The Spectra newsreader from MSNBC is a visually stylized way to manipulate your daily dose of the news. This is much more our style when it comes to getting up to date on current events. Select your favorite stories, save em, add channels, and customize your entire experience to keep you coming back for more.

Although Spectra doesn’t display actual articles it does offer you a lot more options than Google Reader or your standard RSS feed. It’s also much more visually intuitive and fun to play with to boot! If Spectra does for reading the news what Etsy has done for online shopping this ought to be one to watch.

The new store for fashion designer Alexander McQueen was recently completed in Los Angeles on Melrose Avenue. This is the fourth store that Architect William Russell of Pentagram has commissioned for McQueen and it won’t be stopping there. There are plans for more stores in Las Vegas, Moscow, Bahrain, Osaka and Vilnius.

Upon entering the LA store you are greeted by the bottom half of the ‘Angel of the Americas’ (a sculpture by Robert Bryce Muir) whom is installed inside the glowing, circular skylight above the entrance. The theatrical quality of the interior, inspired by McQueen’s extraordinary catwalk shows, compliments the clothes while the limited palette of materials and precise detailing allow the collection to stand out.
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We were always taught that design was about solving problems (never mind that the decision making food chain and more common verbal usage relegate design to “styling”). Sam’s Club, a membership store owned by Wal Mart, made a simple design change that affects their bottom line. By changing the shape of the milk carton, they increased the amount of milk per cubic foot by 50%. This means fewer delivery trips and the elimination of water and labor costs associated with cleaning and transporting milk crates. Consumers found the pouring spout in need of further work but it raises the question – How many other things could be made more efficient/economical/green through design? Top photo by David Maxwell for The New York Times.

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Designer Pete Harrison, AKA Aeiko, hails for the UK and is currently operating out of London. We were immediately taken by his unique use of photography and eclectic graphic elements. When he’s not conjuring up super surreal images he’s running Funkrush, his clothing label. We super dig his stuff.
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Live Luggage has introduced the worlds first power assisted luggage. For those of us who just can’t bear to cart around 60lbs of travel accessories without a little “assistance.” The design functions based on sensors located in the handle which distribute the majority of the weight to the powered wheels using torque thus increasing efficiency. While we would like this to be remote controlled luggage, sadly it is not. It’s just a little help from our friends at Live Luggage. Read the rest of this entry »

The Cloud is an organic sculptural landmark that responds to human interaction and expresses contextual awareness by using hundreds of sensors and over 15,000 individually addressable optical fibers. Capable of detecting presence and engaging with users through its multi-fiber touch interface, The Cloud can interact with individuals as well as the local neighborhood and beyond. It can respond to the mood of the city or react to the latest football scores, fostering connections between trade-show visitors, the city, and its residents. This amazing sculpture is located in downtown Florence outside the Fortezza da Basso and part of the “Redesigning Fashion Trade Shows” project launched with MIT Mobile Experience Lab back in January 2007. This long term project will creatively rethink the trade show concept and will propose innovative technologies, perspectives and sensory experiences for fashion trade shows.

Austin based exotic car company, Ronn Motor Company Inc. has just announced their first eco-friendly performance car, the Scorpion. This elusive design will be turning heads with its curvy, hand built poly carbon fiber body which houses the latest Acura V-Tech, V-6, 3.5 Liter, Type S Engine, code for really darn fast.

The Scorpion will run on a 30 to 40 ratio blend of gas and hydrogen, promising around 40 mpg efficiency while still being able to hit 60 mph in 3.5 seconds and capable of producing 450 horsepower with the twin-turbo option. Not so different from its electric cousin, the Tesla Roadster, a lithium-ion battery charged wonder that can accelerate from 0-60mph in 3.9 seconds.

There are two kinds of Hydrogen Hybrid automobiles, a fuel cell vehicle and Hydrogen Internal Combustion Engines or HICE. Fuel cell vehicles are electric cars that when hydrogen is pumped like gas, it feeds into the fuel cell where it is then converted into electricity with no combustion, no moving parts and no emissions other than water vapor. A HICE vehicle a vehicle that will burn a combination of hydrogen and gasoline and release no CO2 emissions, exactly what the Scorpion will be.

In the meantime, make your check out for $50,000 U.S. Dollars, a fully refundable deposit that will hold your place in line (complete price tag of $150,000). The first year production of this baby is limited to 200 automobiles and is scheduled to begin in the last quarter of 2008.

More photos after the jump.

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Nicholas Di Genova is the dreamer, builder and maker of all things crazy looking in his little post-apocalyptic world of drawings. You won’t need to pop any hallucinogens for this one, this is served straight up and messed up with heavy doses of visual insanity. Di Genova’s portfolio is packed with things he that calls Bi-Faced Attack-Toads, a Cowterpillar Walker, an Elephant-Faced-Fowl, and Shark-Toothed Terriers to name a frightful few. “For a lot of my work, my technique is pretty straightforward, ink and watercolor on paper,” says Di Genova. “I use a lot of source materials in my work, so my studio is totally covered in layers of books. For the mylar paintings (the stuff with color), the technique is very similar to that of traditional animators: ink on one side of the mylar, animation paint on the other.”

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Born in 1988 in California, Brittanie Pendleton currently lives and works in Austin, Texas and already has a few things under her belt. Her website, Hairplay Photography, contains a beautiful array of vision-driven photography set in the ‘everyday’. It reminds us of the striking work you would see in an Urban Outfitters catalog. What looks like ‘just another Facebook girl’s photo collection’ is more like a talented, up and coming, young woman who knows how to utilize a camera and the settings around her to get an effect that we think we have seen before but continue to love it for its familiarity.

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I hate comparisons.

Comparisons are nearly always unfair, no matter how flattering one thinks they might be. So it is with this disclaimer that I launch into a longwinded spiel about Fleet Foxes‘ latest self-titled album.

Let’s be out with it: This album reminds me of My Morning Jacket (of the inimitable Z years, and far less like the somewhat baffling Evil Urges), Chutes Too Narrow-era Shins, and to a lesser extent, Band of Horses (again, first full length and not the subsequently inferior EP). Obviously there are a myriad of other influences, from Appalachian folk standards to baroque melodies to 60’s-era Beach Boys, but for all intents and purposes, those three specific artists/albums are the focus today.
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