I got to sit down with Steve Hallock, the North American president of MB&F and driving force behind the Swiss watch brand’s western expansion. The watch he brought for us is the LM1 aka the Legacy Machine #1, a new piece we wrote about earlier last month and that is just now shipping to oligarchs and captains of industry around the world.

First, a bit about the piece:

In fidelity to high-quality 19th century pocket watches, LM1 features a sedately oscillating (2.5 Hz), large diameter balance with traditional Breguet overcoil suspended from majestic twin arches; its enigmatic regulating mechanism in full view, but without apparent connection to the movement. Both the hours AND the minutes on each of the two sub dials can be set completely independently of each other – dual time zone complications usually do not allow independent adjustment of the minutes – their domed dials further reinforcing visual references to the golden age of watchmaking (1780-1850). Looking like a miniature sextant, a world-first vertical power reserve indicator keeps track of available power while providing a visual three-dimensional counterpoint to the graceful arches supporting the balance.

The LM1 is striking in real life. The dual dials are hand-enameled and the beautiful balance wheel hanging in the middle of the face creates a sort of clever, steampunkish beating heart that brings the whole piece together. How much is this thing? About $90,000, on a good day, although I’m sure Steve can get us all discounts.

Online holiday shopping reached record levels in 2010. And e-commerce spending is up this year. All signs point to consumers spending even more online this holiday season. I sat down with executives from Google, eBay, PayPal and ShopKick to discuss the trends that are expected to emerge in the e-commerce space over the next few months.  They center around mobile, tablets, and deals.

PayPal has more than doubled its mobile payments volume since the 2010 holiday shopping season, and we haven’t even hit the thick of this year’s rush. eBay is projecting $5 billion in mobile payments volume in 2010 and this number could increase in the next few months. And Google projects that 15 percent of total search on Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving and one of the biggest shopping days of the year) will come from mobile devices. Tablet devices are now a part of the online shopping experience and retailers are taking note. Clearly, all signs point to the fact that this could be the breakout year for mobile shopping.

Mobile, Mobile, Mobile

All of the companies I spoke to unanimously agreed that this would be the year of mobile for the holiday shopping season. Steve Yankovich, head of eBay's mobile business operations and development, says he expects this to be the biggest year for mobile sales for eBay yet. eBay has said that the company expects to see $5 billion in gross merchandise volume in 2011, and this will be partly buoyed by a strong mobile presence in November and December.

PayPal’s Senior Director for Mobile, Laura Chambers, echoes Yankovich’s forecasts and says that merchants are even preparing for the onslaught of traffic to their mobile sites. A number of big retailers, such as Armani Exchange, Guess and The Limited have recently put PayPal’s mobile express checkout as an option for payments on their mobile sites as a way to help the conversion process. “We are seeing strong investments by online retailers for mobile shopping this year,” she says.

Chambers says that last year, the peak day for mobile payments for PayPal was December 12, with $4.7 million in mobile payments volume. Now PayPal is seeing $10 million in mobile payments per day, and we haven’t even officially hit the holiday shopping period. Clearly, the mobile payments numbers could even triple from last year to this year.

While many consumers may shop on mobile for their holiday purchases, the usage of product search, barcode scanning, and other informative apps will also play a big part in this year’s mobile shopping. eBay’s RedLaser barcode scanning apps have seen scans go up 50 percent over the past year. If you aren’t familiar with how it works, RedLaser will scan the barcode of a physical product and show you where you can buy it on eBay’s properties and where it is available in local store locations around you (via Milo) and for how much. The app has been updated with PayPal functionality so that users can actually buy the product directly from the app.

Another shopping app developer who has high hopes for mobile this holiday season is ShopKick. Co-founder Cyriac Roeding says that this year will be the year of mobile for physical shopping. For background, Shopkick automatically recognizes when someone with the free Android or iPhone app on their phone walks into a store. Once a Shopkick Signal is detected, the app delivers reward points called "kickbucks" to the user for walking into a retail store, trying on clothes, scanning a barcode and other actions. Kickbucks can then be redeemed across all partner stores for gift card rewards or for Facebook Credits. User can also receive special discounts on specific products at partners stores like Macy's, Best Buy or Target.

Roeding explains that the cell phone is the only interactive platform you carry with you in a physical store, and retailers are looking to use the platform to help drive transactions. Clearly, a mobile rewards app that offers in-store discounts can help do this. “The internet has caused brick and mortar retailers more trouble than benefit over the past fifteen years. Now retailers are catching on to how the internet can help retailers—that’s where mobile comes in.”

