The Sony SmartWatch is out and links to Sony Android phones (and some others) while on Kickstarter, an E-Paper Watch called the Pebble didn’t just raise the $100,000 it was seeking, it raised over $10 million.

While we’re being inundated with the idea that Smart devices will be everywhere shortly, the idea of adding functionality to the watch (and a new notification screen to the phone) seems like an actual innovation we should have seen long ago. It will be interesting to see how many other seemingly mundane devices will follow.

LinkedIn Industry Trends | Ritzholtz | Full Story

Yes, that looks like a Princess phone and an early computer had a baby.

Happy New Year!

It will be interesting to see how mobile phone shopping and purchasing evolves. In the early days on online banking (just about 15 years ago), consumers were willing to review information on their laptops but felt the desktop was much more suitable to make actual transactions. Back then they indicated they felt that desktop computers were more secure and they’d be less error-prone when entering numbers or commands. It may be that as consumers get more and more used to employing smaller mobile screens in the shopping process, increased transaction numbers will follow.

Who knows, maybe in a few years we’ll see an easy return the Christmas presents you don’t want app.

So much has been said, read, and posted about Steve Jobs in the months since his passing. While so much was known about Steve Jobs as an innovator, marketer, and world-class jerk, It’s been interesting to hear more about who he was, personally and philosophically – to really get a sense of what made him tick. Maybe he was too guarded in life, and all of this insight about him was only able to emerge after his death.

The above video is a great example. He’s not talking about a specific product…even technology in general. He’s talking about a philosophical approach that guided the way he sees the world. This becomes even clearer in this article. What’s becoming clear is that he had big ideas about the way the world worked. These ideas made it possible for him to see something most of his peers missed. He was able to take something confusing and make it simple – to take something ugly and find a way to make it elegant.

So what are they doing? They’re making custom bound journals by marrying technology with just-in-time printing capabilities, using technology to create custom clothing, and making doughnuts (hey innovation needs fuel).

Durham is a great example of how a once industrial town can reinvent itself through an educated populace, creative thinking, and technology/innovation.

It’s a clear reminder that users/customers/consumers whatever you want to call them, feel they have a stake in your brand.  Sometimes they feel their stake is as much as the actual owner’s. It’s yet to be seen if the new owners of Delicious can make enough changes to keep users attracted to their site, or if they’ll drive away existing users and do little to encourage growth. One thing is clear, they may have misjudged the passion and expectations that many of their customers have for their brand and service.

Check out the list of sites and brief descriptions over on All Things D.

OnTheMap is useful for more than work location, however.  It’s a multi-layered mapping tool, with companion data on demographics, earnings, industry characteristics.  We’ve also used it to identify exact metropolitan statistical areas and radius ranges, to find transportation routes, greenspace, and tribal and military lands, and to simply better understand a physical marketplace.

For years, organizations like the Census Bureau relied heavily on point-in-time estimates, tables of statistics and physical and static maps for data exploration like this. As new systems come online, are developed further, and improved over successive versions, our ability to access information from our desktops is not only facilitated but empowered.