A weekly roundup of talking points, sans effort

 

Thought for the week

“Despite a tough economic backdrop, we are making progress. We all know there are no easy answers to problems built up over many years, and I can’t promise the road ahead will always be smooth, but by continuing to confront our problems head on, Britain is recovering and we are building an economy fit for the future.” George Osborne, Chancellor of the Exchequer, responding to news that Britain’s economy had grown by 0.3%  in the first quarter of 2013, beating the 0.1% analysts had predicted. Is anyone else getting a feeling of deja vu?

Weekly high

London design consultancy Berg has brought the digital and physical worlds even closer together this week with the announcement of #Flock. In short, these cuckoo clocks contain the company’s own wireless interface technology, which (when linked to your Twitter account) makes the birds inside chirp on the hour, and whenever someone in your timeline retweets or replies to one of your posts. Here’s a video to prove it.

 

Weekly low

The world is on the bring of environmental catastrophe. You don’t need to tell us that. The need to lower the carbon output from vehicles has never been more urgent, and any car manufacturer trying to reduce its impact on the planet should be rewarded. Apart from Hyundai, a firm that decided the best way to show off their “100% water emission” model by launching a viral video depicting a man trying to kill himself. Far too far.

Things that might happen in the next week…

On Wednesday Switzerland will begin to enforce a new immigration cap to limit the number of workers that can move to the country from other EU nations in search of a job; several newspaper groups including News International, Telegraph Media Group, and Associated Newspapers will prepare documentation ahead of taking their own non-government sponsored press regulation reform bill to the Privy Council; and the editor of a free London paper may be asked to apologise (at least) for comments in print suggesting some people should be ‘banned from breeding’.

Just in case you missed it…

Twitter is set to expand its advertising offering significantly following a new deal with Starcom Media Vest Group, a division of Publicis, one of the biggest of the U.S. industry players, with the latter’s clients having access to the most preferential commercial space on the network. The social media giant’s revenue is expected to leap from as a result. Read more on the story here.
 
If there is a success story, blunder, or news event you’d like to see included email helloATsmokinggun.co.uk or tweet using #blaggersblog. Happy Friday!