Good Thinking

Oregon was the first state in the U.S. to trial the postal vote back in 1981 and ultimately the first to conduct a federal election primarily by postal-vote. This week, the State is trialing another electoral innovation by using iPads to make voting easier for individuals with physical disabilities. Read More

By now, you may be familiar with body-scanning systems that take peoples’ measurements, so those people know what size of clothes to shop for. Such systems include the recently-launched Bodymetrics, along with the more-established Intellifit. Well, startup company Fitted Fashion is taking the concept a step farther. Not only would each client get scanned to obtain their precise measurements, but the company would then make each client one or more pairs of custom-fit jeans, and mail those to their home. Read More

If you're a cycling enthusiast, you've probably seen plenty of bracelets made from bike chains, clocks made from chain rings, or other items constructed by local hobbyists from cast-off components. Fun as those kind of curios may be, imagine what you might get if you took 46 established artists from across the U.S., gave each of them a box of 100 brand-new bike components, and asked them to make those into whatever they wanted. Well, that was the idea behind the SRAM pART PROJECT. The resulting sculptures have been shown at the Interbike trade show in Las Vegas, will go on display in a juried exhibition at a gallery in Chicago, and are about to be put up for auction online. Read More

What do you buy for the person who has everything? An obvious choice is something that's never existed before. Enter the determined textile specialists at Swiss research institute EMPA who spent the last ten years developing a method to affix pure gold onto silk. Only slightly less scarce than hen's teeth and spider silk cloth, the thread can be woven into a beautiful and surprisingly durable, even washable 24 carat fabric that Goldfinger himself would be proud to wear. Read More

The nature of the Apple ecosystem means that many MacBook owners will also carry around an iPhone or iPad - or both. To cut down on the clutter of white Apple chargers vying for an electrical outlet in this situation, TwelveSouth has released its PlugBug accessory that piggybacks on a standard MacBook power adapter to provide an additional USB charge port to charge an aforementioned iDevice and a MacBook at the same time. Read More

Madrid-based A-Cero architects are a big deal in Spain with public and residential projects across the country plus South America and the Middle East. Lead architect and principal Joaquin Torres is bit of a celebrity and recently appeared on Spanish TV's equivalent of "The Secret Millionaire" (giving away money of course, not receiving it). Unashamedly modernist, the A-Cero house style generally involves sweeping curved gestures in gleaming white. With the latest residential project however, Joaquin seems to have embraced the dark side and produced a dwelling of such stunning brutality and "otherness" that it could easily be an alien fortress on a distant planet. We love it. It's also one of the few buildings that actually looks good illuminated by multi-colored LEDs. Read More

People learning a new language almost always have the same complaint – you may temporarily memorize words that you learn in a classroom, but you soon forget those words unless you actually have to use the language. Some educators have addressed this problem through Task-Based Language Learning, in which students have to complete a task using instructions provided in a foreign language. Researchers at Britain’s Newcastle University have recently put a high-tech spin on this approach – they’ve created an interactive kitchen that keeps track of what its users are doing, as it uses the French language to guide them in preparing French cuisine. Read More

The Shannon Solo Dumper is an easy-to-operate, remote-control, four-wheel-drive, high-tipper-dumper with a carrying capacity of 500 kg (1100 pounds) and remote-control-range of 100 metres from the operator. Apart from doing a lot of work at cheap rates, reducing many two person jobs to single person tasks, it significantly reduces operating risks where there is a risk to the person operating a traditional drive-on dumper: demolition sites, sites where there is a threat of falling debris, with a gradient, confined spaces, narrow access, busy highways, contaminated land, unstable ground, ad infinitum. The GBP12,750 (US$20,000) Dumper has been so well received that the Solo Fire Hose (GBP19,500 - US$30,600), Solo Sprayer (GBP13,500 - US$21,200) and Solo Mower (GBP17,950 - $28,200) have been added to the range and a portable winch version will soon be added. Read More

Brooklyn based inventor Jamie O'Shea has created the Vertical Bed, which is exactly that - a "bed" that will allow you to sleep vertically. Whilst the awkward contraption doesn't look as comfy as what we might imagine a bed to be, it does logistically allow a person to sleep in a standing position ... and no, we're not sure why either. Read More