iSave is a pretty sweet concept that just might make you behaviorally turn that fawcet off when brushing your teeth to conserve the amount of precious water you use/waste daily.”This device has a digital display that works with the help of a turbine. When you open the faucet the pressure of the water activates the device and it displays the amount of water consumed.”
“How long will we continue to flush our toilets with drinking water?”
“Although two-thirds of the earth’s surface is covered by water, only 1% is fresh water.”
“Within 30 years, the majority of the world’s population will not have enough potable water” ‘water wars’ are very likely to occur.”
Personally, I’d love to have the iSave in my house, then yell at my friends that take 2 hour showers, or leave the fawcett running for 10 minutes while brushing their teeth. It’s almost like being carbon-neutral, but just in the world of water. Perhaps the same could be made for electrical sockets. Less is better…kinda like a weight scale when your dieting
Wow, what an awesome idea (which I had once, but these guys made it happen). Basically, Ripple.org operates off the idea of using ad revenue as money for donations. You click, you’ve donated. How simple and brilliant. If your the type that advocates saving the world, but have no money, and only time, here ya go! Click away and save the world. 100% of clicks/revenue go directly to specified foundations, though I wished there was someway for individuals to see how much they have contributed click-wise, time, or money…. check them out..click away!
“StoryCorps is a national project to instruct and inspire people to record one another’s stories in sound.
StoryCorps celebrates our shared humanity and collective identity. It captures and defines the stories that bond us. The process of interviewing a friend, neighbor, or family member can have a profound impact on both the interviewer and the storyteller. People change, friendships grow, families walk away feeling closer and understanding each other better. Listening, after all, is an act of love.
A StoryCorps interview is an opportunity to ask the questions that never get asked because the occasion never arises. How did you come to this country? How did you and mom meet? How did Uncle Harry get the nickname “Twinkles”?”
StoryCorps is a captivating project by design studio LocalProjects with recordings from everyday people ranging from friendships, relationships, struggles, identity, heroes, disasters, work, and various other personal experiences told by people like yourself. I’ve listened to well over a dozen recordings and feel like I’ve journeyed around the country meeting everyday people with fascinating personal stories over a nice cup of coffee conversations.
If your an inventor, designer, entrepreneur, business leader, or just curious about what make and breaks great business ideas, take a look at the hit show Dragons Den in the UK where entrepreneurs pitch their ideas to Venture Capitalist (the Dragons) in seek of investments to develop their ideas even further in exchange for a percentage in their company. The show ranges from product inventions, to services, to strategies, business models, and every little aspect of what’s needed to be successful in creating a new company. I’ve actually met one of the dragons during a pitch once before, but I’ll keep that to myself
If your not in the UK, no problem….just go to their small video page here of winning pitches,(click the full screen button) or cling on to awesome video streams of each show at High Resolution at AllofTV.net (Dragons Den season 2, season 3, season 4) Most of the shows result in no investments, but the ones that make it through are pretty darn good. Here’s an hour long episode I watched recently…pretty good.
How bizarre! First came the breathtaking mile high tennis court with Andre Agassi, and now tennis star Roger Federer dukes it out with French Open champion Rafael Nadal on an experimental exhibition part clay part grass tennis court costing $1.63 million to set up(damn…give me $5000, and I’ll make that happen and pocket the rest). I’ve always been a fan of half&half pizza, drinks, hybrid cars, tools, payments, etc, but I never thought I’d see this happen. It would be interesting to see this again with the split happening horizontally (each player with both floors). Maybe a dangerous oncrete, clay, grass court is next.
Read the rest of the story with more pictures after the jump.
via Slam Sports and ESPN.
