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To be filed in the "brand utility" folder, Olay has just created a website that automates the sales process someone might experience at the beauty counter. It asks a handful of questions to gauge current skin type and conditions, how and when skin care products are typically used and overall skin care goals. From those inputs, it'll recommend products that are right for you.
Before revolutions were blogged and podcasted, pamphleteering was a popular way to incite activism. According to GOOD Magazine, the group called the Center for Urban Pedagogy is breathing new life into that art form by publishing "a biannual series of pamphlets to address critical issues." The combination of tangible information and enthralling design is meant to encourage citizens to investigate the policies on their own.
A company in Holland named Ooms Avenhorn Groep, created a way to harness all the heat absorbed by asphalt roads to turn it into cheap, clean electricity.
Most of the floor space in a typical room isn't functional. Just empty and open. Designer Luigi Colani developed the Rotor House which provides a way for four separate rooms (a kitchen, bathroom, bedroom and living room) to share the same non-functional space. A cylinder rotates left or right to bring a bed, bathtub, or kitchen sink and appliances to view only when it's needed – essentially creating four full-size rooms in the footprint of one.
With File Destructor 2.0 you can intentionally corrupt a file. Have a report due tomorrow morning but you're nowhere close to having it complete? Take the working file, import it into the FileDestructor, and it spits out one of those documents that just reads as gibberish. Then email it to your boss. Looks like an innocent technical glitch. That should buy you another day.
Another amazing innovation in the world of dried, salted seeds. Okay, maybe it's one of the only ones. But you need to give ConAgra credit for finding a way to better adapt their product to the users' needs.
Little children have all the same emotions that adults have but not the language to express them. Kimochi Emotion Dolls are a collection of felt toys, each visualizing and expressing a unique emotion. It gives kids a way to communicate their feelings to their parents more effectively than ear-piercing shrieks. You can find them on uncommongoods.com.
Smartplanet.com introduces us to Ubuntu, the world's first freetrade cola. Not only is made with Fairtrade sugar, it returns part of its profits to the African sugar farmers.
The Face2Face Project is an organization that strives to bring Palestinians and Israelis together. To help raise awareness they've created an initiative where for 30 Euro you can have someone spray paint a message on the wall that divides the two groups. They'll take a picture and send it to you. The proceeds help fund social and cultural change.
Rosa Loves aims to personalize charitable contributions. Actually it's less about charity than it is about awareness. Rosa Loves designs t-shirts that tell personal stories about people in need, putting a face to otherwise faceless causes. Profits from shirt
sales go directly to helping that person in need. After
the projected amount has been made to supply the need, Rosa Loves stops
printing and selling the shirts, making them part of limited editions.
Just in time for Valentine's Day, M&M's has come out with bags that include only green M&M's, which is a tongue-in-cheek reference to the famous urban legend that that particular color of M&M is an aphrodisiac.
Hot off the heals of the MacBook Air announcement, a couple of designers developed AirMail... a vinyl and fleece-lined case that mimics the manilla folder.
Throwing caution to the wind, I took this picture while pumping gas.
AOL recently reported on how a small church in Northeast Ohio (coincidentally the church I attended as a child), recently passed out $40,000 to the congregation in $50 increments. The members of the church were asked to live "The Parable of the Talents," and multiply the $50 by using their own special, God-given talents. Collectively, the congregation has raised over $38,000 (beyond the initial $40,000 loan). One person used the $50 to buy apples to make, bottle and sell applesauce. Another sold rides on his Harley.
David Rockwell and Bruce Mau's book Spectacle beautifully documents the human phenomenon of mass gatherings... from Burning Man to the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade to Flash Mobs. In the process they lay down a blueprint for creating memorable experiences.
Thanks to a breakthrough by a British chemist, sticky streets could be a thing of the past. Professor Terence Cosgrove of Bristol University has come up with a chewing gum that dissolves in water and can be removed easily. And it's all to do with a new polymer, apparently.
First came SatNav for lost drivers. Now there's "SatLav", a toilet-finding service to help people caught short in central London. On Thursday, Westminster City Council launched a new mobile phone text message service that will guide Londoners and tourists to their nearest public lavatory.
Twelve Books is fairly new to the publishing scene. The interesting thing about Twelve is that they have chosen to only publish one book a month. They believe every book they publish should be a book that matters... a book that helps shape the way we look at our society. In just a few short years, they already have a nice track record.
This link takes you to a sort of round-up on the topic of using shipping containers as housing. It's being done, and they say it isn't the geodesic dome of our generation. In fact, there are architects making interesting stuff out of these unwanted containers.
Check out these cerebral watches from Mr. Jones. We originally came across the Mantra model, which lets you pick your poison as the time ticks away. There are some other clever models as well — for those of you who have a watch for more than telling time.
Radiohead has a new album. And you can pay whatever you want for it. Seriously, it's up to you.
I long ago gave up traveling with bananas, even though they're one of
my favorite fruits, because they never survived the journey all that
well. Apparently I'm not the only one, because someone else with a much
more entrepreneurial spirit decided to invent the Banana Bunker. This nifty device, which I just discovered over at Gadling,
is basically a plastic tube with an accordion center that will fit over
any banana. Your snack won't end up bruised, and the books next to it
won't be sweet and slimy.
The Homeless World Cup exists to be a catalyst for lasting change through the development of street soccer worldwide in a way that that creates a maximum social impact for the players involved – socially excluded, homeless people and people living in poverty. This is accomplished by creating a top quality, well-recognized annual Homeless World Cup event and by continuous Homeless World Cup grassroots development programs around the world to ensure that many more people benefit.
And it works. 77% of players involved significantly change their lives forever.
