All of what happened in 2012 sets up next year to be even more important for the company, as Tim Cook and Co. must figure out how to continue dazzling customers with new have-to-have devices and investors with promising returns. Here’s some of what we’ll be watching for from Apple as the calendar flips to 2013.

iPhones for all my carrier friends!

2013 won’t just be the year we see a T-Mobile iPhone. We’re likely to see a China Mobile iPhone and maybe even an NTT DoCoMo iPhone as well. Fragmentation in global LTE bands has already forced Apple to produce three different versions of the iPhone 5, breaking its long tradition of making a single device that works globally. As more European and Asian operators launch LTE in their own regional configurations and frequencies, Apple will have to start tweaking its devices further if it hopes to reach the same addressable market of its previous iPhone generations. So if Apple is optimizing iPhones specifically for Verizon and AT&Ts’ bands, there’s no reason it can’t create a special TD-SCDMA device for the China Mobile, the world’s largest carrier by subscribers. For that matter there would be nothing standing in the way of capturing other global operators that have previously been left out of Apple’s smartphone party.  –  Kevin Fitchard

The patent wars wind down

This should be the year that Apple winds down the distracting legal battles it’s waged since early 2010. To protect the design of its mobile devices, Apple has stationed expensive lawyers in courts all over the world. But it’s not clear these tactics are having any significant effect. Instead, Apple’s been forced to divulge closely held proprietary information about its process and culture. And despite a jury awarding Apple a billion dollars from Samsung after ruling that it deliberately copied the iPhone and iPad, Apple’s biggest and most important hardware competitor continues to churn out popular and well-received devices. And there’s still a chance the award could be reduced. CEO Tim Cook has repeatedly signaled his distaste for these legal entanglements and under his watch Apple has begun to defuse the full-on “thermonuclear war” Steve Jobs began against Android. The company reached an important settlement with HTC this year, and Motorola could be next. 2013 could be the year that Apple and Samsung both decide that, while the stakes are high, this is a battle that should be fought in stores, not in courts. – Erica Ogg

Jony Ive’s new human interface in iOS 7

One of the most significant shifts at Apple in 2012 should result in a bigger one next year: the design of the software that powers your iPhone and iPad. Longtime head of iOS Software Scott Forstall was ousted from Apple, while his duties were distributed among other executives. Jony Ive, Apple’s industrial design guru, was bequeathed responsibility for iOS software design as part of his duties heading up the new Human Interface group. When iOS 7 is released sometime next fall, it’s a good bet we’ll see some changes in the design of the software. Ive has reportedly been lobbying against the gaudy skeuomorphic details that Forstall had championed — the linen textures, green felt, stitched leather trim, wooden bookcases, etc. — and with him in charge, we should start to see a cleaner, more modern look develop. And since the same person is now in charge of the hardware and the software design, iOS should more elegantly reflect the iPhone hardware’s capabilities. –Erica Ogg

A smart watch for the masses

A number of watches that work with or use Apple products have hit the market, but none have actually been delivered by Apple itself. Instead, we’ve seen watch straps for the iPod nano and several third-party smart watches that work with iOS: the Pebble and MetaWatch Strata come to mind. While mainstream consumers aren’t exactly clamoring for such devices, these two generated more than $10.5 million in funding on Kickstarter, the bulk of that total coming from Pebble buyers. That’s no small dollar figure for what’s generally considered a niche device. Right now, Apple finally has everything it needs to create its own smart watch as a complement to its mobile devices and computers. The iOS platform is already more than capable enough for an intelligent Apple-designed wristwatch, and Apple has plenty of experience with touchscreens and communications hardware. A small iOS watch with Bluetooth 4.0, GPS and Wi-Fi could be created with support for companion apps such as exercise or health trackers as well as iTunes support for wireless music listening. I wouldn’t expect touch input to be supplemented with Siri for voice control on a smart watch as the device would need an always-on internet connection, but I’m not counting that possibility out either. In 2013, the time is right for Apple to enter, and possibly own, the smart watch industry. –Kevin Tofel

