If you or your little ones are interested in where Santa starts and ends his journey, you should check out the North American Aerospace Defense Command’s (NORAD) official Santa Tracker.  This website even allows you to follow Santa’s flight path in 3-D using Google Earth.  Santa and his eight digital reindeer make appearances going past digital versions of famous skylines – from New York to Sydney, Paris to Rome.

The site also provides you with Christmas games, a tracker countdown, Santa FAQ’s and breakdowns of NORAD’s GPS tracking system.

Rox hopes you all have an amazing holiday season!  See you next week!

The United Parcel Service has delivered with their new diesel hybrid vans.  The company currently has six vans on the road that feature Eaton’s diesel-electric technology.  In comparison to diesel vans the hybrids delivered 28.9% better fuel economy, averaging 13.1 mpg to the diesels’ 10.2 mpg.  Although the maintenance costs came out about the same, the diesels did show slightly better reliability.

The Eaton parallel hybrid system was developed in part under a $7.5 million, 33-month contract from the Department of Energy’s Advanced Heavy-Hybrid Propulsion System program.  Eaton provided the hybrid propulsion systems for the vans and the system uses an Eaton automated transmission with an integrated motor-generator and lithium-ion batteries.

UPS was so impressed that they have already ordered another 200 Eaton hybrid vans.  Do you think FedEx is far behind with their hybrid vans? Would you go with UPS because they are making an effort to be more green?

For more information about the vans and their technology, go to: http://www.wired.com/autopia/2009/12/nrel-evaluates-ups-diesel-hybrds/

Technology has been such a huge factor in every aspect of life and business this year.  CNN breaks down the ten tech trends that changed us the most in 2009:

1. Smartphones – The smartphone market grew exponentially this year.  It was no longer sufficient just to have a cell phone, phones needed to have internet capability.  According to Gartner Inc, smartphone sales were up 24% this year.
2. Facebook – Facebook became more than just a social meeting place for college students, it exploded and became a global phenomenon where it wasn’t crazy to see your mom or grandma friend requesting you.  In fact, statistics released by the company state that over 70% of users live outside of the US.
3. Twitter – Who knew 140 characters was enough room for people to actually make comments about their lives, as well as changes in the way company’s respond to customer service complaints and a way to discuss foreign politics. Terms related to the Iranian election made up 3 of the Top 10 news trends of the year on Twitter.
4. Digital Books – Why carry around the latest book in the hard copy edition when the new portable, electronic readers carry hundreds of titles without adding weight to your beach bag.  E-book sales brought in $13.9 million in revenue in the third quarter of last year, according to International Digital Publishing Forum,  a 235 percent spike over the same period last year.
5. Real-Time Info – News, Tweets and links updating in real-time is the newest craze.  Microsoft and Google have both bought into it and the real-time trends will only grow in 2010.
6. App Mania – By September over 2 billion iPhone apps had been downloaded – keep in mind apps were only launched in September 2008.
7. Games leave the living room – Gaming is mobile and social.  Xbox Live & Wii allow people from all over the world to connect and play together.  The iPhone and the iPod Touch also have the same mobile gaming capabilities.
8. Government Gets Techie – When Obama was elected, he promised change.  No one thought it would be that the government would become hip and tech-savvy.  With the launch of DATA.gov, anyone can access how the government works and how tax money is spent.  Online town hall meetings also added to the upgrade in technology for the White House.
9. Search Engine Wars – Bing’s “decision engine” made waves in the search engine arena because it introduced new ways to sort through photos and products online.  It quickly grabbed 10% of the search market by the end of the year.
10. ‘Smart’ electricity use – The recession prompted gadgets to become inventive and create a ‘smarter’ way to use energy. ‘Smart-grid technology monitors energy use and helps steer consumption to times of day when other people aren’t using much electricity — a time when it is cheaper to power appliances and more juice is available.”  The government and consumers have invested and will continue to invest in these new ideas.

For more from CNN.com, go to: http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/12/22/top.tech.trends.2009/index.html

2009 is quickly coming to a close and although the retail environment hasn’t been as stellar as years past, the malls have been extremely crowded these past few weeks and various news sources firmly believe the economy is turning around.   Looking forward to 2010, there will be a lot of consumer shopping habits from 2009 that will become staples in 2010, including using coupons (up 26% over past years), using less credit (30%) and more people saving money (19%).   Brandweek has put together 5 consumer spending trends they believe will be applicable in the new year:

1. Restraint remains the new normal – American’s know now they need to save money, with California’s unemployement up to 10%, people don’t know if they are going to be the next ones out of a job.  So, more and more people will be looking to save for a rainy day.
2. Value is a top priority - Value messaging is going to become increasingly important as many people are going to have an immediate reaction to go straight for the low cost product.  If manufacturers and retailers want people to give their product a chance, they will have to be innovative with their advertising and make sure consumers know that their product is the best quality for the lowest price.
3. Store brand growth continues – As retailers continue to cut prices across the store to compete with each other, unit share growth has continued to grow and retailer focus has never been stronger
4. Grocery consolidation intensifies – Local and regional grocery stores have had difficulty driving profits in this soft economy.  Experts believe that 2010 will be a year where “some larger national and regional grocers will divest unprofitable formats and banners to strengthen investments behind their winning formats and banners.”
5. Assortment wars escalate – Stores will be looking to get away from clutter in their stores by eliminating aisle and shelf advertisements.  As this change occurs the smaller and mid-size brands will be able to compete for revenue growth, where they haven’t had the opportunity to before, because they couldn’t spend money on advertising.  Brands will begin to form alliances with key retailers, enter or step-up efforts as suppliers and explore direct-to-consumer sales because of this shift.

