http://www.psfk.com Your Go-To Source For New Ideas And Inspiration Wed, 15 Feb 2012 17:26:24 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 http://www.psfk.com/2007/08/farm-stand-scams.html Thu, 02 Aug 2007 21:12:31 +0000 A Treehugger article from earlier today warns against the dangers of supposedly “local” farmers selling very un-local products. The writer, somewhere “on highway 11 just North of Orillia”, stopped at a farm stand with signs promising “Ontario Corn” and “Ontario Blueberries” only to discover a California label on one of the plums at the bottom of the basket he had purchased. The lesson: pay attention to what you buy. Remember that not everyone is looking out for your best interests. Is that Farmer Really Selling Local Food?]]> http://www.psfk.com/2007/08/kameraflage.html Thu, 02 Aug 2007 20:10:11 +0000 Because digital cameras can distinguish colors the human eye can’t even see, the company Kameraflage has developed technology which allows them to insert these invisible shades into anything from fabrics to billboards to movies. This will allow anyone to catch a glimpse of hidden shapes like the lightning-strike in the adjacent photo with their digital cameras or cell-phones. The business opportunities are potentially limitless. Kamerflage [via Coolhunting]]]> http://www.psfk.com/2007/08/we-feel-fine.html Thu, 02 Aug 2007 19:42:35 +0000 If the world were a swirling vortex of conflicting emotions, We Feel Fine would be its pictorial representation. An “artwork authored by everyone”, the website is a shifting database of emotional registers built off the blogosphere’s daily lexicon of phrases, ranging anywhere from the ‘I feel fines’ to the heaviest heartbreaks imaginable. Constantly compiled from the diverse corners of the internet, the site is structured around six formal sections – Madness, Murmurs, Montage, Mobs, Metrics and Mounds – each of which offers a different visual representation of the general sentiments occurring around the world at any given moment. Their missionRead more...]]> http://www.psfk.com/2007/08/taxis-for-the-ladies.html Wed, 01 Aug 2007 20:56:55 +0000 For all you ladies out there, has the prospect of taking a cab late-night ever sounded in any way unappealing? Well, certain cities are taking back the streets and making them a little more amenable to the needs of modern women, offering cab services run exclusively by the fair sex. Trendwatching‘s recent roundup of cool products for women, gays and boomers have a short piece on these new services, and they do indeed sound pretty useful. In London, Pink Ladies is a new private car franchise that one can join and pay for via a special “pink account”, and offersRead more...]]> http://www.psfk.com/2007/08/social-networking-gets-responsible.html Wed, 01 Aug 2007 19:18:38 +0000 Fellow trendspotters Coolhunting published an article yesterday about certain social networking sites that have departed from the norm set by their earlier, more ostentatious cousins (i.e. MySpace & Facebook’s well-known worlds of party updates and unabashed time-wasting), and are instead concerned with the more pressing but less tantalizing prospects of social change. They have compiled several prime examples, including Friction TV, the “YouTube for social activists”, H.E.L.P, a “telemedecine-based online community of physicians and financial donors bringing advanced medical assistance to disaster zones and areas of humanitarian need around the world” and Kiva, “a site that connects the world’s poorerRead more...]]> http://www.psfk.com/2007/07/sharkrunners.html Tue, 31 Jul 2007 22:01:06 +0000 Designed in anticipation of the Discovery Channel’s 20th Anniversary Shark Week, Sharkrunners is a new “big game” of “oceanic exploration and high stakes shark research” developed by area/code. It works as follows: In the game, players control their ships, but the sharks are controlled by real-world white sharks with GPS units attached to their fins. Real-world telemetry data provides the position and movement of actual great white sharks in the game, so every shark that players encounter corresponds to a real shark in the real world. Ships in the game move in real-time, so players receive email and/or SMS alertsRead more...]]> http://www.psfk.com/2007/07/fans-manage-bands.html Tue, 31 Jul 2007 21:56:17 +0000 In another bizarre turn of events for the music industry, a new company is offering fans a chance to take band management into their own hands. The folks over at VIP Band Manager have invited 50,000 people to get involved with a new group’s entire musical future, allegedly harnessing the “power of the internet to enable people to become managers”. NME reports: Each member will take on the role of manager for the company’s new band and the members then get to vote online to decide on each detail of the band – like who are the members, and whatRead more...]]> http://www.psfk.com/2007/07/covent-garden-night-market.html Tue, 31 Jul 2007 21:43:04 +0000 Touted as “the best shopping experience in London”, the famous Covent Garden Market will now be open every Thursday evening in August from 5 – 10pm, luring visitors with a spectacular array of gourmet food and the possibility of dining “alfresco style” in “the atmospheric surroundings of hops and hay bails”. Add some great live music and you’ve got a night market that should be enticing to foodies and newbies alike . Bringing together the best of London’s food markets – traders from Borough to Broadway, Exmouth to Islington will set their stalls out alongside premium food producers never beforeRead more...]]