An evolving iTunes music experience

Apple has long been investigating alternative iTunes music listening model, and 2013 might be the year it makes a big move. Apple just recently integrated iTunes with iCloud and has been tinkering with the user interface, but the way people are listening to music — and their attitudes toward ownership of content — are changing. It’s been reported that Apple is working to develop a “Spotify-like” streaming web radio service that would be interspersed with its own iAds. While iTunes still sells the vast majority of individual tracks, the experience is lacking when compared to more seamless and popular subscription music services like Pandora and Spotify. Apple’s problem is that iTunes has become clunky software that encompasses so much more than music: there are also videos, apps, podcasts, iTunes U and books. Next year could be when Apple gets back to its digital music roots and appeals to users looking for a simple, streaming, music-focused app customized to their listening preferences. –Erica Ogg (Image courtesy Shutterstock / Elaine Barker)

More experimentation in mobile payments

Apple has dipped it its toe into mobile payments and commerce with Passbook, which allows people to hold on to their coupons, tickets and loyalty cards in a single app that presents information on the iPhone’s lock screen. But the potential is there for Apple to go even further: by using its millions of credit cards on file to create a Passbook-enabled payment system that can work at retail locations. Passbook already allows Starbucks Card users to pay with their iPhone when they get to a store. Apple has so far declined to include NFC in the iPhone and it may never integrate the technology. But it doesn’t need to if it relies on geo-fencing, barcodes or other possible mobile payment methods. Apple could also integrate payments with iAds to help deliver local offers or even allow people to pay directly for a product from an iAd, helping make mobile ads more attractive. This would be a big step for Apple and would require a lot of collaboration with merchants online and in stores. Apple might just start with a digital wallet approach, making it easy to pay for online goods first with an iTunes log-in and password. That would compete with PayPal, Google Wallet and offerings from credit cards like V.me from Visa. Eventually, Apple could move in-store using Passbook. – Ryan Kim

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Apple and the horrible, no good, very bad Maps app

The Amazing iOS 6 Maps Tumblr

The September launch of the iPhone 5 was marred by the disastrous reception Apple’s new Maps app received. Parody social media accounts popped up within hours, as disappointed users complained of poor or missing location data. CEO Tim Cook felt compelled to make a public apology, and it’s thought that the episode was the last straw that caused Cook to send SVP Scott Forstall packing. To rub extra salt in the wound, Google’s own Maps app for iPhone was greeted with the Twitter equivalent of a Hallelujah chorus when it arrived last week – and was downloaded 10 million times in 48 hours. – Erica Ogg

Google’s media player that never got a chance to play

Google surprised many in June when it announced the Nexus Q, a wireless digital content player dubbed as “the first social streaming media player.” But not all surprises are good ones. The small orb-shaped device launched at an introductory price of $299, triple that of the more capable Apple TV. And aside from the high price point, the Q offered no media services save Google’s own Play store for movies, television shows and music. The unique DJ function — allowing anyone’s Android device on the same network to mix the music — was hardly enough to justify the Q, which Google suspended indefinitely in July. — Kevin C. Tofel

Facebook’s troubled IPO

The initial public offering of the world’s largest social network was supposed to be the tide that lifted all technology boats, but the IPO instead turned into a stock-market train wreck and crushed the hopes of many other tech-stock hopefuls in the process. Thanks to a combination of mismanagement by the NASDAQ stock exchange (which used a new trading system for the issue) and a misreading of the initial demand by Facebook and its brokers — which resulted in an over-supply of stock — the company’s share price tumbled by more than 50 percent in the days and weeks following the offering. The company still wound up raising more than $16 billion, but the episode gave the tech darling a black eye as far as some investors were concerned, and likely set the market for tech-stock issues back by months, if not longer. — Mathew Ingram 

