Get Inspired! Go TED.

Last night I watched an inspiring and powerful documentary about the TED conference. What a terrific gathering of amazing minds. The conference brings these people together once a year over 3 days where they share their bold ideas on changing the world. (Yes, far more bold than Eric's audio recordings if you can imagine!) I strongly recommend checking out the conference's website: www.ted.com

While watching this movie, I couldn't help but think that this is the perfect place for Beehive. We need to figure out how we can get involved! Sustainable Cities, Knowledge Concierge, SO many possibilities. You can download (thanks Netlfix!) or rent the movie, here's the link.

Netflix

If you don't want to watch the whole movie, you can download and watch ALL the amazing speakers online thanks to Adobe. For instance, here's one on Virtual Earth:
Virtual Earth

Check it out, I promise you will be inspired!

The Big Dig House

Check out the design firm that used 600,000 lbs of salvaged materials (steel structures, roadway panels, etc) from the multi million dollar Boston Big Dig Project.

http://www.singlespeeddesign.com/works/residential/bigdighouse/

iPhone, baby!

Let me say it loudly - I LOVE MY IPHONE!!! I've had several smart-phones - Kyocera and Palm TREOs - and each one had its problems, some of them quite severe. I've also had many computers and various other gadgets over the years. All I can say is that the iPhone is BY FAR the best first-generation product I have ever owned. I've only had the iPhone for a week but I couldn't be happier. The interface and software cannot be beaten and the minor issues I look forward to improvements on (volume, delete process for emails, true exchange sync, copy/paste, etc.) are all FAR OUTWEIGHED by the incredible elegance and reliability of this device. AT&T service is terrible, but if you are already suffering with it (as I was), I highly recommend the iPhone.

WHAT IS GOOD:
-- sensor that disables the touchscreen when the phone is at my ear
-- google maps animate/zoom when going through directions (zooms out to show you perspective, animates to show sections)
-- earphones with built-in mic are simple, elegant and stay in my ear better than other ipod earphones I've had
-- visual navigation of albums in ipod
-- sensor for vertical/horizontal web nav/photos/etc. - auto-rotates display in both directions
-- multitouch for zoom using two fingers (on maps, photos, web, etc.)
-- contacts - click to call/email/google maps automatically
-- scroll - fling for long list scan, slow movement for nudge, built-in letter navigation to get to contacts lower in list
-- keyboard - knows where the center of my fat fingers are, so even though the keys are small, I rarely miss my letter; adjusts keyboard for usage (adds "@" key as option when addressing an email, adds ".com" and "/" keys when putting in URL, etc.)
-- visual voicemail - FINALLY non-linear voicemail that I'm able to prioritize!
-- reordering favorites list works well - didn't know how to do it at first, but figured it out
-- WI-FI works great, if a bit slow
-- form factor & weight are perfection

NEEDS IMPROVEMENT:
-- copy/paste is missing!
-- cannot search the device though finding contacts, for instance, is still faster by flinging through contacts than when I used to search in my treo (that was SLOW)
-- deleting email (multiple delete is needed!)
-- volume (ipod volume is OK, but phone volume is low - only a problem when in noisy environment but STILL)

Peer-to-peer money

Peer-to-peer online marketplaces for borrowing and lending money that cut out the banks:

http://www.zopa.com (available in the US soon)

http://www.prosper.com

New technology for cooling, social networking, and maps

This is a multi-part beenovation:

Bee-ing Green
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/andrewkantor/2004-07-23-kantor_x.htm
http://www.benjerry.com/assets/flash/our_company/sounds_cool/soundsCool.cfm

Social Buzz
http://twitter.com/public_timeline
http://www.flickr.com/map

Map Stuff
http://www.flashearth.com/

Learning
http://www.atomicmpc.com.au/article.asp?SCID=14&CIID=82898&p=1