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LED watches are so last year, what you need is one of these new Infinity OLED watches.

This funky looking timepiece features a black display with a steel face and a funky blue OLED display. It comes in a choice of two colours, one with a black leather strap and the other with a white leather strap.

It looks like the only place these are available at the moment are on ebay, but you should be able to get one for under $100.

Via Geeky-gadgets

We've seen the beer bottle phone and other novel ideas, here is the latest cute phone from the same supplier SourcingMap.com – the Violin Phone. It is for you music lovers out there, particularly violin enthusiasts. It's not cordless, but I'm sure it’ll come up sooner or later.

Via TheGadgetGuide

This radio-controlled car allows you to “paint” its path using a handheld infrared tracker - a feature that brought a lot of attention when the toy was displayed at the Hong Kong Toy Fair earlier this year.

The remote aims an infrared beam “dot” on the floor, and you can aim it anywhere. The IR Tracker race car instantly recognizes and “follows” the red dot.

The Infrared Tracker Remote Control Car is available from RichardSolo.com for $49.95.

Read more

Hi-Can is an “High Fidelity Canopy” designed by Italian designer Edoardo Carlino at Deta Design.

The Hi-Can features beautifully designed equipment that allows you to surf the web, watch movies, play games, and listen to music all from the comfort of your bed. There is even a slick looking control panel on the headboard that allows you to control other gadgets in the room.

At this point, the Hi-Can looks as though it is only a concept that is "coming soon."

Hi all,

Some of you may have been down to our venue, Unit 7, at cable street studios and may be aware of the closure notice put on us by the council in august, due to a shooting un-related to us outside the large factory compex we are a part of. We are currently in the process of getting re-opened and would appreciate your signature on our petition: http://www.gopetition.co.uk/onli…

some press can be seen here:
http://www.residentadvisor.net/n…
here:
http://www.timeout.com/london/cl…
and here:
http://www.burlingtonproject.co.…

also a film we made about the project can be seen here:
http://unitseven.co.uk/studio/u7…
or on our youtube channel:
http://www.youtube.com/TheRealUn…

Hopefully we see some of you at our re-opening soon : )

Many Thanks

The Unit 7 Team

We have ever seen the Cute Fan with 4 Port USB Hub, and it was posted at engadget.com by editor Darren Murph. Here’s another cute USB Fan to keep you cool and breathe fresh air this summer, but this time it comes with Air Purifier, not hub. It can improve the air quality around your home or office desk by ionizer. There is one button to push on and you can control the wind volume by it. This device is powered via USB or 4 AA batteries.

You can get it here for only $10.

Governments everywhere face the challenge of how to engage their citizens in a program of carbon emissions reductions. There have been two main approaches so far – carbon taxes and personal carbon quotas. We propose Green Credits, an alternative which is based on rewarding citizens after they have taken actions to reduce their emissions. Green Credits are based on consumer loyalty reward schemes – a simple, proven and widely accepted model. Citizens are awarded Green Credits for every verifiable action that they take to reduce their carbon emissions.

In the spirit of the back-to-school season, this week we highlight a few products to help keep you organized and productive as you resume your routine.

With a national obesity epidemic and failing economy, now is the time to go healthier and cheaper by bringing your own lunch to school or work. Avoid brown bag blues by upgrading to containers with better design and more style. The following are a few lunch boxes and accessories to help keep your food and drink hot, cold, protected, separated and fresh.

Plastica Bento Box

There's an interesting discussion on Slashdot today about how to store digital images underground in a format still readable 25 years later. There are some interesting suggestions.One person proposes avoiding problems with changing memory formats by putting a whole computer into the time capsule. Only a power supply would be needed to view them in the future.

University of St Andrews researchers have developed a method of creating self-assembling nanostructures just one molecule thick -- no sophisticated equipment or special environment (such as a high vacuum) required -- as an alternative to conventional lithography, which is imprecise on a scale of a few nanometers.

