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Iran to lose it’s Barbie Battle with the West

According to Reuters the Iranian morality police are focusing their efforts on the pressing matter of banning Barbie Dolls citing the “destructive social and cultural consequenses” her sale has on their country. Iran’s approved alternative to Ken and Barbie, a couple known as Sara and Dara, are attired in traditional Islamic dress as shown above. We’re predicting that despite the couple being outlawed that they’ll continue to outsell Sara and Dara by means of the Black Market.

The “Are you busy” chat with Taxi Drivers to be replaced by “Fuel’s gone mad expensive hasn’t it”

We all roll out the same small talk with taxi drivers or variations of it but with the recent fuel and VAT hikes we’re predicting that taxi drivers will be assaulted with mile per gallon, diesel vs petrol and where’s the cheapest petrol station rants.

Interesting fact – the last time average fuel prices in Ireland were under €1 was as recently as January 2009. Click here for a historical breakdown of fuel prices.

Brian Kennedy to Steer Clear of Reality TV for 2012

Nice guy Brian Kennedy managed to undo 20 years of swooning middle aged women in the space of ten days with two outbursts on national TV. We’re predicting that after his public eruptions he’ll take sound counsel and politely decline any reality TV offers or Paul Martin interview requests for the foreseeable future.

Continued Happy New Year emails

People often ask the question “Is it too late to say Happy New Year?” I’m of the opinion that the festive email opening line is only valid for the first two weeks of January but am predicting that it’ll continue to infiltrate our inboxes for at least another week.

The International Consumer Electronic Show (CES) takes place in Las Vegas every January and sets the consumer gadget tone for the year. However it is starting to be seen as less relevant by a lot of technology companies (2012 is the last time Microsoft will be at the show).

That said, if you like gadgets or like me, a unreconstructed and unrepentant gadget nerd, there is a lot of things to want. They include smarter yet simpler TVs, dozens of new ultrabook thin laptops, and mobile phones from Nokia and Sony with new features designed to help win more fans (albeit in the US market.)

2012 – the year of voice and gesture

The latest models are on a diet of voice commands, gestures and even facial recognition that will be enabled by faster processors, built-in cameras and microphones. We could finally see the death of the remote. Justin Timberlake (looks like he got presentation training) launched MySpaceTV (as a co-owner, he needed to make an impact).

Slimmer, Faster, Better

Ultrabooks were the other big story of the show, with PC makers backing Intel’s new standard for thin, light, instant-on laptops. HP Envy Spectre oozes class and glass – it uses toughened glass for surfaces such as the lid, as well as for the display.
Lenovo showed the shape of “thins to come” with its Yoga laptop, which has an innovative hinge and a touchscreen that flips over into an easel position or flattens to become a hybrid tablet – and runs Windows 8

Massive flat screens

Sharp announced new 80inch flatscreens, while Mitsubishi showed off an award-winning 92in set. Both would allow anyone to pretend they’re in Minority Report.

If you want to blog and talk live

Watch for the Sony Bloggie Live, which streams live video over a WiFi connection and even shows viewer comments right on your Bloggie’s three-inch LCD screen so you can engage with your audience on the fly. This is where Flip should have gone, but alas…

iPad gets Tabbed

Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 – this could be the year that Samsung topple the all powerful iPad

Cameras

Instagram has become a phenomenon that urges people to look at the world in new ways. The Panasonic Lumix GX1 helps you easily move from cameraphone pics to serious photography with a 16MP sensor, mirrorless interchangeable lenses, and a cool retro feel, while still keeping those Instagram-like qualities, thanks to built-in filters, TiltShift effects, and a 1:1 square shooting option.

Smartphones you might really want (other than the iPhone)

Sony and Nokia trying to strengthen their appeal to US consumers. Sony’s Xperia Ion looked highly desirable and is its first phone to run on AT&T’s 4G LTE network, while Nokia’s Lumia 900 is its biggest Windows-based phone to date.

