Home appliance manufacturer Electrolux is setting out to clean up plastic-covered marine environments and turn the spoils into a limited range of vacuum cleaners.  Causing the deaths of over a million seabirds and 100,000 mammals and sea turtles each year, Electrolux hopes ‘Vac From the Sea’ will raise much-needed awareness on marine trash and ‘environmental vandalism‘.

Social Media Melbourne Meetups

Springwise has curated a list of 5 social networks that take the online idea of networking to an offline meet up in the “real world”. There is a current trend towards meet ups in Australia with some innovative thought leaders bringing together people on a social environment to share ideas such as SOCIAL MELBOURNE. 5 more are listed below.

1. MEETUP EVERYWHERE — Meetup’s new service, Meetup Everywhere, is an open and free platform that helps people build communities based on a common interest. Organisers can map offline gatherings and share announcements and updates through Facebook and Twitter accounts. One recent initiative: ReadyMade magazine partnering with Etsy.com to encourage DIY crafters to host local “craft-ups”.

2. GATSBY — Gatsby is a mobile app that introduces people according to shared interests and locations, usingFoursquare. Users tell Gatsby their Foursquare account details and describe their interests. Gatsby then searches for like-minded people locally and texts them with first names and what they have in common.

3. LOOPT MIX — Loopt Mix is a free iPhone app for finding and chatting to other users nearby. Users identify shared interests by means of tags and preferences on their personal profiles. There’s also a set of search filters for ad hoc link-ups. Favoured contacts can be flagged to provide users with quick access to their core social circle.

4. STREETSPARK — Another iPhone app using location to get people in touch, StreetSpark has a specifically romantic intent. Users describe themselves and the kind of person they hope to meet. The app then informs them when a possible match is nearby. No contact information is divulged automatically; people can chat and choose whether or not to identify themselves.

5. LOVESTRUCK — Also in the match-making business, UK-based Lovestruck is aimed at single professionals. The website and mobile apps use work locations as a base to link potential lovers. Customers can display their availability through status updates, and iPhone owners can also see if other users are in their current vicinity when they’re on the move.

For more examples of MASS MINGLING, read this month’s trend briefing by trendwatching.com >>

Content Via Springwise

The Museum of London recently released a free iPhone app called Streetmuseum which incorporates their extensive art and photographic collections with augmented reality. According to the museum, the application would be providing users a window through time. The app leads you to various locations around London using either the map or GPS.

This app allows the present and the past to collide and share their secrets. Streetmuseum opens up the city in new and exciting ways. The launch of the Streetmuseum app is an exciting development for the Museum of London

Once you’re there, click the “3D View” button, and the app will recognize the location and overlay the historical photograph over the live video feed of the real world, giving you a brief glimpse into how the past looked - just like in the image above.

Luxury 2010 | post-recession codes emerge

View more presentations from Tim Stock.

Tim Stock and the cool kids are scenarioDNA have created a presentation entitled Luxury | post-recession codes emerge.

The presentation asks the question, “take away the logo, the licensing and the hibris, do you still have a compelling luxuy product that will stand up to todays consumers”?

The presentation delves into the evolution of the past two decades in luxury branding. We would love to here your thoughts on this or head over to Tims page and join in a conversation there.

German design studio Rugwind have created a great bit of social furniture. A cosy bench, for you and the people in your neighbourhood. The project, Guerilla Bench aims to subvert the objects of the typical urban environment, making them more human and functional. A bench that neatly folds up inside a standard European electrical box. A user simply opens the box, unfolds the bench and takes a seat by themselves or with friends to create a small gathering point for social interactions. The box blends into the street scene, only coming to life when a user with knowledge of its hidden life walks by.

Rugwind have already invented a range of sustainable projects, such as the All Terrain Hand-Seeder. It is their philosophy to design a future that deals with the environmental and economic challenges of our time. From waste, material abundance and inattention to resource efficiency, sensuality, pleasure and cultural interest. Their aim is to cultivate a desire for innovation and form-finding and creating things that are truly contemporary with the focus on the real needs of the people.

article by |

[via designboom and treehugger]

Posted by Alissa Walker | 31 Mar 2010 on Core77 | If there’s one thing wide, sprawly Los Angeles can pride itself on having, it’s an abundance of space. But now, as I walk though neighborhoods filled with empty box stores and strip malls, I realize we may have far too much of it.

