Fast Company

James Gandolfini, Dead At 51. Long Live Tony Soprano

Tyler Gray — Thu, 20 Jun 2013 00:07:31 GMT

James Gandolfini died today at age 51 of a heart attack, an HBO rep confirmed to Variety.

No one did murder quite so creatively as the creators of The Sopranos. And no one outside of the Corleone clan brought hits to life like Tony Soprano, played by Gandolfini.

Here’s a fitting send off for the man whose iconic gangster character sent off so many.

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The Bouroullecs Reinvent The Chandelier As Hanging Fruit

Margaret Rhodes — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 22:00:00 GMT

The Bouroullec brothers’ Lianes lamps, now called Aim, upend our expectations about lighting design.

If you had never seen a lamp or a chandelier and someone asked you to create one, you might end up with a design similar to Aim--formerly known as Lianes--from the prolific Bouroullec brothers. As evidenced by a recent look at hundreds of the design duo’s sketches, the Bouroullecs have a childlike propensity to experiment with different shapes and dimensions--as if they lack any preconception of the history of whatever it is they’re designing.

The French brothers unveiled the original Lianes design in 2010, in a limited-edition run at Galerie Kreo in Paris. The Lianes lamps slide up or down the hanging leather cords, so they tune to your needs: They work as overhead lighting or as reading lights, or they simply provide a soft ambient glow. Now, the Lianes network has been reincarnated as the Aim lamps, with just one change besides the name: The old lamp cords were outfitted in leather; the new, more minimal, Aim lights are not.

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Where The Money Is Flowing In Emerging Markets

Ariel Schwartz — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 21:00:00 GMT

This dashboard tracks how investors are moving money around the world, so you can figure out that the next big thing is happening in Mali (Shhhh, don’t tell).

Even if you’re not in the financial industry, you can probably sense it: there is a lot of money flowing into certain developing countries--China and India are the most obvious examples. But finding specifics can be difficult; private investments don’t leave a data trail.

SAP and the Emerging Markets Private Equity Association (EMPEA) have teamed up to create an online dashboard that lays it all out: where private equity activity is happening, what the regional trends are, and the fund size distribution. All of the data is available to the public except for country-level data, information on the largest funds raised, and a searchable fund manager database--all of which is reserved for EMPEA members.

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Weird USB Drives Designed To Make Digital Data More Meaningful

Kyle VanHemert — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 20:30:00 GMT

Vanessa Redondo’s USB drives aren’t the inconspicuous little sticks we’ve come to know--and that’s the point.

With each passing year, our memories become increasingly intertwined with digital data. Snapshots get saved instantly as pixels rather than Polaroids; mementos get stuffed into file folders instead of shoeboxes. Our technological moment has given us the ability to stockpile more of these memories than ever before, in higher quality and without the risk of dust or decay. But it raises a pressing question: what good are all those memories if we never actually remember them?

For her thesis project at the Istituto Europeo di Design, in Madrid, Vanessa Redondo set out to create a set of USB drives that would give some tangible embodiment to the files that we create so effortlessly and archive without a second thought. The project, Memories, provides accommodations for three types of digital experiences--life, work, and secrets--each with its own unique, physical form.

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What Happens When a Clinical Psychologist Diagnoses Your Favorite Superheroes

Joe Berkowitz — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 19:58:10 GMT

A clinical psychologist consults on some prickly personalities--those of well-known superheroes. The results are nearly as revealing as X-ray vision.

Superman may be able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, but he still has difficulty reconciling nature versus nurture—or at least, that’s what his shrink says.

While the just-released Man of Steel does not feature a scene with the superhero sometimes known as Kal-El seeking professional help, Clark Kent did receive a diagnosis recently. Entertainment website The Credits recently approached clinical psychologist Dr. Natalie Petyk for a survey of superheroes. Although she was unfamiliar with the comic book universe, Dr. Petyk was able to parse through the blind profiles that comprise some popular superhero origin stories, and offer diagnoses and some suggestions on treatment.

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How The CEO Of A Global Ad Firm Uses His Platform To Change The World

Rachael Chong — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 19:00:07 GMT

David Sable of Y&R doesn’t want to just sell stuff.

Watch: A 2-Minute Animated History Of Arts And Crafts

Margaret Rhodes — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 19:00:00 GMT

It’s more than just glitter and Popsicle sticks.

Long before the term got co-opted by summer camp sessions filled with friendship bracelets and Popsicle stick boxes, Arts and Crafts represented a major movement in the history of design. It’s influential enough, in fact, to be chronicled, along with the Gothic Revival and Modernism periods, in one of six mini-movies produced for the Open University, which documents the important style movements of the 20th century.

The pint-sized history of the Arts and Crafts movement takes us back in time by 150 years, when “people had become totally fed up with machines,” says a narrating Ewan McGregor. “People had gone nuts for technology. Manufacturers could make loads of stuff for loads of people without thinking too much about the final product.”

