A Malaysian scientist has discovered a revolutionary method of producing aerogel using waste rice husks. Known for it’s ghostlike appearance, aerogel has many possible applications including insulation and as a shock absorber. The strong, light weight substance (it’s 99% air) is made of silica, which composes 20% of the weight of rice husks. Using husks as the source of silica for Aerogel drastically cuts the cost of production.

Treehugger reports:

Aerogel was invented in 1931. But at $3000 per kilogram, it’s use has been limited to visionary projects and unique structural applications like reinforcement of tennis raquets. But that could change soon. Halimaton Hamdan, a Cambridge-trained professor of chemistry at the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (Technical University of Malaysia), has announced the discovery of a cheap process for turning waste rice husks into aerogel. Actually into “Maerogel”, as Hamdan has dubbed the “Malaysian aerogel”.

The translucent, smoky material weighs only three times as much as air. It is, in fact, mostly air; air cleverly trapped in a silicon matrix which gives the material insulating properties 37 times better than fiberglass. The image demonstrates the insulating capability as a layer of aerogel prevents a blowtorch from burning the hand below.

Aerogel can also bear mechanical pressure of up to 2000 times its weight. The combination of low weight and strength make aerogel a multifaceted green construction material.

[via Treehugger]

Toronto based street artist Posterchild has produced series of artworks that continues his Mario Blocks theme. Combining vintage video game iconography with guerrilla gardening, he’s created a batch of flower planters that look like fire flower power up blocks from the Super Mario Bothers video game. Nice way to inject a dose of fun and beauty into plain city streets.

A growing number of designers, however, are beginning to question this headlong pace and its relevance to the way we live, instead promoting flexible, seasonless collections… Brian Janusiak and Elizabeth Beer of Project No. 8, a discerningly merchandised fashion and design outpost in New York’s Chinatown, also believe in seasonless garments. In addition to stocking Kostas Murkudis’ 96 dresses, a collection of chic frocks meant for all seasons that’s been covered in these pages, the duo also have their own seasonless line under the Various Projects umbrella. “What excites us about the seasonless approach is that after decades of forced obsolescence by design in retail, people are beginning to rewrite the rules on what is an acceptable rhythm in the fashion cycle,” says Janusiak.

…While it would be easy to view these initiatives as strictly anti-establishment efforts, there are compelling signs that a truly seasonless fashion future may be on the horizon. First and foremost, global warming is rendering seasonal temperatures increasingly unpredictable. At the same time, subtler shifts are occurring, such as retailers placing increased importance on resort/cruise collections. As Diane Von Furstenburg did in her s/s ‘09 resort outing, a number of designers are beginning to include more seasonless pieces in their collections to give their jet-setting customers more flexibility. Soon, a truly global, all-weather lifestyle could be within our reach.

JC Report

First, who are you and what do you do?

Hi. My name’s Amit Gupta. I am a creative, hard-working, honest young man who likes to create fun things online.

I run a company called Photojojo, we’re the world’s awesomest photography newsletter.

We’re also working on a book that will be published by Random House next year, and some new ways for people to have fun with photography online.

I’ve started a lot of different projects and companies, and am always working on something new. Most recently, I started a casual coworking event called Jelly while living in NYC. Since then, it’s spread to 20 cities around the world and been on the Today Show, Wired, NPR (twice), etc.

You’ll be speaking on our “San Francisco Snapshot” panel. Can you explain what you find inspirational about the Bay Area and why? What makes it different than any other place in the world?

People here are not afraid of failure.

There’s a great entrepreneurial spirit here, and startups seem to grow like weeds, but it has less to do with the weather, the proximity of venture capital, or history, and more to do with the culture. Here, it’s okay to try something and fall on your face. You just get up and try again. That’s not normal anywhere else.

Some sites that provide you with inspiration:

Mostly these days my inspiration comes from my friends, almost always through one of these three:
Tumblr
Flickr
Twitter

Thanks, Amit!

Photojojo

Amit Gupta

To hear more from Amit come join us at PSFK Conference San Francisco 2008!

In response, Gawker has posted a funny if characteristically snarky post clarifying some of that obfuscating language (such as ‘unpublished’) being thrown around by all of us in the blogosphere when we’re trying to cover up what’s really going on (or what we really mean). Some highlights:

- Brand advertising = Bad clickthroughs. “We have a clickthrough rate of one in ten thousand, but we’re more of a brand destination.”

- Update: Fix. On a blog or in a program, an update means something was broken.

- Experimental: Failed. Everyone secretly hopes their projects take off, so they can say “Oh, it was just a fun little project!” More often, the project gets just the attention it deserved: none.

