Graffonic

Graffonic looks to become the future of Graffiti (well, not really, but in some people's eyes it might). The, reactive work of art, system uses a surface that detects the path of lasers that are shone upon it. It's the work of 3kta, who designed this system making the installation a space open to participation, leaving the last decisions up to the current user.
(tk)

Gone Running

Nike Women is running a cool campaign on their website. With the motto of "Someone who is busier than you is running right now." they are trying to get people out and stop making excuses. On the site, their interactive little clock will provide you with funny reasons to leave behind for others, while you are out running.
The site also let's you input your ZIP code so you can tell what the weather is like outside, where you live and could potentially go running. Very clever . . . Oh, and of course one can buy all the little necessities to go running right there on the site.
(tk)

Social Norms

Copenhagen's SAS lounge features a fantastic new addition - the mobile phone booth!
It let's everyone keep a bit of their privacy without making people around them involuntarily invade it. It's a nice idea for an airport, but would, of course, defeat the purpose of a mobile phone pretty much anywhere else. However, for public places where that forces people to be concentrated within the same small space over longer periods of time, this is a fantastic solution and will hopefully be implemented in airports worldwide.
(tk)

Vatican Air

It already has its own postal service, its own bank and even its own Internet domain. On Monday the Vatican inaugurated its latest venture: a low-cost charter airline to ferry thousands of Catholic pilgrims from Italy to popular religious sites around the world.
Very nice, if you ever needed to fly in the name of God, otherwise just a few more planes in the air.
Not sure how positively this reflects on the church's efforts to help in building environmental responsibility or consciousness, but certainly something to mention at a Happy Hour.
(tk)

Sneaker Cleaner

FINALLY! A sneaker cleaner. A cleaner, for sneakers, called: Sneaker Cleaner.
Nysse! With a wave of a hog-hair bristle brush coated in their specially formulated magic potion, Jason Markk P.S.S. rids your kicks of the grass stains and gook soils even your mom can't eradicate. The solution consists of natural soaps derived from coconut and jojoba oils, a 98% natural product that is also said to be biodegradable.
Supposedly, it works purdy gud, check out a gallery on who's using it here.
(tk)

Mobile Phone Throwing World Championships

Finland is known as the home country of the mobile phones and Finns have always been
very fashion-conscious about the phones. Many Europeans wonder why the Finns buy
brand new phones when the old one is still working. For the interpreters and translators
who work globally the mobile phone is a common tool when working and a part of
accessory in the freetime.
Others like to basically have a world championship in throwing the old phones away, and it also happens to be hosted in Finland - check it out here.
Unfortunately, the 2007 competition just finished, but here are some rules to help before registering for 2008.
(tk)

Ovi

Way back when, before we had things like iTunes, Nokia created a Web portal to let owners of its phones download snippets of music known as ringtones. Turned out to be a pretty brilliant idea, but Nokia spend more time with unhappy operators than anything.
Well, now they are back with Ovi (Finnish for "the door")! Ovi is a gateway to music, photos, maps, and other content will be available starting later this year. It will initially start in Europe (very cool, because Vodafone just expanded their mobile broadband bandwidth!) and Asia, and will hit the US hopefully later this year.
According to Business Week, this time around, mobile operators may be willing to join in. The scheme includes an online music store rivaling Apple's iTunes, aimed primarily, but not exclusively, at the 200 million music-capable Nokia mobile phones already on the market. It also features an interactive multiplayer game service accessible to the 40 million Nokia Nseries phones now in use. And early next year, Nokia will add a service that lets consumers swap personal photos, videos, and audio. Awesome, especially when thinking about how 38 out of 100 phones on this planet are Nokias.
(tk)

Headhoods

Headhoods might as well have been invented way back when, but I guess even if it had it didn't do much in the "before" time. Now, however, they do and one can catch them running around on the street, or just by going here. It's all American Apparel stuff, too. Nysse!
(tk)

Post It!

check out this brilliant stop motion video done by a few street artists in England. It supposedly took 1 million Post-it's, 96 314 digital photographs using 2.5 terabytes of storage, 4.9 kilometers of 35mm film, 3 weeks of editing, and 83 hours in Flame to produce this 60 second commercial.

Adidas Promo Bus

For gigantor brands like Adidas, buying an old Volkswagen presents a unique sales opportunity. The label’s new skateboard clothing range will be marketed via this old jalopy that has been customized with prints inspired by skating legend Mark Gonzales. The ‘Kombi’ will cruise the streets of Sao Paulo with its custom interior throughout August, before it goes on tour to promote the new line. (al)

"do work"

Some us us are more familiar with the phrase "do work" than others. In order to help everyone understand it's diverse occasions of use, we have found a brief video from MTV's Rob & Big, which explains in as much detail as possible the endless different meanings of what it is when you "do work". (tk)

Sky is(n't) the limit

Google just launched two new fantastic features: Sky and Embeddable Maps.

Sky lets you explore the heavens from within Google Earth. You get a 3D view of all the constellations viewable from earth, and you can explore them in 3D. 100 million stars and 200 million galaxies are included. Amazingly, the imagery is stitched together from more than 1 million images, with contributions from the Hubble Space Telescope.

Google Maps has a new embed feature that provides an easy way for anyone to include an active map on their site.

Embedded maps can be customized in terms of size and can also include driving directions, search results, or a user generated map. Below is where we are.

(tk)

View Larger Map

Interactive Digital Signage

Interactive digital signage is a quick-intro solution for retail locations to influence shoppers with full motion video, entertainment and interactive product demonstrations.



(al)

The best price since $0.99 was put at the end of everything.

The Terra Bite Lounge in Kirkland, WA has developed a unique pricing system for their items. You pay what you want to. They encourage people to pay what they would normally pay at any other cafe and cheerfully serve those who cannot pay, in a non-stigmatizing customer setting, with no political or religious message..." The cafe makes about $3 each transaction and hopes to open other locations in places that really need it. Terra Bite was founded by Ervin Peretz and opened by Susan Allsup. If you're ever in the area stop by and check it out! (bp)

Better, stronger, faster.

Ever want to see what it would be like to be bionic? Now you can finally find out if you qualify for robotic implants! It's pretty hard, for people that are not robots that is, and at 86% I'm told you unlock some videos. Looks like some viral marketing from the upcoming NBC Bionic Woman series (yes, based on the 1976 starring Lindsay Wagner...NBC dropped the "The" for the new title. Clever.) debuting on September 26, 2007. Now if they would only remake the Fall Guy. (bp)

jealous computers

In an effort to promote their new N95 model, Nokia created this site: Jealous Computers.
Nokia calls it a "global warning" and has pictures and other footage on the site showing the effects and injuries of N95 owners encountering a jealous computer. Reason being is that the N95 is supposed to be a computer in pocket form. It is, indeed, a brilliant device with a 5MP camera, GPS, Wifi etc.
It is actually a pretty nice campaign and will hopefully make people more aware of what they can demand out of their cell phones (if they'd only add a data plan . . .).
Below is a video explaining how to deal with "jealous computers" at the workplace.
(tk)

Spiderman 2

here is the second video that Cool Hunting published on Emil Fiore and his unique hobby.
Enjoy! (tk)