Rumor has it the iPad 2 will continue the FaceTime trend in 2011; the iPad 1 had its fair share of trendiness in 2010; and BlackBerry sales are trending downwards from 2009. Which, I guess makes the remainders for Friday, December 10, 2010 a trend of trends—a metatrend, if you will.
Apple preps new camera-toting iPads: sources (Reuters)
Speculation about the next model of iPad has accelerated in the past few weeks. The latest entry comes from Reuters, which says that sources claim the device will have front- and back-mounted cameras, likely for use with Apple’s FaceTime video-chatting system. Wow. Amazing prediction, Kreskin.
A new green file format: WWF (WWF)
Concerned about paper waste, the World Wildlife Federation has unveiled WWF, a PDF-based format that cannot be printed. Laudable, but I would have called it “WTF, mate?”
Fastest rising queries of 2010 (Google Zeitgeist)
Google’s put out its annual year-end picture of search queries the world over, and “iPad” was the second fastest rising term of 2010. Amazingly, it actually beat out Justin Bieber, but sadly it lost to Chatroulette. Sometimes I despair for humanity.
Verizon’s cure for CrackBerry addiction: Android (All Things Digital)
And now our entry for Depressing Chart of the Day. As late as October 2009, RIM held 90 percent of Verizon’s smartphone sales. Now, with the influx of Android devices, BlackBerry sales on the carrier have plummeted: as of November it’s fallen to under 20 percent. Remember that sound it made when Wile E. Coyote looked down and found himself standing on thin air? Yeah.