At the NY Tech Meetup in February, we got a peek at a new mobile service called omgicu. After its launch a few weeks back, there has been a lot of buzz–and debate–about it. omgicu can be described as a real-time version of Gawker Stawker, enabling anyone to “spot” celebs and blast it out Gossip [...]
May 21, 2009
May 18, 2009
Society6 Brings Microfinance to the Art World
Looking to democratize the grant process, Society6 has launched a new patronage system based on micropayments.
“When one of our artist friends was invited to show her work at a prestigious art show, but wasn’t able to secure the funds to go, we knew there was a very real problem to solve”, said co-founder, Justin Wills. [...]
April 13, 2009
Rental Car Rally 2009
Last year, 200 some-odd people set off on a 36-hour road trip competition from New York City to Montreal. Now entering its second year, the so-called “Rental Car Rally” is back, this time from San Francisco to Yuma, AZ. Embarking on June 14th will be about 100 “crazily-festooned” teams competing for a few thousand [...]
April 9, 2009
PSFK Interview: Michael Romanowicz on Twenty4.TV
“Twenty4 Hours of Perfect Content” (www.twenty4.tv) is a new digital art project that aims to turns your browser into a TV set using crowd-sourced content.
The brainchild of Michael Romanowicz (right), Twenty4.tv creates a channel-surfing experience by streaming a slideshow of preexisting websites. Next he’s asking you, “the crowd,” to help him populate a database [...]
January 21, 2009
Streaming, Tweeting and Facebooking the Inauguration
For most Americans, the question yesterday wasn’t whether you should watch the inauguration, it was where.
Aside from every TV channel, you could watch live streams online from CBS (on Joost), ABC, CNN, Fox News (on Hulu). Katie Couric covered the post-inaugural events in a web-only cast (sponsored by Audi). There was an official [...]
January 20, 2009
Nokia’s “Less Is More” Eco Strategy
We’ve been thinking about ways handsets could be more sustainable, and it turns out that Nokia has too. Their latest idea: Make less stuff.
As part of its new “we:” strategy to save energy and reduce waste, Nokia’s N79 Eco will ship sans charger (the idea is to use your old one) and come in a [...]
From CES: Watch Out! Curves Ahead…
Gadget designers rarely get to think outside the box. Sure, they may get to give things rounded edges or the like, just to spice things up. But it’s the square that fundamentally shapes our technology–from TVs to Kindles.
That is all about to change. In the near future, technology will take on the same twists and [...]
January 19, 2009
Nokia N79 Active Tracks Heart Rate
There’s a lot of potential for digital self-measurement–pedometers, calorie counters, and heart monitors all promise to make our workouts more efficient. We’ve noted that the best way to do this would be through the mobile phone, but this does present limitations. For example, the iPhone Heart Monitor requires that you hold the phone (or headphone [...]
January 14, 2009
Crafty QR Code Makes Political Statement
QR codes, which create physical world hyperlinks or hardlinks, have sparked the imaginations of designers and artists. They’ve been used to make public statements (QR code fences and Invader’s QR Code murals) as well as fashion statements (QR code scarves). Now they are being used to make a political statement. Knitted QR codes have become [...]
January 12, 2009
John Maeda’s Design Life in Five Photos
John Maeda wears a lot of hats: graphic designer, computer scientist, mathematician, sneaker designer, university professor, author, and now President of Rhode Island School of Design. His work on the intersection of technology and design landed him on Esquire’s list of the 21 most important people in the 21st century. In this episode of Dezeen [...]
January 2, 2009
License Plate Texting
In a press release detailing the perils of texting at the wheel, SayType just announced their speech-to-text service that enables hands-free texting, email and internet search. What really caught our eye, though, was a service called “license plate messaging”. Here’s how it works:
Say “Plate” then begin with the license plate number. e.g. 7k66665, then continue [...]
December 30, 2008
A Sustainable Cellphone: It’s in Our Hands
In 2009 and beyond, many of us are hoping for greener gadgets that add a “con” to their science. As one of the most pervasive modern technologies, mobile phones are a great place to start. How can they be—and help us be—more eco-friendly? Treehugger recently posted a sustainability wish list, which is more attainable than [...]
December 29, 2008
A PSFK Good Idea For The Future: Designing for Multiple Screens
Content has changed. It’s no longer the passive programming of years past. Thanks to new-and rapidly fragmenting–media channels, today’s audiences demand interactive, personal and customized experiences.
I’m not just talking about websites, social networks, user-generated content-so 2007. I’m talking about screens-cell phones, digital billboards, web-enabled TVs, projectors. It can be argued that 2008 marked the year [...]
December 19, 2008
ITP Winter Show: Part 2
Picking up where we left off earlier, here are some more of our favorites from this week’s ITP Winter Show:
Membrain
Stand in front of a globe, representing a “collective brain,” and your photo is taken. However the “pixels” that comprise your photo are actually tiny images of other people that were there before you. Scroll your [...]
ITP Winter Show: Part 1
We visited ITP’s annual Winter Show to check out some of the ingenious art/tech mashups from this year’s students. From bartending pianos to paparazzi purses, there was wall-to-wall ingenuity on display. We had so many favorites that we couldn’t fit them in ten posts, let alone one, but we’ll try it in two. Here’s the [...]






