Do you wash your hands properly? Have you seen people flick their hands in water with a dab of soap, dry themselves off, and consider their hands CLEAN, without ever really scrubbing their hands?

Well, I’ve seen wayyy too many people do this and can’t stop thinking how dirty their hands are while eating. I’ve seen people walk out of restrooms without washing their hands! It’s makes me sick sometimes. YUCK!

Anyhow, Seth Godin points out to SquidSoap that proves that going a few steps backwards can make one huge step forward. SquidSoap is a simple idea that frankly makes tons of sense for kids and probably for us rushing think-we-know-it-all adults. Basically, the soap dispenser has an ink marker that stains your hand once you pump out some soap. The stain marks your hand until you thoroughly scrub and wash your hands clean of all germs including the new stain(which acts as a layer of germs). This somewhat forces your to actually SEE something and scrub it away. Most kids and some adults think getting their hands wet will get rid of most germs.

This reminds me that seeing dirt or even making things dirtier before we clean then can be good. Dyson made us all happy by letting us see what we vacuumed up with a clear collector. Toilet paper is white, letting us see when we are clean. Hands are considered dirty when they have crap on them, but bacteria is transparent, and not many acknowledge this. We need a soap that just stains your whole hand until you scrub for at least 8 seconds.(Yar, I’m looking at my keyboard now…time to clean it)

update: a mouth wash that stains plaque on your teeth so you know where to brush.

I’m not the type to usually post on a phones, but I just wanted to say wohooo for Motorola and the first phone using e-paper(e-ink, EPD displays). Besides that, I’ve been waiting for the retro none colored screens to kick back into action. It’s simple, I can read it in the sunlight, it’s not insanely bright, doesn’t seem like a screen, easier on the eyes, and personally I think it’s cool! Also, the features on the phone are of little which just rocks, considering most applications on phones go unused.

There’s something about this motofone f3 that I really like. Then again, I lost a my kick butt colors mobie last year and had a short term replacement with a retro green lit lcd, which I have learned to like, though it does not do much. (The sucker has 1-way text messaging, meaning, you can receive, but you can’t reply, nor do you know who it is from unless they txt that in). Anyhow, this awesome phone is due out soon, and for a sweet $50 or less!!! For more pics, head on over to Mobileburn.

Did you ever want to figure out where people clicked on your GUI webpage and where people did not? Clickdensity documents a users every click on your webpage allowing you to monitor and understand your audience more in a information visualization format (heat map). What is clicked on the most, what is not, where do users come from, how long are they on, what are usability issues, etc. You can filter the clicks by browsers, screen resolution, dates, time of day, source, and a few other things. It’s the digital finger grease!

This reminds me of my post on Google Eyed and how Googles changed the way we view webpages. It’s also much like those elevator buttons that obviously show major use on certain floors. Same for cellphones, keyboards(the shiny keys..my f1-f10 buttons seem untouched), remote controls, etc. We’ve all seen the heat maps on weather channels, but why not turn your webpage into a weather channel of usage! Be a fun piece to make art out of from your website.

“Lulu is the web’s premier independent publishing marketplace for digital do-it-yourselfers. It’s the only place on the web where you can publish, sell and buy any and all things digital — books, music, comics, photographs, movies, and well, you get the idea”Lulu was founded by Bob Young, who was also the co-founder of Red Hat, the world’s leading open source company.

One of the great things about LuLu is that you can get your very own professionally printed and bound books for fairly cheap, considering that is in short print. All Lulu asks in return is 20% commission over your customized royalty rate which you set. This is waived if you decided to make your content free to download. Otherwise, you are getting 80% of the royalties which is considerably better than the 15-20% margins you’d get at most major publishers.

I wish I knew about this in college, when I ink-jeted tons of books then hand binded them which took FOREVER and cost well over $60 for a 50 page book.(Kinkos was an option, but they seriously screwed up many deadlines) On Lulu you can upload a 50 page book, have a hardcover, have it professionally printed(it won’t bleed), and you’ll save tons of time. In a matter of days, you’ll have that great book to your house for a mere 12-20$! Otherwise, you can make it available digitally and make a handsome royalty out of it even if you only get say 100 downloads.

The idea behind is Lulu is to print or buy on demand. Major publishers print thousands of books which sometimes just sit around for years. Lulu creates books when needed. No wasted prints are ever made. The cost is a bit more, but for retailers, there is no dead storage space which costs money. This is a direct connection from creator to buyer, and no one in between to ramp up the prices more. Rock on Lulu!