- Platform: Vague idea. Instead of a useful tool, a tool for other people to make useful tools. Possibly a cash cow, but boring. (For a geekier set, a platform is for those too lazy to code; an API is for those too lazy to write a platform.)

- Beta: Broken. For some web services, “beta” is as regular as PMS until Google buys the company.

- Viral: Cheap. Of course, sometimes that’s the kind of ad a brand deserves. Note which brand was faster to jump on viral videos: Not Coke, but Mentos.

- Contextual advertising: Bottom-of-the-barrel ads. What’s left over after “brand advertising” and served with “user-generated” content.

Gawker: The 15 Most Useless Internet Euphemisms

For some reason this morning I had my good citizen cap on my walk to work down Broadway between Union Square and SoHo I went into two stores to complain that they had their doors open and their air conditioning on. The reason I chose these two stores rather than the Best Buy or Urban Outfitters was that these brands (American Apparel and Body Shop) both trade on their conscious credentials.

There’s an element of ‘doing good’ in both retailers’ brand values. Body Shop has a ‘Protect Our Planet‘ mission. American Apparel doesn’t talk much these days about it’s eco credentials but it has major concerns for what it considers as the community.

Some of you might not know but there is a strong debate in New York about stores that leave their doors open while their air conditioning units were going - and some officials in New York have suggested a law against it. Saying that, maybe the debate is all in the media and none in the street: when I asked the assistants in both stores if anyone had complained before about their open doors and they said no. The Body Shop girl seemed fairly concerned about the idea, the American Apparel girl and her manager seemed to just see me as somebody ten years too old in the store and not minding his own business. Well, at least some brand values ring true.

Ricoh is building an nature powered billboard, scheduled to go up in Times Square this December. A first for New York, this solar and wind powered giant ad is only the third in the world. The other two are Pacific Gas & Electric’s in San Francisco and Ricoh’s original eco billboard in Tokyo. The ad’s lighting will be powered by 45 solar panels and 4 wind turbines. Strangely the system lacks any kind of back up power source. If there’s a cloudy day with no wind, the ad will not be illuminated.

[via Live Science]

Opening tomorrow (July 4th) on Montague Place behind the British Museum in London is a new temporary cultural space designed by Carmody Groarke Architects. Called the Sky Walk, the installation is the centerpiece of the Bloomsbury Hub of the London Festival of Architecture. Sky Walk is a series of elevated ramps that take visitors on a meandering journey exposing them to new views of the architectural details on the surrounding historic buildings. Over the next three days, Sky Walk will serve as a backdrop for performances, and exhibition, and a continuous picnic of locally produced food.

Sky Walk was constructed over the past three days out of reusable staging components. It’s covered in a translucent black mesh. The ramp reaches a height of over 13 feet at it’s tallest point.

The event is the first step in the total transformation of the street into a usable public space and a destination in its own right. The design firm of Burns+Nice have already developed proposals to redo the street and surrounding areas.

[via WAN]

A series of interviews with VW researchers and designers unveil their visions of electric-driven Single Occupant Vehicles, holographic projections, gesture controlled dashboards, and emission free automobiles.

While the entire site is in German, it’s still worth having a look at their future scenarios.

Volkswagen 2028

From Trendhunter:

The Tag Heuer Meridiist mobile phone is made from watch-making stainless steel and has two unscratchable 60.5 carat sapphire crystal displays. It displays the time in a 96×76 monochromatic OLED screen in the upper part of the phone and comes with a 2.0 megapixel camera, MP3 player and bluetooth technology.

It looks pretty nice, and judging by the attention to detail with which watchmakers approach their craft, one would imagine that the Meridiist is built to exacting specifications. At the same time, as Gizmodo rightly points out, when you take a good look at the phone’s specs, there’s not much that you can’t get elsewhere. Which leaves us wondering what the $6100 price tag really gets you, besides a really fancy way to tell time.

Replating is the term coined by design studio Language In Common for the simple act of giving away leftover food by leaving it on top of garbage cans. Sort of a small scale version of City Harvest. The replate idea is being spread by their website and with downloadable posters and stickers that explain the process. They started this open source food activism campaign as an easy way of channeling this potentially wasted food to the homeless and others that may desperately need it. There are some potential problems in the widespread roll out of Replating such as the food drawing rodents, or the lack of flat surfaced garbage cans in New York City. Overall a good concept, and a step in the right direction.

