“Engineers Sean McCarthy and Richard Walshe claim to have “found a way of producing free, clean and limitless energy out of thin air.” Videos after the jump.” (here and here)

Personally, my optimistic curious mind believes there is a solution for free energy, but then again, I think when it’s discovered, all hell will break loose. Anyhoots, check out the brief videos and form your own opinions… As far as I know, we could have had cars fueled by water many years ago, but freaking patents, politics, and oil tycoons own these great inventions, hence they will squeeze every penny they can before letting us all have it.via Techeblog

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!

(more…)

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.

Here’s a great video of mobile phones becoming…well, a mobile phone booth on wheels, which has given these handicapped people in Kenya a service along with their wheelchairs. Reminds me of those photographers in Paris that actually carry around inkjet printers and print your pics right there.
Would be cool to see more mobile services for public use..perhaps a restroom on wheels.. maybe a net enabled laptop on wheels or on someones backpack… though in nyc, Starbucks=restrooms, and the Apple store=free Internet.

If your craving some cool contact cards and have a Flickr account, head on over to Moo.com to get your very own Flickr Mini Cards! Basically, you get some cute contact cards with your Flickr pics on them, which you can custom fit.
I love the idea of turning customer created media into unique products. Perhaps they can use YouTube to make a comic book or optical contact video card. I might end up using Moo to make cards for Designverb, with selected posts on the backs of each card, then I’ll have a physical blog in a weird way spread throughout the people that I meet. They should fit perfectly into my custom pantone paint chip card holders, which I recently made for my own cards.(I’ll post after the jump)
via boingboing
(more…)

My gosh! What’s become of our society. Of all the features to add into a camera, I never thought I’d see this. In HP’s terms, “slimming” squashes your image horizontally making you seem thinner. Now I know lots of us have extra pounds on us, but seriously, does it really make us feel better by digitally losing weight or squashing ourselves? After streaming through a slideshow of pictures from this camera, your going to look back at reality and think, damn, we all look so fat. At least the fashion worlds banned models that were too thin this past week to strut the catwalk. The only reason I’d want to use such a device is to squish back together those widescreen plasma screens that stretch images apart that don’t seem to bother some.(this seriously bugs me) Anyhow, as far as I know, every camera will be a mini photoshop on the go down the road which could be fun.via ohgizmo

I’ve squished the picture above even more after the jump. (more…)

Most of you have heard about this already, but if not, check out blogmusik.net for an impressive collection(network) of ad-free music! Once you try this ipod like interface you’ll enjoy the sweet music fades between songs and custom playlists. They even have a firefox plugin for quick song finds.
Many have doubts this site will stay legal, so have your go at before it shuts down! Personally, I still use Yahoo’s Launchcast which rocks since it uses Gracenote tech to suggest songs to you much like Amazon does for books.

It’s been a week since Club Passims incredible “Campfire Weekend of Music” and I’m craving for more, but, it’ll be awhile before the next Campfire, so I thought I’d share with ya’ll some vibrant tunes from some recent musicians I heard play live!

Aesthetic Evidence- Eclectic, experimental, voice sample mixes, almost video game like.
Raul Midon- Jazzy, solid, picky guitar beats. Humms out great trumpet sound!
Abigail Washburn- Banjo Folk/Bluegrass musician with a blend of asian culture, and at times singing in chinese.

I initially thought these images were clever CG images, but in fact, their photos of Andre Agassi and Roger Federer (just won his 3rd US Open) having a blast atop the worlds highest tennis court hovering 1000 feet above the ocean at the luxury hotel Jumeirah in Dubai. How freaking cool!!! I’d lose hundreds of balls this way and would probably freak out walking towards the edges (heights= shivers). I’d want to wear a parachute while playing up there. Some beach goer must of been stumped when a random tennis ball hurled down in front of him. We already have Dinners in the Sky, so why not tennis.

More incredible pictures after the jump!

(more…)

I think this is just a concept, but it sure beats the web of crushed sheet wrinkles ya get at times. I’ve had stitched logos on shirts I’ve fall asleep on do this. The Livestrong armbands do this as well. It would be cool if the pillow case had a bunch of quotes stitched all over it, hence acting like a magic 8 ball each morning.
via swissmiss
jamesmcadam.co.uk

SellaBand creates an awesome platform enabling fans to invest in their favorite bands and get a piece of the profits in return!!! Yes, the passionate fans become the bands investors, marketing crew (word of mouth), and profits are split between SellaBand, the band, and the fans!!! How cool!!!

So how does it work: fans find artist they like on SellaBand.com. For $10, they can buy a share, or ‘Part’. Once the band sells 5,000 parts, SellaBand arranges a professional recording in top studios. Fans receive a limited edition CD of the recording and splits profits from CD sales, Ads, etc. Basically, the more ‘Parts’ you purchase, the more shares in a band you own from the 5000 available.

This strategy is a step up from Threadless.com’s vote-to-make-real method by allowing anyone to become an investment fan “brand sneezer” in a band they love and believe in! Otherwise, it’s just like the stock market for music fanatics. I’ve been through a few musicians tunes and found some really interesting sounds. Check out the site, listen to some musicians, and invest in the ones ya crave!

SellaBand.com
Here’s another interesting angle to music by the users!

It’s about time some people started working on this… generating power through our footsteps! Yup, kinetic energy! British engineers are converting street vibrations into electricity and predict a working prototype by Christmas capable of powering facility lights in the busiest areas of a city.

“We can harvest between 5 to 7 watts of energy per footstep that is currently being wasted into the ground,” says Claire Price, director of The Facility Architects, the British firm heading up the Pacesetters Project. And a passing train can generate very useful energy to run signaling or to power lights.”

We have the Ocean Power Delivery Systems, Floor and Turntiles in Subways, Solar projects (CA just passed a huge home solar panel law), and finally sidewalks. Wohooo for energy!

via Wired

update: Now a sustainable night club dance floor in which the dancers transfer their disco lovin enegry through the floor to whatever powere the bar, dj, speakers, toilets, or lights need!