MoMA Hosts Creative Lock-In to Save New York's
Waterfronts

The museum is sponsoring a workshop aiming for new solutions for sheltering the city's threatened waterfront.

New York's Museum of Modern Art is lending a hand, hoping to solve some of the city's environmental headaches.

Starting on November 16th, they're gathering a select group of architects, engineers, and landscape designers, and then more or less locking them in a room for eight weeks. The assignment: Figure out how to save New York's waterfronts, which are sorely threatened by rising water levels caused by global warming.

The results of that caffeine fueled idea-jam will then be exhibited in a show called Rising Currents: Projects for New York?s Waterfront, running through January 8th, 2010.

According to the press release, here's the participants:

Matthew Baird of Matthew Baird Architects andhis team will focus on the Southwest Palisade Bay/Kill van Kull area,which includes Bayonne, N.J., Bayonne Piers, and northern Staten Islandand waters.

Eric Bunge and Mimi Hoang of nARCHITECTS and their team areassigned the South Palisade Bay/Verrazano Narrows area, includingeastern Staten Island, and Bay Ridge and Sunset Park in Brooklyn, andwaters.

Kate Orff of SCAPE Studio, and her team, will concentrate onthe Northeast Palisade Bay/Buttermilk Channel and Gowanus Canal area,including Governors Island, the Red Hook area in Brooklyn, and waters.

All of them will be taking up temporary residence at MoMA's sister gallery, P.S.1, in Queens.

The project is definitely exploratory--no one's got a building budget, much less city approvals--but it's based on actual problems. Recent reports by the New York City Panel on Climate Change and Guy Nordenson, a structural engineer at Princeton have both argued that higher temperatures and rising sea levels will necessitate some sort of "soft" infrastructures, which can adapt to changing conditions.

It's also important for MoMA. Critics have often accused MoMA of being an ivory tower, focused on the 20th century rather than the 21st. This exhibit is an attempt to place MoMA front and center of ongoing debates. And Rising Currents will be the first in an ongoing contemporary architecture series, dedicated to public-interest issues, rather than architectural theorizing.

[Via Art Daily]

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If Your 9-Year-Old Doesn't Have a Cell Phone,
He's Not Socializing Enough

One in five kids have their own cell phone by the time they are 8 yearsold, according to Nielsen's latest survey, "A Pocket Guide to SocialMedia and Kids." And guess what? The kids love using their phones tosocialize.

Among the 10-year-olds surveyed, 50% have their own cellphone, and that jumps to over three-quarters by the time they are 12. The average age that kids get their own cellphone has also pushed downwards--it was 9.7 years in 2009, and 10.1 years in the second quarter of 2008, but there's obviously a yearning to own them much before this age as the average age of borrowing one is now 8 years old--but I think Nielsen should re-check those numbers, because my toddler wants to borrow my iPhone all the time.

To a generation of parents who were raised on brick phones, these figures may seem surprising. They really shouldn't be though--the mobile phone is such a fantastically useful tool that it is bound to be used by everyone, no matter what their age. In fact, you can argue it's changing how our society works.

But what on earth are kids using these devices for? The answers to that are actually slightly more predictable. The average 13-17 year old, for example, sends over 2,000 SMS messages per month, and for anyone who's either got a child or has watched how they interact with cellphones and friends, this is absolutely no surprise at all. The same goes for how they use the mobile internet:

While you're busy checking the weather and your tanking stock portfolio, your kids are looking for the latest movies and music releases, playing games, and using social networks. The cellphone, in other words, is way more of a communications and entertainment hub for younger people than older people. Which makes sense--kids spend more time socializing, even when all they have is a rotary dial phone with a curly cord.

Parents are wary of the new technology, of course, and particularly afraid of how much their kids cellphone habits may end up costing them. Nearly 60% of parents of cellphone-owing kids have forbidden downloads of games, ringtones videos and so on--the extra items that often incur a charge. And parents, it's only going to get worse. The children in this survey are most likely owners of dumphones, the cheapest handsets on the market. But the trend in cellphone design is clearly toward smartphones, which will inevitably mean that kids end up using them too. And the greater capability of these phones means that they'll be even more central to kid's lives than phones already are. But don't panic about the inevitable, just accept it.

