David Lidsky's Blog, page 3424
October 22, 2013
Volkswagen's New Campaign Likens Car Models to Dog Breeds
Forget long road trips with kids squabbling in the back seat. Only one car companion is reliably loving, appreciative, and adorable: your dog. The latest ad from Volkswagen makes this universal truth abundantly clear.
[image error]Image via the Volkswagen SiteCreated by London–based agency adam&eveDDB, Volkswagen's new clip, Woofwagen is a direct appeal to trip–happy dog–owners. The ad shows curious canines with their heads stuck out the windows of VWs and their tongues lolling in the wind. It's part of a new campaign that lets you search for car models by dog breeds. Whether you are hauling a large family or speeding toward a midlife crisis, the Woofwagen site, will help you choose the dog (i.e car) that suits your lifestyle.
To read more about the art of filming our four–legged friends in automobiles, check out the Dogs in Cars series.
Engineering The Perfect Big–Data Bra
There's nothing sexy about big data. Then again, for anyone who has ever spent time in a lingerie dressing room, there's nothing sexy about bra shopping. That very experience of letting a stranger feel you up before spending hours half–naked trying on cup sizes that don't generally translate to your body is what inspired Michelle Lam, cofounder of True&Co., to reinvent the bra."I looked at this bra and said 'I wonder when the last time someone took a fresh look at the bra, and reinvented it,'" she says.
Brassieres, however, are complicated garments to manufacture. "It's not like T–shirts," Lam discovered after researching the field with cofounder Dan Dolgin, a boob–garment sales veteran who spent 17 years at Vanity Fair. "The more data you have, the smarter decisions you can make," she added. Unfortunately, Lam had no data.
[image error]Creative director Nikki Dekker and Michelle LamIn 2012, Lam and Dolgin founded True&Co., a shopping startup that uses algorithms to improve the bra–buying experience. Bra shoppers head to the site, where they first take a fit quiz to determine everything from shoulder–strap slippage to breast shape. (Are you shallow or full?) The site then suggests styles and sizes based on those answers. Up until now, shoppers would choose from popular brands like Calvin Klein and Natori. Then a box full of those selections shows up in the mail for the customer to try on and buy or send back, an experience much like that of eyeglass startup Warby Parker.
How To Create A Culture Of Giving Back At Any Company
How do you create a company with a culture of giving back? Denise Restauri, founder and CEO of GirlQuake, says it comes "when they align themselves with an effort that is true to their values and that they're passionate about and has a return on investment for them––it doesn't have to be a monetary return on investment, but it's true to what they're doing." Restauri and others social entrepreneurs discuss how you can instill a culture of giving in a company and in the world.
The video––filmed at the 2013 Social Innovation Summit at the UN by PWC––features prominent social entrepreneurs from around the world discussing the best ways to change corporate culture for the better. One of the first ways is not making it mandatory, but giving people the opportunity to do things from the heart: "If you ask people in a prescriptive manner, it's very difficult for them to want to do it," says Jack Sim, founder of the World Toilet Organization. "Giving is something that comes from inside you. Giving is a source of happiness."
The real changes, though, start at the top: "The most important thing for any cooperate culture is the CEO. Many times I've seen CEOs talk about philanthropy, talk about giving back, but it's not coming from their heart––and people can see through that." Alan Hassenfeld, Chairman of the executive committee at Hasbro.
Apple Adds Retina Screen To The iPad Mini, And That's Big
As we'd expected, although some commentators and analysts (what do they know?) questioned it, Apple just revealed its new iPad Mini with a retina screen. It's totally upgraded compared to last year, and just might be more important than the new iPad Air.
The new iPad Mini is externally the same as the old one. It's the same size, has the same ports, but it is a little heavier. That weight may have to do with the larger battery needed to power the Mini's newest feature: A 2048–by–1536–pixel screen, at a retina–beating resolution of 326 pixels per inch.
[image error]iPad Mini with Retina DisplayThe bigger battery is also needed to power the A7 chip inside, which is the same class as the A7 chip inside the new iPhone 5S and iPad Air (though, because Apple doesn't talk specs any more, we don't know if its clocked at a lower speed or has other performance changes). There's also the new M7 motion chip inside, which means the iPad Mini may be useful as a fitness–tracking device.
Microsoft Wants Its Own Version Of Google Glass
Not content to be left behind to eat Google Glass's digital dust, Microsoft is reportedly testing prototypes of its own Internet–connected eyewear. But will customers be interested in wearing them?
Microsoft is far from the only tech company exploring the burgeoning market for wearable devices, which includes products like Google Glass, the Samsung Galaxy Gear smartwatch, and the heavily rumored Apple iWatch, as well as various fitness and lifestyle–habits trackers like the Nike FuelBand and the Jawbone Up. But none of these devices, as well as countless others, has yet attracted serious consumer demand.
However, that's not likely to stop any one of these companies from attempting to design the breakout mainstream hit in the wearables category, Microsoft among them. And Redmond isn't limiting itself to eyewear: Its Nokia devices division has also filed some smartwatch patents.
A Scratch–N–Sniff Book For Budding Wine Snobs
There's a secret language spoken in the often self–serious world of wine tasting: Words like awkward, clone, note, legs, bouquet, and thief suddenly don't mean what they normally mean. For amateur imbibers, sommelier jargon and that weird front–of–teeth slurping and spitting thing can seem like a joke we're not in on. But the snobbery that often surrounds the wine illuminati is completely absent in The Essential Scratch–and–Sniff Guide to Becoming a Wine Expert, a new book written by Richard Betts, one of fewer than 200 master sommeliers in the world. As the wine–world equivalent of a Knight or a Jedi, Betts believes that "wine is a grocery, not a luxury."