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Lytro’s New iPhone App Mobilizes The World’s Craziest Camera

Mark Wilson — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 19:00:00 GMT

The Lytro is a real camera from some sort of sci-fi future. And now, you can use and share its advanced filters from your iPhone.

The Lytro appears to be the future of camera technology. Its claim to fame is sucking in not just one piece of light per pixel, but all sorts of pieces of light flying in from all variety of directions. So rather than one perspective, you capture several unique perspectives (or layers) for each pixel of your photo.

But while the Lytro allows crazy digital stunts, like refocusing an image after it’s taken, or creating a 3-D perspective of a photo captured through a single lens, its industrial design has been modeled more after a dSLR than a smartphone camera. So editing and sharing takes place on a laptop, long after an image was taken, rather than in real time.

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Can You Spot The Animal Sounds Hiding In These Prints?

Mark Wilson — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 17:30:00 GMT

We all know what a whale sounds like--but what does all that singing look like?

Humans have five senses that we interpret in extremely specific ways--and not always the best way. Anyone who’s ever mixed music digitally has benefitted from the ability to see sound in waveforms, which can be a visual shorthand that’s far faster than listening to a clip again.

Mark Fischer takes the principle of seeing sound even further in his project Aguasonic Acoustics. After collecting the calls of whales, dolphins, and birds, Fischer interprets the data into a wavelet, or what my pea brain interprets as a spirograph of sound. Then he maps colors on top of this, leaving the viewer with a techno-psychedelic rendition of natural sounds. But as wild as these frames look, they aren’t artistic abstractions. They’re real information, just mapped in a new way.

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Creating A Giant Database Of Genomes To Figure Out What Makes Us Tick

Zak Stone — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 17:00:54 GMT

With large datasets, it should be easier for scientists to identify mutations that cause disease.

What happens when the open data movement collides with research from around the world aimed at decoding the human genome? The creation of a global database of information on genetic variation and health, that could give thousands of researchers and doctors access to information that could both change the way they carry out projects and even save patients’ lives.

The New York Times reports that research institutions from 41 countries have agreed to come up with a way to share their learning on genetics in an effort to unite disparate findings from labs around the globe:

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How ThinkPad Designer Richard Sapper Could Have Been Jony Ive

Belinda Lanks — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 17:00:00 GMT

In an interview with Dezeen, the German designer recalls turning down a job offer from Steve Jobs.

In an interview published today on Dezeen, Richard Sapper reveals that he could have been Jony Ive. Steve Jobs tried to hire the German industrial designer, who is responsible for creating IBM’s iconic ThinkPad, the Tizio lamp, and other cutting-edge designs. In fact, Sapper tells Dezeen’s Alyn Griffiths that he was under an exclusive contract with Big Blue when Jobs came calling:

Jobs once wanted to hire me to do the design of Apple [computers] but the circumstances weren’t right because I didn’t want to move to California and I had very interesting work here that I didn’t want to abandon. Also, at that time Apple was not a great company, it was just a small computer company.
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Fish 2.0 Tries To Find New Models To Keep Fish Alive And Feeding Us

Michael J Coren — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 16:00:37 GMT

The competition challenged businesses to come up with sustainable fishing models that were interesting enough to attract VC dollars.

For the last 50 years, commercial fishing has meant massive trawlers catching as many fish as possible until they ran out. As fish populations have plummeted around the world, this business-as-usual has become a death sentence for species from cod in Canada to tuna in the tropics (PDF) (both fisheries are now functionally extinct). Because fisherman can now wipe out a tenth of a species in less than 15 years, dozens more are destined to follow in their wake.

Now a business competition is trying to sink this model by financing new ways of doing businesses. The Fish 2.0 competition solicited seafood businesses from around the world and matched them with investors plunging into sustainable fisheries. It’s been a welcome burst of progress after 20 years of creeping advances, says Monica Jain of Manta Consulting in Carmel, California, who founded the competition. She says she launched Fish 2.0 to solve three issues holding back sustainable fisheries: too few deals ready for investors, too many small businesses unprepared to scale, and no way to bring these groups together.

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An Entire Amusement Park Compressed Into A 4-Ton Cube

Sammy Medina — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 16:00:00 GMT

James Dive put an amusement park through the compactor and framed the remains as a sculpture.

For some, there are fewer youthful pleasures more exhilarating than a trip to the amusement park, with all its attendant but fleeting charms--funnel cakes, hour-long queues, and stomach-churning rides. That’s why James Dive’s new sculpture, Once, an entire theme park compressed into a tidy cubic monolith, is fun, poignant, and more than a little perverse. Or in Dive’s own words, “brutal.”