Time to start saving, or pan handling outside NAMA…

Did you see that security camera footage from late last year where the FedEx delivery guy threw a monitor over a gate? Yeah, well so did almost 9 million others and counting. FedEx faced a PR sh*tstorm when the irate customer put the video footage online; but face it they did.

The company didn’t bury it’s head in the sand. After initiating “action in accord with our disciplinary policy” against the employee in question, they fought back on the same channels where the crisis spread; online and YouTube. In a blog post called absolutely, positively unacceptable, Matthew Thornton, III, senior VP of FedEx Express U.S. Operations, said: “As the leader of our pickup and delivery operations across America, I want you to know that I was upset, embarrassed, and very sorry for our customer’s poor experience. This goes directly against everything we have always taught our people and expect of them.”

A Cautionary Tale

Without a huge amount of charisma, but with undoubted honesty, Thornton goes on to describe how FedEx responded to the customer in question – Face to face meeting and a replacement monitor courtesy of FedEx – and how the video is now used in employee training to make sure this kind of thing never happens again.

Honesty is the best Policy

It’s common these days for online crisis comms to revolve around Machiavellian tactics like URL buying, or even bad photoshopping. But FedEx held up their hands, said sorry, revealed how the issue had been resolved and showed how it was using this episode as a lesson to ensure this sort of thing doesn’t happen again. The real lesson to be learned from FedEx is that sometimes a simple apology is best.

There are lots of good emailers and online newletters out there. Some of our favourites are Hacker Newsletter, a compendium of online bits and bobs, the designer and developer’s favourite, Smashing magazine’s weekly mailer, and for Irish news, Silicon Republic’s E-Monday is also worth an honourable mention. But this week we came across something that takes the humble online mailer to another level. It’s Google’s Think Quarterly, a collection of insights, articles and musings. And wouldn’t you know it comes out quarterly. The aim is to give a snapshot of what inspires and interests Googlers and other industry leaders.

The real strength of Think Quarterly is how utterly gorgeous it looks. It feels like an online magazine. Actually, it feels like a real magazine that just happens to be online. It boasts simple navigation, beautiful layout, typography and illustration and great content. If it were on newsagent shelves, I, for one, would buy it.

Plus, the content is really strong. The first edition examined the idea of innovation and featured Macy’s CMO Peter Sachse on the future of mobile retail marketing. The second focused on people, and contained some nice insights from Virgin supremo Richard Branson. The latest issue focuses on Speed. It’s about this acceleration of everything – what is changing and how it works, why it matters and when it doesn’t.”

So, to quote Ferris Bueller: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” Think Quarterly is a great way to pause for a bit of perspective. Make sure you don’t miss Think Quarterly.

European Economic Woes to Continue

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy are meeting up again this week for a chin-wag. They’ll be trying yet again to sort out the European debt crisis by developing plans for increased fiscal coordination among member states. All sounds pretty familiar, doesn’t it? Plus the Euro continues to plummet in value, falling to an early low around $1.2676, before steadying at $1.2701 last week. Despite the Merkel/Sarkozy love in, we’re predicting it’ll continue to slide.

Emirates Crowd to Welcome Henry Back with Open Arms

Henry wrote himself into Irish sporting folklore with his blatant handball in 2009 and joined Schillaci (knocked us out of Italy ’90), Vincent Clerc (scored a last gasp winning try in the 2007 6Nations) and Wim Kieft (knocked us out of Euro ’88) as the least likely people to take a holiday in Ireland.

Despite our dislike for the man we’re expecting he gets a run out and a rapturous welcome when he takes to the field tonight against Leeds. The NY Red Bulls player scored 174 goals in 254 appearances for Arsenal and is 4/5 with Ladbrokes (excuse the client plug) to score a goal.

“Surprise” Fire Drill Tomorrow Morning in Slattery Towers

We take a safety first approach in Slatterys and schedule regular fire drills to keep us on our toes. There’s only one thing we take more seriously than safety and that’s client service.

To maintain seamless client service and our impeccable safety record we’re predicting a “surprise” fire drill at 10am tomorrow morning as we’ve no visitors for an hour or so. We’ll be emailing from the carpark if you need us