How freaking awesome are these! SmarinDesigns Living Stone collection lets ya dive into these ultra-cool soft pillows, making ya feel like your a kid again or zapped by that laser in “Honey, I shrunk the Kids” movie! Very much like MoloDesigns Felt Rocks, these larger pebble like sibling comes in various sizes, colors, and textures to bring that kid out in you again even in your fancy living room space giving it a fun playful vibe to get inspired by.

Personally, I think all offices spaces or even grown up spaces need these along with fun slides, sushi pillows, an Isle lounge chair, carpet poofs, and maybe a robocoaster if you have a nice backyard and like jolts of energy!

Tons more pics after the jump!

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Here’s a nice set of concepts turning simple everyday objects into other everyday useful products with those things that you were about to throw away. A few more after the jump.

via boingboing
Link

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World Initiatives, Huge Ideas, Global Problems, Collective Solutions, a life changing book no matter what field your in!

A must buy and read book I picked up at PopTech this past weekend filled with an immense amount of inspiring, resourceful, and mind-blowing chapters of information on green sustainability in all aspects with write ups from over 60 authors and a collection of provoking and inspirational images. As Alex Steffen from WorldChanging quotes:

“The debate [over climate change] is over: You’re either on board, or you’re just wrong.”

Go buy this book(book tour), spread the knowledge, and become part of this global transformation. More here.

update: A nice interview with this books famous designer Stefan Sagmeister.

I’m zippin off to the PopTech Conference in Camden Maine for an amazing idea gathering. I’ve heard it’s very comparable to GEL or TED and based on the line-up of speakers, I can see why. If you think your missing out…not at all because all the freakin speakers will be webcast LIVE here!!!

Here’s a partial list of speakers that I’m familiar with though the unknowns are the ones that usually captivate me:

- Chris Anderson: Long Tail, Editor and Chief of Wired Magazine.
- Stewart Brand: Long Now Foundation and Global Business Network.
- Blaine Brownell: Architect, sustainable building advisor, and materials researcher.
- Homaro Cantu: Chef, Scientist, Artist.
- Richard Dawkins: The world’s most influential thinker on evolutionary biology
- Brian Eno: musical legend, innovator, visual artist, and pop icon.
- Juan Enriquez: Futurist, author of As the Future Catches You
and The Untied States of America.
- Ze Frank: This dudes amazzzingly funny.
- Kevin Kelly: Technology Visionary. Has a great blog as well.
- Bruce Streling: Futurist, science fiction author, jounalist and critic.
- Craig Venter: Dedicated to human genomic research.
- Will Wright: Creative force behind the groundbreaking Sims franchises and Spore!!.

To make up for the week, some goodies:
- spider on a bill.
- Real money is magnetic!
- Interesting discussion about Emotional Design and Cultures.
- Jumpcut- online video editor(Yahoo bought recently)
- Chris Angel: levitation trick revealed!

“The Aimulet LA is a batteryless, light-activated handheld audio communication device with an outer shell made from molded bamboo, designed by the Information Technology Research Institute at Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST). The device itself is designed to be held to your ear, like a cell phone. When you stand over special LED emitters in the ground, Aimulet LA receives the light signals via an array of spherical micro solar cells (called Sphelar by manufacturer Kyosemi) set into the bottom of the handset. It translates the signals into audio messages that are transmitted through a tiny speaker in the device.”

I had the chance to to tinker with these during my visit to Chicago thanks to the Inventables office. It’s not that loud, but more like a soft whisper coming from a thin piece of bamboo, though from what I remember, I was beamed over beats from some rock band, which made this bamboo card rather mysterious. I love the idea of powerless speakers, but am not sure how advanced this can get, though I’m sure it’ll become a cheap disposable element in interactive environments down the road.

Rest of the story via Pink Tentacle.

How freakin smart and beautiful. No more stumbling around when someone wants to shake hands or your cell phone rings at social gatherings. With these cute little plates, I’ll be able to dine, wine, and look good doing it!

via FashionTribe

Buy here!

First came the sweet Red Bull headquarters slide, and now comes an awesome slide installation by artist Carsten Holler in the Tate Museum in London. Reminds me of my days at Wet n Wild water parks. I like Hollers belief that “slides can help combat stress and depression.” ,but I think anything that zips me around at fast speeds will make me forget anything.(skydiving, rollercoasters, bungie jumping)

Anyhoots, I wish this installation was there when I was visiting recently. I’ll post more pictures after the jump, otherwise there’s a video of people plunging down the slide screaming and poppin off the ends!
via BBC

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If you want to hear from a passionate designer, listen to Ross Lovegrove speak at TED2005! He’s known for incredibly beautiful forms, but in this lecture he also talks about his inspirations, directions, responses, and reasons. I love where he mentions the overtime worker not getting paid, because yes, design is one of those disciplines you desire and just do. I’ll post a few more lectures from TED that captivated my attention after the jump. Catch all the TedTalks as they are released here!

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If your craving for a dose of RISD (Rhode Island School of Design), this is the weekend to go for their “RISD by Design Weekend” of events! This three day event kicked off today with various activities, open studios, and demos, but the huge alumni sale is this Saturday along with live ceramic fire glazings, jazz music, the Waterfire, a Balls game(our basketball team), and much more. If your in the area, it’s a must go to. Here’s a PDF for the full schedule!

Here’s a new book by Bill Moggridge who pretty much coined the term “Interaction Design” and is one of the founders of IDEO. I’ve not read this book yet, but I’ve dived into their webpage full of little insightful bits about Interaction Design, videos of interviews with several key figures in design, and am glad it’s not purely about Interface design which many industries seem to gravitate towards even though Interface can be physical spaces or objects and not just screens.

Buy it here!

Nextfest nyc ended this weekend with tons of attendees, free Wired subscriptions, and my very tired feet. My partial 2 days of browsing Wired Magazine physically was great, but also a reminder of what crowded conferences feel like.

Pictured above is my friend Vincent Leclerc’s project “Revolver” which is a very simple solution in creating a cost effective 3D display. For more on this project go to EskiStudios. If you ever meet him, try to get a video of his first mock-up, cause it rocks!
Tons of pics after the jump!

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Here’s a great little exercise I use to do when brainstorming ideas. The question is, “What will my kids never know, understand, or experience?”(in a tech-centric aspect). Here’s some quick thoughts:

1. How life was like before the life changing credit card.
2. Why we had phones tethered to the walls, or even owned a land-line.
3. What life was like before we carried cell phones around.(easy to experience though)
4. Why we used Fax machines, typewriters, VCRs, Cassette tapes, Film, and maybe CDs
5. What life was like without a computer.
6. How freakin hard it was to find apartments before Craigslist was created.(this counts for many life changing internet services, ebay, email, google, IM’s, weather, stocks, rss, dictionary.com, etc)
7. How hard it was to stay in touch with friends before the days of e-mail.
8. How people use to hang out with just you, not you and their thousands of phones calls.
9. How people could only do one of these at a time: read, watch tv, listen to music, IM, and work.
10. How phones once had something called “1-way text messaging”, where you could receive, not know from who, nor reply..(I still own this phone)
11. How we watched an hour of tv, 20 minutes of it being ads.(whoohoo for tivo)
I’d probably change some of these a bit, but it’s a quick jot. If you have some good ones, let me know.