Hue me?

This was just a fun little link that was on Core77 the other day. You rearrange the color blocks according to their hues. It's a fun little exercise that allows you to test your skills against others.

http://www.xrite.com/custom_page.aspx?PageID=77

Legos

Recently, some people in Vienna topped the world’s largest Lego tower, as Lego celebrates it’s 50^th anniversary. The tower is 96.7 feet tall. According to Core77, it “took almost 500,000 bricks to construct”.
This is not a mind blowing new idea or anything, but its fun. Our generation grew up playing, building, and designing with the famous legos. I’m sure most kids aspired to created the tallest Lego tower. 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-564264/The-worlds-tallest-Lego-tower-took-500-000-bricks-build.html

Vroom

A company, called Pininfarina, recently launched a new car that runs on electricity. It is a real car, that will be in mass production, unlike the prototypes that we have been seeing for awhile.
This has been in the works for awhile. I have read about many ideas for electric cars over the past few years. To actually have one however, brings the idea to life. The fact that an actual car can run soley on electricity proves that people really are trying to lessen their own dependency on oil. Bravo. http://www.pininfarina.com/index/storiaModelli/B0.html

Bags away...

Greenaid. Helping the world, one bag at a time… Designers Nicolas Lovegrove and Demian Repucci developed another form of reusable shopping bags (a trend that has grown tremendously as more people become concerned with the environment and their own personal effects). Their new shopping bag is made of polyester and can be packed into a tiny little shell that zips up. The shell looks like a small grenade, hence the play on words for the “green-aid”.
I like the playful, thoughtful idea behind this design. Its not a new design field, but any new ideas to get people on the ball about the environment are helpful.

Podcast Radio Recording

We have recently been recording our voices into Sound System, saying "Podcast Radio Woodstock Nation (the name of our own podcast)". We then put our chosen pieces of music in before and after our own voice recording in order to make the intro for our Podcast.
I personally have never used Sound System or anytime of sound meshing equiptment on the computer. I didn't find it to difficult to use the Logitech headset for recording my voice. I am however, having a hard time finding the perfect music to piece together with the recording. I have many samples of simple song tracks... solo instruments of guitar or drums... but am currentrly working on deciding which pieces would sound okay fading in or out of each other.

Dirt Power

Craziness! The MIT Technology Review published an article about a lamp that seems to be powered by dirt. In reality, its the microbes that live in the dirt that create electricity. This kind of thing seems like such a break through to me. The article describes how "Microbial fuel cells" have been studied in laboratories for some time. However, the energy produced was never enough to power anything really big. So a lamp seems like such a smart way to start using this new energy...
http://www.technologyreview.com/Biztech/21332/

the Internet-of-things

I read an article today on Core77.com outlining Europe's leap towards online buisnesses. They labeled it "Toward a European Internet-of-things". It basically describes the way that Europe is taking an initiative to incorporate new technology in their buisinesses. Again, cloud computing coming is not just a new concept... but one that is being put into practice in every way.
"The European Commission today outlined the main steps that Europe has to take to respond to the next wave of the Information Revolution that will intensify in the coming years due to trends such as social networking, the decisive shift to on-line business services..."
I found it interesting to read about.. but to me it seems as though this is the future. It's not just Europe that is taking this leap... but every country with technology at their fingertips. Maybe it is not outlined, but it's just the expected progression of new technology in everyday business.
http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/08/1422&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

Dots Gloves

I read a review recently outlining a simple new product. Dot Gloves, as they are called, are just normal inexpensive gloves that have little metal dots on the selected fingertips so that someone can still use their iPhone, iTouch, etc, without having to take them off. The little metal pieces are smooth and scratch less. The buyer can customize their gloves to put dots on whichever fingers suit them best.
I think this is so smart. Yet another “Of course”. Why has nobody ever thought of this before? As an inexpensive item, I feel like these will be greatly sought after.
http://dvice.com/archives/2008/09/dots_gloves_let.php
http://www.dotsgloves.com/