Replate

[via Neatorama]

* 20plus30
* Boomer
* Aging Fabulous
* Time Goes By
* Libido & Health
* Changing Aging
* The Boomer Blog
* The Boomer Chronicles
* Older But No Wiser
* Aging Maven
* Always Question
* Auxiliary Memory
* GenPlus
* Aging Hipster

French clothing company APC has come out with new jeans that are either innovative or ridiculous depending on your point of view. The “Butler Worn Out” series are weathered, not by the traditional sandpaper method but rather by humans wearing them. This unconventional and time consuming method produces the desirable marks and soft feel of old jeans. To anyone considering these buying these (probably really expensive) pants, I have a suggestion: try a used clothing shop, lots of human pre-worn jeans there.

[via Hypebeast]

Kudzu is an extremely fast growing plant, usually considered a weed that can grow up two two inches a day. A native plant of China, it was first introduced to the USA in 1876. It was planted extensively in the southern United States to prevent soil erosion. Fast forward to today, and Kudzu is everywhere in the South, growing out of control and messing up the local ecosystems.

The good news is that the Kudzu plant is a great raw material to make ethanol. The roots are the size of sweet potatoes and contain all the right elements to produce the (currently) corn crop hogging fuel.

[via ESPN]

Kids today are increasingly prone to social, mental and environmental stresses that lead to hyperactivity, ADD, frantic multitasking, and distraction. How can this tide be turned? A program in Bangkok, Thailand called the “Mind and Self Grooming Day Camp” is helping children deal with these problems by teaching them meditation. Using a custom tailored approach that cuts the meditation exercises down to easy 15 to 20 minutes segments, the camp turns meditation into games that kids can enjoy and relate to. The program has helped students deal with problems at school and to stay relaxed and focused amidst our fast paced over stimulating modern society.

[via Bangkok Post]

Anyone interested in a change of scenery can reserve a room or desk here. Space can be booked in 2 hour blocks between 9.30am and 6pm.
[via Pocket-Lint]

Damien Hirst, the highest paid living artist and most provocative of the YBAs, is becoming a free agent. The art world’s answer to Reggie Jackson says he will sell his latest body of work at auction, circumventing de rigueur gallery sales. “The world is changing,” said Hirst, and as always, he’s ahead of the curve.

Hirst is a rare breed–both artist and salesman. This isn’t the first time he’s stunned the art world with his business savvy (and his dead animals). Back in November of 2003, the artist bought back 12 of his seminal pieces from benefactor Charles Saatchi for $15 million. By owning his key early work, Hirst sought to control his own market, deciding which pieces to hold on to or place in museums or collections. Were these works to be sold en masse, as Saatchi is known to do, the value of his works could have taken a substantial hit. This past February, Hirst also opened a store on High Street called Other Criteria, designed to “democratize” art–or at least commoditize it.

His former rep Larry Gagosian isn’t showing any outward ire. He has already said he’ll attend the Sotheby’s auction in September, paddle in hand. Hirst is hoping to set some new sales records at the two-day affair, titled “Beautiful Inside My Head Forever,” where enough art to constitute two gallery shows will be on the block. The pièce de résistance will be a bull submerged in formaldehyde—head crowned by a solid gold disc, hooves and horns cast in gold—inside a gold-plated stainless steel and glass box. The work, called “The Golden Calf,” is expected to fetch at least £12 million.

[via Slam X Hype]

[via notcot]

We’re looking forward to having Mark Lewis, strategy director at DDB, join us at PSFK Conference San Francisco. On our “Using It” panel along with Adrian Ho (Zeus Jones), George Parker (AdScam), Lynn Casey (Team Noesis) and Rohit Bhargava (Ogilvy 360 Digital Influence), Mark will be discussing how companies can use social media to enhance consumer dialogue, evolve product offerings, and improve sales.

First, who are you and what do you do?

I’m a strategy director at DDB in San Francisco working on brands ranging from SunPower (one of the largest solar panel manufacturers) to Brita to STP. I’d define my job as introducing interesting things or ways of thinking to people in the hope of inspiring them to do things a little differently.

You’ll be speaking on our “Using It” social media panel. Can you sum up your views on how you are seeing companies and organizations leverage social media to enhance consumer dialogue, evolve product offerings, and/or improve sales? In what direction do you see Social Media taking brands in the future?

While it is great to see companies beginning to use social media and engage in the web in a new way, the number of companies that have truly grasped the true model shift created by the social web is relatively small. Brands have to figure out how to engage consumers in a dialogue where they have something to give beyond entertainment (because very few brands can do that well over the long term) – where their marketing becomes an extension of what they do.

Four sites that provide you with inspiration:

PostSecret
Pandora
Google Labs
GigaOM

Thanks, Mark!

DDB

Have you bought your tickets for PSFK Conference San Francisco yet?