Whitelines Notebooks uses a very simple, intuitive design idea: the only thing that should stand out on a page is what you write. The company’s designers realize that lined and graphed paper helps ensure steady writing and legibility, but counter that these guides should never compete with one’s note taking. Instead of dark lines, Whitelines use, shockingly, white lines, traced over a very light gray paper. The overlay is perfectly contrasted, offering a balance of visibility and subtly. Whitelines also strives to keep the carbon footprint associated with their notebooks’ fabrication as close to zero as possible; they trap and [...]

The New York Times notes that Netbooks are making a bit of a comeback with sales rising despite the recession. They say that these web-connected mini-laptops with just-good-enough computing and low prices are now in demand while PC sales are dropping:
A netbook does not need the world’s most powerful microprocessor on board, because the constant connection to the Internet endows even the least expensive version, or an even smaller smartphone, with the supplemental power of acres of server computers that reside in the cloud and provide the power of a virtual supercomputer.
When netbooks display Web pages with a nice snap, [...]

In our recent conversation with Richard Banks, he raises some interesting questions surrounding the notions of inheritance and heirlooms – both physical and virtual – as they apply to the digital age. From antiquated technologies – think iPod as the future 8-track – to web pages that live on well after we’re gone, what will later generations think of the artifacts that we’ve left behind? Particularly where visual and written records are concerned, do they lose their literal weight to stand the test of time when they lack a tangible presence and only exist online? These are compelling questions to [...]