“Augmented Reality Kicks In”
This is the trend with the most growth potential in 2010. The desire for ubiquitous connectivity isn’t only limited to others, but also to information. Information is a powerful commodity. Locative media, media that gives you information on where you are in the world, are with our current winged nature as urbanites of the world more important than ever. We want to know where we are, where resources useful for us can be found when we are once again walking around our cities or a city that is not ours. (Click on Read Why it’s Cool for more)

Many criss cross the globe – and if we don’t as yet, we aspire to do so in the future. We are more on the move (and on the run) than generations before us. We have wings – and it can feel great & cool. Because of these flights, literally and figuratively, the home and coming home, ‘landing’, becomes more important. Landing, after your trips as a worldwide citizen or as an urban nomad. Where Human Pearls In The City is about landing in your city, your neighborhood, your street. Here it’s about landing in your house, your home, the place you call your nest. (Click on Read Why it’s Cool for more)

The city is rapidly becoming the human being’s natural habitat. The city’s pollution, disorder and anonymity however are points that people all over the world complain about. Many of us have however learned to love our city regardless. It is our city, so robust, so hectic, so fascinating, and after 9/11 so fragile as well. There is a loving concern for the city. Throughout the findings of our cool hunters and Trend Filters an affectual connection to the urban dwelling was noted. The city has become the place where we live our lives and meet the people who become our extended families. Where we find our favorite coffee corners or bagel shops tucked away in the neighborhoods we have gotten to know like the back of our hands over the years. We appreciate the city. (Click on Read Why it is Cool for more)

Bankers are not thought of fondly these days and this will not change anytime soon. They have effectively undermined the collective platform of social trust on which all societies are built. This platform has been severely damaged and it will take some time to mend. More attention is also being paid to the ones who have fallen prey to this misuse of trust. Thereby making everybody more conscious and aware of each other. Consequently collective anger and distrust reigns, sometimes volcanic but often just below the surface. (Click on Read Why It’s Cool for more)

Do you remember those hard working yuppies from the eighties? Well there’s a big chance that you are working harder than they ever did. Next to that we are living in a stress society grasping at every straw for ontological security. The former West are dominated by a deep recession and the predictions when it will end are vague. In South America and in big parts of Asia however there is more hope and growth. But this growth is connected to the rampant rise of a one-dimensional work ethic.
There is that moment however, when we let go of all those pressures. When the dangers of everyday, the insecurities of living in this fast paced, capitalistic world, are left outside the door. Outside your body, for once. This is a cool mentality desire that is recognized and embraced all over the world. The snake massage we show here is just one extreme example of it. If you manage to relax under such a massage, you can be really sure that it is a deep and total massage. (Click on Read Why It’s Cool for more)

-Cool Unobtrusive Eco Awareness-
In case you may not have noticed: our environment is currently experiencing some technical difficulties. It’s all over the news and sometimes you can feel it on your own skin. Everywhere people are telling us: “the weather in my city is not what it used to be.” Whether we like it or not, we have to adapt our lifestyle and that will not always be fun. Generally speaking, we don’t consider the eco prophets of doom very cool. But at the same time, we surely cannot shield ourselves from what they have been telling us for decades now. We’d better adapt or be left trying to convince ourselves that it’s not true as the world gradually becomes a less hospitable place. (Click on Read Why It’s Cool for more)

The world’s cruelties that are committed every day and the voices of the survivors are buried beneath numbers and statistics. The world is a dangerous place, but the stories of those who live in the most dangerous places of the world should not be forgotten or romanticized. Through various art projects we encountered we saw the urgency and the need for a transnational dialogue wherein people were no longer numbers and where their humanity was no longer obscured by statistics that could only tell part of the story. By now we have all seen Hans Rosling’s debunking of what the statistics on the developing world actually say. He opened up another avenue of conversing with what we in the former west see as the developing world. (Click on Read Why It’s Cool for more)

The IMF says that we can expect ten years of job cuts and rising taxes. Fund manager George Soros says the rosy view on the American economy has everything to do with the fact that the US banks’ big profits right now are just a ‘gift’ from the state and nothing more. There are no substantial signs that the recession is over in North America and Europe. The Financial Times is even asking “Where have all the promising green shots of half a year ago gone - all those promising signs that the economy is recovering?” Europe and North America still consider themselves as the most “developed” part of the world, but with an immense debt they no longer think that they are leading the world as they did before. (Click on Read Why It’s Cool for more)

From all over the world – though mainly Europe until now - people flock to http://www.fmylife.com in order to share the ‘suckage’ of their lives. Other people reflect on these stories by telling them that they are right to pity themselves. Or that they simply deserve their unhappy fates. Is this a mindboggling innovative site? No, it is just good, clean fun. But it does stand for an idea that just a few years ago was mindboggling: the Rise of the Social Web and how it will accelerate and intensify in 2010 and 2011 in numerous and as yet unfathomable ways. (Click on Read Why It’s Cool for more)