use next week's CableLabs Winter Conference (February 27th-March 2nd) to unveil a "hybrid approach" to managing HTTP adaptive streaming traffic which it claims will help cable MSO's to expand their broadcast TV and VOD services to their subscribers' IP-connected consumer electronics devices, such as iPads and other tablets, netbooks, PC's and gaming consoles.

The initiative, which the Kitchen aptly calls "The Menu," is a more formalized approach of something the agency has been doing for years. The goal, says Darren Herman, the head of the Kitchen's digital operations, and chief digital officer of sister agency Kirshenbaum Bond Senecal & Partners, is to draw industry attention to help support the growth of the companies.

The Carl's Jr. and Hardee's QSR chains have launched a GPS-enabled loyalty program that rewards users for checking in at the restaurants' locations across the US.

Documentarian Katerina Cizek directed the 'Out My Window' project, which allows viewers to experience life in the urban detritus of 13 different international destinations. The interactive documentary event ("film" doesn't quite do it justice) provides a literal and figurative window into the lives of families in Amsterdam, Chicago, Beirut, Istanbul and various other locations scattered across the globe.

One out of five people bring their laptops into the kitchen to access recipes and the iPad has emerged as as a great tool for cooks to access recipes on the go. Via both the browser and apps, the device can serve as virtual and portable cookbook that's easy to read.