> http://www.psfk.com/2007/07/festivals-go-online.html Tue, 31 Jul 2007 17:50:56 +0000 In the ever-increasing cross-pollination between real events and their online doppelgängers, music festivals have made leaps and bounds in their attempts to integrate actual shows with the interactive tools of new media. One such example is Playstation’s 3Rooms, a 9m sq cube that appeared at this month’s Manchester International Festival. The conspicuous metal box contained a veritable laboratory of high-tech, aesthetically pleasing equipment operated by a host of net-savvy students – “the cream of local art and film schools and universities” – all of whom worked towards making the festival more than just a few days of good music. TheRead more...]]> http://www.psfk.com/2007/07/urban-explorers-finding-beauty-amidst-the-grime.html Tue, 31 Jul 2007 15:06:51 +0000 Every city has its secrets. Most of them are right there before our eyes, obscured perhaps by force of habit or by grime, but they are there nonetheless, in the very bones of the buildings, waiting to be revealed. To discover them is the self-imposed role of an emerging breed of thrill seekers looking for a new kind of fix – urban explorers. These modern day adventurers are the pioneers of a new final frontier, whose borders lie not in space or at the bottom of the ocean, but in the deepest recesses of the city itself with its seeminglyRead more...]]> http://www.psfk.com/2007/07/envisioning-change-combating-climate-change-with-art.html Thu, 26 Jul 2007 16:58:37 +0000 Can art change the world? This is the question posed by an exhibit which opened recently in Oslo, Norway as part of the World Environment Day 2007, and the answer seems to be in the affirmative. The exhibit, called “Envisioning Change”, gathers a collection of different art and design work from a variety of media to showcase what a sustainable future might look like. Here are some thoughts on the exhibit by sponsor Autodesk: The “Envisioning Change” exhibit looks at climate change from a worldwide perspective, chronicling the effect of global warming on the ecosystems and communities of the polarRead more...]]> http://www.psfk.com/2007/07/international-design-excellence-awards-green-air.html Wed, 25 Jul 2007 20:17:55 +0000 This year’s IDEA produced, as per usual, some fascinating forays into the future of design. For the student awards, the bronze medal went to Julia Burke of the University of Notre Dame, who created a system called Green Air, a “low-cost, space-efficient air purification system that uses plants to reduce toxins in the air”. The system works as such: The wall-mounted ceramic planter contains a small 115 VAC fan that slowly pushes air through the soil to the plant’s roots, a process that breaks down toxins equal to that of 15 regular plants. A conical bottom allows users to easilyRead more...]]> http://www.psfk.com/2007/07/silicon-valley-wi-fi.html Wed, 25 Jul 2007 19:00:08 +0000 Endgadget reports on a new initiative that will supply up to 37 Silicon Valley cities with WiFi. It should stand, once completed, as the largest WiFi network in the country. Endgadget writes: Reportedly, a group of firms (including IBM and Cisco) are looking to build a $85- to $150-million outdoor WiFi network that could connect up 37 cities in Silicon Valley. The initiative will not only provide basic, free internet to those willing to deal with the ad-supported service, but it will also dish out subscriber-based signals to residents, high-speed service to businesses, and uber-secure communications to police / firefighters.Read more...]]> http://www.psfk.com/2007/07/the-prius-car-of-the-creative-class.html Wed, 25 Jul 2007 18:29:40 +0000 The inhabitants of Silicon Valley, the heartland of the so-called “creative class”, have opted for the Prius as their collective car of choice. This past June more of Toyota’s hybrids were sold in the high-tech metro area than any other vehicle, far surpassing the national standards. The Creative Class Group reports: “Are we ahead of the curve, or what?” asked Rod Diridon, executive director of the Mineta Transportation Institute at San Jose State University, and a Prius owner. The Prius’ newfound status reflects the continued greening of Silicon Valley. Diridon listed sustained higher gas prices, the availability of carpool-lane stickersRead more...]]> http://www.psfk.com/2007/07/survey-finds-little-awareness-of-technology-in-young-people.html Wed, 25 Jul 2007 14:10:35 +0000 A recent Reuters survey finds that most young people don’t really consider the role of technology in their lives, and that, according to them, they “don’t like it”. This may seem strange considering the ubiquity of mobile phone and internet usage, but the point is that kids see the specific aspects of technology rather than the macro “concept” of it; they may talk about “downloading” or “burning”, “consoles” or “myspace”, but rarely does technology as a whole appear as a specified interest or concern. The statistics, however, vary considerably. Far more youths from countries like Brazil, India and China tendRead more...]]