Sameer Samat, VP of Product Management for Google Commerce, tells me that the search giant is seeing a growing number of users are making buying decisions using their mobile phone. “We are definitely seeing m-commerce conversions growing and becoming bigger over time,” he says. “But users are also using their mobile phone to search for products and find local availability.”

Samat says that Google has seen a 200 percent growth in mobile product search usage and Google Shopper app downloads over the past year. Shopper, which is available for iOS and Android, allows you to find product prices, reviews, specs, local inventory of products at nearby stores, and more.

As we mentioned above, Google is forecasting that 15 percent of total search on Black Friday. will come from mobile. “There’s no doubt that users are now making buying decisions using their mobile phone,” says Samat. “And we are seeing m-commerce conversions growing and becoming bigger over time.”

Tablets

As tablets have grown to be the go-to browsing device, the iPad, and other devices are also becoming a way to shop. And retailers are catching on to this trend. According to a National Retail Federation study, 20 percent of retailers have invested in tablet device apps this holiday season.

With this in mind, Google debuted Catalogs in August, an app for tablet devices that includes 200 catalogs from major brands including Anthropologie, Bare Escentuals, Bergdorf Goodman, Crate and Barrel, L.L. Bean, Lands' End, Macy's, Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, Pottery Barn, Saks Fifth Avenue, Sephora, Sundance, Tea Collection, Urban Outfitters and Williams-Sonoma.

The app is more than just a browsing experience. When consumers find an item they’d like to purchase, they can tap to find it in a store nearby or tap "Buy on Website" to visit the merchant online.

Google’s Samat says that “the tablet is the ultimate leanback experience and we see that playing a big role in holiday shopping as a replacement for the mail order catalogs you used to browse through.”

PayPal calls it ‘couch commerce’ and believes that tablet commerce will have a record year. PayPal recently reported that consumers who own both a tablet and a smartphone are significantly more likely (63%) to indicate increased overall spending on mobile purchases, versus owners of smartphones only (29%). Owners of both a tablet and a smartphone buy nearly twice as often as those who only have smartphones and more than 40% of dual owners made more than 20 mobile purchases over the past year, compared to only 12% of smartphone-only owners.

Forrester just released a report predicting a 15 percent increase in online shopping sales this year to nearly $60 billion, partly due to the increase in consumer-use of tablet computers for shopping.

Beyond Black Friday And Cyber Monday

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are historically the top-high-grossing online shopping days during the holiday season. But execs expect to see high volumes of online shopping on other days thanks to an increase in mobile shopping and deals.

Yankovitch tells me that eBay expects revenue numbers to be well over numbers that eBay saw last year for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but expects to see more activity at times when people aren’t traditionally shopping.

The day of Thanksgiving is one of those days, says Chambers. Because people will have their phone everywhere (including at the table), consumers are expected to make purchases on the fly, especially on Thanksgiving evening. In fact, PayPal is predicting that after dinner on Thanksgiving Day will be the first mobile shopping spike this holiday season.

Another popular day has been the second Sunday in December, which is one of the last days where people feel confident that items will be shipped in times for the holiday. And Chambers says across the board, Sunday is the biggest day for mobile shopping generally.

Deals

There’s no doubt that deals, coupons and discounts will be a large part of the online holiday shopping experience, especially with the current state of the economy. According to the recent Forrester report, 58 percent of Americans say they are more price-conscious today than they were a year ago and nearly half believe they find better values online.

“I really expect consumers to be deal hunting this season,” explains Chambers. She says that PayPal, which has historically offered special deals for the holiday shopping season, will be bulking up on more consumer deals this holiday season.

Samat says that Google has always seen a spike for queries like deals, coupons, and sales during the holiday time and fully expects to see an increase this year. “The consumer desire for a better deal will help give certain product decision tools a big bump,” he explains. “People may take more time this year to find the best possible price.”

Deals could also include lucrative holiday shipping offers. In 2010, 45 of the top 50 online retailers offered some sort of promotional deal between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday, most of which were a type of shipping promotion. And in 2011, Shop.org anticipates that a record 92.5% of online retailers will offer free shipping and not just as a Cyber Monday promotion.

Clearly, there’s plenty of optimism from retailers, and tech companies regarding online spending and shopping this holiday season. And this holiday season is somewhat unique considering the big bet that retailers are making on newer technologies, such as mobile, geo-location, tablets, local product search and more. The big question is how consumers will react to and engage with these technologies over the next several weeks.  It could be a very mobile Christmas.

Even though plants need only a few things to grow – water, air, light and minerals – maintaining the right proportions can make gardening feel like a high-maintenance hobby. Estonian company Click & Grow creates soilless, electronic flowerpots that do the work for you, providing the correct water and nutrient balance for indoor plants.