This was my last exhausting day walking around Siggraph2006.

Pictured above is a textile piece by Joanna Berzowska.

“The KraKow weaving is an electronic, color-changing Jacquard weaving that integrates conductive yarns, thermochromatic inks, and custom control electronics. The weaving illustrates a scene from Joannas childhood in Poland. Over time, the ink overprinted on the figures in the weaving changes color from black to transparent. Like our memories of them, the people in the textile disappear over time. As populations are displaced, the traces of their presence in place and time are similarly erased.

More pics and projects after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

Day 2 at Siggraph2006 was another round of animations, techy art, some weird music, and a return to the emerging arts gallery. The exhibits hall also opened up, but, it was just a mini version of CES.

Pictured above is EON Realities Touchlight system, which was very much like Jef Hans Multi-Touch screen, but different technologies and some applications. The cool portion was the ability to transfer any image onto the screen simply by pressing the image up against the screen for about 8 seconds. Zooming in, rotating, moving, and other actions were pretty intuitive, though glitchy. The resolution was not the greatest, but the system had a magical air like feeling.
More projects and pics after the jump.

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“At the restaurant Zauo you can help yourself, no really, you HAVE to help yourself.

The middle of the restaurant is shaped like a boat and there are plenty of rooms alongside where catching can be a satisfying if unnerving experience for those will little experience fishing.

In the water are 10 different kinds of fish from lobsters to mackerel.

And once you get it on board, there’s the waitress and now the fun really begins.

Your catch of the day is whisked to the kitchen where no time is wasted turning that swimming critter into a sushi delight.

In minutes it’s gone from fish to a fancy course that costs more than $30.

So here even the most dedicated city dweller can learn what every fisherman knows the pleasure of the catch is often equal to the pleasure of the meal when you re angling for the freshest fish there is.”

Sounds like fun! yummm.

via cbs (watch video!)

Some more pictures and notes on another brief visit to the Siggraph galleries. More after the jump.

Pictured above, is an art piece with temperature controlled plates that changed temperatures based on what was projected. (Snow=cold, fire=hot) Read the rest of this entry »

Seems like Sony is masterminding yet another colorful commerical after their famous bouncing balls commerical, but this time, their using colored paint balls, and TONS of it:

70,000 litres of paint
358 single bottle bombs
33 sextuple air cluster bombs
22 Triple hung cluster bombs
268 mortars
33 Triple Mortars
22 Double mortars
358 meters of weld
330 meters of steel pipe
57 km of copper wire

Sounds like fun:
Sony Bravia Advert
Flickr pics 

update: an interview with David Patton on the making of the video, on PSFK’s IF here. (thanks jeff)

Siggraph 2006 kicked off today with some great animations and a peek at some emerging art and interactive technologies. In short, Siggraph is a super hub conference of computer graphic animations, interactive techniques, and lots of computer related robotic tools and applications. It’s where technology meets creativity. For a glimpse at what Siggraph has to offer, check out these video briefs: Art Gallery, Emerging Technologies, and computer animations.
I watched a bunch of great animations today and had a peek at the galleries. As usual, I was asking a bunch of questions as these kind of conferences are more about what’s possible, rather than whats desirable. More Pics after the jump.
Read the rest of this entry »

I was browsing for some Honest Tea at Wholefoods and stumbled across Inko’s Lychee flavored white tea instead. I’m a sucker for Lychee, hence gravitated towards the bottle, made sure it wasn’t one of those over flavored or sugar saturated ripoffs, then read the rest of the info. Apparently this is the ONLY white ice tea available in the market, which is also one of the most rare tea leaves in the world. There are tons of health bennies you can read about on their webpage, but I’m just going to say this drink rocked! Not to sugary, very crispy, and a delightful satisfying tea flavor with a zest of lychee goodness. Hopefully I can get my hands on a case of these drinks to pass around to friends at my next gathering.

Did you ever think those ice hotels in James Bond flicks were real? Well, the answer is yes, and yes for many more unusual adventure-some hotel destinations throughout the world. Would you like to stay in a Cave tonight, perhaps stay up in the trees, better yet closer to the woodpeckers, a popular night in a Freighter Plane, a hotel that you must scuba dive underwater to enter, or would you just like your classic ice hotels. I’ll give the ice and treehouse a try someday, but for now, I’ll stick to the comfy basic rooms that probably suit my budget for the time being, though the polished up fancy ones are always nice to lounge in.