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The Sputnik Observatory

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Artist Jonathan Harris has just announced the release of an interesting project he’s been working on over the last two tears with Sputnik, Inc., a NYC-based nonprofit dedicated to documenting, archiving and disseminating ideas that are shaping contemporary culture. Named Sputnik Observatory, the project is a fascinating collection of inter-connected video interviews with hundreds of leading thinkers in [...]

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Not Your Average Summer Camp

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San Francisco based Studio For Urban Projects is putting on a very different kind of summer camp for kids over the next two months. “A Curious Summer” is a series of unique workshops for children between the ages of 7 and 14 that explore a different idea for a week at a time, allowing participants [...]

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Big Apple Embraces Big Apps

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Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced a series of technology initiatives yesterday, all of them designed to increase transparency and improve access to information about City services. A contest called NYC Big Apps will begin in the fall and return as an annual competition to improve government accountability and transparency, as well as  engaging New York’s [...]

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Racy Life-Drawing Classes: The Keyhole Sessions

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Combining elements of a burlesque show with a life-drawing class, Toronto’s Keyhole sessions offer a new kind of artistic educational entertainment. This drawing class uses edgy, (sometimes) costumed models to bring an element of debauchery to practicing art skills.
They explain:
Tired of the stuffy standard fare that is the traditional life drawing class? Come look through [...]

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UN Opens a Tuition-Free University

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The United Nations recently announced the launch of the world’s first tuition-free online university. Named the University of the People, the school will open up access to higher education for many individuals around the world.
The UN explains:
For hundreds of millions of people around the world higher education is no more than a dream, Shai Reshef, [...]

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NonCents: Do We Still Need The Penny?

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NonCents is the work of a group of design students from the University of Washington. They have created an exhibition that uses interactive parking meters and an indoor display to explore reasons why the penny should be removed from circulation.

The Wall Street Journal recently delved into this issue when it published an article about the [...]

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Project FROG Envisions Green Solution for Crowded Classrooms

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Hoping to replace the cramped, dingy trailers that have been implemented to ease California’s terribly overcrowded classrooms (ranked among the worst in the US), Project FROG is designing overflow educational space that is both conducive to learning and green. FROG’s classrooms are made of prefabricated, modular structures that can be arranged to match each school’s [...]

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US State Department Looks to TED for New Ideas

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This last Wednesday, we were able to attend TED @ State—a US State Department sponsored TED conference.  The one-day conference is the result of the Global Partnership Initiative, which is, in the word of Hilary Clinton, designed to reflect the State Department’s “opening its doors to a new generation of public-private partnerships.”  Basically, the conference [...]

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Video: Fred Wilson On Which Markets Will Be Disrupted Next

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Popular venture capitalist Fred Wilson has posted the video of the (rather lengthy) talk he gave at Google on which markets he expects the internet will disrupt next. He starts the talk with the impact of web and explains that attractive start-ups today are ones that offer services for less than five times the current [...]

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Adding Olfactory Information to Military Simulations

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The Ministry of Defense in the UK is working on a project that will allow video-game based military training simulations to release realistic smells as an added sensorial dimension. It’s hoped that by adding this extra sense data during training, soldiers will pay attention to the subtle information relayed by scent in the battlefield, and [...]

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Data Visualization Discussions

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We’ve written about the role of data visualization influencing consumers to be more aware of their impact. This past weekend, we noticed Fast Company suggesting that data visualization is the new frontier to design.
If we’re going to live in a world driven by data, the thinking goes, we need a simple means of digesting it [...]

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ScandinAsian Design Shop/School

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There’s a charming two-level space at the heart of Manila’s art enclave, Cubao X, that’s attracting a discerning crowd lately. On the ground floor is a home lifestyle store called Heima (Icelandic for “at home”). The owner, Bong Rojales, is also the director of the city’s Lomo camera cult, Lomomanila. This time around, he’s using [...]

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Dancing With Numbers: How to Think Like a Savant

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Scientific American has a fantastic interview with Daniel Tammet. He is an author and linguist, who’s also an autistic savant. He shares the amazing way his mind works, and gives advice on how to think better.
Tammet says:
I have always thought of abstract information—numbers, for example—in visual, dynamic form. Numbers assume complex, multidimensional shapes in my [...]

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An Illustrated Guide to Street Vending in NYC

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In an effort to demystify the laundry list of rules and regulations associated with obtaining and keeping a street vendor’s license in New York City, designer Candy Chang has partnered with The Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP) and Sean Basinski of the Street Vendor Project to create a simple, informative guide with illustrations reminiscent of an airline [...]

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Norway Tries Giving Laptops to All Secondary Students

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Norway is testing out a program to distribute laptops to all secondary students. Nord-Trondelag county is acting as the guinea pig in the trial, where a government-issued computer has been given to every 16-19 year old.  These computers are designed to be used solely for schoolwork, and to act as sophisticated test-taking machines. Big-brotherish monitoring [...]

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