Here’s a cool execution from BMW. They came up with the idea of the BMW iWindow to show the world what the future of driving could look like in New York.

Using digital projection and motion detection technology they projected concept cars in real-time on a giant window. The cars were made to look like the real, future reflections of the cars passing by on 6th avenue, NY. In one week the window transformed 248,000 cars into BMWi concept cars which would be enough to save commuters over $493 million in fuel. Love this innovative way to showcase the cars of the future!

This piece from Microsoft Research is gaining some momentum this week, called the ‘illumiRoom’, it uses a Kinect for Windows camera along with a projector to blur the lines between on-screen content and the environment the TV sits in, converging the virtual and physical worlds for an enhanced gaming experience…. No extra rendering or special effects are used in the demo! Love to know what you guys think? At first glance, this could be seriously cool if it became mainstream!

Delta Airlines has launched an entirely new iPad experience this week called ‘Fly Delta’ and it delivers a little more than you’d typically expect. With everything from the latest deals, a completely socially connected experience, intelligent recommendations, localised entertainment, flight check-ins, boarding passes and a pretty cool ‘Glass Bottomed Jet’ feature that shows your exact position over a map, then once you’ve arrived, the built in destination guide completes process, keeping Delta touch points strong from research right through to your first dinner! Not bad at all…

January. A time for everyone to either re-cap the previous year or think about the one that’s just started… And with that comes a host of new trends, predictions and highlights of what the year ahead might just look like… This time it’s Soap looking at the top 10 digital trends and predictions for digital in 2013 (ok, it’s the top 13). Covering everything from the next-gen of crowd-funding, eCommerce 2.0, connected objects, big data and gamification to second screens and mobile gaming… Check it out over your coffee this morning, it’s a nice quick read. (Thanks Ash)

As we kick off 2013 it’s good to recap some of the impressive stats from 2012. Here’s a great infographic that visualises a piece by the Huffington Post – 100 Social Media Statistics to kick off 2013. A few of the highlights are:

• 1 Million websites have integrated with Facebook
• 23% of users check Facebook 5 times or more daily
• 56% of customer tweets are being ignored
• 34% of marketers have generated leads on Twitter
• Google’s +1 button is used 5 million times a day
• Over 5 million are uploaded to Instagram every hour
• 80% of Pinterest users are female

View full infographic

There are a tonne of ways to think about Charity Campaigns, but this one is just a tad different. Raising awareness for the Homeless in Gothenburg (about 3400 people), Forsman & Bodenfors created a booking website so that you can browse and book a homeless person’s bed for the night, just like you would any hotel. Then either experience it for your self, gift it to a friend on Facebook, or just let the cash be donated to the cause… Nice. What do you guys think? (thanks Eva!)

The new Facebook Poke App is going to provide agencies with all sorts of new and innovative ways to get a special, one time message out there, even if its not available at mass as yet (you can only Poke 40 people at a time, before having to record an entirely new message). So check out this first crack at a Facebook Poke Campaign from Delta Lingerie and Grey (ACW) Tel-Aviv, who created the campaign via the Poke app, by shooting a slightly mysterious/sexy 10sec video of a famous model getting dressed, and then sent to fans. How many will we see in Cannes? Thanks Daniel!

Part ad. Part installation. Part awesome. This very cool feature demo from Subaru for their ‘EyeSight’ technology (which is basically a collision avoidance system powered by tiny depth sensitive cameras) where they’ve fitted a whole host of mini electric cars with the technology, along with weird but wonderful trigger sounds, and watched the scenario play out as they put a single object in the way of the entire school of cars. Very very cool.

This is the coolest object I’ve seen in 2013 so far, and I suspect it might take some time to beat it! Re: Sound Bottle is an auto remixing object that can record any every day sound and then automatically remix it into a beat.

It’s another arduino powered device, that acts as an interactive music experience. Simply open the lid and it records sound. Close it to stop recording. Add as many random sounds as you like, then hit the remix button and the bottle will automatically remix everything its heard, and play it back when you open the bottle! Seriously cool.

Firewall is an interactive installation, a seemingly normal wall that is actually a stretched spandex surface which acts as a membrane interface sensitive to depth. People can push, touch, move and create fire-like visuals dynamically depending on the speed, pressure, depth and movement of the interaction with the spandex surface. On top of that, each membrane movement is synced with sound to complete the experience. Very cool.

Nike of course, is famous for the gamification of running amongst many other sports, and now they’ve released ‘NikeFuel Missions‘ to gamify every day human movement via the NikeFuel Missions video game, and it’s all powered through Nike’s new Fuel metric to make it competitive from person to person as you try to top the leader board.

You’ll play the game by earning NikeFuel points to help progress your character through the levels, and it works with specific timed challenges where you’ll have to head out and earn real-world Fuel points before syncing your device to help get your character to the next level… Very cool…

Here’s a new way to play with Skittles in a campaign from Australia called ‘Telekinize The Rainbow’. A Facebook app that allows you to control a single Skittle with your mind… Err… Eyes, in an interactive, multi-user experience created by the guys at Clemenger BBDO in Sydney.

The campaign plays into the global creative framework, and spits out a pretty interesting idea that I haven’t seen before, complete with a very complex electronics set-up to power the mind-controlled-skittles. Can only imagine that this would have been a lot of fun to create! (thanks Jac)

Last week we had the Google Zeitgeist 2012 and this week we’re looking at what the world has been loving on YouTube this year! Rewind YouTube Style 2012 takes a look back at the year’s biggest YouTube hits.

This mash-up was an original production, rather than just a montage of already-existing footage, highlighting YouTube’s launch of its own production studio. A nice feature is the ability to scroll your mouse over the screen during playback to find hidden links to another 21 pieces of video content. Rewind is a good feel good piece and you might well find guilty pleasure humming along to Psy’s “Gangnam Style” as it forms a mash-up with Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe”. Enjoy!

If you remember the Delite-o-Matic vending machine installation a few months back, you’ll probably love this new, experimental sampling installation they’ve just created to get new flavours in peoples hands! So as part of their special research into human/snack behaviour, Fantastic Delites created a human mouse lab experiment to see how far people were willing to go on a human size running wheel, just to get a free packet of Fantastic Delites. Very cool work again…

Just in time for the holiday season comes this pretty cool, interactive vending machine from Coca-Cola called the ‘Sing For Me Vending Machine’. In vending machine has a digital touch screen which allows you to choose a Christmas Carol, along with 2x microphones so you and a friend can get in on the action… Sing the chosen Christmas Carol accurately, and you’ll score a free coke in return! Very cool. I’m loving the continuous release of global ‘Happiness’ installations…