What happens when some Estonians decide to clean up their whole country in on single day? Madness, some would say. But it was done, and now the idea is spreading like wild fire. Watch the video and get inspired:
The same video can be seen with portuguese subtitles (hint hint), and there's already a Ning group to do the same in Portugal.
About 2.5 years ago, my friend Mário Silva ask me to help in the development of a solution that would allow people to transform used cooking oil into candles.
The basic idea was to develop a machine where one could store used vegetable oil (instead of trowing it into the drain) and by adding some chemical compound, the final result would be something valuable and fun, candles.
So, we built a prototype, found the correct mix of chemicals and patented the whole thing. After this, Mário dived into the VC world and armed with a strong business plan and a lot of enthusiasm, was able to rise the capital needed to fulfill the dream.
Mário created a company, oon solutions, which in a couple of months will start selling the Candle Maker. And because nothing is beyond Mário's dreams, he managed to present the whole thing in TEDx, which is now available to public viewing. Watch it, who knows, maybe you also will start loving your waste:
A very interesting video by R. Clayton Miller, with some concepts for multi-touch interaction and windows management. The basic idea here is that the mouse points to one point, but with your hands you can point (and use) up to 10 points at the same time. Confused? Watch the video:
While I use more and more the touchpad then the mouse, Microsoft is experimenting with new input devices that combine the standard capabilities of a computer mouse with multi-touch sensing. The future will something of this kind:
Interesting and very well designed graphic with a comparison of the 3 major social networks unique visitors. Proudly stolen from a Chicago Tribune article:
PhotoSketch is an “Internet Image Montage” project from five students at Tsinghua University and the National University of Singapore. The basic premise, which they present in the form of a research paper [pdf], works like this:
Draw the outlines of the figures you want in your picture – anything from seagulls to a wedding kiss;
Add labels for each of the items, as well as for the background.
PhotoSketch will then find real-life images to match your doodles and put them together in a Photoshopped image that will make your jaw drop.
And before you say "it must be fake", download and read the research paper (in pdf), already evaluated by the scientific community.