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It was announced that the wedding between Prince William Windsor and Kate Middleton will be a mobile phone free zone- in fact, signal blocking technology is due to be installed at Westminster Abbey in order to prevent anybody from using their phones at all. So unless anybody has the WiFi password for the ‘Abbey, it’ll be a notification-free zone. No tweets, no Facebook updates.

The idea was suggested by members of the Royal Family themselves, and later confirmed by police and security due to be attending the event. The plan is to cut down on the number of awkward photographs, recordings and videos with guests sat on their mobile phones, not paying attention and generally looking dissident. The news also means loud ringtones won’t get in the way of the event.

Of course, the internet is currently buzzing about the upcoming matrimony, with Twitter and Facebook alive with updates about people planning to hitch to London to catch a glimpse of the happy couple. Perhaps the Scots Guard who was relieved of his duties- who we posted about earlier this week –was the catalyst for the phone ban to go ahead. The young chap referred to the bride to be as a ‘stuck up cow,’ leading to a bit of a reprimand and some coverage by mostly internet media.

Regardless of your opinion on the wedding, it’s due to go ahead on April 29^th. There’s been a vast amount of coverage in the media in recent weeks- coverage only rivalled by the huge number of commemorative products flooding the market.

Recently, a London based investment manager stated that social media plays an important part in investment decisions. They plan to launch a fund entirely dedicated to using Twitter to aid in the making of investment decisions. Managed by Derwent Capital Markets, the fund has become known as ‘The Twitter Hedge Fund’ among some top Wall Street insiders. The launch has been consistently delayed, but news reports suggest there has been around $100 million invested in the fund already.

The interest in using social networks for investment purposes is wide reaching throughout financial markets across the globe. However, the actual investors looking to capitalise on the tangible trend data that sites like Twitter produce aren’t your typical city suit wearing gents. Instead, they’re complex algorithms run by computers that generate data and literally buy and sell financial commodities like stocks, options and currency.

These computers need content in order to work properly- and social networks provide an excellent region-specific overview of what people are doing and wanting at any given time. Trending topics on websites like Twitter and patterns revealed in Facebook news feeds can be collated to give very specific information on the various demographics using the sites. Various estimates put the percentage of all trading in financial markets done by computers at between 46 and 73- an almighty number. The stock market quickly approaches autonomy. Is this a good thing? Let us know in the comment thread.

The big buzz now is that Facebook has launched Deals, a new system for finding local deals on social events that could rival others in this space like Groupon and LivingSocial.  So will it?

Deals was announced last month, so its launch has been anticipated.  What was lacking were details, which we now have.

First, the launch of Deals (happening now) is limited to only five cities: Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, San Diego, and San Francisco.  Second, the Deals are limited to social events like concerts and seminars and such.  The first means that, for now, it’s not much competition for the other two giants of social marketing.  The second means it likely will only fill part of the entire market that the other two cover.

This new setup is entirely on Facebook’s site and does not directly compete with Foursquare and Gowalla for location-based deals (though FB’s experimental Places Deals does).  This is meant for a broader audience and is generally location-based (via IP) instead of specific location based (via GPS).  Users who want to use Deals still have to opt in themselves as well.

The big change?  Deals will now allow you to make indirect purchases of the deals in question using Facebook Credits.  You know, the new currency that many say will replace the U.S. Dollar as a world exchange currency.  Or maybe not.  Regardless, the way Deals works is that Facebook Currency can be used to purchase vouchers for the deal (goods/service/ticket) which can then be exchanged for the real thing at the merchant.

The system is set to become a major player in this emerging social market, so it’s one that has to be watched.  As it is, it won’t replace Groupon or LivingSocial, but if Facebook continues to expand it, it could very well do so in the future.

One of the technologies and apps that is poised to really become disruptive in the mobile-meets-retail arena is Square.  This is a payment service that combines a small $10 card reader with an iPhone app that allows you to turn your iPhone into a point-of-sale machine.

Now, Apple is going to feature the startup’s technology in their stores.  After the huge coup they got when Steve Jobs showed it off in conjunction with the iPad 2, this is huge news and a gigantic marketing opportunity for the company.

The sale price for the little device is probably losing them money at $9.99 (minus Apple’s cut) and the app is free, so you have to ask where their income comes from.

It’s in the back-end.  Using the device goes through Square’s card processing service (similar to PayPal, but made for point of sale) at 2.75% a pop.  The company is already processing about $1 million a day, so that’s not too shabby.

Square was co-founded by Jack Dorsey of Twitter fame and has finished another round of funding ($27.5 million).  Between that, their huge income potential, and this new boost from Apple, the startup is definitely poised to go big time in short order.

The Internet Advertising Bureau that handles statistics for Internet advertising has released its figures for last year. They show a significant level of growth for online advertising in the US, growing a total of 15% up to $26 billion. Search advertising is still the largest form of advertising online, making up a total of 46% of the whole figure. Display advertisements seen on web pages in the form of banners also contributes significantly to all online advertising, sitting at 38%.

Display advertising indeed actually grew much faster than search advertising last year in the US, growing a total of 24%. Targeted advertising on social networking websites like Facebook has been seen as growing at a vast rate over the past year and may contribute to this figure significantly.

Video advertising also grew a total of 40% last year, although only makes up 5% of the total. It is still worth $1.4 billion across the US, however- a significant figure. E-mail advertising revenue continued its decline, falling to $195 million: reflecting the switch across the board away from targeted e-mail adverts and towards viral content and algorithm-generated advertising. This type of advertising is typically seen as more interesting and less intrusive to consumers: many video adverts are spread around the Internet by e-mail or by sharing on social networking websites, showing that for the most part, these types of adverts are often welcomed by their target market.

With the immense growth in tablet options since the launch of Apple’s iPad last year, many consumers anticipate a more open and customisable generation of tablets to appear during this latest tech boom.

Gigabyte have seen an opening in the market and are gearing up for a product launch in October 2011 that offers the user the option to dual boot into either Android or Windows 7. While Windows 7 may not be the best possible option for a tablet, it is useful to many potential users that a fully fledged home computer operating system is available on a tablet device.

There are two SKUs planned with one possessing a 10” screen, and the other a 7”. The 7-inch device will unfortunately only run on Android 2.2- now made obsolete, Honeycomb or Windows 7but the 10” will offer booting options into Android 3.0 as well. The idea, says Richard Ma, senior vice president at Gigabyte, is to allow high end business users the option to edit their documents on the move. This option is currently quite limited on existing android tablet, the operating system not perhaps as suited to the extra screen real estate as the latest iterations of iOS are.

Expect Intel Atom processors inside both models without a USB port and a price of ‘less than $400.’ The company anticipate releasing a Windows 8 tablet before the year is through also.