Home Interaction

You may not be shocked to learn that a lot of rumored Apple news is bubbling up around on the Web–here’s our roundup of the most interesting bits.

Air-Inspired 15-Inch MacBook Pros

Apple is rumored to be taking the lessons it’s learned in its hot-selling new MacBook Air design into its bigger, more powerful laptops. According to MacRumors the thin 15-inch computer, destined to replace or supplement the MacBook Pro, is already in late testing stage at Apple, and the suspicion is that innovations like an SSD-only option, and no optical disk drive will be key features.

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These new works by Jory Brigham have an organic presence that is nevertheless entirely neo-retro. Like his past designs, he uses some of the same details and accents such as accordionlike folds and colorblocked colorways. Yet, he has introduced some other elements that give each piece a natural feel. For instance, the Hollister and Chumash butler cabinet boasts a wrinkled wooden panel that makes it look as though it were rippling in the wind. Not to mention the Comfortable Silence benches that have planters built right in.

By being aware of their impact on the planet, these new works by Jory Brigham dont just look inspired by naturethey were also made with nature in mind. By using materials like sustainable plywood, plantation Teak and FSC certified walnut, this furniture is very eco-friendly.

A company called ZionEyez wants to help you live-stream your entire life to Facebook, with its not-at-all-ridiculous webcam shades.

New technologies often suffer from one of two problems: either the idea is bad, or the product is mere vaporware. Every once in a while, though, there comes along a special gadget that’s both.

At first I thought that the glasses above, Eyez from ZionEyez, were one of those perfect storms of badness.

I’m not willing to back off my position on the terribleness of this idea. Not satisfied to leave obsessive self-casting in the contained realm of a site like justin.tv, ZionEyez wants to make you able to stream a constant video feed from your life to Facebook (a feat it would achieve through a combination of camera, Bluetooth, and proprietary app in development). It thinks that the barrier to constant broadcasting on Facebook isn’t propriety or restraint or a last vestigial sense of social boundaries, but rather arm strength.

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The Plyght Shelving unit is an illusory home decor fixture. Designer Joeri Reynaert created the shelf with the intention to make it look as if it were floating.

The curved nature of the Plyght Shelving design hides the attachments to the wall and makes it look seamless. The shelf also has upwards and downwards lighting to enhance the image of a free standing system.

For a homey yet contemporary look, the Plyght Shelving unit is definitely the way to go.

Implications – Everyday products that allow consumers to differentiate themselves from others are appealing to those who wish to stand out in the crowd. Creating more unconventional designs could help a company trying to increase its value on the market.

What makes a crowdsourcing solicitation fall flat on its face?

This afternoon the State of Alaska will release some 24,000 of Sarah Palin’s emails, covering a good deal of her gubernatorial reign. Though the New York Times, along with pretty much every other publication in the free world, has sent reporters (an unspecified number, but likely fewer than 24,000) to Juneau, it recognizes that the trove it’s facing down is a mighty one. So it posted on its politics blog, The Caucus, yesterday, asking if readers might “help us idenfity interesting and newsworthy e-mails, people and events that we may want to highlight.”

Crowdsourcing! Citizen journalism! You’ve heard of it, right? It’s the wave of the future. (Or is it?) The New York Times, that bastion of journalistic traditionalism, surely thought it was dipping a toe into the zeitgeist, and that its readers would be delighted.

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The heat dome that trapped the country’s mid-section in misery is now settling over the eastern seaboard. Utility companies are asking customers to dial back on their power usage to avoid an outage. That’s what we’re doing at Consumer Reports headquarters in Yonkers, NY where the hallways are dark. In addition to turning off the lights, here are some energy-saving ideas from Consumer Reports, the Edison Electric Institute and the Department of Energy.

• Set the thermostat at 78 degrees or higher when the house is occupied, and at 85 degrees when no one’s home. And if the air filter hasn’t been cleaned in over 30 days, it’s time to do it.
• Take cold showers—heating water can account for up to 25 percent of a home’s energy use.
• Close the curtains or shades on any south- or west-facing windows.
• Turn on ceiling and table fans—a fan will allow you to raise the thermostat setting about four degrees and still feel cool.

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