[Nielsen via LiesDamnedLiesStatistics]

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Weezer Snuggie: Greatest Rock 'N' Roll Marketing
Since the ELO Hockey Puck

Let's face it, your Magic the Gathering "wooby" is full of holes and smell's like last year's Cool Ranch Doritos. Time to bundle up with your laptop, a sweet Bluetooth headset, some good internationally scattered first-person shooter "friends," and, of course, the Weezer Snuggie.

Part innovation, part branding--and mostly way of diverting attention from the band's lackluster seventh studio album, "Raditude"--this branded blanket with arms is in no way more useful than the plain old Snuggie. And, frankly, it's not nearly as groundbreaking as the Bruce Springsteen "Born to Run" key ring with miniature pewter sneakers. But it's a fun take on rock 'n' roll marketing, nonetheless and a toasty answer to the ironic T-shirt. For $30, the blue Weezer Snuggie--$50 for the "Snuggie Safari--comes with a copy of "Raditude." This thing is sure to go viral on SnugSpace.

Look for the pieces on ratty band rehearsal space couches in Silver Lake, Williamsburg, the Lower East Side, Portland, and Seattle soon.

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Rite Aid's "Free" $500 Health Screening

Pharmacy chain Rite Aid is testing a new customer rewards program called Wellness+ in four markets and promises to roll it out nationwide soon, according to its web site. The card offers standard benefits?it's free to sign up, customers earn points and get percentaes off of Rite Aid brand products, coupons flow freely in the mail and so on. But one of the new so-called "benefits" is earning points toward free health screenings. When a cardholder racks up 500 points?or spends $500 on non-prescription products, since one point is worth one dollar?he will receive a certificate that can be used for free health screenings, such as glucose and cholesterol readings. The program also give 25 points per prescription filled, but doesn't include prescriptions paid for in whole or in part by state or federalhealthcare programs, like Medicare or Medicaid. But isn't it safe to assume that people spending $500 at the pharmacy or filling 20 prescritions are already screened? Who exactly is this "benefit" supposed to benefiting?With the American health care system in a state of disarray and pharmacies like Walgreens stepping up to fill the affordable health care void with inexpensive health care screenings and advice, what is Rite Aid getting at? It seems that first-step screenings that are so important to customer health should come more often than when $500 is spent on toilet paper and a Kit-Kat bar.The program has a few good points: the 10% off of Rite Aid brand products will help those who are struggling financially with the basics, and the program gives participants 24/7 access to a Rite Aid pharmacist through a 1-800 number. But rewarding more affluent customers who can afford to spend $500 on non-prescription items or are constantly fill prescriptions doesn't seem like the best way to promote public health. Real innovation here would be free screenings for poverty-line customers, or at least a move realistic point offering.

[via The Buffalo News]

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Research in Motion: Downgrade Is Too Late

We agree with Cramer that this is a stock that investors should more readily buy than sell. The Citi downgrade was piling on with the bad news and the resultant drop should be viewed as an opportunity.[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://blog.ockhamresearch.com/index.php/2009/11/research-in-motion-downgrade-is-
too-late/

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Interview with Certify

Expense Interview Series by Cary Strange: Interview #7 -CertifyTo continue our interview series, we have Heath MacArthur, Director of eCommerce at Certify. Certify is a leading self-service, online expense management solution for small to midsize companies. Organizations worldwide can create and submit expense reports quickly, easily and efficiently with a minimum of training due to our unique intuitive data entry options and easy to use interface.Certify features no software to buy or maintain, no servers to manage, and requires only an internet connection. Your Certify on-demand subscription will get you up and running instantly with our Certify Install Wizard.

Read The Full Article:
http://www.expensematters.com/?p=185

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A New Vibrator by Yves Behar Arouses Our Interest

Most people only need to look at design's reigning sex symbol Yves Béhar to get excited, but for those of you who need a bit more stimulation, you can now make Béhar a part of your most intimate moments by employing his Form 2 vibrator. The vaguely bunny-shaped Form 2 is a collaboration between Béhar's fuseproject and Ethan Imboden of Jimmyjane (known for its many candy-colored pleasure-delivering devices).

The Form 2 takes a two-pronged approach to the vibrator, giving its user what they're calling "Sensation in Stereo." The "ears" can be positioned independently like a Gumby action figure for maximum, um, range, and the entire thing is made from phthalate-free platinum silicone to be completely waterproof. There's even a cute iPod-esque docking station for charging and it can operate UP TO SEVEN HOURS on a single charge.