For some, this may seem like a superfluous product since many varieties of houseplants don’t require an excessive amount of care. But for those with a history of killing their flowery friends, or those whose travel schedules don’t permit regular waterings, Click & Grow could be a helpful solution.

Each flower pot is wired with sensors, a processor and software that checks on the plant and provides it with fertilizer and water as needed. Each pot uses a combination of hydroponics and aeroponics, and still requires an occasional refilling of the water reservoir, about once a month.

A light on the flowerpot illuminates when the reservoir requires refilling, and the pot uses a pump to nourish the roots over time. While the pot takes care of water and fertilization, it’s up to the owner to find suitable lighting. The company recommends indirect sunlight.

The 59 euro (just over $80) starter kit contains a pot, four AA batteries and a plant cartridge embedded with flower seeds. Batteries last about eight months, and when the first plant completes its growth cycle, you can swap in another cartridge for just under 7 euro ($9). Each cartridge sprouts about two weeks after activation and contains software that helps optimize the system for each species. Current options include several flowers, a basil mix, tomatoes and chili peppers.

Startups and entrepreneurs are far from lacking when it comes to resources that help guide them through the pain-staking yet always rewarding process of building a business. For example, they can check out the Startup Genome Project to see what specific components are integral to building a successful business, check out cool tools like this one to compare their term sheets to industry standards, or even these efforts by the Founder Institute to help founders standardize their relationships with advisors. Obviously, these are only a few of many — when it comes to connecting with funding, there are incubators, Angel List, Kickstarter — the list goes on.

And then there’s entrepreneurial education by way of video series: Back in August, TechStars, the multi-city startup incubator, launched a “reality-documentary” TV series (in collaboration with Bloomberg) designed to give the world a peak at what it’s like to start a business in the fast-paced atmosphere of a tech incubator.

Riffing off video series like this one, Sprinkle Lab, a startup that makes commercial videos for tech companies, launched a series last week that aims to speak to anyone and everyone interested in the world of entrepreneurship. The series, called “Now I Know”, will be releasing a new episode every Monday and Wednesday for the next six weeks that contains a lesson learned, a memorable experience, or personal philosophy from different notable figures in the tech space. It’s slightly reminiscent of The Startup Kids, but instead of focusing on young entrepreneurs, it shares musings on the big issues the tech industry faces today, dished out by experts — of every age.

The series premiered with six episodes featuring author of “The Lean Startup” Eric Ries, Craigslist Founder Craig Newmark, serial entrepreneur, lecturer, and author Steve Blank, Rock Health Founder Halle Tecco, Causes.com Co-founder and VP of Product Chris Chan and TechCrunch columnist and newly-minted CrunchFund VC MG Siegler.

Now I Know’s most recent video, for example, features former TechCruncher and current Accel investment guru Dan Levine talking about the concept of failure and how it might actually not be the best way to learn.

Sprinkle Lab Co-founder Cameron Woodward told us that he and his team founded Sprinkle Lab in March of this year, because they believed that there simply wasn’t enough good video coming out of the tech space. While there is Revision3 and other great video specialists like it, Woodward said that he wanted his startup to focus on making shows that are formatted for television, not just vlog-caliber.

“We’re millennials, so we don’t have that kind of patience”, he said. “We wanted to see something short and sweet and dripping with nerdy goodness”, so having founded a video firm built with MediaCore (a startup focused on letting SMBs build their own video platforms, which we profiled in August) — Sprinkle Lab launched Now I Know based on their desire to see this kind of educational content find a home.

There will be more videos launching next week, and while these videos are great, they leave you wanting more. Hopefully Sprinkle Lab will release the full interviews in the future; I have a feeling they would find an audience. Below is an example of Now I Know’s content, featuring Steve Blank talking about the fundamental differences between small businesses and startups. Check it out:

In a move that demonstrates an incredible amount of either customer care or procrastination, Apple has issued a recall for the first generation iPod Nano. Not the one you use as a watch, not the fat one, and not the round one. The original (and in my opinion, the best). Turns out it has a rare overheating problem, by which these warnings usually mean explosion problem.

Only a single battery supplier has actually been implicated, and the few hot devices were only available between September 2005 and January 2006. So if you gave or received a Nano during the 2005 holiday season, better find it before it burns your house down.

Find your serial number using this step by step guide:

Put that sequence into Apple’s handy checker here, and if it’s one of the bad batch yet somehow miraculously has not melted in the last five years (the chance of overheating/catastrophic explosion “increases as the battery ages”), Apple will issue you a replacement. After six weeks.