(Manfred Buck)

The solution-based chemistry method assembles molecules into tiny dimples, themselves created when molecules self-assemble into a honeycomb-shaped network on a gold surface. (Source: http://www.physorg.com/news139066118.html)

Humans will soon have the ability to modify and greatly enhance muscle fiber strength, enabling speeds of 45 miles per hour and five-seconds times for 100 meters, says Professor Peter Weyand, Southern Methodist University (Texas), known for his expertise in terrestrial locomotion and human and animal performance.

DARPA is also spending 3 billion to enhance strength and endurance. (Source: http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/08/gene-therapy-for-ultimate-human-running.html)

Expansive dreams about renewable energy from wind power and other sources are bumping up against the reality of a power grid that cannot handle the new demands.

An Energy Department plan to source 20 percent of the nation's electricity from wind calls for a high-voltage backbone spanning the country, but it would cost $60 billion or more and would be contrained by multistate regulatory restrictions. (Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/27/business/27grid.html?ref=science)

an 8 minute "lively" infographic movie about the progress & problems of globalisation. enjoy the people-based bar & line graphs, & top-view world maps.

[links: youtube.com (English) & youtube.com (German)]

see also 1 take shot trampoline video clip.

Biologists at Harvard have converted cells from a mouse's pancreas into the insulin-producing cells that are destroyed in diabetes, using master proteins called transcription factors that control which sets of genes are active in a cell and thus what properties the cell will possess.

The research suggests that the natural barriers between the body's cell types may not be as immutable as supposed. This and other recent experiments raise the possibility that a patient's healthy cells might be transformed into the type lost to a disease far more simply and cheaply than in the cumbersome proposals involving stem cells.
(Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/28/science/28cell.html?ref=science)

University of Manchester scientists have developed a simple technique to add depth to textured surfaces displayed as backdrops in computer games and digital dome presentations.

They found they could reconstruct the depth of a surface simply by taking two photos of it -- one with a flash and one without -- and processing the resulting shading patterns to capture the surface's 3D texture.

(Source: http://technology.newscientist.com/channel/tech/dn14612-textured-graphics-can-be-captured-in-a-flash.html?feedId=online-news_rss20)

John Brigande of Oregon Health and Science University has developed an experimental gene therapy that generates hair cells that are damaged or missing in deaf animals.

His team injected mice embryos with a gene called Atoh1, apparently a hair- cell master switch that activates genes that turn developing cells into hair cells. The cells grew hair cells in precisely the right location in their cochleas, and the cells made connections to nerve fibers that travel to the brain, converting movements into electrical nerve pulses.

The work could speed the development of a treatment for hearing loss. (Source: http://www.newscientist.com/channel/health/dn14614-milestone-reached-in-search-for-deafness-cure.html?feedId=online-news_rss20)

Our brains can pick up subliminal signals in making decisions, University College London researchers have found. (Source: http://www.newscientist.com/channel/being-human/dn14615-why-you-should-go-with-your-gut-feeling.html?feedId=online-news_rss20)

Johns Hopkins University researchers have developed a tiny handlike gripper that can grasp tissue or cell samples and could make it easier for doctors to perform minimally invasive surgery, such as biopsies.

(Timothy Leong/JHU)

The device curls its "fingers" around an object when triggered chemically, and it can be moved around remotely with a magnet. (Source: http://www.technologyreview.com/Nanotech/21310/?a=f)

Researchers from multiple institution have identified a genetic link associated with dry macular degeneration, which they say may lead to treatments for the debilitating disease. (Source: http://www.technologyreview.com/Biotech/21309/?a=f)

Shai Agassi says his electric cars can save the world. People are listening.

There’s a lot to chew over in Wired’s profile of Shai Agassi, the entrepreneur engaged in an audacious experiment to electrify an entire nation’s transportation system, and in the process rewrite the automotive industry’s business model.

