Johnny Holland Magazine features an interesting discussion surrounding the development of everyware: technology that’s built into everyday objects to provide personal feedback. These “personal informatics” are already tracking people’s daily activities and allowing them to modify their behavior based on their trends. Take, for instance, the popular Nike+ system. By putting a small computer chip in your running shoes and synching it to your iPod, you can track your run, monitor your progress, and perhaps most importantly, connect with a community of runners. And in times of recession, people start looking for ways to save wherever they can, which may [...]

PSFK readers – thank you for participating in our social media experiment! Between February 9th and March 8th, we engaged in some social media activity to see how it would affect PSFK’s traffic. From social bookmarking to sharing online video, we’ve been tweaking the way we’ve been operating on the web and now we’ve had a chance to analyze the results.
We hope other sites will benefit from our more-or-less scientific study and incorporate the information in their social media plans.

Summary of Social Media Marketing Activities
Our social media campaign involved a variety of strategies:

Submittal of all articles to social bookmarking sites like Digg and StumbleUpon
Increasing [...]

You’ve probably visited WebMD to answer your health questions. And the iTunes App Store already offers over 200 medicine-related apps, like information on drugs and heart-rate monitoring devices. But two new devices for the new iPhone OS demonstrate just how the iPhone is going to make monitoring your health both more immediate and interactive. One app can control a blood-pressure cuff that plugs in to your iPhone, and Johnson & Johnson revealed a similar app and device that tests blood glucose levels.
PCMag explains the far-reaching implications:
Since an iPhone is always connected via the integrated 3G modem, it could potentially send [...]

We’ve noticed a few Kumon Centers popping up around the city lately and been intrigued by the strangely ambivalent smiley face. The centers provide an educational system for learning math and reading skills. And while they’re new to New York, the company itself has been around for 50 years.
Whether kids use the programs for remedial help or enrichment, the system remains the same: they start with the basics and use practice worksheets to learn new concepts. Students don’t advance until they’ve mastered the material, demonstrating both speed and accuracy. In the math program, for example, there are over 1,000 worksheets [...]

Fortune Magazine has released its survey of the top 50 most admired companies in the world. Their top 10:
1 Apple
2 Berkshire Hathaway
3 Toyota Motor
4 Google
5 Johnson & Johnson
6 Procter & Gamble
7* FedEx
7* Southwest Airlines
9 General Electric
10 Microsoft
For such a global subject, though, there seem to be a large American bias. It does raise interesting questions about what it means to be admired. Some companies (Apple, Nike) are expected; others (Bank of America, Goldman Sachs) are bound to raise a few eyebrows given the current economic situation. What qualities do you admire in companies?

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A fake airline lets you book a flight online for $87. Meanwhile, a bunch of ad men are busy twittering away–from 1962 no less. It can get a little confusing, but one thing’s clear: the barriers between different media platforms are breaking down. We sat down with Jeff Gomez, President and CEO of Starlight Runner Entertainment, to find out exactly what is going on. They’ve worked on properties like Pirates of the Caribbean, Transformers, and Avatar, so they’re very familiar with the buzzword you’re going to be hearing a lot more of: transmedia.
So what is transmedia?
Transmedia is the conveyance of [...]

Our friends over at Wooster Collective have discovered some of Banksy’s latest works on the streets of London… Wonder what’s to come.
[via Wooster Collective]

Today Denver joins the ever-increasing list of cities with only one newspaper: the Rocky Mountain News has published its last issue. But Editor John Temple hopes its readers will take pride in the final edition and its 52-page wraparound section, noting “This is our last shot at this. This morning (someone) said it’s like playing music at your own funeral. It’s an opportunity to make really sweet sounds or blow it. I’d like to go out really proud.” The paper’s very existence was in limbo for the past three months and operated at a $16 million loss. The only potential [...]

Last night, we attended a viewing of “Some Call It Home,” a documentary on the gentrification of Downtown Brooklyn. Like many cities in America, Brooklyn is rediscovering and redeveloping its downtown. Old buildings have been torn down and glass-covered towers have shot up, often at the expense of lower-income residents. While the economic downturn may decrease the city’s development budget, not to mention the demand for luxury housing, long-established communities are already affected by empty storefronts and increasing rents.
The next district slated for development is Fulton Street Mall, a collection of mostly locally-owned businesses. It may not look like much, [...]

A collection of restaurants, quirky stores and galleries offers a trendy new take on Southern hospitality in Charlotte, NC. NoDa (North Davidson Street) has evolved from a historic mill village to a small but vibrant arts district. Most of the buildings are clustered around 36th Street, which makes the gallery crawl on every other Friday evening more of a “pit stop.” But that leaves patrons more time to hang out at the Dog Bar, where owners can mingle with their mutts, appropriately located a stone’s throw away from the Smelly Cat Coffeehouse. The area also houses the Neighborhood Theater, a [...]

Several towns in Germany have taken saving on energy bills a step further and turned out all the street lights. Residents were initially concerned about crime and personal safety, but a system was developed to allow them to turn the lights on by calling a number from their cell phones. Of course, the bigger the city, the more complicated the system. In Morgenröthe-Rautenkranz (pop. 900), one phone call turns on all the street lights, but in Dörentrup, citizens must plan their routes ahead of time. The BBC reports:
Although residents appear happy with the system in this BBC clip, the Dörentrup [...]

In December 2008, Phoenix, Arizona opened the first 20 miles of its new light rail system, a first for the largely car-dependent city. Stretching from Central Phoenix through the neighboring cities of Tempe and Mesa, the rail provides alternate transportation while encouraging the development of the cities’ downtowns. Over 30,000 riders took to the rails the first month, exceeding expectations.
Though the system was mainly built to serve commuters, people have also used it to get to sporting events, gallery openings and Arizona State University. After learning the ropes of navigating the new system, the next logical question for many riders [...]

Would you like to control your appetite, regulate your weight and boost your immune system without going on a special diet or taking a pill?
It turns out you may just need more sleep. Researcher Neil Stanley has recently called for society to “reclaim the night” for some shut-eye. A good night’s sleep may be just as important as exercise and a healthy diet, but it’s rarely emphasized in public health campaigns. Aside from increased grumpiness and a reliance on caffeine, studies have indicated that inadequate sleep can lead to heart disease, diabetes and depression.
Yet society tends to scorn sleep. As [...]