It's a 22–page board book, beautifully illustrated by San Francisco–based Wendy MacNaughton and designed by Crystal English Sacca. Why should the wonders of scratching–and–sniffing be reserved only for children? Scents of bacon, flowers, butter, grass, and even cat pee are translated onto paper to help readers identify the aromatic components of their beverages. "Once you realize there are cat pee scents in white wine, you'll never be able to drink a lot of white wine again," MacNaughton tells Co.Design. "All you'll smell is cat pee." Worry not: there's no actual cat pee in wine, or so they claim. It's just a compound called p–mentha–8–thiol–3–1 that happens to smell exactly like feline urine––and Sauvingnon blanc afficionados consider it a positive trait.
MacNaughton credited a huge print run right off the bat to the fact that there's no eBook form of this scratch–and–sniff guide, given that we've yet to figure out how to scent our screens. (Sadly, GoogleNose turned out to be an April Fools' gag.) "You have to actually hold it in your hands," MacNaughton says. "It only works as an object."
October 21, 2013
A Modern Update Of The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid
In the pantheon of architectural forms, few carry the sense of timelessness and grandeur of the pyramid, forever associated with the great ones of Egypt. But the most colossal structures of antiquity were also essentially useless monuments: massive tombs to long–dead forgotten rulers who cruelly wielded a slave labor force to realize their own ends.
One wouldn't necessarily think of the geometry, then, as ideal for, say, a private house. After all, 95% of the ancient pyramids were solid mass, with thin slivers of space relegated for funerary use. Not exactly the kind of cozy place you'd want to see your kids grow and play. Mexican architect Juan Carlos Ramon, however, has worked some magic in updating the pyramid for contemporary single–family use. Where slabs of limestone once blocked out the sun, large panes of glass now flood the interiors.
[image error]The project, which Ramon conceived as a submission to an architectural competition, makes a spatial game of fitting livable domestic spaces into a severe and traditionally unaccommodating form. In his scheme, the pyramid is hollow, with interlocking interior spaces. The house is split into quadrants, so that each of its four sections accommodates a different function. The bottom floor, for instance, features the home's largest spaces, including a garage, terrace, kitchen and dining rooms, and curiously, a recording studio. As you move up toward the point, the floor plates narrow and interiors become simplified. The apex of the home is a small pyramid of a library.
Government Responds To Criticism Of Healthcare.gov Website With Mea Culpa
A devastating critique of the construction and subsequent testing of the Healthcare.gov website––the gloomy portal through which all U.S. citizens who may be eligible for Obamacare must pass––has garnered an official response. On the Digital Strategy blog belonging to the Health & Human Services Department was posted a mea culpa of sorts.
Describing the experience as "frustrating for many Americans," the blogpost detailed some of the issues that had beset the site (while bigging up its achievements at the same time––which makes for a somewhat confusing read). "We are committed to doing better," it said, before listing some of the measures it was taking to rectify the problems. These include: nightly maintenance; greater capacity; software fixes; hiring of new talent; and test processes.
One wonders whether it might be easier to start from scratch with another team and build anew.
Your Future Energy Drink Will Blow Your Hair Back With Stronger Caffeine That Lasts Longer
The rise of questionably safe ultra–caffeinated food products has triggered the FDA in recent months to examine whether it really makes sense to stick the stimulant in "non–traditional" products like energy drinks and gum.
ChromaDex, a company that makes and licenses intellectual property for nature–identical ingredients (that is, natural ingredients which are produced synthetically), is on a mission to make sure that caffeine addicts still get their fix, even if the FDA decides to launch a dramatic crackdown.
It delivers 30% more caffeine into the blood, and is absorbed by the body at a 30% slower rate.The company recently announced human clinical trial results for Purenergy, a caffeine–related ingredient that the company says delivers 30% more caffeine into the blood than traditional caffeine, is absorbed by the body at a 30% slower rate than regular caffeine (so it lasts longer), and cuts the half–life of caffeine by one quarter. Purenergy could, in other words, offer the same energy boost as traditional caffeine in significantly lower quantities, circumventing any future FDA caffeine limits for products.
How Everyday Ergonomics Shape Your Behavior
One of Darwin's greatest insights came at the end of his 1872 work, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. "The free expression by outward signs of an emotion intensifies it," he wrote. Darwin simply meant that emotion and expression cut both ways: you can thrust out your chest because you feel proud, or you can feel proud because you thrust out your chest.
Modern science has confirmed the wisdom of this perception time and again. People feel happier when their facial muscles are positioned into a smile. And they feel sadder when they're made to hunch over. And, sure enough, they feel a surge of power when their chests and arms are expanded – so much so that their testosterone levels increase. The expression of power indeed intensifies the emotion, all the way down to its physiological roots.
[image error]Our posture is being shaped by the environment, and that could make us feel powerful.Recently, M.I.T. management scholar Andy J. Yap, one of the collaborators on the power pose study, wondered what might happen to emotions if the environment put people in a powerful posture by accident. After all, some of us take the wheel of enormous SUVs, or sit down to work at large corner desks. Perhaps the casual ergonomics of our lives have an unintended influence on our thoughts and behavior.
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