The new sculpture, installed as part of the Sculpture by the Sea program in Aarhus, Denmark, consists of a four-ton steel cube that hems in the twisted remains of an erstwhile amusement park. Among the wreckage you’ll find old hand-painted signage, flattened carnival stalls, smashed token dispensers, and, of course, creepy plastic dolls. It wouldn’t be a party without them.

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We’re Putting A Price On Carbon, But Is It Making A Difference?

Ben Schiller — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 15:00:54 GMT

More than 20% of global emissions are now either taxed or traded. But the question remains: will adding economic incentives to cleaner energy actually work?

Putting a price on carbon emissions is seen as crucial to curbing climate change. And the good news is that much of the world is doing just that (though not the U.S.). A new report from the World Bank identifies 40 national, and 20 sub-national, mechanisms globally.

The European Union, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand all now have emissions trading systems, or are implementing them. Other countries, like Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Japan, Norway, and South Africa have (or are implementing) carbon taxes. And then there are regional trading initiatives, such are those in California and Quebec.

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Behold, Classical Greek Statues Dressed Up Like Hipsters

Sammy Medina — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 14:30:00 GMT

A photographer imagines ancient figures as bearded, Ray-Ban bespectacled hipsters.

“What is a hipster?” The question has been posed and answered time and time again, but as an N+1 symposium on the topic averred, “All descriptions of hipsters are doomed to disappoint.” Even so, everyone has the image of a hipster in their head: large sunglasses, stylized haircuts, old-timey barbs, skinny jeans, pastel shirts. Sure, that’s reductive and it doesn’t necessarily encompass the entire demographic, but you know you know someone (or several people) who fit the bill.

So does photographer Léo Caillard. He photographed hip Parisians in trendy garb, and mapped their clothes onto nude Hellenic sculptures taken from the Louvre. The result? "Hipsters in stone."

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An App That Measures Your Positive Impact On The Planet

Ben Schiller — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 14:00:48 GMT

Handprinter (handprints are the opposite of footprints) wants to give you credit for the good you do.

Greg Norris has worked in the field of lifecycle assessments--what you and I know as "footprints"--for many years. And, not long ago, he started to feel depressed about it. Everything seemed to be in a negative direction, impact-wise. "From the footprint perspective, all you see is bad news," he says. "I ended up feeling like the Earth would be better off without me."

So, Norris came up with what he calls "the mirror image of footprints". Handprints are the positive things we do to reduce damage we inevitably cause from driving, buying stuff, and so on. It’s a form of offsetting. But instead of paying someone to plant a tree in Malawi, you have to take care of the corresponding action yourself.

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A New Shazam Tool Tells Advertisers When Ads Are Most Effective

Christina Chaey — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 13:37:19 GMT

The Shazam Engagement Rate analyzes viewers’ engagement with ads in Shazam to reflect which campaigns perform the best, on which channels, and at what time of day.

Shazam introduced a new audience engagement tool today designed to help TV advertisers measure how well their ad campaigns perform based on factors such as the type of show, channel, and day of the week. Beginning today, advertisers who are customers of both Shazam for TV and Nielsen TV Ratings can access the new Shazam Engagement Rate, which compares how many viewers engaged with ads in Shazam versus Nielsen’s gross rating point data for how many people are viewing that same ad.

Shazam’s core measure of engagement is via its tagging system, which documents every song, TV show, and advertisement you Shazam, and has collected more than 6 billion data points. In May, Shazam introduced an (opt-in) automatic tagging system, which made it easier and faster for users to tag content such as, say, a 30-second ad spot.

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Leadership Lessons From Turkey's Unrest: The Rise Of Moral Authority

Dov Seidman — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 13:37:03 GMT

In the 21st century, being in power doesn't mean having power. Dov Seidman, author and CEO of the corporate good governance company LRN, expands on ideas he discusses in today's Thomas Friedman column about the critical mistakes of Turkey's Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Once again a Mideast nation, this time Turkey, has been rocked by civil unrest.

At first, this might seem surprising given that Turkey, unlike Egypt and Tunisia, has long been admired as a pillar of democracy in the Islamic world. Yet, on May 28, Istanbul’s Taksim Square saw the brutal police eviction of protestors metastasize overnight into nationwide protests resulting in multiple deaths and thousands of injuries and arrests.

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A Social Networking App To Empower The World’s Women

Anya Kamenetz — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 13:30:19 GMT

The SmartWoman Project hopes that text messages can be a medium for knowledge, health, and financial empowerment.

When women connect, the world changes.

Two recent examples, Rachel Sklar’s for-profit startup TheLi.st and Sheryl Sandberg’s nonprofit network of Lean In circles, both aim to connect and empower women to achieve their goals and aspire to leadership. But these circles are largely limited to those who are already comparatively wealthy and powerful.

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Mesmerizing Maps Of A City’s Moving Buses

Zak Stone — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 13:00:39 GMT

These maps of how fast the buses drive through Boston offer a beautiful look at the city’s transit system.