Two words: HP and Autonomy

The $11.1 billion purchase of Autonomy by Hewlett-Packard may have been announced in 2011, but the enormity of the screw-up didn’t fully surface till 2012. In May, HP management booted former Autonomy CEO Mike Lynch, and in November the company asked authorities in the U.S. and U.K. to look into Autonomy’s accounting practices prior to the buyout. That process is ostensibly now underway. Nevertheless, after airing all this dirty laundry in the November earnings call, HP CEO Meg Whitman asserted that HP remains “100 percent committed to Autonomy.” For the record, HP took a loss of $6.85 billion for the full fiscal year ended October 31, 2012 — most of that from an $8 billion writedown related to the Autonomy business. — Barb Darrow 

Nate Silver’s an idiot and Romney wins in a landslide

Except…Nate Silver isn’t and Mitt Romney didn’t. Silver, the founder of the New York Times‘ popular FiveThirtyEight politics blog, and several other notable statisticians mathematically predicted Barack Obama’s reelection with perfect or near-perfect accuracy. Meanwhile, Karl Rove sputtered through election night on Fox News, futilely defending his prediction like a child trying to convince a teacher a dog ate his homework. Maybe there’s something to this data analysis after all. Go figure. – Derrick Harris 

Amanda Palmer crowdfunding fubar

Alt-rock fave Amanda Palmer experienced the downside of social network savviness in September after she raised $1.2 million on Kickstarter to fund her new CD — then solicited musicians to play for free on her subsequent concert tour. Reaction was heated and Palmer quickly regrouped, saying she would pay more than beer, hugs and “merch” for the help. The alternate theory is that this was all a massive publicity stunt — in which case, it was hugely successful. (Palmer has since cancelled her 2013 tour to help a friend deal with cancer.) — Barb Darrow 

Twitter gags NBC Olympics critic

What do you when someone says mean things about your friends? You shut them up; at least, that’s what Twitter did during the London Olympics when it suspended the account of journalist Guy Adams, who tweeted snarky things about the TV coverage of Twitter’s corporate partner NBC. Twitter blamed an internal communications snafu and restored the journalist’s account two days later. Still, the incident became Twitter’s first full-blown PR crisis and a reminder of its growing shadow over our media lives. — Jeff Roberts 

The Western Mail’s caption fail

Tweeters celebrate epic #fails on an almost minute-by-minute basis. And for digital media aficionados, ye olde newspaper sub-editing and caption errors rank high on that dreary list. But there was none more epic in 2012 than Welsh newspaper the Western Mail, which committed what was labeled “the worst caption fail of all time” when it identified a photo of an airport manager, who died when the plane he was travelling in hit a mountain, with “LOL.” Although British prime minister David Cameron may think the acronym stands for “lots of love”, everyone else knows not to “laugh out loud.” The internet was not amused. Nor was Western Mail publisher Trinity Mirror, which responded, “We apologize for any offense this error may have caused.” – Robert Andrews

AT&T’s face-off over FaceTime

Trying to convince your customers, the public and your regulators that you’re just a big, cuddly carrier without an anticompetitive bone in your body? Maybe blocking a wildly popular app that happens to compete directly with your core service isn’t the best way to score points. Oh, but wait, AT&T didn’t block FaceTime over its cellular networks. You could use Apple’s video chat app to your heart’s content if you signed up for one AT&T’s (more expensive) family share plans. It’s not every day that a carrier stifles competition and jilts its customers for more money in a single brush stroke, but Ma Bell is a very efficient painter. Eventually consumer protests and the threat of the FCC involvement caused AT&T to backtrack. It offered FaceTime over cellular to more subscribers, and sheepishly claimed it was just protecting its customers from the inevitable network overload FaceTime would bring. Okay, but if AT&T’s new fangled 4G networks can’t handle video, what was the point in building them? Email and Twitter updates? — Kevin Fitchard

