Leading technological companies love art and launch numerous initiatives revolving around creativity. Following Intel, which kicked off its awesome Remastered initiative earlier this year, and BMW, which collaborated with the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, to name but a few, Samsung presented its SIM project in Portugal aimed at promoting creativity in the country. Starting May, the brand is collaborating with recognized artists and encouraging young creative talents from a range of industries to join in, become part of the grandiose movement, share their insights and win Samsung’s YES award.

Yesterday the software giant introduced Microsoft Office 365, a cloud-based suite of productivity apps. The product was first introduced last October and now comes with Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, OneNote, PowerPoint), SharePoint, Exchange and Lync as well as email support and Microsoft Access in the cloud. ActiveSync is a new tool that lets customers access their cloud-based data (email, web apps, websites, calendars, etc.) from almost any device, including mobile phones and tablets. The company also guarantees 99,9% uptime.

Google wants to become the king of the social networking world and makes a huge step towards this goal. The Internet giant which has recently introduced the +1 button globally, launched the Google+ project created to “bring the nuance and richness of real-life sharing to software” and “make Google better by including you, your relationships, and your interests.” The new network, which is now not open for free registration (at this stage, users can join in only by invitations), is running in test mode and has some ‘rough edges,’ which are sure to be fixed over some time. The Google + includes a range of services, allowing people connect with their friends online, and is good just for every social-related activity performed online.

Digital media, no matter how strong and influencing it may seem today, still needs extensive support for further development to keep up with the technological progress in the digital age, sustain democracy and deliver information in the most convenient and clear way. On June 22, Knight Foundation announced winners of the Knight News Challenge, which is “an international media innovation contest funding digital news experiments that inform and engage communities.” This year, they selected 16 entrants in the four categories—Mobile, Authenticity, Sustainability and Community—to receive $4.7 million in funding including $1 million contribution from Google.

With the words ‘A cleaner ocean, one vacuum cleaner at a time’, Electrolux introduces a donation program for all its Green Range vacuum cleaners. The Electrolux Green Range vacuum cleaner has become world famous through the project Vac from the Sea, where Electrolux built a number of unique concept vacuums using plastic trash gathered from the world oceans. Now the success hits the sales floor.

At the final presentation of the EU research project HAVEit (Highly Automated Vehicles for Intelligent Transport), Prof. Dr. Jürgen Leohold, Executive Director Volkswagen Group Research, has presented the ‘Temporary Auto Pilot’ by Volkswagen: Monitored by the driver, the car can drive semi-automatically up to a speed of 130 kilometres per hour on motorways. It represents a link between today’s assistance systems and the vision of fully automatic driving.

Enhancing reality using new technology is always fun (numerous campaigns with QR-codes, which have been gaining momentum over the last months prove this). But this ‘code’ way of adding new features to the surrounding world is not the only way to make it look different: recently, Grand Marnier launched a new integrated campaign ‘Welcome To The Sunset Hour,’ which includes an innovative new app, enabling users to turn any picture on their phone into a sunset photo.