Soccket: the power of play. A magic soccer ball by Uncharted Play

It Is such a clever invention! You can envision a fun, portable source of energy that capitalizes on the popularity of soccer to address the lack of electricity in the developing world.  The Soccket is a portable energy-harvesting source in the form of a soccer ball that captures the kinetic energy during game play and converts it into electrical energy, to charge lights and small batteries. After playing with the ball, the child can return home and use the ball to connect a LED lamp to read, study, or illuminate the home. And in the developed world, the Soccket can be a great tool for teaching about clean energy and a better way to charge our gadgets. The Soccket’s exterior is made of a custom waterproof EVA foam that is extremely...

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The only hotel in the world without rooms: Faktum Hotel

Today we want to tell the story Faktum Hotel, the only hotel in the world without rooms. It is located in Gothenburg, the second largest city in Sweden. With just $ 10 you can book a night in one of 10 different places at your disposal: a forest, an abandoned building, a park bench. These are all en-plein-air, so you can try to sleep as a homeless man. A description of the hotel's "rooms" tells you everything you need to know: "A stay at the Skeppsbron wharf assures you a waterside vista in the heart of the city." One of every six homeless people in Sweden live in Gothenburg, they are 3.400 circa. Most of them find a roof over their heads with a friend or at a refuge, but some sleep in the open air. The brainchild of Faktum magazine...

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Junk food kill more people than pistols

These are days when you continue to talk in the media of food scandals, horse meat masquerading as beef, donkey's meat in hamburgers, fake biological chicken eggs, etc. .. so when we found ourselves in front of the video Food Fight, by Earth Amplified we launched a large whistle! The video is a urban gangster movie turned on its head.— instead of street thugs coming in to steal money and groceries, this films shows guys in suits put things on the shelf. It is the story of a young boy who lives in a world where the food at the local corner store is killing his neighborhood, literally. The real damage to the kids and America is from these men at the top; the crimes of Big Ag at a convenience stores is so much worse than what anyone...

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A poetic concept: making bikes from junked cars

The Spanish design studio Lola Madrid, owned by creative agency Lowe & Partners, has launched few days ago the platform LOLA Hace (LOLA Make), in order to design and manufacture products that make life easier for people or emotionally in touch with them. The first product that they have conceived is Bicycled. Bicycled is new making bikes project that utilizes recycled cars as the main source for material. It is such a poetic concept, fewer cars and more bikes is a probably a dream for cyclists everywhere, in an effort to create the most efficient, ecological and healthy means of transportation. Even though the line is not yet complete, Lola Madrid has just launched a video about the process of transformation and creation...

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Bring butterflies back into the city, with Ettore Favini

Today, until Friday 5 April 2013, the Pastificio Cerere Foundation in Rome will present the exhibition project by Ettore Favini Verdecuratoda…voi (which forms part of the vaster project Verdecuratoda begun in 2005) curated by Marcello Smarrelli. Favini’s research explores man’s relationship to nature and time, reading the social context in all of its complexity. For this new project, the artist rereads the subject of ecology from a contemporary perspective, involving spectators in a “game” that binds them to an act of responsibility toward themselves and the environment. Verdecuratoda…voi, presents an opportunity to trigger a real environmental metamorphosis. In addition to prompting the urban forestation of green...

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Tree Houses: Fairy Tale Castles in the Air

Today we talk about Tree Houses, buildings that stimulate our imagination, to live in symbiosis with trees. "The idea of climbing a tree for shelter, or just to see the earth from another perspective, is surely as old as humanity. Tree houses are chronicled in ancient civilizations and their lore crosses through the history of every part of the world where trees grow." It is a couple of weeks ago that in Sagron Mis, near Dolomites, there will be the first Italian village of tree houses. Among the deciduous and coniferous trees at the foot of Mount Piz Sagron will be built the village of tree houses, made using only natural and bio-compatible materials. On 2 February, in the Hall of the Community of Primiero of Tonadico, there was...

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Sunday's tale - A portrait of happiness: Balloons of Bhutan by Jonathan Harris

Sunday's Tale: a post from the past In Bhutan happiness is, no laughing, matter-academics study it, spreadsheets track it, billboards tout it, conferences debate it, and every year, foreign intellectuals flock to Thimphu to share their ideas about what exactly makes a person happy. Instead of "Gross National Product" Bhutan uses "Gross National Happiness" to measure it socio-economic prosperity, essentially organizing its national agenda around the basic tenets of Buddhism. Bhutan's fourth king, Jigme Singe Wangchuck, invented the idea in 1972, to give his tiny country some international guard against potential future invasion by its two mighty neighbors (India and Chine). Given the seriousness with which this topic is treated, Jonathan...

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