> http://www.psfk.com/2007/07/20-most-liveable-cities.html Mon, 23 Jul 2007 21:45:45 +0000 Although it’s often often assume that NYC, London, Berlin and all those global hotspots are the best cities around, the facts of the matter may not be so clear cut as we metropolis-dwellers might want to believe. The current issue of Monocle offers up a somewhat surprising list of the brightest and most liveable cities around right now, taking into consideration their infrastructures, business opportunities, cosmopolitanism, green spaces, and of course the general well-being of their respective inhabitants. Here is the list; enjoy: 01- Munich: Munich emerged as Monocle’s most liveable city in the world. Perfect work-life balance, great greenRead more...]]> http://www.psfk.com/2007/07/crowdsourcing-can-you-digg-it.html Fri, 13 Jul 2007 19:46:57 +0000 Crowdsourcing, just in case anyone out there is still in the dark about the term, is the practice of having a whole bunch of people come together in a specified location to achieve a common goal by way of their sheer numerical presence there. In the real world, this can mean filling a particular store to the brim while collectively demanding a discount on a particular item; on the internet the practice can be employed for a variety of purposes – some of them less innocent than others. In a recent Wired reprint of a story by Assignment Zero, theRead more...]]> http://www.psfk.com/2007/07/the-society-of-the-flash-mob.html Fri, 13 Jul 2007 12:15:51 +0000 If the summer of love is making its perennial return this year, then whatever happened to the happenings? Well, they too are back, updated for the new millenium, less avant-gardey and conceptual perhaps but nevertheless as epistemologically destabilizing as ever – because flash mobs are the new happenings. NextGreatThing has a good article explaining them. Here’s the gist of it: Flash mobs are large groups of volunteers, usually assembled online, that meet at a prescribed time and destination to make idiots out of themselves for a brief period of time, and then disperse. Bill Wasik is recognized as the firstRead more...]]> http://www.psfk.com/2007/07/wii-remains-scarce-still-hugely-popular.html Fri, 13 Jul 2007 12:11:39 +0000 It would appear that Nintendo, despite having released a console system that has remained unprecedentedly appealing to a broad audience, still can’t manage to make enough of its product to go around. In the words of Reggie Fils-Aime, the president of Nintendo America, the Wii has “effectively been sold out for all 33 weeks” (of its being on the market), and is somehow still “poised to become the No. 1 platform worldwide very soon”. This is of course assuming they get their act together and actually produce enough of these things. One would think that a major corporation such asRead more...]]> http://www.psfk.com/2007/07/video-games-officially-a-sport.html Thu, 12 Jul 2007 12:58:47 +0000 Video gaming may be the ascendant televised sport. Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp has just set up the Championship Gaming Series, or CGS, which made its debut a few nights ago on the DirecTV stations BSkyB and Star TV, and although no one can say for sure how big this trend is really going to be, it looks as though vicarious virtuality will finally be giving vicarious reality a run for its money. The league’s spokesperson, Jonathan “Fatal1ty” Wendell, gives his thoughts on the matter: We couldn’t help but notice that gaming had actually become a sport. Not only in theRead more...]]> http://www.psfk.com/2007/07/sprint-to-sponsor-file-shared-songs.html Tue, 10 Jul 2007 17:20:57 +0000 Yet another creative measure to combat the quicksand enveloping the music industry: sponsored songs. According to the New York Post, Sprint “has signed on as the first company to underwrite a song to be distributed on file-sharing networks, agreeing to embed its logo on copies of tracks from Atlantic Records hip-hop artist Plies”. Whether it will be an effective move or not is up for debate, but it certainly signals an increasing willingness on the part of music executives to try their hands in the once taboo realm of peer-to-peer file-shared music. The Post Reports: Sprint and Atlantic Records areRead more...]]> http://www.psfk.com/2007/07/live-from-baghdad-version-20.html Mon, 09 Jul 2007 22:31:54 +0000 The D.I.Y trend is finally hitting the streets of Baghdad. In response to a generalized lack of coverage in the war-torn city, filmmakers Steve Wyshywaniuk and Brian Conley have started the news site Alive in Baghdad, which has supplied Iraqis with their very own cameras and made it possible for them to report the hard-to-find, relevant news international journalists simply don’t have access to. ABC reports: Alive in Baghdad‘s stories are about everyday Iraqis living the war — not just the military and political leaders running it. Recent entries have included middle school girls in Baghdad struggling to complete theirRead more...]]> http://www.psfk.com/2007/07/apple-actually-meeting-demand-for-iphones.html Fri, 06 Jul 2007 20:06:57 +0000 Against all odds, Apple is actually meeting the public demand for its iPhones. The Boston Globe wrote an interesting article about the many disappointed grey marketeers who have failed to resell their brand new phones for the exorbitant prices they usually ask for when selling scarce but in-demand items. Indeed, it would seem that Apple was entirely prepared for the overwhelming success of its new phone and acted accordingly, making enough of the product to go around. The Globe reports: Across the nation, people looking to make a quick profit bought one, two, or as many phones as they couldRead more...]]