3D spectacle Avatar grossed $1billion in three weeks and took home best picture at the Golden Globes. 3D TVs dominated the Consumer Electronics Show. Discovery Communications, Sony and IMAX announced a dedicated 3D TV network and ESPN will broadcast football and golf games in 3D. After a slow creep, the age of 3D has finally arrived.

Forget the flask, all your portable drinking needs can now be handled by Victoria Bitter’s Pop-Up Pub. Created by droga5, Sydney for the Aussie beer brand, the eight-foot-tall portable pub features a mini-LCD screen and built-in cooler, and can be erected in less than two minutes. The pubs were designed by industrial designer Alex Ritchie of E2, Sydney and there are 450 available to win. And... what’s drinking without snacking? Droga5 also created a brand of spicy chips, The Drinking Chip, for VB in partnership with Yarra Valley Snack Food Company. 

Burt, a software company servicing the ad industry, is attempting to bridge the gap between creativity and effectiveness with Rich, billed as “the world’s first campaign analytics tool focused on creative agencies”.Compatible with any network or ad server, Rich is free and uses campaign metrics to determine criteria such as the visibility of online ads and user interaction. Designed with creatives in mind, it promises a deeper breakdown more relevant to their concerns, rather than a simple analysis of click-through rates. 

Google unveiled its real-time search function in partnership with MySpace, FriendFeed and Twitter. Now, when something is searched for on Google, its results will be accompanied by a scrolling “latest results” section, which provides a customizable page of live tweets, blog mentions and other real-time content. For Twitter, the real-time search deals struck with both Google and Microsoft’s Bing has meant profitability: $10 million and $15 million in licensing fees respectively, according to Business Week.

AR and Twitter unite!
Augmented reality iPhone app Twitter 360 is breaking the micro-blogging site out of its 140-character confines and into the world. Created by independent development company Presselite, the app combines AR with Twitter’s geotagging feature to create a tool that lets users locate their Twitter friends in real-time in the real world… Japanese developer Qosmo Inc and Terada Design, meanwhile, have created N Building, a retail low-rise with a façade covered in QR codes. Snap a code with your phone and receive information about the shops inside, or even read the tweets of its shoppers.

Little-known Uruguayan director Fede Alvarez discusses his $300 YouTube short, Panic Attack!, which scored him a seven-figure feature deal with Sam Raimi’s Ghost House Pictures.

Developers at London-based post house Moving Picture Company (MPC) launched a data calculator iPhone app, a handy tool that producers and camera operators can use to calculate data amounts when shooting digital.

With the rapid and rising adoption of technology in advertising campaigns, Crispin Porter + Bogusky’s VP/interactive technology director Scott Prindle examines the ever-evolving role of the agency technologist.

The Victoria & Albert museum, London’s digital and interactive design exhibit Decode: Digital Art Sensations will open art to the masses with Recode, an open-source idea that allows the online community to reimagine a commissioned digital piece by Karsten Schmidt. Developed by Saint@RKCR/Y&R, London, visitors to the microsite can change the artwork’s size, color and movement, or, for a deeper experience, access a code that can unlock and allow changes to its skeletal structure. Finished work can be uploaded to the Recoded gallery with the best appearing on London Underground digital screens. 

Shocking. Racist. Sexist. Persuasive. Vintage Ad Browser’s archive of print advertisements dates all the way back to the 1800s, offering a visual history of the social mores and manners that agencies and brands of yore used to influence consumers.