Luckily, we’re also blessed with an abundance of creatives who have the desire to occupy it. Emi Fontana has filled vacant retail stores with art installations, and even used an empty modern house high in the hills above Pasadena to install a site-specific installation by Olafur Eliasson. In L.A.’s Chinatown, Wendy Yao sells a collection of zines, handmade jewelry and records out of a miniscule strip mall, which has led to a variety of unusual temporary venues. Nearby, Mark Allen uses his small storefront as a place for identifying (and eating) edible insects, holding welding classes and orchestrating temporary takeovers of entire museums. Alyssa Walker explains:

“The fact that creatives have founded true cultural centers and succeeded in doing it in a place as notoriously scattered as Los Angeles makes me believes their concepts are true models for success.

There’s a reason this is the age of the pop-up shop: space is available, and it’s yours for the taking. Use this moment when you’ve got a little extra downtown to inhabit the empty space next door, or some available space in your office that’s looking a bit lonely.

Spaces need to go beyond simply serving as eye candy—they need to provide a service for their audience.”

To read the full article, visit Core77

It is remarkable that the most real feeling in perception of time “the present”, cannot be measured in any units of time. Present is duration-less, it is an infinitesimal. Nevertheless, both the past and the future, which are seen as durations in time, encroach on the present. So why is it, that we all think more about the future time and what we have missed than about the beauty of the current time?

Yves Behar in collaboration with Issey Miyake have developed ‘VUE’, a watch that reminds how important time is at this instant not later or before.

The concept behind the project is nothing but an industrial masterpiece with a quite literal approach to time. As stated by Yves Behar, time is precious, yet always presents us with a surprise ahead. The VUE watch is a way to feel time’s appearance and disappearance in our lives. By seeing only the current hour, while the previous hour representing the past and the upcoming one representing the future subtly fade in and out, visible only through partial arc slits. And therefore an existential statement about the fleeting nature of time.

This approach to telling time seems to be appropriate and truly refreshing. Why do we need to know the rest of the time that has yet to come or the past time that has long forgotten us?

An interesting new concept developed by the fuse project, an award-winning industrial design and branding firm with offices in San Francisco and New York City. The studio looks at developing and enhancing brands by creating long-lasting innovations and narratives that connect with the consumer’s experience.

Article By Mel Mueller (Trends Analyst) for uncluttered white spaces & [6.2]:: Mel Mueller is a media student in Australia and Germany and spends her time jetting back and forth. Mel is an expert on trends and all things that impact the planet be it creative, environmental or inspirational. You can visit Mel’s mini-blog: Breeze

via yatzer

Are you adventurous with food but ever feel like your food doesn’t amaze you enough, does it look boring or need some life? Then Esslack Food Spray may be just the right thing for you.

Thanks to the very clever German team – The Deli Garage – you can now stain your tomato, pretzels, and whatever other food screams out to be covered in gold. Using these fresh spray cans full of edible silver and gold paint, food goes from ordinary to a delectable piece of jewellery in seconds.

With tasteful packaging, meticulous attention to design and fresh ideas, Deli Garage helps small local manufacturers turn handmade delicacies into special design products. The food label paired with creative agency Korefe to dream up the illustrative packaging for Esslack. Though busy, the vibe is as fresh as the concept of edible food spray itself.

[via lost at e minor]

Article By Mel Mueller (Trends Analyst) for uncluttered white spaces:: Mel Mueller is studying Media in Australia and Germany and spends her time jetting back and forth. Mel is an expert on trends and all things that impact the planet be it creative, environmental or inspirational. You can visit Mel’s Posterous:Breeze

The Swedish furniture and lifestyle brand IKEA has demonstrated originality and creativity in their unique and experiential marketing strategies. The international retailer’s most recent campaign involves the replacement of a great number of benches in four important and high-traffic metro stations in Paris – St. Lazare, Champs-Elysées Clémenceau, Concorde, and Opéra.

From March 10^th to the 24^th sofas, chairs and a few floor lamps will recreate a comfortable living room atmosphere, giving the potential customers a chance to interact with the brand by checking out its new Ektorp and Karlstad collection. Being surprised in an ordinary action, people can try in first person the quality of the products and their comfortableness via the ‘bum test’ of thousands of Parisians; particularly since IKEA is oftentimes embraced for its contemporary yet affordable furniture.

In collaboration with Agence 14 September IKEA succeeds to create a beautiful atmosphere in a previously rather gray and dreary space by invading the daily life of people, and most of all by putting a smile on their faces.

