Popular Mechanics has a great list of tech materials or concepts that are rather inspiring. Pictured above is bendable concrete:
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The nickname for Engineered Cementitious Composites (ECC) is self-explanatory: bendable concrete. Specially coated microscopic polymer fibers slide past each other instead of snapping under stress, so ECC bends without breaking. The material has been used to create stretchable expansion joints for a Michigan bridge, and to allow the coupling beams in a 41-story tower in Yokohama to flex during Japan’s frequent earthquakes.
SHORT-TERM IMPACT: LOWIt could take years for ECC to be commonly used in construction, unless a major earthquake puts it in the spotlight.

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via PopulareMechanics

OOOooo…I never thought I’d be craving for a swarm of little fish to nibble on my feet and hands, but I just might now. I’ll assume it tickles at first then transforms into a soothing yet odd prickly massage..one day..i’ll give it a try.

“For the adventurous, there’s the Ooedo Onsen. This three-year-old kitschy spa made to look like a centuries-old, shogun-era village lets visitors choose from 15 different yukatas (light cotton kimonos) to wear while inside. In addition to its 28 baths and massages, Ooedo offers an exotic esthetic treatment called Doctor Fish, a foot bath featuring live fish called garru-rufa.

The small fish swim in a shallow tub of warm water and nibble at dead skin, leaving hands and feet smooth [top]. Imported from Turkey, the fish are used in some Middle Eastern countries as a natural way to treat skin disease and rheumatism. Be warned: Dozens of fish chewing on flesh looks like something straight out of a horror movie. But when you get over the ick factor, the nibbling can have a calming affect.” www.ooedoonsen.jp

read more via bookofjoe

The highly anticipated list of speakers for the TED2007 conference has been unleashed!!! Check out the list and be prepared to be inspired by these many speakers during soldout TED Conference next March, or over on TEDtalks after the event.

Thank GOD!!! Googles beta “Patent Search” visually reorganizes all the complex, confusing, and congested data from the USPTO(US patent and trademark office) and makes it a much better experience to seek out inventions. If you have ever used the USPTO patent site, you probably gave up after a few minutes due to the very unfriendly graphical interface then hired an expensive lawyer to suffer through the horror that you experienced for a bit. I’m super glad Googles taken notice of this craziness and I look forward to the future development of it….then again…it’s google and they will data mine what people are searching for then patent it themselves! They can be evil you know..

This MUST SEE video of a spinning expanding table by DBFletcher seems like something from a sci-fi movie! It reminds me of the incredibly fun Hoberman Spheres that we have all played with. Watch their videos on their site, youtube, or above!

When you see these ads, it’ll make you want to buy a Nintendo Wii because they just scream out FUN! Yes, there is the ever so powerful Xbox and Playstation3, but when those 2 are battling for first place, the Wii stands out especially at a much lower cost($250ish) and a much more playful attitude. Sure the Xbox and PS3 are more powerful and graphic intense, but are they as much fun? Isn’t that the point of games? I’m sure their good, but not as exciting since the Wii is creating a community of people obsessed about not just the gaming aspect, but how they play it. There’s a wonderful pool of images on Flickr of Wii users! I’d like to see a comparison of pictures of people playing the PS3 or Xbox, which would probably seem like the stare of boredom that we get in webcams. Anyhow, just my prediction, but the Wii will kick butt! I want one even if I end up smashing my TV with the controller. I’m not saying the Xbox and PS3 are bad, I’m just saying that the Wii is really revolutionizing our aspect of gaming consoles.

Watch the fun ads above or after the jump(direct links: here, here, and here) I’ll throw in some images from that pool of Wii players as well after the jump.

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Wow! What an amazing story, idea, and kick-butt revolutionary company. Terracycle delivers the most eco-friendly consumer product in big box retail shelves made entirely by garbage, yet with a higher quality than most competitors and at a lower price! So, how they they do it? They use garbage!!! Founder Tom Szaky(23 yrs old when he founded TerraCycle and a freshmen Princeton dropout), explains, they get paid to take garbage away and they get paid to sell their new products. Their main product is a liquid worm poop fertilizer which is created by feeding red worms organic waste in return for their castings which get mixed with water to create a rich organic fertilizer that’s proven to be better than MiricleGro or various other competitors which are chemically driven rather than organic.(or as they claim, “The proof is in the poop!”)

Now with a great product came the task of packaging it. When they first started up, they had no money to purchase fresh bottles, hence another innovation…they ran around town collecting used soda bottles, cleaned them, added labels, and used that! They saved tons of money this way and also did something new in the product world; every single bottle was different, be it an old Pepsi bottle, Coke, Water, Sprite, etc. Their spray tops are even extras that have been dumped by manufacturers of other spray-on products and even the boxes that the plant-food is shipped in are misprinted rejects from major companies. Yup, it’s garbage made into huge profits at its best!

TerraCycle is a definite company to watch out for in our sustainably driven world. I’ve seen many companies re-use recycled goods, but I’ve never seen one come out with a product that can be used again, cost less, and is better than competiing products. They also have a pretty cool name tag concept to get kids pumped about recycling. Watch that video here.

For a deep read into TerraCycles company dig into their websites video and stories, this detailed article at Inc.com, or for a quick view, watch the YouTube video above.

More pics after the jump.

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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!!!

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)

Artist Pete Goldlust creates these delicate and inspiring carvings from colorful crayons!!! I’d bet his halloween pumpkin carvings are jaw-dropping!
via boingboing