(Source: tuaw, via emergentfutures)

Kickstarter is funding an era of product development uncompromised by focus groups and committees.

(Source: laughingsquid, via david)

gregmelander:

Malcolm Gladwell reviews Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs. It suggests that Jobs was much more of a tweaker than an originator. He suggests that Jobs’ genius was making something better, not necessarily new.

“The visionary starts with a clean sheet of paper, and re-imagines the world. The tweaker inherits things as they are, and has to push and pull them toward some more nearly perfect solution. That is not a lesser task.”

“The StreetScooter is a $7,000 EV with a 74 mph top speed and an 80-mile range. It relies on leased batteries and uses a heat pump for heating and air conditioning, and shipping company DHL has already ordered 3,500 of them — but the most interesting thing about the vehicle is how it came to be.”

A great story about collaboration at it’s best, from Wired: 50 Companies Team to Create Open Source EV

There’s a new book out about the development NYC’s incredible High Line Park, a project borne out of a community board meeting, driven by two men who didn’t have any experience in parks and recreation. 

from Cool Hunting: “The road to creating one of New York’s most beloved parks was not unlike the unruly terrain that Friends of the High Line co-founders Joshua David and Robert Hammond were determined to transform. Stretching from the Meatpacking District to West 34th Street, the mile-and-a-half-long elevated park represents the extraordinary rescue of an abandoned, overgrown eyesore by two inexperienced but dedicated individuals, and the rally of strong community involvement. “

futuramb:

Car Warns When Your Blood Sugar Is Low - Technology Review

Your car may soon be able to warn you if your blood sugar dips, alert you to high pollen counts, and remind you to take your medication. Ford demonstrated the new in-car technology—currently a research project—this week at the Wireless Health 2011 conference in La Jolla, California.

Many car manufacturers are now focusing on connecting their cars to everything. The question is if the car isn’t the wrong thing to connect everything to. At Volvo Cars 10+ years ago we were pretty convinced that personal mobile devices would take that niche so the car would provide the most value if it - if needed - became a seamless supporting infrastructure for all the personal devices. I still think we were right…

emergentfutures:

The Future Of Medical Technology Is Apps, Games, and Movies

An Oscar-winning producer talks about his interest in moviemaking, medicine, and scaleable (storytelling) design.

Including:

“Need to do some rehab after recovering from an injury? Hook up your Microsoft Kinect (with its ability to see every movement) and play an emerald mining game that makes the chore of rehab exercises a game. Not only is the patient experience improved, but there will be more physical therapists to go around, energy savings, and vast cost savings. Need to improve your lung function? I’ve seen an iPhone app that can hear how hard you blow a whistle and has the potential to be both musical and entertaining.”

Paul Higgins: I can see the gamification of medicine and rehab being big business and bringing huge benefits to lots of people

Full Story: Fast Company

Solar Ivy combines photovoltaic technology, piezoelectrics, and design thinking to challenge the glum banality of large black solar panels. Instead, it “draws inspiration from ivy that grows on a building”, offering a modular architecture that allows for full customization of color, spacing, photovoltaic type, and orientation. 

The product’s flexibility and modularity allows it to go almost anywhere (like where traditional solar devices can’t go) and achieve the maximum potential of a solar panel. In general, solar energy isn’t just good for the environment- it leads to substantial savings by avoiding the use of AC and HVAC units. 

If that isn’t enough, Solar Ivy utilizes “recycled and reclaimed materials and life–cycle analysis to ensure that the system and its component parts can be recycled and reclaimed”.

via designer Carl MH Barenbrug:

“The Libreria ABC Bookcase by designers Eva Alessandrini and Roberto Saporiti made me smile. It’s a fun and functional bookcase made up of modular storage cubes, which have been produced as letters and numbers, allowing one to manually organise and assemble the entire bookshelf to form words, sentences or perhaps something a little more abstract.”

The bookcase has a creative design, but what I love is its modular architecture. It challenges the owner to play with the furniture to come up with innovative ways of presenting their books and personality.

It reminds me of how businesses that seek to replicate a similar type of modular architecture within their organizations (as opposed to an interdependent architecture) seem to create the right kind of environment that sparks experimentation and innovation.