Amazing new stuff - Oh brave new world

In preparation for her presentation on the "Ten Top Tech Trends You've (Still) Never Heard Of," My friend Amy Webb of Webb Media Group set up a little contest, asking ONA members to list what they thought  the trends were. I didn't bite. I knew my responses would be too general, too non-specific. I was chicken.
And I was right. "Journalists need to think about tech in a granular way." She does. And she knows her stuff.
Here's a quick run through her mind-boggling list. She lists the tools she was referring to on her site. (Note, Amy - who twice threatened to kill a pushy photographer - was, as always, hilarious. Sorry, but this isn't.)
1) Real-time web. These are tools that publish online immediately, with no digital lag time. Now, now NOW. One example, Robo.to, with which people can publish soundless four-second video clips instantly. "Facebook and Twitter are changing cusomers expectations for how information is sent." with which you can email content to a blog and it posts. "The public expects that as soon as content gets created that they will be able to find it." I had this experience when I had a breaking news reporter going to some little fire. Our first blog post said only that firefighters were on their way to a fire. An impatient reader commented with a demand to know right then what burned, what caused it, what happened, etc. "Dude, the firefighters aren't even their yet!"
2) Light blogging. These are tools like Posterous with which you can email content to a blog and it posts.
She called this trend a "super game-changer." "Reporters can easiliy send text and mp3s and even video from mobile phones."
3) Personalization. Not customization but a web world offered up to suit your needs. Think Pandora, which knows your musical preferences and can even let you know when a band you might like is coming to your town. Among the most scary was a beta IE plug-in called Re:search, that searches through your hard drive (gasp!) o ascertain your preferences. For us, this would mean knowing that that guy wanted the immediate skinny on the fire product and letting him know, "Hey, we're working on it."
4) Interactive TV. This is TV on a screen alongside whatever else you're reading, working on, playing with, etc., bringing everything in one place. She noted this "could bring back local news" for the new generation of multi-digi-taskers.
5) Identity recognition. Apps like Picasa and Face.com are pretty much learning what everyone looks like so that they can tell you who they are. The WOW fact: 2.3 billion faces are already recognized in this manner. She also mentioned why Google is giving away voice-activated search on 1-800-411-GOOG (I love this tool): To learn how to accurately translate voices, everyone's voice. OK, that is a wee bit scary. "I know what you're doing, Hal."
6) Augmented reality. These are tools that, using your cell-phone's camera, give you an annotated view of the world, with "windows popping up showing you what you're looking at," little labels on buildings, mountains, viewpoints, what have you, telling you what they are. My favorite were the tools that help you navigate a subway station or a mall, as I NEVER get lost on city streets. (Um, yeah, right, sure.)
At dinner my wife made a good point on this, noting how some people already experience reality through a viewfinder, taking pictures of everything rather than actually experiencing it themselves. (OK who watches all that video anyway?) She's right, but she also agreed that a little annotation wouldn't hurt, as long as you turn it off once in a while.
7) User-generated sensor data. This was amazing. She showed a clip of little dots moving around San Francisco. Each dot was a person with an activated cell phone walking around. The result was a graphic showing where people go and where they congregate in bunches: Hard data extrapolated from the actions of people just going about their lives. I can't imagine yet how we would use this, but man, the potential.
8) Mobil life. She was referring to bar codes and codes on your phone that allow you to scan a symbol on a street sign to get more information on something, or to buy a mocha frappuccino with low-fat milk using your mobile phone to pay. (Great. Now when I lose my phone I'm really hosed.)
9) Geo location. Want a map on your phone showing you not only where you are but also where all the sex offenders are around you, and who they are and what they did. It's already available for you iPhone. Other apps show you what friends are nearby. And, of course, where the Starbucks are for that frappuccino.
10) The internet of things. Soon, we were told, all our appliances will have IP addresses and will be able to take actions without us doing things. Your refrigerator realizes you're out of milk and orders it for you. For us, with activated pages, we could tell who's reading the jumps of stories. But, I fear, things aren't that smart, so in the early years, we're going to end up with nine gallons of milk because someone pressed "Reset refrigerator."
Oh brave new world that has such applications. Now, how can we adopt these technologies to serve the news up to our customers? Or, more important, to enable them to serve the up news to us?