> http://www.psfk.com/2007/06/bottled-water-a-questionable-choice.html Fri, 29 Jun 2007 16:46:14 +0000 Core77 points at an article from Fast Company about America’s national obsession with bottled water. It has been difficult not to notice the astonishingly rapid ascension of bottled water, “enhanced” or otherwise, into the marketplace, and the question now is whether these alleged lifestyle choices have been ethically considered in the way they should be. Here are a couple passages from the FastCompany’s article that should make you pause next time you pass up the tap: Bottled water is often simply an indulgence, and despite the stories we tell ourselves, it is not a benign indulgence. We’re moving 1 billionRead more...]]> http://www.psfk.com/2007/06/true-class-keeps-to-itself.html Thu, 28 Jun 2007 21:56:17 +0000 Newsweek’s July double issue has an interesting article about the current trend in upscale circles towards secrecy and discretion. Although it’s not too difficult to realize that true class is not the showing off of one’s money, the message is finally hitting home as more and more people are opting for tasteful elegance over yacht-sized extravagance. Could the reason it’s happening so late in the game be because cosmopolitan city-dwellers are realizing that they frequently appear rather excessive and ridiculous (e.g. Hilton and co.)? This is good news, however, because the hotspots are no longer the celebrity clubs endlessly hypedRead more...]]> http://www.psfk.com/2007/06/the-end-of-music.html Thu, 28 Jun 2007 21:20:34 +0000 Read this interesting paragraph from music critic Marc “K-Punk” Foster in Fact Magazine: Some musicologists are announcing the end of music. Not because music has disappeared but, on the contrary, because it has become so ubiquitous that it cannot lay claim to a specific place any more. If music is no longer central to either the culture or to listeners’ attention, if it is increasingly being consumed as ring tones, as part of advertising, or as background noise (using music as a bulwark against silence), must this be treated as only a melancholy prospect? Today, June 28th, the music fromRead more...]]> http://www.psfk.com/2007/06/fever-tree.html Thu, 28 Jun 2007 18:58:32 +0000 There has long been something lacking in our choice of mixers. A certain disconnect, if you will, between the endless variety of good liquor available to us and the rather paltry selection of tonics, sodas and the like that we’ve been sentenced to choose from at our local stores. But if you’ve ever been to a truly great cocktail bar, such as NYC’s Pegu, you would know for sure that someone, somewhere is using better products. The secret? Today’s New York Thrillist reveals it to be Fever-Tree, a British company specialized in the art of making the perfect mixer. TheyRead more...]]> http://www.psfk.com/2007/06/flatpack-house.html Wed, 27 Jun 2007 19:28:07 +0000 Treehugger reported today about Gregg Fleishman’s new DH1 Disaster House and his Shelter System. Both are made from “sustainable European birch plywood with phenolic resin on both sides”, and are relatively easily assembled with the aid of fasteners or glue. The aesthetic is quite appealing, as the above photo can clearly demonstrate better than we can, although it remains to be seen what the functionality of the thing will be. Nevertheless, this is clearly just the beginning of a larger strategy, as Fleishman’s goal is “to continue developing ways to make building easier”. Who knows what the future will hold.Read more...]]> http://www.psfk.com/2007/06/zenn-motors-zero-emission-no-noise.html Wed, 27 Jun 2007 18:57:07 +0000 The dream of a silent, sustainable car is here at last. The ZENN, which stands for Zero Emission, No Noise, is destined to revolutionize the way we think about driving, offering for the first time a viable and relatively cheap alternative to petroleum-based vehicles. Earthtimes reports: Headquartered in Toronto, Canada, ZENN Motor Company is dedicated to producing zero-emission transportation solutions for global markets, including the revolutionary ZENN, the perfect vehicle for urban commuters, fleets (such as resorts, gated communities, airports, college and business campuses, municipalities, parks and more), the environmentally conscious driver, and consumers who just want to save money.Read more...]]> http://www.psfk.com/2007/06/hans-rosling-on-the-seemingly-impossible.html Wed, 27 Jun 2007 18:12:32 +0000 If you haven’t heard about it already, check out this amazing speech for the 2007 TED by Swedish statistician Hans Rosling about the speed at which developing countries are pulling themselves out of poverty. Combining levity with deadly seriousness, Rosling uses his Trendalyzer software––a bright, bold and revolutionary statistical method for showing differing rates of development simultaneously–– to prove his ultimate point that “the seemingly impossible is possible”: i.e. that world poverty can be defeated. The speech is at once enormously entertaining and altogether inspiring, so even if you’re just out to catch Rosling and his dazzling software in actionRead more...]]>