EXP: April 2010 Archives

Nike NBA

By Craig Kanarick on April 29, 2010 10:07 AM | No Comments

Nike launched a lovely eye-popping twitter tracker called Nike NBA today to track the popularity of the teams in the playoffs, measured by tweet frequency.

The default view is a heatmap, but I prefer the bracket view, that pits the various teams against each other in a virtual popularity contest, with the "champion" changing every few minutes. The system is sitting on top of a live visualization engine created by Stamen Design which has previously been used to visualize tweets about the Vancouver Olympics and the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards.

Nike is on a internet marketing roll this month, after their recent viral hits, including The Secret Behind Nike Air, and the mind-blowing digital-physical integration Nike Music Shoe, seen below.

NY Times on 2009 Subway Ridership Interactive Map

By Craig Kanarick on April 26, 2010 1:34 PM | No Comments

Sometimes I feel like this blog is a booster for the New York Times Interactive Graphics team but it is difficult not to write about such great examples of interactive data visualizations. Today's map is most likely only of interest to dataviz geeks and New Yorkers. It is a simple visualization of the subway ridership numbers for last year by station. It accompanies an article explaining some of the huge swings and how they correlate to the local economy. Let me know what you think.

Solar Beat

By cool hunting on April 23, 2010 2:23 PM | No Comments

A simple concept, Solar Beat is a music box looping the orbital frequencies of our own solar system. Created by Luke Wyman's of Whitevinyl, the UK-based designer translated astrophysics into a pleasing ambient soundtrack for a musical experience. While it may take 248 "earth years" for Pluto to chime in, it seems worth it.

The relatively obscure and multi-talented illustrator, photographer, web developer and musician behind the band Neverest continues to fly beneath the radar despite some rave reviews.

Danish Hotel Lets Users Generate Energy to Reduce Costs

By Craig Kanarick on April 16, 2010 11:49 AM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

An idea I've been talking about for at least a decade is for a hotel or a health club to hook up their exercise machines to generators and capture the energy being produced by users and giving rebates to them. The BBC reported earlier this week that the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Copenhagen is about to launch the world's first version of such a program by offering meal vouchers to guests who produce energy on an exercise bike. The bikes are using iPhones to monitor and display usage. The program launches this weekend and will continue for at least a year. If a guest generates 10 watt-hours of energy, which should take only about 15 minutes, she gets a $36 meal voucher.

The initiative makes perfect sense to me. This hotel already has solar panels on its facade so they are pretty eco-friendly. Over 36% of the city's residents bike to work and treehugger.com just named Copenhagen the most bike-friendly city in the world. Copenhagen is one of the most bike-centric cities in the world, it makes perfect sense. What I like best is that they are saying this is a pilot program and if it is successful, they will roll it out to at least 21 UK Crowne Plazas soon.

Being Not Truthful Always Works Against Me

By Craig Kanarick on April 15, 2010 11:12 AM | No Comments

I spent today at the wonderful 99% Conference and heard many inspiring talks, including one from the totally charismatic Stefan Sagmeister. Even though it was made almost three years ago, I was really intrigued by his artwork, Being Not Truthful Always Works Against Me.

Currently housed in the Art Institute in Chicago, this collaboration with Ralph Ammer is driven by some simple software and Mac hardware. A video of a spider web is projected on the screen and as a viewer passes in front, a sensor captures the movement and degrades the web. Once the viewer is gone, just like spiders do in the real world, the web is reconstructed.

Vodka Bottle's Programmable LED Ticker Is Worth a Shot

By Craig Kanarick on April 13, 2010 9:58 AM | No Comments

From Gizmodo comes word of a vodka bottle with a programmable LED ticker on it. Why it isn't pre-programmed with "Buy Me, Please" is curious.

What do they say, three is a trend? Are there any other things like this out there?

PIXELS is Genius

By Craig Kanarick on April 8, 2010 10:00 AM | No Comments

To quote Marvel Comics: 'nuff said.

UTweet by Uniqlo: Stylized Tweet Show

By Craig Kanarick on April 7, 2010 10:33 AM | No Comments

I love the way Japanese fashion brand Uniqlo uses the web -- they really embrace the technology and have made some of the most memorable web timewasters ever. This morning I came across UTweet, which is their latest effort: Just enter in a twitter ID or a few keywords, turn up the volume, and sit back and enjoy the full-screen show, comprised of real-time tweets and other goodies. The catchy soundtrack helps make the quirky experience even more enjoyable.

Will it sell clothes? I doubt it, but it will make you smile. Is it completely novel, new, innovative? No, but it is well executed. Think of it as a full-page spread gone digital and you won't be disappointed.

Talk to Me @ MoMA

By Craig Kanarick on April 6, 2010 11:55 AM | No Comments

Image via Wikipedia

The Museum of Modern Art in New York was in the news recently for acquiring the @ sign. Always a pioneer, Paola Antonelli has also recently announced their upcoming show Talk to Me which opens in July 2011. The official description says it is an "exhibition on the communication between people and objects" and that it will "feature a wide range of objects, from interfaces to products to diagrams, visualizations, perhaps even vehicles and furniture..."

What is most exciting is the way they are creating the exhibition. A full 500+ days in advance, they are utilizing the internet in an industry-leading way by soliciting projects, ideas and research to include. The entire process of curating the show is being assisted by and revealed to the public like nothing before it, all through the digital channel.

Their blog, linked above, is also an excellent gallery of the integration of digital and physical, and I expect to refer to objects I find there often.

Physical-Digital Interaction Evolves

By Craig Kanarick on April 5, 2010 10:20 AM | No Comments

PSFK gives an excellent nod to the growth of physical-digital interaction, a subject core to this blog...

Inventing Interactive Interview: David Small

By Craig Kanarick on April 1, 2010 11:12 AM | No Comments

Over at Inventing Interactive, my friend David Young interviews my friend, David Small, who was a key mentor during my days at the MIT Media Lab. Please go check it out, they are two of the most creative and smart people I know who work in the digital field.

April 2010 Archives