The nation in question is Israel, with Denmark and Hawaii possibly to follow. Agassi’s idea is that electric cars should be sold on a subscription model, like cell phones, with fees used to underwrite a network of intelligent electric outlets that ensure batteries are always topped up.

The world's leading certification system for sustainable architecture is set to undergo its most sweeping changes in 2009. The proposed revisions encourage designs that would reduce a building's impact on global climate change.

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, commonly known as LEED, has become the standard for green building design since the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), a nongovernmental organization, crafted the rating system eight years ago. Architecture that voluntarily improves energy efficiency, water conservation, and indoor air quality has surged in popularity in the past two years, especially in Europe and major U.S. cities.

In the spirit of the back-to-school season, this week we highlight a few products to help keep you organized and productive as you resume your routine.
It's no secret that LED technology is paving the way for a brighter, more energy efficient future for lighting. Within the past several years, designs for LED lamps have come a long way and prices (for the most part) have come down significantly. Below is our selection of the best task lamps currently on the market, each of which will make office overtime a little easier on the eyes.

Balmuda Highwire

According to a 200-year-old family legend, Bettye Kearse - an African American - is the direct descendant of James Madison.  Madison, of course, was a founding father and fourth President of the United States.  As the story goes, he fathered a child name Jim with a slave cook named Coreen.  For the past 4 years she and genetic genealogist Bruce Jackson of the Roots Project have tried to use DNA to prove or disprove a story passed through 5 generations of the family.

Email addresses that begin with letters towards the end of the alphabet receive less spam than those starting with letters towards the end, says Richard Clayton at the University of Cambridge.He looked at more than half a billion emails that arrived at one UK ISP over an eight-week period. After ignoring addresses that appear to be out of use, he showed that for those beginning with A 30% of messages are spam. Someone with an address starting with Z gets a smaller proportion - 20%.The exact reason for the difference is unclear. Clayton thinks it is down to spammers attempting to guess addresses.

Sony has a great new ad campaign for their digital audio players, created by Saatchi & Saatchi Sydney, helmed by art director Eron Broughton. The agency took Sony's earphones and literally mapped out the subway systems of London, New York and Sydney, mimicking a traditional subway map. It's a simple idea but powerful in its execution, giving Sony a much-need dose of coolness. Now all Sony needs to do is apply that principle to its actual products.

Ubiquity, an experimental extension to Mozilla Firefox, lets people substitute simple text commands for complex Web tasks such as putting links to maps in e-mail messages.

The commands that users type in Ubiquity, such as "map" and "e-mail," find resources on the Web and can gather information from those sources in one place. (Source: http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/150343/mozilla_extension_would_tap_into_typed_commands.html)

Lee Dorsey has a stable of hits unlike most other New Orleans artist. He's solid gold.

From a partnership with Allen Toussaint, who seems to be an architect of half of the music that came out of city in 1960s, Dorsey enjoyed many many hits, often with the Meters as his backing band.

Before his career took off as a singer he was a light heavyweight boxer in Portland (after the war) and he also ran a car body repair shop in New Orleans. Hmmm useful information overload.

Lee Dorsey - My Old Car
Brought to you by Jukebox Joints

US Americans do, according to Christoph Bartneck at the Technical University of Munich. He thinks that crossing the uncanny valley - overcoming the revulsion we feel towards robots that are almost, but not quite, human-like - is something that a society does together.Bartneck showed Japanese and US citizens a number of photos and asked them to rate them for likeability. Some of those showed the faces of real humans, some showed human-like androids, and some were simply photos of robot pets.

This week Cool Hunting brings you a feature per day to focus on the back to school season. Each day we will highlight a different aspect of getting back to work to uncover some products that could help to keep keep you organized and productive.

Everyone needs a good bag to tote their belongings. In fact, we're a bit obsessive of which bags we use here at the office so we only saw it fitting to kick off the back to school season with our selection of bags to transport all those books, clothes, pens, pencils, laptop and whatever else you carry around with you.