Bravo’s Silicon Valley startup trainwreck

Silicon Valley has been abuzz with Randi Zuckerberg’s Bravo reality show “Start-Ups: Silicon Valley,” which attempted to portray the craaaazy lives of startup founders and their companies in the Wild West. However, the show has been widely panned by techies and journalists in the Valley, who are obviously underwhelmed by shots of people in the pool with iPads and dialogue like ”Silicon Valley is just…balls to the wall.” Of course there’s an element of hilarity to the shenanigans associated with tech startups in the Valley, but it doesn’t appear that Zuckerberg’s show will be the one to effectively dramatize it. And now that the final episodes are being downgraded to a 4 PM PST time slot, looks like the show’s on its way out. – Eliza Kern

J.K. Rowling’s unreadable book

Getty Images

J. K. Rowling fans who’d preordered the ebook edition of her hotly anticipated new novel, The Casual Vacancy, were in for a surprise on September 27: Thanks to improper formatting by publisher Hachette, the ebook was literally unreadable, with a choice of two type sizes — microscopic or massive. Hachette pushed out a new file later in the day, but this was one of the biggest books of the year, and in 2012 there’s no excuse for failing to test an ebook before you release it. – Laura Owen 

VeriFone copies Square’s user agreement

VeriFone launched its mobile payment acceptance system Sail to compete with Square. But it went a little too far in emulating Square when it copied big chunks of wording from Square’s user agreement. When called on it by GigaOM, VeriFone cut about a third of its user agreement out to eliminate the copied text. – Ryan Kim

So who didn’t suffer a data breach?

Shutterstock/deepspacedave

So much for consumer confidence. In 2012, several of the biggest names in tech were forced to ask for users’ forgiveness after hackers gained access to customer records. In January, Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh apologized after hackers accessed names, email, billing and shipping address and scrambled passwords for potentially 24 million customers. And, in June, Yahoo, LinkedIn , Last.fm and eHarmony followed up with confessions of their own after a spate of hack attacks that compromised user passwords. In April, electronic transaction processing provider Global Payments also confirmed a data breach of 1.5 million credit cards. – Ki Mae Heussner

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1. What major U.S. mobile carrier is still operating under its original name?

A: AT&T
B: Verizon Wireless
C: Sprint
D: T-Mobile

2. In April, the Department of Justice and 31 states sued book publishers and Apple for allegedly colluding to set ebook prices. Which of the following did NOT APPEAR in the DOJ and states’ original complaints?

A: A “decisionmaker” was quoted as saying “F*** Amazon.”
B: A publishing executive was quoted as instructing someone to “double-delete this email.”
C: Publishing CEOs were described as meeting in “‘The Chef’s Wine Cellar,’ a private room at Picholene,” where “business matters were discussed.”
D: Publishing executives referred to themselves in an email as “the Club!”

3. Just as Twitter launched its own photo editing and filters service, Instagram released updates to its popular app, including the addition of a new photo filter. What was this filter called?

A. Wander
B. Willow
C. Wrestle
D. Tousle

4. We’re producing and consuming data at the same rate your kids attack the bowls of holiday M&Ms left around the house this time of year. But as we move past petabytes and exabytes to the even more esoteric zettabytes and yottabytes what comes next?

A: Googolbytes
B: Brontobytes
C: Gegobyte
D: Mondobytes

5. What was one of the big secrets about Apple revealed during executive testimony at the Apple-Samsung trial?

A: Jony Ive had been lobbying for years for an iPhone with a 5-inch screen
B: Scott Forstall was not Steve Jobs’ first choice to run the iPhone team
C: Steve Jobs was not against the idea of 7-inch tablets after all
D: Google’s Eric Schmidt had helped convince Jobs to build the iPad

6. Long before the iPhone, Androids and Windows Phone, Microsoft did have a sizable percent of the personal digital assistant (PDA) market. These devices eventually turned into Windows Mobile smartphones and at one point, the platform was forecast to surpass that of Symbian. Which of these companies did NOT make a Microsoft-powered PDA:

A: Casio
B: Handspring
C: Toshiba
D: Compaq

7. What event set the new world record for the most simultaneous tweets per minute in 2012?

A: The closing ceremonies of the Summer Olympics
B: A live Twitter interview with Justin Bieber
C: Pope Benedict’s first Twitter conversation
D: The night of the federal election

Click through to see the answers.

