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I’m off to PopTech 2010 for the rest of the week where the theme is “BRILLIANT ACCIDENTS, NECESSARY FAILURES, AND IMPROBABLE BREAKTHROUGHS”. As usual, poptech will be live streaming all of the talks online for free here! Watch the feed, follow some of my tweets, or let me know if your at PopTech and want to meetup!

hmm, interesting. I never knew that to be a reason people hung up bottles of water near food. Makes much more sense now!

“If you can’t stand the smell or deadly poisons that come with store-bought bug spray, then this surprisingly attractive Anti-Fly Sphere 2.0 may just the pest deterrent you’ve been looking for. Designed by Netherlands-based José de la O, the Anti-Fly was inspired by the taco kiosks in Mexico, which use hanging plastic bags full of water to ward off flies by confusing their sensitive eyes with amplified colors and movements through light refraction. A little fancier that a Ziploc full of water, José’s design is a totally revamped version that consists of a beautiful glass bulb and stopper. Gorgeous, green, non-toxic and kill-free — these are words we’d never expect to use to describe bug repellent!”

José de la O
via inhabitat


A good friend of mine James Patten (MIT Medialab alumn) was visiting this week and showed me a new project of his, or at least it was new to me.  He took a bunch of translucent lcd films, tiled them, and made one huge transparent screen which can make the grid  translucent, black, or even gray tones for some pretty sweet effects. Watch the video above and watch out for the final project via his website pattenstudio.com.

“A prototype transparent LCD screen for an upcoming installation. 16×16 = 256 tiles. Eventual installation will be roughly 6000 tiles and 150′ in length. Project details private at the moment.”

youtube video

First came dancing down the wedding aisle, and now comes dancing down the airline aisle giving instructions. Along with some rapping on the intercom on an airline, our service world is becoming a musical. Imagine an airline ride being as entertaining as a Broadway show.  I love it!

All those video after the jump!

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I just returned from a screening of the documentary film “Waiting for Superman” and had to post it to let everyone know to watch this film! It’ll leave you cringing, a bit bitter, and a craving for our education system to change! The documentary is directed and filmed by Academy Award Winner Davis Guggenheim (Inconvenient Truth). Even Obama recently watched it and reacted to it.

Watch the trailer above or here, then visit their website to help out. They have a few extra video interviews on their site as well. Please share!


Ikea just launched a pretty awesome 30 page cookbook with photographer Carl Kleiner composing some beautiful shots of the ingredients…. and if I read right, I hear these books are free in the kitchen department in limited quantities!!!!! ya!!! Amazing work!
via craftzine

Pictures by Carl Kleiner after the jump!

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I’ve always thought about spray on clothing, but I guess it’s only now that I’ve seen a pretty viable solution above, where ya spray it on, and it dries to fit to perfection. You can even recycle it for another spray on. Anyhow, how about some spray on socks… I get those sock holes all the time, but you just next to spray on a patch now!

“Particle engineer Paul Luckham and fashion designer Manel Torres from Imperial College London combined cotton fibres, polymers and a solvent to form a liquid that becomes a fabric when sprayed. The material can be built up in layers to create a garment of your desired thickness and can also be washed and worn again like conventional fabrics.

In addition to creating instant fashion, the technology could have a range of other uses – spray-on bandages, for instance. “It’s a sterilised material coming from an aerosol can, and you can add drugs to it to help a wound heal faster,” says Torres.”

via newscientist

“Through the centuries architects have used small construction works to experiment with spaces of limited form, scale and extent, but also to experiment with material and details.

As there’s a lack of well-equipped research laboratories, the research of material by architects focuses on potentials of existing (construction-) products in which mainly is sought for possibilities of improper use of materials. Our temporary residence is such an experiment. PVC tubes have inspired us to a design of a special object in which this material is no longer seen as a tube but as a hollow building stone.

The material is researched by its spatial characteristics and escapes its standard application. The transparency in the along-direction and the fixed wall in the cross-direction determine the spatiality.

By parallel stacking of the tubes as building stones a mass has been created which represents itself closed from four sides, but which is transparent, seen from the head sides. By hollowing out this mass a special residence will be created which will be provided by light seen from the head sides.”

via archdaily

more pics mirrored after the jump

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“TED’s Chris Anderson says the rise of web video is driving a worldwide phenomenon he calls Crowd Accelerated Innovation — a self-fueling cycle of learning that could be as significant as the invention of print. But to tap into its power, organizations will need to embrace radical openness. And for TED, it means the dawn of a whole new chapter …”