Do you go to art school, or sit through tons of crits(critiques)? Perhaps your in a space with tons of stools with missing or worn out foam pads. Well, if so, your butts probably craving one of these soft “crit buns” to sit on! “Crit Buns” were created by designers from my school RISD. I first spotted these colorful and graphically packaged buns during the RISD alumni sale and thought, duh…we all need one…then again, I just sat on my hands back when I was there even though the dirty pants from the charcoaled up floors were somewhat proud war marks for the RISD-oids.(mainly freshmen students since they have drawing studios which are famous for using bricks of charcoal a day which most kids end up sneezing out towards the end of the day…ooo, those were the days.) Go get a crit bun and make your buns smile!!!
experience
Musicovery.com allows you to create a play-list of songs based on the mood that your seeking by filtering music by genres and time, then selecting a mood within each category; dark, energique, positif, or calme. It’s somewhat like a streaming radio station that you have a bit off control over, but you can’t save, bookmark, or copy any names quickly. Otherwise, the visaul layout is compelling enough to play with for a bit and personally I grooved to the “Calm Funk” with a bit of “positif” stream that I am now listening to.
Other music aiding services I’ve looked into are: Yahoos LaunchCast (I use this, my station), pandora.com, and Blogmusik.net.
(thanks Danny)
At first glance, I was captured by this cool baby pong picture! I clicked ahead, watched the demo video by Stokke, and figured out, dang, these Xplory strollers are pretty sweet! Just because your a baby, doesn’t mean you have view life at that height, hence, this stroller props up the seat to give the baby a higher viewpoint. Besides the viewpoint, the video also points out how a higher seat puts less stress on a parents back since you don’t have to bend over as far. Otherwise, the higher seat idea reminds me of Dean Kamens invention the iBot, which gives people in wheelchairs the opportunity to be at eye level with humans again(also has tons of other amazingly innovative features, including the gyroscope that helped launch the Segway)
via thecoolhunter
I love it when people come up with ideas that sometimes seem dumb but seriously inspire me. In this DIY example via Evilmadscientist, a mops added to a remote control car, and bahm, ya have cleaning with a zest of fun. I’m not saying this works great, but sometimes when you think like a kid again or act goofy, you get results that raise great questions and often great ideas. I almost want to clean more now with this remote mop! Why cant cleaning be fun?! Anyhow, this is an example of one of those goofy ideas that I love much like the babysuit mop found in the great Chindogu Society Books. Otherwise, for the more grown up types that hate mops, try the MopShoe.
The wonderous TED Conference ,which I have mentioned several times, just announced their line up of speakers for TEDGlobal2007 packed with the usual list of known and unknowns that are all shakers and movers in global initiatives, though with a focus on Africa this year. The conference will take place in Arusha, Tanzania next summer and I’m drooling to go, but who knows. Check out the exciting list of speakers and more about the conference on their blog or on their site.
This is kind of nifty… Are you shopping for a present but can’t quite come up with the words to search with? Well, Imagini.net allows you to search for items by creating a DNA of keywords based on a selection of images! Basically, it creates a DNA of a persons lifestyle based on simple questions with visuals answers. Once you go through the questions, it creates a grid of items that match your DNA.
I like the idea of shopping through images, or creating a palette of lifestyle images based on a person to buy stuff, but then again I’m an advocate for images over text whenever possible. This is kind of like what Amazon does for their suggestion robot since they know what your browse, what you buy, your age, location, etc.. Man, the world of data mining boggle me!
“ndsvisuals is a system designed to loosen VJs from their stationary input devices, by equipping them with a wireless remote control – more precisely: a nintendoDS gaming console by using all the features the nintendoDS provides (such as two screens, a touchscreen, wireless networking, …) it enables VJs to control their visual performance from wherever they have a WLAN-connection to their notebook. ”
This project reminds me how technology has unleashed jobs from confined spaces and allowed anyone to work from almost anywhere, be it underground, out in the park, on a subway, on an airplane, at a cafe, or sitting right next to YOU. I’ve been in so many situations where the person sitting next to me turned out to be someone I read about but I never knew what they looked like…so, just as a reminder, don’t be shy in public spaces, stay curious, be nice, and next time that stranger next to you just might be someone that amazes you.