Feature photo courtesy of Shutterstock user Shawn Hempel; Tim Cook/Dave Grohl photo courtesy of @tim (Tim Bradshaw)

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We’re on the cusp of a revolution in connectivity, the first wave of which has already arrived. More and more everyday objects — from dog collars to gardening tools to light bulbs — are now able to capture data about your life or things in your life. The dog collars, for example, use GPS to tell you when your dog is out of a certain range, while the garden sensors will track soil moisture and light so you know the ideal location and time to plant and water.

But for all the new products that are out there, there are a bunch that we think should exist and don’t. And so in the back half of this post, our writers offer another four connected devices that they wish were available at their local stores, from programmable furniture to a connected crock pot. The technology to build any of the four is here — it’s just a matter of some hacker deciding to cobble a few things together.

The second, more profound phase of the connectivity revolution will come when you can build services on top of all these connections. Take the FitBit (see disclosure at the end of this post), which now helps you track how many steps you took today and how many calories you burned as well as how long your sleep cycle is. Currently, you can only send that data back to FitBit’s proprietary app. What will be really cool is when you can also share that information with your doctor and add it to your health records.

Then we’ll be in the age of the so-called Internet of Things, when all kinds of devices can communicate with each other and with the internet itself, and companies can build out services that make our lives easier or more fun.

None of the six devices that we reviewed here — or the four that we listed on the wish list that follows those reviews — is capable of that, but they definitely count as prescursors.

– Kevin Fitchard

Belkin WeMo Switch, $49.99

At first, the Belkin WeMo Switch seems like a relatively low-priced path to a connected home. Plug any device into it and then turn that device on and off via your iPhone. Setup is easy; you just download the WeMo app and connect the WeMo switch to your home wireless network. After that, if you’re at work and fear you forgot to turn off the coffee maker, you can do so remotely as long as it’s plugged into the WeMo Switch.

You can also connect the WeMo switch to IFTTT (If This, Then That) — which would allow you to, say, turn on the Christmas lights when the sun goes down. However, I couldn’t find enough good uses for the WeMo Switch to justify its cost. You need a separate Switch for each device you want to plug in; at $50 a pop, that adds up.

And unless you regularly use an electrical device that would truly damage your home if you forgot to turn it off, the uses of WeMo Switch are limited. (WeMo gives the example of a curling iron, but I couldn’t think of many more everyday gadgets like that — and it’s not as if you can use WeMo to turn off a gas burner.) For now, I find another Belkin gadget much more useful: The Belkin Conserve Socket, which automatically turns off power after a selected interval (30 minutes, 3 hours or 6 hours) and is just $9.99.

– Laura Owen

Fitbit One, $100, and the Aria Wi-Fi Scale, $130

In the wake of the gut-bulging Thanksgiving feast, where I opted for “a little of both” pies, “yes, with ice cream, please,” I am truly thankful for my new Fitbit One and the Aria Wi-Fi Scale. The Fitbit One is Fitbit’s third version of its activity tracker, and it’s smaller and sleeker than previous versions and includes new functions like a vibrating silent alarm (a trait seemingly borrowed from the Jawbone Up).

I’ve been tracking my activity, food intake and weight in the Fitbit dashboard over the past week and have set a healthy course for shedding a few pounds post Tofurky-day, without the option for cheating (the scale and tracker know all!). The biggest downside of the Fitbit One is how easy it is to lose (or send through the wash). After four days it fell off my belt somewhere, and I was forced to buy a new one (and I’m not the only one at GigaOM who has lost one).