Besides this weeks news of 13 year old Morgan Pozgar winning $25k for being the world text messenging champion, another fun, social, behavioral, and somewhat pop cultural fact I learned this past week was the effects of the T9 predictive typing system found on most phones:
“That’s so Book! In an interesting technical flavor to linguistics, T9 predictive text on mobile phones is now starting to have an effect on language. For example, ‘book’ now means ‘cool’ because when either is entered (2665) into a T9 predictive phone, ‘book’ is offered before ‘cool,’ and is now used in place of the latter.”
I don’t use T9 often since it never outputs my designerly modified crappy lingo but this might also be old news as my phone currently does output “cool” before “book”, as does the GUI on the T9 site.
So, can technology change our language or even definitions….sure! Many cultures shorten or replace words much like our Australian friends down under(lingo list). Even mashups are becoming more common. I learned a bunch of pretty sweet custom terms during word queen Erin Mckeans ‘Word Lovers’ Boot Camp during GEL last week. The two words that stuck in my head were:
1.”CrappyJack”: any kind of empty, snacky junk food.
2. “Drunch”: to consume alcoholic beverages with like-minded individuals between the hours of 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. on Sunday.
I also learned the the term “Ecosexual: A person who’s into hybrid cars, low energy lightbulbs, and recycling.” via Treehugger
I finally got to see “Rodrigo y Gabriela ” live in concert last night at the Roxy in Boston and it rocked! (having front seats helped ) Their vibrant, thrashing, duo acoustic guitar sounds rippled through the jam packed audience with amazing energy and kept everyone stomping for more. I’d talk about them over and over again, but I’ve posted about them before and can only suggest for you to buy their tickets FAST. The boston show sold out a few days after they were available to 1500 peeps. Run over to their websites tour list, find your nearests city, and buy buy buy! They are seriously one of the most dynamic, inspirational, and lively duos I’ve heard in a long time!
Googles 411 service has been out for a few days, but I finally gave it a go today. It rocks! Simple to remember, free, fast, and useful. The voice recognition software is really fast and quite accurate from the few calls I made so far.. The best part is that it’ll text message you the info if you want instead of connecting you right away….(no more scrambles for pens) Give it a call: 1-800-goog-411. It’s fun just to test the voice recognition software as well.
Update: Here’s another free sms 411 service, TellMe, which was acquired my Microsoft..you pick which big cookie monster to use!
FYI, the new interactive, community based, graphical TED site has launched! If your interested in sharing BIG ideas and inspiring millions…sign up, check out all the TEDtalks, and start commenting!!!
My journey over to Milan from Florence was delayed by 4-5 hours, hence my well planned shopping safari around Milan never took place, but my late night visit for dinner did included a quick journey which I’ll post about here. In comparison to Florence it’s much more diverse, more of a city, more lively at night, but with the same rustic streetscapes surrounding Florence with finely detailed buildings. It’s more modern while stylish with a larger urban crowd hovering abouts the area. Most of my spare hours in Milan were spent eating at Obika, but I took a few pics here and there….so enjoy them after the jump! (I’ll include a few interesting going away images as well)
The sensational PopTech Conference I attended last October just launched their new PopCasts website with several of their amazing lectures from the 2006 event.
The above MUST watch video is an astonishing and inspirational highlight from the 2005 conference of Jesse Sullivan & Todd Kuiken presenting the world’s first non-fictional bionic man maneuvers of his prosthetic arm using only his mind. (Don’t ignore me…watch it!)
Watch the rest of the captivating videos after the jump! (more…)
“Can one of the nation’s great musicians cut through the fog of a D.C. rush hour?”
Here’s an astonishing experimental story that questions talent, location, knowledge, culture, perception, a bit of marketing, and displacement. What happens when you take a world famous musician, Joshua Bell, and put him in the morning DC metro posing as a street performer seeking extra change? Do people stop and listen, do strangers acknowledge his talent, does a crowd form in awe, does he cash in, does talent simply pass by ones ears because of his environment, or are people too busy to stop and listen?
Read this incredible experiment after the jump along with videos. (mirrored from WashingtonPost.com)
Besides this weeks news of 