Patagonia Lightwire 25

Believe. DVDs coated with a layer of genetically-altered microbe proteins could one day hold terabytes of information, says a US-based researcher, reporting his findings at the International Conference on Nanoscience and Nanotechnology in Brisbane recently.

Venkatesan Renugopalakrishnan, a professor of Biomedical Engineering at Florida International University and an internationally recognized expert in protein structural biology and engineering has invented a next-generation means of storage technology that dwarfs current technology.

Renu (as the professor is known) and his team at BioFold Inc., a California-based firm that he founded in 1999, in collaboration with FIU and other corporate labs, are designing a single-layer DVD that can store up to 198 gigabytes of data – more than 20 times the capacity of a dual-layer DVD-9. The technology will be able to store even up to 50,000 gigabytes (about 50 terabytes), he says.

an interesting news article about the distribution of world records in sporting events & the recent 200m sprint at the Olympic Games in particular. the story links to several interactive graphs that highlight the lack of a normal distribution, as outliers are more prevalent due to the extreme tails of highly selected samples, where usual statistical patterns rarely hold.

In conjunction with Creative Time, Playing the Building is a project by David Byrne in which he turns a 9,000 sq. ft abandoned room in the Battery Maritime Building into an instrument. Through the use of an antique pump organ, controlled devices create sounds with only what is afforded by the building's infrastructure, including heating pipes, metal beams and pillars.

Trying to romance your lady? Forget about roses and wine. She already knows you’re a geek so use some gadgets while you romance her.

It’s a tough call as to whether or not she will find these wine shaped usb speakers romantic or not. Who knows how a woman thinks. But just imagine a candle light dinner with this pair of wine glass speakers on the table and some soft music. They feature 2.1 channel subwoofers and who knows you might get lucky. Just be careful that you don’t pour wine in them. $21.99.

SourcingMap via Slipperybrick

several design for a bathroom based on pixel drawings made out of classic 4 by 4 inch colored tiles. the one based on a subway map seems quite infosthetic.

[link: blogs.nytimes.com|thnkx Remy]

By Ezra Natalia

By using the mass production techniques of industrial chemistry on a much smaller scale Sarah McLellan and Kristina Ortega are able to create one of a kind pieces of jewelry for their new line named Mctega. Inspired by their pre-med educations and organic chemistry more specifically, the duo use materials known for their ubiquity to handcraft necklaces that are both creative and surreal. From animals gilded in gold, to chunks of crystal and amorphous glass-like plates with colourful hexagons, prices range from $92 to $325.

We recently caught up with the duo to ask them a few questions about their line and how they got started.

What are you listening to right now?
We are watching the Olympics! That is all we have been doing for the past week and a half. No music... Were obsessed!

I’ve been into skateboarding for about a decade and mustaches, well...not quite as long. The latest project by artist Lawrence Melilli makes a great combo of the two.

Although you might have seen this around a bit, we love Melilli's current series of hand painted skateboards which all feature a distinct and classic ‘stache. Available as a one-off, each mustache is retired once it's been painted. They make for a humorous decorative piece but shaped from Canadian Maple wood the deck offers a pretty good ride too.

Finalizing our coverage of Nike Sportswear's launch activities we bring you a walk-thru of their new store in NYC, 21 Mercer. Richard Clarke, Global Creative Director for Nike Sportswear, talks to us about the brand as expressed thru this space, the product collection and the their ongoing artist collaborations.

Heat haze usually blocks your view of distant objects. But a new kind of binoculars use it to see further than possible through clear air.The Super-Resolution Vision System (SRVS) is funded by the US military research agency DARPA. It exploits the fact that the distortions of heat haze can fleetingly act like a lens, magnifying a clear view of objects behind it.The SRVS binoculars automatically collects those "lucky regions" when trained on shimmering air. They can then be digitally stitched together into a single continuous view with more detail than possible without heat haze.