– Katie Fehrenbacher

Zeo Sleep Manager Pro – $100

Waking up in the morning is usually a daily battle. So I was intrigued by the Zeo Sleep Manager Pro’s promise to monitor the quality of my sleep, as well as wake me during the optimal time. Like an earlier version, Zeo’s second mobile unit includes a headband sensor that pairs with an iPhone or Android smartphone via Bluetooth.

The latest version provides customized advice for improving sleep, as well as the ability to charge the headband through an outlet instead of a docking station. From the Zeo app, you can see how many times you woke up, when you were in REM sleep (rapid-eye movement, or deep sleep) and the quality of your sleep (your “ZQ”). Some of the advice wasn’t that surprising (e.g., “manage alcohol,” “get enough sleep”) and, despite its “SmartWake” alarm, I still woke up feeling groggy.

But I was impressed by its analysis of my REM sleep patterns. It alerted me that my REM sleep is shorter than it should be, and suggested things like sleeping in cooler temperatures and going to bed at a consistent time. For each piece of advice, it offered an impressive amount of detail and explanation.

– Ki Mae Heussner

HDHomeRun DTV tuner for Wi-Fi networks – $129

Instead of fighting with the family for the big-screen TV over and over again, why not make use of a smaller screen for television content? The HDHomeRun is a small box with two over-the-air tuners that can pull in local broadcast digital TV signals and shoot them to any computer, smartphone or tablet via your home Wi-Fi network.

Setup is easy: Just connect it to your wireless router and add a plug-in antenna to the back of the HDHomeRun box. The included software isn’t the most user-friendly and you’ll need third-party applications to watch live television on phones or tablets — the free VLC app will work fine for computers. The HDHomeRun only does one thing, but it does it well if you have a fast Wi-Fi network and want to watch local TV without using a TV.

– Kevin Tofel

Motorola MotoACTV smart watch / exercise tracker — $145

There are a growing number of gadgets that track health and exercise, but very few can compete with Motorola’s MotoACTV smart watch. It has nearly every sensor and radio you could want: GPS; Low-Energy Bluetooth 4.0; Wi-Fi;  ANT+; FM tuner; and an accelerometer. Did I mention it can also store tons of MP3 files within its flash memory?

With all of this gadgetry, the MotoACTV is great for tracking various types of exercise types. You can listen to music during your workout or use the built-in coaching feature. There’s even support for using this smart watch on the golf course: you can tracking strokes, get help selecting a club and calculate distance to the pin. And all of this data gets shot up to the web automatically when your home Wi-Fi network is range. About the only missing feature I’d like to see is a sensor to measure my sleep habits.

– Kevin Tofel

Fenix’s ReadySet off-grid battery, $275

This product isn’t itself a connected device, but it’s an important companion gadget: It will ensure that all your connected devices always have battery power, even after a natural disaster. We’ve been following the startup Fenix for years – they make a smart user-friendly battery and accompanying solar panel, which can charge cell phones and other devices “off the grid” using basic connectors like USB. While Fenix has been laser-focused on getting its devices into developing markets, like villages in India and Africa that are truly off the grid,  the startup has more recently started selling the ReadySet to anyone who wants one.

It’s particularly useful for charging up your laptop or cell phone on a camping getaway or road trip. A couple things to remember: The solar panel takes a good deal of time to charge the battery, and the device is also pretty heavy — not great for carting around under arm. But, as my colleague Kevin Tofel pointed out in a recent review, the ReadySet would be a handy tool in the wake of a storm like Sandy.

– Katie Fehrenbacher

… And Our Wish List For Future Holidays

Now for some connected devices that don’t yet exist but that we wish were available in stores. Call it our Connected Gift Guide of the Future. With all of these four, a hacker could build them pretty easily. But we’d love for a company to start making these products so we can just buy them instead of having to program an Arduino board or connect an Electric Imp to a kitchen appliance. Let’s get connected.