For more information from Brandweek, go to: http://www.brandweek.com/bw/content_display/news-and-features/direct/e3i9e9cd7a1b5b66b199a216c2d0d10867b?imw=Y

Well, 2009 is a wrap and so are our tidbits. Naughty or nice we value your comments. Please leave them here, so that we can wrap it all up

With the holidays coming up quickly next week, Rox thought it would be a nice idea to highlight Yahoo! because they are getting in the holiday spirit with their new campaign “You In?”  The campaign wants to use the power of social media to encourage people to do a good deed for someone else and then post it to kindness.yahoo.com.

Yahoo! believes that the holiday season brings out the best in people and if you experience an act of kindness then you are more likely to pass it on.  And with the viral capabilities of social media, this could be a global phenomenon.   Whether it is paying someone else’s toll or donating your time to charity, Yahoo! wants you to post the good deed to their site.  The deeds are tallied when they are posted and displayed on an interactive global map to track the effects of kindness all over the world.

To date more than 146,000 people have posted their acts of kindness to the website.  We want to hear about our Rox readers acts of kindness! Reply to the post so we can share your good deeds with the rest of our community.

For more information on the project, go to: http://adage.com/goodworks/post?article_id=141092

This week, MyScreen Mobile unveiled its new mobile ad platform, which allows consumers with smartphones to click on ads and instantly redeem coupons and accrue points.  MyScreen claims that its technology has higher visibility than SMS texts and banner ads and the company can track the ad’s performance as well as the effect on sales.  The technology has ads pop up at the end of every call, which will allow marketers to get more bang for their buck with higher engagement and click through rates.

What is the advantage for consumers?  A points-based rewards system.  Consumers who opt in can earn free cell phone minute bonuses as well as free trials of new products.

What do our Rox users think? Is this a program you would sign up for?  Are free cell minutes worth viewing an ad at the end of every call? We want to hear from you!

MyScreen is testing this technology in Latin America first but is slated to move into the US and Europe in 2010.  For more information, go to: http://www.brandweek.com/bw/content_display/news-and-features/direct/e3i96949e983b3a97e2810c2ade04ba5c49

Social media is no longer used just to keep up with high school friends or long lost family, business have started to use it to build client bases, speak directly to their consumer as well as monitor their brand’s image.  Now social media is being taken one step further, utilizing it in sales presentations.   Mashable has provided 9 tips for improving your presentations by adding a little social media.

1. Build Relationships With Your Audience – Online community tools, like Hotseat, are extremely helpful in assisting your attendees with networking pre and post event.  They also allow you to find out what your audience wants from your presentation, as well as a way to get immediate feedback after the event.
2. Recruit a Backchannel Team - It never hurts to get another person on your team to monitor the backchannel during a presentation.  They can answer questions and add links to additional resources while you are speaking.  This way your audience is never left feeling like they need to follow up with you, you are thinking ahead and giving them the information they need right then.
3. Create a Separate Hashtag – Twitter’s hashtags make it extremely easy for your audience to follow the presentation as well as what other users are saying without having to search all over Twitter to find the information.  Twapper Keeper is an excellent tool for archiving your backchannel, especially since Twitter hashtag searches are usually only available for 6-10 days.
4. Welcome the Backchannel - Using a slide to display your Twitter username and hashtag, as well as other social media handles shows your audience you welcome and encourage feedback throughout the presentation.
5. Reach Out to Your Virtual Audience - Since we are in a virtual world and not all of your attendees will be sitting in the room with you, make sure you give them a countdown and heads up via your online tools letting them know the presentation is about to start.
6. Make Your Key Points Tweetable – Try to make your main points as Twitter friendly as possible with Tweetbites.  Tweetbites are easily retweetable points that allow space for your username, should your audience want to retweet.  If you are using slides, display your Tweetbites, Powerpoint and Keynote now have clever add-ins that make that function easy. Slide Tweet for PowerPoint, and Keynote Tweet for Keynote.
7. Audience Participation Through Social Media – “Audience members don’t need to have a Twitter account to take part in a backchannel. If you use a backchannel tool such as TodaysMeet or Backnoise, participants can just start typing.”
8. Display the Backchannel When You Want to Focus on It – Only display the backchannel with you want your audience to focus on it.  The backchannel is particularly helpful when you’re answering questions via social media.
9. Learn From the Backchannel – Since you will be able to have a play-by-play account of how your presentation went, use the feedback as a way to prepare for your next presentation.

For more detail on these 9 tips, go to: http://mashable.com/2009/12/14/presentations-social-media/