(Playing Will Wright in ping pong during PopTech at a bar was great, but I really wish I knew it was him before I played him!..fun times!)
Ooooo Cool. TheWebList.net is another hive minded dashboard to save us humans more internet hours! Inspired by the very lovable PopURLS.com website I posted about before.
A bunch of ya’ll that have met me have asked me about my card-holder. Well, here it is. I grabbed a few of those free paint chips ya find at paint stores (home depot), made a few bends here and there, and bahm, you have your very own colorful hand-made paint chip card holder. I made a DIY guide after the jump, though the template’s custom to my cards size (3.5″x1.9/16″). The the home depot chips I used can just barely fit a basic 3.5″x2.5″ card with some changes in the template. Lots of pics after the jump along with the DIY instructions.
You buy a pair of these comfy espadrilles inspired shoes, and TOMS matches every pair purchased with a donated pair to a child in need on your behalf in South America!
I love this idea! Not only are these stylish comfy slip-ons great, but they represent a great cause! Sure there are those brands that donate 5% of profits to some fund, but it’s a very different feeling when the very product you purchased is also the donated item! These shoes now represent a much more connected feeling and understanding of the cause. Founder, designer, and “Chief Shoe Giver” Blake Mycoskie has a great story and video you should watch!
Quick thoughts: Brands are becoming such a huge part of our future. They represent a lifestyle and status of life, but they are also icons in solving global issues. Sure there are the ones that do small stunts to satisfy the PR world, but most companies don’t care unless they can profit from it with money. Brands must now echo real global solutions, such as sustainability, poverty, disease, hunger, education, or even as simple as providing footwear to the needed. Losing some profits to gain a much stronger brand experience is not a need, but a must! Our informational society is in the know, and small things can really destroy a brands loyalty.
I’ve been influenced by Greenpeaces “guide to greener electronics“, the Corporate Fallout Detector project, a great deal by William McDonough & Michael Braungarts book Cradle to Cradle, the exhibit and book Massive Change, and the new must buy book WorldChanging!
via Springwise
A few more pics after the jump!
I’ve always wondered what it would be like to walk around the ceiling, but never thought I’d be able to experience it, besides a few instances in amusement parks. Well, not exactly everything is upside down, but the Viktor & Rolf Store in Milan does just this. Check out some other great pics here or here. This also reminds me of a great prank I once saw here!
Just to note, sometimes when you turn things, ideas, plans, etc up-side down, it sometimes makes things better!
Here’s a pretty nifty idea for a new visual search engine. “Like.com” creates results from both text and image matches! Take for example, a silver watch you saw in a magazine, but you had no clue which brand it was. If you had an image of it, you would pop that image in, and ask the service to look for things that, well, looked “like” it! (They call it “likeness” technology) In most cases, people would go to Google Image or Froogle, but as we all know, not everything pops up in those searches, especially the ones you were looking for, mainly because not everything is indexed with the right meta tags.
Like.com is from the creators of Riya.com,which in short, is a photo sharing storage system with some smart AI(artificail intelligence). You dump in a thousand plus images in, tag a few, and riya starts to recognize images of people, puts them in groups, and automatically tags them over time. Riya recognizes colors, images, text, faces, and much more. The more people that do this and share their images, the better. Imagine seeing all those pictures of yourself from other peoples cameras during those holiday vacations you walked into!
Anyhoots, I tried out riya fro some time and enjoyed it, but never found those many tourists pics of my smiling in the mysterious background which I try to do often. Hopefully like.com will change and improve the image/product search world quickly.