Web-programmable Xmas lights

You know those awesome light shows that shops, cities or even ambitious homeowners put on? The ones that have lights that change color timed to music or that twinkle out a message of hope and cheer? Right now, creating those requires some hefty programming skills or expensive light sets and software. For example, Robert Sun Quattlebaum two years back did a series of posts explaining how he purchased a $60 set of lights that changed colors and came with 14 pre-programmed shows, and then used that to make his own programmable Christmas lights.

That’s pretty awesome, but I don’t quite have his level of skill (the hack required reverse engineering the radio protocol and data bus protocols that controlled the lights as well as building out a new Arduino-based controller). And while the WeMo mentioned up above lets me turn my lights on and off from the web, I’m really after something a bit fancier. There is even a Kickstarter that launched Friday that comes closer, but I’d like a product I can buy on store shelves so I can make my own shrine to the Griswalds.

–Stacey Higginbotham

Connect my crock pot

I have an iGrill digital thermometer, which links to my smartphone via Bluetooth, telling me the internal temperature of my meats and the ambient air temperature of my oven. It’s a nifty gadget, but I’m continually frustrated that my kitchen connectivity is a one-way street. My appliance shouldn’t just tell me my roast is drying out, it should do something about it.

What I would like is the ability to turn my crock pot into a poor man’s connected immersion circulator for sous vide cooking. For those who don’t know, sous vide is a hip new culinary trend, involving the long cooking of food in a warm water bath. The pros use thousand-dollar rigs, but numerous Web sites show you how you can hack a $30 crock pot to make an immersion circulator.

In my mind the only thing that’s missing is connectivity. Sous vide cooking involves long cook times, sometimes whole days, and I don’t want to be standing over my crock pot that entire time. Using an Electric Imp or a Twine temperature gauge setup, I could not only create a sophisticated and subtle cooking appliance, but one I could monitor and control from work.

–Kevin Fitchard

A photo frame that connects to others

Older versions of the connected picture frame let you email your snapshots to a connected picture frame at Grandma’s house so she could see the grandchildren as they grew up without having to mess with the complexities of taking snapshots from her email and popping them on an SD card. This idea lets you track Grandma (or anyone else) by taking advantage of today’s connected pedometers and activity trackers. The picture frame would have some kind of indication of how often a person moves throughout the day and if they are meeting their fitness or activity goals.

If the picture frame shows that a person isn’t active, there may be a problem, such as an illness or a fall. By sharing only a general activity level as opposed to the actual steps taken, it’s less invasive. You could also use something like this with a GPS tracker with the picture frame changing color or brightening based on how far away a person is, or if they have strayed from a set area or any number of settings. It’s a real-world version of the Weasley clock for those who might not want an actual clock. For those that do, check out this project.

–Stacey Higginbotham

Programmable furniture

I spend hours a day sitting in my chair, and while it’s an awesome chair it could do much more than accepting my weight. It could also interact with my computer, sound system or my lights. For example, when I’m sitting in my office chair, I’m pretty much guaranteed to be at my computer: so why not automatically turn my IM status to green and log me into Skype?

This is a project that my colleague Kevin Tofel is thinking about and might hack together. While I’m not sure how it would work with his sit-stand desk, there’s a lot of potential for certain items of furniture to have the ability to interact with the web or our gadgets. I, for one, would love it if the act of getting into bed and turning off my bedside light turned the ringer on my phone off. Sure, there are things like this table, but I’m looking for something a bit more practical. And maybe something as easy as setting up an IFTTT recipe for a connected item of furniture.

–Stacey Higginbotham

Disclosure: Fitbit is backed by True Ventures, a venture capital firm that is an investor in the parent company of this blog, Giga Omni Media. Om Malik, founder of Giga Omni Media, is also a venture partner at True.

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