Archive for May 2008

We hope some of you had the opportunity to swing by your local Likemind coffee morning today. PSFK was lucky enough to meet some likeminds in both Brooklyn and Manhattan and share in the mutual enthusiasm over Rob Walker’s soon-to-be-released book, Buying In (thanks, Random House!). The book and conversation inspired us to do a little digging around about consumption - and serendipitously, we came across this neat interactive infographic featured a couple of weeks ago in the NY Times. The treemap shows how much the average U.S. consumer spends on 84,000 products in some 200 categories, including utilities, rent, fast food, car expenses, apparel, and more. As expected, the larger sections of the map represent more spending, and each section can be highlighted and zoomed in on for more detailed info.

New York Times: All of Inflation’s Little Parts (for click-and-zoom map)

In this video, industrial designer Kenzan Tsutakawa-Chinn talks to PSFK about the growing adoption of LED lighting and his thesis on using LED to create emotional response.

This photo for the PSFK Collaborative book project ‘At Play‘ was taken by Dorien1980. It’s a volleyball team playing in the semi-finals of an intramural league in NYC.

Just to remind you that we’re accepting contributions up until the end of this month here.

Earlier this week we wrote about how David Byrne is turning a building into an instrument; along a similar vein, Angel Olivares & Matthew Young have found a way to create music from suitcases.

The clickedy clack of wheels catching the cracks in sidewalks inspired the two designers to develop unique surfaces that produced music when wheeled bags are dragged over it.

Similar in concept to Nintendo’s Excitebike, the racing game that allowed players to customize racetracks with different ramps, the design team has created custom surfaces with various bumps and textures carefully spaced out.  When the wheels hit the bumps, they create beats that are picked up by contact microphones and run through Max/MSP programmable audio software to generate beats.

They plan to install these surfaces in airports, bus stations, and other travel destinations.  They even hope to create multiple surfaces and instal them next to each other to allow multiple bags to play more complex melodies and rhythms.

Picture Me Rollin’

[via Make]

Augmented Learning by Eric Klopfer is the latest full-scale argument in support of “m-learning”, or learning via mobile devices and applications rather than PC/desktop. In his study, Klopfer offers a history of education and pedagogical practices, “edutainment”, and mobile games, and also offers recent examples of different ways educational programs have been integrated with mobile technology, and to what effect. The book’s publisher, MIT Press, offers a brief synopsis of Klopfer’s findings regarding educational games:

 These [mobile educational] games–either participatory (which require interaction with other players) or augmented reality (which augment the real world with virtual information)–can be produced at lower cost than PC or full-size console games. They use social dynamics and real-world contexts to enhance game play, can be integrated into the natural flow of instruction more easily than their big-screen counterparts, and can create compelling educational and engaging environments for learners. They are especially well-suited for helping learners at every level develop twenty-first century skills–including the ability to tackle complex problems and acquire information in “just-in-time” fashion. All of this, Klopfer argues, puts mobile learning games in a unique and powerful position within educational technology.

[via SmartMobs]

Wal-Mart are to launch a local neighborhood store which will pursue a “passion for fresh and delicious food”, the Financial Times reports. Inspired by Whole Foods approach, the bog-box retailer plans to prepare and serve food in the Marketside stores. The stores will include a kitchen, food counters and seating and will be about a tenth of the size of most of its 3,400 superstores. The FT says:

The world’s largest retailer - best-known for sprawling superstores with minimal service levels - says that its planned 15,000 sq ft Marketside neighbourhood stores will be “dedicated to helping our customer answer the question ‘What’s for dinner?’”… Job advertisements for the first four locations in Arizona describe Marketside as “the neighbourhood market for busy people with a taste for fresh and delicious food” - a direct challenge to the similarly sized Fresh & Easy markets being opened by Wal-Mart’s UK rival Tesco in the same communities near Phoenix.

The small format also allows Wal-Mart to expand its store footprint without risking the political opposition in the planning process that has slowed the expansion of its Supercenters in California and elsewhere.

Financial Times
Marketside

PSFK stopped by the Bridge Gallery in the Lower East Side last night to check out the ‘Wasted’ installation created by PIE Studio. The Florida based PIE Studio team constructed a number of sculptural elements in the gallery made from common objects like milk containers, dry cleaner hangers, and keys. PIE Studio is also showing a range of their hand-crafted furniture pieces that use natural materials. The installation suggests that interesting things can still be done with common disposable objects. The rear of the gallery is dominated by a huge curving light fixture built out of plastic water bottles and gallon milk containers.

PSFK spoke with Bridge Gallery owner Marilyn Garber who invited PIE to take over the space during the ICFF week. She described that work was done nearly around the clock the past few days in order to finish the space. Marilyn is drawn to PIE’s work because they are pushing to design furniture with new forms that meld with traditional processes like weaving. Others are taking note as well. Sundance Channel’s ‘Big Ideas for a Small Planet’ show is featuring PIE Studio this season for an episode on green design.

More photos here.

Wasted by PIE Studio
at the Bridge Gallery
98 Orchard St NYC

Yesterday, Google announced that YouTube’s Insight video viewer analytics now includes free demographic information on any clip’s viewers. Uploaders can click on the “insight” button that appears alongside their uploaded vids to see viewership stats that include gender, age, and geography. The analysis relies on data picked up from YouTube viewers’ profiles - so only the watchers that have indicated their location, age, and gender in their profile (and are signed in while viewing) are included in the statistical results. Insight also gives uploaders the option to view an aggregate of their viewer statistics from all their clips. ReadWriteWeb reports:

Statistics can be limited to any time frame and are viewable side by side with metrics on a video’s relative popularity and leading sources of off-site inbound traffic..

Presumably YouTube isn’t getting all Facebook Beacon on us and tracking the demographics of users logged into YouTube but viewing videos embedded around the web. That would be a positive thing to see in anonymous aggregate.

These kinds of statistics were presumably available for advertisers, in large quantities, since the dawn of YouTube. Breaking them out on a video by video basis and offering a nice interface is a very logical next step but one that too few services online would take the time to provide - much less for free.

ReadWriteWeb: Who’s Watching Your Video?

London’s Soho was once known for its smattering of independent shops specializing in vinyl. Inevitably, many of them have had to shut their doors, thanks largely to the rising popularity of digital music sales and downloads. Photographer Spencer Murphy has paid homage to the neighborhood’s indie shops and storeowners, his works now on exhibit in “Independent: A Celebration of Soho’s Independent Record Shops” which opened today.

What: Independent: A Celebration of Soho’s Independent Record Shops
Where: 63 Broadwick Street, London W1
When: Now until May 24.