EMAIL SEGMENTATION

Train commuters in Melbourne no doubt started scouring the environs for hidden cameras earlier this month as an epidemic of trouser-dropping broke out around them. Up and down the platform, even in the trains themselves, men and women peeled off their pants, proudly exposing their underwear and, generally, pale legs. Was it a flashing flash mob? Mass hypnosis? An initiation stunt for a gender-neutral school fraternity? No, no and no. This boxer rebellion was carefully staged publicity for The Pantless Postman.

Google says its Chrome notebook integrates with cloud data storage seamlessly and without interruption. So if, for instance, you're in the middle of a PowerPoint for the stockholders and your notebook (oops) is accidentally dipped into a vat of liquid nitrogen, you don't lose your place.

With zest and a flair for the dramatic that would make even the most hardened movie-trailer editor cry in her popcorn, Google has assembled a video that recalls 2010 as seen through the Mountain View monolith's all-seeing eye. The video promotes a page that shows the top searches worldwide -- including our search behaviours in Australia.

Two thousand years ago, a Greek mechanic created a machine that predicted the motions of the celestial bodies. The device, pulled up from a shipwreck in 1901, became known as the Antikythera Mechanism. You have to wonder what that ancient Greek gearhead would think if he saw what's in this video.

It’s hardly a laughing matter; An Australian national accused of espionage and treason by a foreign power, excluded from the services of multi-national financial institutions at the request of an excitable few, hung out to dry at home by a PM who misread ‘the public mood’, all for publishing information illegally acquired by others. Yet, NMA.TV has once again managed to turn the serious into the absurd.

When this commercial for the most recent edition in the 'Call of Duty' franchise was released in early November, I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cringe. The genius of the 60 second advertisement, by Omnicom Group's TBWA/Chiat/Day, is that it's for a video game but does not feature any footage of the game itself.

In this episode, Eckersley-Maslin spends a day in Paris, encounters his first setbacks and can be seen completing his Anthill 30under30 application while on the Eurostar! (He also scored himself lunch at Le Jules Verne on the Eiffel Tower and a potential distribution partner, demonstrating the truth in his sentiment that luck is self-made.)

Surprisingly frequently, I find myself making the case that there has never been a safer time to live on the planet. Sure, we're confronted daily by news of wars, murders and other forms of human-inflicted violence. But, if you refer to the stats, things are actually pretty good, as this engaging video demonstrates.

NetStart, a Adelaide-based software developer, appears to have a winner on the table with MenuPad, an iPad app that allows restaurant customers to swipe through screens of food choices and place their order in a wireless, oh-so-geeky way.

We love sharing some of the more eclectic, unusual and just plain absurd inventions that cross our desk. Sure, we laughed at the Comfort Wipe, gaped at the Snuggie Blanket and marveled at the most useless machine ever. But there's something about this three-and-a-half minute product demonstration that defies explanation.

Social media 'gurus' are the latest targets of ridicule in this Xtranormal animation. The text-to-animation software has made it possible for amateur film-makers, from...

Frustration with tardy debtors was the obvious impetus behind this nifty invention from Belgium outfit ikki; an invoice with a voice-chip that begins to make weeping noises 20 seconds after the envelope is opened. But what's truly inventive about the 'crying invoice' is its other purpose.

We all now understand that the past decade has let consumers build a 'social layer' on top of their everyday lives, using services such as Facebook and Twitter to capture their social lives on the web. In this clip from TEDxBoston, proud Princeton "dropout" and mobile-entrepreneur Seth Priebatsch considers the next layer in progress: the "game layer" (a pervasive set of motivating 'dynamics' that will reshape education and commerce).

If you're wondering about the future of the internet but want more than the glib, usually poorly researched (albeit visually spectacular) YouTube memes that surface every six months, prepare to be impressed. In 20 minutes, Morgan Stanley's Mary Meeker outlines the 10 most influential internet trends likely to influence the way we create, consume and exploit digital media in 2011.

There are already countless videos on the Interwebs that present side-by-side comparisons of the most popular smart-phones. You know -- which has the fastest browser, the brightest screen, the quickest boot-up. This is not one of those videos. All we can say to the person who put this video together is, "Dude, we wish we had that kind of money to burn."

After unveiling the iPogo 300, we at Stately Anthill Manor can only hope Sesame Street will attempt a send-up of the "Really?" campaign for the new Windows Phone 7. Or those Droid spots in which humans get all fuzzy inside over turning into machines. Yeah, those campaigns need an unhealthy dose of Elmo.

Siimon Reynolds grew The Photon Group from a two-person shop to an ASX-listed enterprise, employing over 6,000 staff, with a value of $500m at its peak, making it the 15th largest marketing group in the world. He speaks with Jack Delosa about how to achieve marketing success, the subject of his recent book, Why People Fail.

It's a stupid question. But, having said that, it was the first thing that passed my lips on watching this teaser: Does the world really need another web browser? I love Mozilla. Colleagues have embraced Chrome. And your grandma probably still uses Internet Explorer. (Yup, that was bitchy.) Of course, internet users the the world over could always benefit from a better browser. But is this it?

The insights from Tom Wujec's design exercise are what makes this video worth watching. For instance: Kindergarten students are among the best builders, while recent graduates of business school are among the worst. Oh, and CEOs perform better if executive administrators are added to their team (somehow, that's not even remotely surprising).

We were tickled beyond words this week to discover that three Austrian developers have at last solved the problem those of us with fat fingers have when navigating a phone's touchscreen. They've created an iPhone that's as large as a refrigerator door. Your biggest, most chunky-digited AFL star can now swish through his apps with ease.