In other news, Apple still has original iPod Nanos to issue as replacements. Very clever — or have they known about this the whole time?

[via SlashGear]

I’ve been writing a lot about Oink, the new mobile app from Milk, Kevin Rose’s current startup. Oink launched about ten days ago (you still need an invite to unlock all of its features), and Kevin Rose gave me a demo the day it launched. In this episode of Fly or Die, we give Oink a try.

Oink is a way to rate things in the physical world on an extremely granular layer. You can rate a #burger or a #steak in a restaurant, a #rollercoaster in an amusement park, or a #shirt in a clothing store. You identify things with hashtags and get cred topic-by-topic based on the how other people vote for the things that you’ve said are good. The hashtags are also useful for a specific hashatag that’s been rated in your vicinity.

The app could end up collecting a wealth of data about what people like in the real world. There is something very satisfying about seeing the best 25 #burgers in rank order within a 5-mile vicinity drop down on a map. And the ability to level up for any particular tag is going to be a big motivator for some users. But like any app, there will be the power taggers and everyone else (who simply consume), and the trick for Oink to be successful when it launches more broadly will be to make it appealing and easy to use for anyone straight out of the gate. It might need more structure and suggestions than the current open-ended tag the world approach.

The New Luddites are back, and they’re packing heat. The mighty Economist writes of “the disturbing thought” that “America’s current employment woes stem from a precipitous and permanent change caused by not too little technological progress, but too much … A tipping point seems to have been reached, at which AI-based automation threatens to supplant the brain-power of large swathes of middle-income employees.” The New York Times chimes in: “technology is quickly taking over service jobs, following the waves of automation of farm and factory work.”

At which those of us lucky enough to be software engineers burst into derisive laughter, of course. We’ve heard all this before, more than a decade ago, when ‘outsourcing to India’ rather than ‘automation’ was the threat that would destroy our jobs. Obviously this is more of the same kind of nonsense. Right?

…Although, now that you mention it, there is something odd going on. America, Europe, and Japan all seem to be lurching from crisis to crisis without respite; most of the developed world is struggling with debilitating levels of unemployment; but at the same time, the tech world is booming like it’s 1999. Doesn’t that seem kind of weird?

Maybe I should respond: a recent Hacker News thread analyzes, and ultimately (mostly) validates, a claim that a good 30-year-old Google software engineer now takes home close to $250,000/year in total compensation. Another reports that newly minted Stanford CS/EE graduates are offered an average of $88,000 for their first post-university jobs. Well, hey, let the good times roll! Luddites of all stripes are morons! We just happen to be in the midst of a thrilling boom/bubble while the entire rest of the rich world happens to be in a crippling recession/stagnation. Pure coincidence. Right?

Unless.

Unless Martin Ford and/or Arnold Kling are right. Ford essentially argues that we have hit an inflection point at which technology destroys jobs faster than it creates them. Kling writes (at length, but it’s worth reading): “The new jobs that emerge may not produce a middle class … gains in well-being that come from productivity improvements [may] accrue to an economic elite … we could be headed into an era of highly unequal economic classes. People at the bottom will have access to food, healthcare, and electronic entertainment, but the rich will live in an exclusive world of exotic homes and extravagant personal services.”

Which sounds eerily like what we would get if we extrapolated from today, no? While millions of long-term unemployed fight desperately to tread water, technology’s handmaidens — software engineers — are minting money like bailed-out bankers. That Stanford survey mentioned above seems to undercut Peter Thiel’s take that “We’re in a bubble and it’s not the Internet. It’s higher education” — but guess again:

It’s beginning to look like we might have entered a two-track economy, in which a small minority reaps most of the benefits of technology that destroys more jobs than it creates. As my friend Simon Law says, “First we automated menial jobs, now we’re automating middle-class jobs. Unfortunately, we still demand that people have a job soon after becoming adults. This trend is going to be a big problem…”

It’s even been suggested that inequality may cause unrest and violence in the Western world. Don’t bet on it. True, inequality has provoked the Occupy movement, and to a lesser extent the Tea Party; but I’ve been around the block a few times, and take it from me, the world is full of nations with a tiny minority of the very rich, a slightly larger well-off elite, a small middle class, and a great majority who are various degrees of poor and struggling. Brazil, China, India and Russia, for instance, to name a famous foursome. There’s nothing unusual or inherently unstable about that kind of inequality. In fact, in most of the world, it’s the norm.

I still believe technology will be the great equalizer that brings comparable economic opportunities to all regions of the world. But I’m beginning to wonder if that same technology will also ultimately make the rich world as fragmented and unequal as the poor, and turn the majority middle class into a thing of the past.

Image credit: “born1945″, Flickr