[via psfk]

Article By Mel Mueller (Trends Analyst) for uncluttered white spaces:: Mel Mueller is studying Media in Australia and Germany and spends her time jetting back and forth. Mel is an expert on trends and all things that impact the planet be it creative, environmental or inspirational. You can visit Mel’s Posterous:Breeze

There will be winners and losers in the changing publishing industry, the catalyst being the emerging world of, e-books. Books are recognised as big winners if they are large blockbusters. Therefore it is the humble independent bookstores that are precious sanctuaries playing an essential role. Independent bookstores nurturing unique personalities stringing community links are significantly responsible for helping to identify local novels that may indeed become a bestseller. Nevertheless Independent bookstores are rare these days. In fact, corporate/online sellers are becoming the resource for most readers. Is the independent bookstore capable of re-inventing itself?

Front Studio Architects devised a beautiful, modern space for McNally Jackson Books leading a revival through allowing New Yorkers to continue sharing the charm of the interpersonal feeling within aiming breath new life into it a quietly subsiding sector of the publishing market. McNally Jackson Booksellers, located in New York City, is a spacious independent bookstore with pride and individuality. The mix of books, media and events reflects a sophisticated urban vibe; it is “not just a place to buy books, but a place to love them.” The whole design is centred on books and mirrors the warm character of the space.

“A scattering of books hangs precipitously from the ceiling, as if a pile of books had been thrown into the sky and frozen.”

“The curved wall surrounding the seating area is covered in a wallpaper made entirely of open spine books, the texture of the print adds a rippling affect of restless pages.”

“Because we are all avid readers and great lovers of books, our collaborations took on an amazing degree of synchronicity. We thus imagined a space where every moment evokes some visceral connection with books and with reading.”

[via KN]

Article By Mel Mueller (Trends Analyst) for uncluttered white spaces:: Mel Mueller is studying Media in Australia and Germany and spends her time jetting back and forth. Mel is an expert on trends and all things that impact the planet be it creative, environmental or inspirational. You can visit Mel’s Posterous: Breeze

Every year a rainforest area larger than England is burned or cut down. Therefore the deforestation of the tropical rainforests is the single most important source of CO2 emissions in the world and about 20% of all global CO2 emissions are caused by rainforest deforestation. It is a major contributor to:

• Global warming
• Global climate change
• Carbon stores in soil
• Reduced net oxygen levels
• Biosphere instability

For this reason Christian Kroll, founder of the Berlin-based firm Ecosia, is dedicated to work towards saving the Brazilian rainforest, consequently a positive contributor in the fight for climate change.

Ecosia is an eco-friendly Internet search engine backed by Yahoo, Bing and the World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF). It basically works like any other search engine but, unlike others, Ecosia gives at least 80% of its advertising revenue to a rainforest protection program run by the WWF. Because of this, Ecosia users can save about two square metres of rainforest with every search they do – without paying anything. Furthermore, all Ecosia servers run on green electricity, so they do not cause any CO2 emissions.

A spokesman for WWF said the green search model had the potential to become a major source of funding for environmental projects. “Each search with Ecosia will protect a piece of rainforest, so by making Ecosia your search engine you can actually help the environment one search at a time,” he said. “An average Internet user can protect about 2,000 square metres of rainforest every year by using Ecosia – this is about the size of an ice hockey field. If only one per cent of global Internet users accessed Ecosia for their web searches, we could save a rainforest area as big as Switzerland each year.”

Ecosia is banking on the same online advertising tactics that have pumped a fortune into the coffers of Internet search king Google.

“Thanks to sponsored links, search engines earn billions every year,” said Christian Kroll. “Ecosia believes that there is a more eco-friendly way of using these huge profits and that the money would be better used to fight global warming.”

By making Ecosia your default search engine, you can turn your web searches green, reduce your carbon footprint and make a real difference to the planet.

Ecosia is also the best choice if you are concerned about privacy. Some search engine companies store your web searches for several months and even analyse them to create a profile of you. They sometimes even sell this information to other companies. Ecosia, in contrast, deletes all user-related data within a maximum of 48 hours.

Install it now via Ecosia.org

Article By Mel Mueller (Trends Analyst) for uncluttered white spaces:: Mel Mueller is studying Media in Australia and Germany and spends her time jetting back and forth. Mel is an expert on trends and all things that impact the planet be it creative, environmental or inspirational. You can visit Mel’s Posterous: Breeze

Taking on the now industry standard concept in the games field of augmented reality, adidas has created a virtual 3-D world that can be accessed using a future line of five men’s sneakers. Users need to visit the adidas site and hold up their sneaker to their webcam; the show will feature a code implanted in the tongue which will allow a virtual world which can be navigated, using the sneaker itself. adidas will continue the project and present three games (one based on music, one on star wars and one skating game) each developed by xForm. The shoes with the augmented reality codes will cost between $65 and $95 and will be available starting February.

Source: ThreeBillion