Real-time bus data has proved useful for commuters who’d rather not waste time waiting around a bus stop. But for cartographers, it’s a treasure trove of information begging to be analyzed and visualized.

For example, consider the maps of live bus speeds for Metropolitan Boston Transit Authority buses created by the cartography blog Bostonography. Inputting real-time bus schedule data collected over a period of 24 hours, the mappers are able to create a unique snapshot of what bus speeds look like around the city each day. Areas where the buses were moving quickly (faster than 25 miles per hour) are green. Slow spots (under 10 miles per hour) are red, and a mix of oranges and yellows denote the in-between. Unsurprisingly, it’s the denser downtown areas that show up the reddest.

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An Alphabet That Illustrates Digital Vocab For Creative Types

Jordan Kushins — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 13:00:00 GMT

A is for API, B is for Beta, C is for Craft. J is for jQuery.

Designers are like kindergarten teachers for grown-ups. Their particular skill set--making complex concepts easy to understand and lovely to look at--puts them in the unique position of being able to educate us in a way that doesn’t feel like learning. Think of all the great infographics that unpack and clarify so much through highly organized and often deceptively simple graphics, icons, and charts. Or ponder pretty much anything the type designer Jessica Hische has done.

Tim Nolan, creative director at BBH-Labs, wanted to do something similarly instructive. He began tapping out the idea for the ABCs of Contemporary Creatives on his iPhone back in November 2011, and spent the subsequent year and a half refining it--with the help of a talented team of collaborators.

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Goggles Block Facial Recognition Algorithms

Addy Dugdale — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 12:45:10 GMT

Worried about privacy in the age of wearable tech such as Google Glass? Using near-infrared LED lights, these goggles can help preserve your privacy, or so the makers claim.

Facial recognition prevention goggles have arrived.

Don a pair of these near-infrared LED-studded goggles and any facial recognition algorithms that work on infrared cameras will be blocked by the lights, says its inventor. But the lights will be invisible to the human eye.

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Personalized Prosthetic Limbs That Look Shocking On Purpose

Ben Schiller — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 12:30:14 GMT

Most people prefer that their artificial parts stay under the radar. The prosthetics built by Sophie de Oliveira Barata intentionally look weird, giving their wearers an opportunity to show off their bionic body parts.

Most prosthetic limbs are designed to be as unnoticeable as possible. Sophie de Oliveira Barata’s artificial limbs are the exact opposite. For her, the prosthetic is an "extension of personality," and something to be willingly embraced.

From the "stereo leg" to the "crystal leg" to the "floral leg" and "snake arm," the limbs in her Alternative Limb Project are a statement, rather than an attempt to hide a disfigurement.

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This Is What Happens When You Give A Creative Community An Empty 14,000-Square-Foot Building

Ariel Schwartz — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 12:00:35 GMT

Freespace is an experiment in civic hacking, inspired in no small part by Burning Man. But it’s attracting the attention of Fortune 500 companies eager to find ways to bring more creativity and innovation into their work spaces and companies.

Walk into the mural-covered 14,000-square-foot space in San Francisco’s Central Market district and you’ll see a flurry of seemingly organized activity: people manning desks in the front, a day-by-day schedule scribbled in chalk on the wall, someone sweeping the floor, a family examining the makings of a slide (soon to be set up, but no one yet knows where) a cake being cut in the kitchen, and people tending to the large garden out back. This isn’t some quirky new startup: it’s Freespace, a monthlong experiment in civic hacking.

Mike Zuckerman, the director of sustainability for the Zen Compound, secured a $1 monthlong lease for June in the warehouse-like space, with a little help from ReAllocate and the Mayor’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development. He didn’t have a specific agenda for the space, which was inspired by the National Day of Civic Hacking (June 1 and 2)--an event that asks participants to use technology to solve pressing civic issues.

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10 Tips For Managing Creative People

Rae Ann Fera — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 12:00:26 GMT

Veteran creative directors Evan Fry and Dave Swartz are charged with managing, inspiring, and organizing the creative staff at agency CPB. Here, they outline some of what they’ve learned about getting the best from the people we call "creatives."

When the Harvard Business Review published a post called Seven Rules For Managing Creative People a few months back, the reaction was an almost universal, Oh, please! This was due to the fact that most of the advice in the piece was bizarrely off base ("surround them with semi-boring people." What?), but also because of the patronizing tone and the assumption that "creatives" are a breed of brats demanding a different set of operating instructions.

That said, the topic is a valid one--there is an art to getting the most out of your teams of creative professionals. When the job is to conjure the next brilliant idea out of thin air, against deadline, via a combination of inspiration, hard work, experience, intuition, and confidence, getting the best work out of creative people on a consistent and efficient basis can be tricky business.

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