And here's another valuable bit of information for your morning: Apparently during the development process (seen above, with Béhar demonstrating the device's powerful ergonomic grip), Form 2 became known as "Little Perky," but, they say, "you can name yours whatever you like." Can we name ours Yves?

[Jimmyjane]

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US EQUITIES : VALUATIONS NOT SO CHEAP!

As David Rosenberg recently pointed out, the rally in the equity markets continues unabated despite the poor fundamental newsflow.

Just like the rally post the 1929 collapse, the 'V' shaped bounce in stock valuations could prove to be unsustainable. Afterall, factors like employment and real income growth are vital signals of a genuine turnaround in the economy, and we haven't seen any improvement on those fronts yet!

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/thebullishbear/~3/3rLsnvbdcfE/us-equities-valuatio
ns-not-so-cheap.html

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Dubai's Technosphere Is a Biological Bubble With
a Twist

In the face of a flailing economy and dwindling tourist dollars, Dubai presses on--this time with the Death Star-like Technosphere, a solar-powered biological bubble that will simulate the effects of climate change.

The massive sphere, which is currently under construction in Dubai's eight-square-mile Technopark, will also feature air-purifying gardens and experimental water recycling systems to test out the possibility of bringing an Earth-like atmosphere into space. But unlike the University of Arizona's Biosphere 2, the Technosphere isn't all about climate simulations. The shiny orb comes with office space, residential units, and hotel rooms. The latter is expected to bring in plenty of cash to keep the Technosphere running.

Despite Dubai's tendency to laugh in the face of energy conservation, the Technosphere isn't the only green building complex under construction in the city. Graft Lab's Vertical Village, a multi-use residential, hotel and entertainment complex, is expected to score a LEED Gold rating.

[Via VentureBeat]

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Looking at the Micro vs. the Macro in Design

The 1996 movie Microcosmos dealt with vantage point like no other: The world view of insects and other things creepy and crawly. This is what I thought of during the recent collapse of AIG's London office. The giant insurance company failed due to a small 300 employee division that traded a bizarre thing called Credit Default Swaps. They bet away the company?s future, and then some. And as a story in the New York Times revealed, the real secret is that no one in upper management really knew what that small team was up to.

Unlike the old MBA mantras, and as that AIG CEO learned, our world is not really controlled by high-flying executive visionaries who delegate tasks to the "London office," or whatever you want to call it. It's increasingly a world of Microcosmos-like vision: A world where highly-effective small groups of uniquely skilled professionals are having a critical impact on their company's future. We are living in a reality where a scientist's ability to switch a gene 'on' or 'off' is a billion-dollar business for a biotech giant. An atom carefully plugged into a crystal is the new super-fast chip. A world where a mathematician's algorithm can win or lose markets.

These microcosmos have changed design, too.

Not so long ago, products were made of dull plastics, painted in few colors. These parts were placed with large gaps in-between to allow for fast and easy assembly and manufacturing. That world is still out there and it's the world of old design. New design is not a 30,000-foot view of a system or hand-waving generalities...quite the contrary. It's the view of a zero-tolerance, sub-millimeter perfection. It's that perfection that makes Apple as great as it is today.

Such zoomed-in perception is an essential part of any effective design. If a decade ago half a millimeter (0.5mm) was considered a good fit between parts, today the number is 0.05mm. That's an order of magnitude improvement and a world apart between tier one players and the rest of the wannabes.

And those dull plastics of yesterday are now covered with a myriad of surface finish options. Today, any serious company must develop an in-house Color, Material and Finish department (known as CMF). This deals with the exterior 0.01mm of the product! Like a skin to a human body, this is not a mere surface finish, it's a design essence separating brands and distinguishing designs. Surfaces also interact with people. Surfaces carry all sorts of touch sensitivities and illuminations. Doing so requires layering of different materials one on top of the other and doing so with amazing accuracy and consistency. Designers are now dealing with microns rather than millimeters.

Designers are challenged today more by the micro than the macro views of systems. In other words, strategy is too obtuse to be left to people who have no concept of how important the microcosmos are when it comes to making things happen.

Read more of Gadi Amit's The New Deal blogBrowse blogs by other Expert Designers

Gadi Amit is the president of NewDealDesign LLC, a strategic designstudio in San Francisco. Founded in 2000, NDD has worked with suchclients as Better Place, Sling Media, Palm, Dell, Microsoft, andFujitsu, among others, and has won more than 70 design awards. Amit ispassionate about creating design that is both socially responsible andgenerates real world success.

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