Monthly Archives: October 2010

Halloween Costumes and Holiday Trends

By Simone | Published: October 31, 2010

Holidays make for excellent trend spotting devices as they’re steeped in ritual and occur at a fixed point every year.  Changes in holiday traditions, dishes, songs, costumes, and parties are indicative of changes in greater society. As it’s Halloween, trend spotters (at least in countries that celebrate the day) may consider what has changed- and [...]

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PlayStation Move and the Future of Gaming

By Simone | Published: October 11, 2010

I recently visited the SF pop-up “PlayStation HQ” where passers-by are invited to try out Playstation Move. What makes Playstation Move different from other movement intensive game consoles is the camera mounted over screens that tracks movement of the ping pong ball on a stick like controllers. The downside of the system is it does [...]

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The Complexity of Influencers – A New Documentary

By Simone | Published: October 9, 2010

This fall, a new documentary on tastemakers is coming out.  Influencers, a short film directed by Paul Rojanathara and Davis Johnson, focuses on the social and cultural power of prominent New York City-based creatives working in advertising, design, fashion, and the like. I’m definitely looking forward to seeing the film, but want to point out [...]

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2011 Fashion Trends to be Influenced by Small Designers

By Simone | Published: October 7, 2010

Fashion is a unique beast within the trend spotting industry.  In a recent paper on fashion forecasting and coolhunting, Marco Pedroni points out how Fashion, which used to involve a trickle down effect from haute couture designers to the masses, has evolved into a more complicated industry in which trends also make their way from the bottom [...]

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Trends in Communication: Social Stenography

By Simone | Published: October 4, 2010

Via the top drawer curation of Kyle Cameron Studstill, I came across a most fascinating post on Social Stenography a couple of weeks back. Danah Boyd, a researcher at Microsoft Research New England, describes social stenography as hiding in plain sight, and gives the example of a teenager who is “creating a message that can [...]

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