Microsoft’s Project Natal, the gesture-recognition technology shown off at E3, is now coming to the office to boost productivity.  In a demonstration to CNET, Microsoft showed off a futuristic desktop solution that transforms the entire office into a collection of displays and input devices.
The hardware is in the later stages of development, but it remains to be seen what applications will be most efficient in this gesture control environment.  The massive displays allow for multiple work spaces, like notes or photos, but we wonder how such a complex control center will work in the everyday office.  The potential for the [...]

The Fader has created a great 3 part video slideshow of David Byrne’s New York office. Byrne narrates the videos, which show off all of his weird and wonderful possessions. A fascinating look inside a creative mind. See part one below.

[Fader via Utne Reader]

Catering to freelancers, commuters, and other digital nomads, DeskSurfer offers London residents a temporary workspace on-demand, and also allows those with spare space to rent their own desks for a flat rate of £5 per hour. Customers can simply log onto the DeskSurfer site to find the current availability of remote workspaces, and choose one most convenient for them.
[via Dougald Hine]

The Hundreds Blog tips us off to a photo-tour they recently conducted of Red Bull’s headquarters in Santa Monica. The energy drink maker’s office looks like a great place to work, where they have fit in a movie theatre, gym, secret gaming room and recording studio amongst the cubicles. But most impressive, is the huge huge, skate-able installation that runs throughout the office.
See more at the Hundreds Blog.

The OfficePOD is a sleek, modern looking outdoor self-contained work environment designed to keep out distractions, and help you focus on getting work done at home. It’s aimed at telecommuters, who may be worried about the distractions that can come with working from home like yelling kids, pets, television and piles of dirty dishes. The pods are being marketed more to companies employing telecommuters, as a benefit and a kind of assurance that work will be getting done by physically absent employees.
Although the OfficePODs looks really nice, at an estimated $7,100 a year it seems like a lot to pay. [...]

As tutoring center 826 Valencia prepared to open its doors in 2002, the founders – including author and McSweeney’s editor Dave Eggers – discovered that the space was zoned for commercial use.  In order to comply with San Francisco city regulations, the creative team decided to open a Pirate Supply store in the front of the building, an idea that became so successful that as the group opened new centers in other major cities – a Superhero Supply Co. in Brooklyn and a Time Travel mart in LA, among others – they’ve adopted similar themes with all proceeds supporting the [...]