Skype Translator

This seems straight out of a sci fi film (and in fact is similar to Douglas Adams' Babel fish).  Skype has just released a demo video of its live audio translation in action.



I'd love to play with this (translation - try to break it), and I'm sure that bits where it didn't work have been edited out, but how brilliant the potential is, especially for a nation of terrible language students.

Earlier - Word Lens - written text translated, from 2010 (now owned by Google)

10 Trends for 2015

10 trends for 2015 from Dan Calladine

Each year we produce a trends report to help us think about how the worlds of technology and media will change over the next few years.
There are lots of things happening, and we hope we have chosen some the most interesting
This year we look at:
App Simplification & Integration
Video Ads
Connected TV
Paying to go Ad-Free
New News Sites
Start-ups Going 'Full Stack'
Voice
Symbols & Emojis
Virtual Reality
Robots

Please have a look!

YouTube with Ads on Apple TV

The new YouTube app on Apple TV brings lots of functionality (lots of it things that you'd have thought would already be there), plus it now supports advertising - so you can target ads in YouTube at people watching on an Apple TV.

I'm sure this much be coming to Chromecast too - this data shows that Chromecast has now overtaken Apple TV in share in US broadband households (but both are behind Roku).

Connected TV, with ads that you can target like online ads, is coming.

2014 End of Year Reviews

YouTube



Facebook


2014 Year in Review from Facebook on Vimeo.

Google - Year in Search



Twitter - Moments - Key events in News,. Entertainment & more

Twitter - Perspectives - Top 5 tweets from people like JK Rowling, Neymar Jr and more

Spotify - The Year in Music

Tumblr - Year in Review

Google Ventures - Looks at the companies they invest in, including Uber

Slate's Year of Outrage - what people got angry about, day by day

Honda lets you configure a car in a Tweet

A nice use of Twitter cards by Honda - configure a car within a tweet.

Customize your 2015 CR-V on Twitter to start your journey. http://t.co/FsYrhr2VwT
— Honda (@Honda) November 21, 2014

OK, so it only lets you make 3 sets of choices, but it's fun and well done

See it here in all its glory - as ever embedding the tweet doesn't show this off particularly well

See also - configure a Mercedes on Instagram