Next week, PSFK will be hosting Good Ideas Salon, Brooklyn. We’ll be enjoying local fare, and featuring a panel of guest speakers discussing small batch culture and local entrepreneurship.

Korean designer Yong-jin Kim merges the power socket with a traditional switch, a solution that replaces the act of removing a plug with a simple twist designed to cut off the flow of electricity.

The second outing of the New Amsterdam Market took place last weekend and PSFK was in attendance checking the artisinal food stands – and their wares of course.

In preparation for Tuesday night’s Good Ideas Salon in Tokyo that PSFK is putting on in collaboration with Nissan, I’ve been gathering images of ‘Pure Living’ in Japan.

A sign on the ABC Carpet store on Broadway in New York reads:

“We can change the world, rearrange the world – it’s dying to get better.”

This hotel parking lot is for hybrids only.

The 6-in-1 Solar Craft Kit is an environmentally-friendly multiple toy set. With this kit, you can make a windmill, a boat, a plane, an airplane dock, mini-car, and even a puppy.

A new site hopes to convince skeptical fashionistas that there is more to ‘eco-fashion’ than organic T-shirts while simultaneously trying to convince hardcore environmentalists that they need to focus their eco attention on the clothes they wear on their back.

While many of us try to watch the impact we have on the planet, our landlords and our office-owners continue to neglect our environmental concerns.

The Element Coffee Table is handmade in an eco-friendly workshop powered without consumption of fossil fuels to avoid CO2 loads.

Jonas Damon’s Wooden Flashlight is currenty being sold at New York’s MoMA store as part of their Design At Home event.

The expensive process of manufacturing solar panels could be supplanted in the near future by sprayable inks derived from sunlight-absorbing nanoparticles- perhaps enabling solar power to have a further reach as an alternative energy option.
The particles, which are 10,000 times thinner than a strand of hair, consist of copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS). The nanoparticles are made into a solution and spray-painted onto a surface.
This process is still in the testing phase, as the solar-cell prototypes created thus far have only been able to convert one percent of the sunlight that contacts the cell into electricity. A 10 percent conversion [...]

A snap of 42 Brompton bikes ‘parked’ in a space for a car.

We’ve covered previous marketing efforts from China’s leading sportswear and shoe company Li Ning, who seems to be willing to push the envelope in terms of innovative ways to reach the local youth market. The company recently released an eco-friendly shoe called the “Green 001″ for the Spring 2009 line. The  shoe is constructed from eco-friendly materials, including ample use of hemp. In their marketing campaign (see above poster), Li Ning is promoting a simple theme: “Environmental Protection = Trendy.”
Interestingly, the tongue of the shoe is embroidered with the image of Wangari Muta Maathai, founder of the Green Belt Movement [...]

As cellphones continue to evolve, we’ve almost become desensitized to the growing list of perks that come with each new model, perhaps losing sight of the fact that simpler forms of technology are not always archaic ones.
The Leaf is a cellphone concept that runs on solar power or electricity, and is made from layers of flexible material that enable it to transform into a bracelet/wristwatch for portability.
Although you can’t perform all of your daily tasks with it (it only has basic calling/texting capabilities), it’s an eco-friendly idea that sees forward-thinking technology mingling with simplicity.

[via Inhabitat]