In China the way to potty-train children is completely different from western customs. The average age for a child to be potty-trained in China is between 12 and 15 months. Western babies are generally potty-trained between 18-30 months. Chinese people have a different vision of 'learning', which will soon inspire the western world.

MiraWorldTV brings all TV streams together (al). At this point in time the most important thing is to bring everything together. In other words, for home entertainment coaching brands to be: bring all games, all videos, all live-video together. Then it becomes critical to make very personal selections, start them, and bill them. On demand. Then brands really start adding value to the lives of consumers.

The new Sony T-200 camera recognizes up to 8 faces in a photo and automatically controls focus, exposure, color and flash to bring out the best in everyone. With that, making bad pictures is history. (al). We always want to look better than we do. Our holiday pictures always need to have a lot of sun. We always want to look our very best at pictures. Sony helps us here. Soon we will be able to participate in a Sunday morning video conference with colleagues in our underwear. Background, makeup and clothes are added automatically. Now in still images, soon in moving images. It will soon be the most normal thing in the world.

Japanese company Ns-elex has developed a new device that will allow people to "speak" through their ear so they can use their mobile telephones in noisy places. The device doubles as an earphone and a microphone by detecting air vibrations inside the ear. (al). In the future the audio part of our virtual world experience will be built in our heads. We will carry invisible audio-devices in our ears, serving as speakers as well as microphones. Outside sounds they will of course allow in, if we choose to permit that. This way we can zoom in to every conversation, even from a far distance. It will be no problem to have a conversation with somebody sitting on the other side of a bar. And even when no vibrations are reaching our ears any more, we transfer to a virtual world, to still be able to talk. Soon we will be helpless without our 'audio boosters', or whatever we will decide to call these devices.

Dutch website for holiday homes and hotels WeekendjeWeg.nl ('A weekend away') provides directions for guests through a button 'Add to my TomTom' with every hotel. Soon it will be possible to add all hotels in one go (am, Dutch). Now we still have to actively transfer information, soon even our TomTom will be a (mobile) window to the virtual world. We then won't just have dialogues with the TomTom brand through this screen, but also with other brands. Like a Philips TV or a Dell monitor also provides access to the virtual world. Then the dialogue we started with WeekendjeWeg on a bigger screen will just continue on a smaller, mobile screen. Then we will be able to retrieve reviews and have them read to us on our mobile screen. And if we want to know how to get somewhere, TomTom's brand agent is there for us.

Publisher Sanoma has bought Dutch living websites Leadz.nl and Woonwebsite.nl as an extension to their existing websites Woonklussen.nl and Allewoonwinkels.nl. The two newly acquired websites are both aimed at consumers who want to change their house or garden. At Woonwebsite.nl the user can ask for the services of a 'Realtor' to find the right contractor for a complete renovation. Leadz.nl is an auction site at which supply and demand for jobs on houses. Consumers can post their jobs, and professional companies can put their offers in.

Related trends

• Coaching brands

Mijnsein sends out an e-mail of text message just before an insurance contract is going to be extended (em, Dutch). Brands will soon be pro-active, and start thinking for consumers. So that finally you will have the feeling you are working with friends instead of brands that want to bind you through contracts. This will strengthen the emotional loyalty to brands tremendously.

The Dutch Directorate for Public Works and Water Management 'Rijkswaterstaat' want to make maps available for free (em, Dutch). Information will soon be free, everything will be freely available and connected worldwide, so that the physical world becomes completely transparent. Earning money on general information (which is still the foundation of most publishers' business models) will be impossible. It will be the art to get to know individual consumers in-depth, and present them tailor-made information. Brands who are able to do that, and are even able to get the consumer to (re)act (I call them coaching brands), are the strongest brands of the 21st century.

Related trends

• Coaching brands

Cloudspeakers brings music reviews of various sources together (em, Dutch). Thus music coaching brands come to life. Soon consumers will have chosen their own brand which brings all music together that has ever been made, in any language, in any country, by any artist, and combines it with reviews, concert tickets, karaoke, or only the vocal part to which you can make your own music. The art will be to make the difference in entertaining consumers musically. To be able to do that, brands will have to know the music someone really enjoys: they will have to deepen the relationships with their customers. For now the most important thing is still completeness: bring everything together so I don't have to search any more.

Martinair as the first airline provides its passengers with a travel guide for mobile phones (mc, Dutch). Thus travel coaching brands come to life. In this example the travel guide function is connected to an airline, soon new brands will watch all holiday moments during your life, including all moments of orientation, of booking, joy of preparation, return, and joy of looking back. They are the ultimate providers of this service and will be able to offer tailored information. The introduction of this travel guide adds to a new dynamic in the travel branch.

With Bluetrek's Sense callers can operate their headset (picking up or ignoring calls) with their voice. Besides, the Bluetrek Sense is also equipped with some so-called Voice Alerts, which literally tell you what phone function you are using, or just have activated, like ‘Redial last number’ or ‘Call rejected’ (mc, Dutch). Now we operate devices with our voice, soon we make contact with all kinds of brands through these devices. We then call our social coaching brand, named Joyce for example: 'Joyce', 'Yes Erwin', 'Connect me to Yvette please'. We think it is completely normal for technology to react to us. Now still bound to a device, but soon Joyce will appear on a display in the store, in a hotel in Malibu, and in a rental car in Bangkok. This future gets closer every day.

Business social network LinkedIn remembers and shows all e-mail addresses of an individual member. In the course of years people send each other invitations, whereby they sometimes use a different e-mail address, while they do link these invitations to a certain profile. Thus LinkedIn can build up a database of different e-mail addresses for every individual. The user then can choose what should be the primary address for communication between the brand LinkedIn and the user. Very smart.

All brands will soon do this. They don't just have one e-mail address of an individual consumer in their database, but also all associated e-mail addresses. So that if an e-mail address doesn't work any more, they can send a message to an alternative e-mail address. In these times, in which it is always harder to find new clients (or reach them using traditional channels), you have to give more attention to keeping existing customers. At this time, it is five times as expensive to get a new client as compared to keeping an existing client; this ratio will change for the worse in the years to come. This type of extensions of the database therefore will prove to be very profitable.

Runners with Nike have registered 65,337,765 running kilometers up until the end of 2007.

Norwegian designer Thomas Heyerdahl sells iDiamond ear, 18 carat golden ear speakers with 204 tiny diamonds. It goes for $6,400 (en). Technology disappears, and everything we still carry on our body becomes some kind of jewelery. Like the glasses, a mobile phone, or a watch, the ear speaker also is completely refreshed. Soon ear speakers will be wireless, and then they will also let other sounds come through. We then will start wearing them permanently. Either completely hidden, very deep in our ear, or the opposite: clearly visible, like this type of ear speakers.

Sony filed a patent for recognizing hand gestures on a mobile phone (mc, Dutch). Brands start reacting to our voice, our facial expressions, and now also to our gestures. This way they can develop brand gestures, to be shared all over the world.

Chinese company InterGrafx has developed an 3d avatar for the mobile phone, which updates you on incoming calls, e-mails, text messages, planned meetings, and other reminders (mc. Dutch). Interaction and written text make place for speech and image. Exactly what humans are made and optimized for. Since we now have the technical possibilities (which become better and better), it will absolutely go this direction.