CHEAT SHEET

AGENCY NEWS

CULTURE

11 March - 19 March 2012

INNOVATION AND TRENDS

TECHNOLOGY

SUSTAINABILITY

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In the age of the smartphone, devices for people with disabilities tend to be too simple and have just a few elementary functions. Shikun San, a student at Shef-field Hallam University in the U.K. has designed a smartphone especially for the blind. Along with the basic functions of a telephone, it has a keyboard and touchscreen in braille as well as a book reader, music player, and email.

DrawBraille Phone:

At PSFK Conference NYC, Robert Kirkpatrick, Director of the United Nation’s Global Pulse Initiative, will discuss his innovative work mining social media and the huge amounts of passive data that is created every day. This will be done in order to detect the early impacts of global crises on various commu-nities. For more information, click on the video about the Global Pulse Initia-tive that is shown in this article.

How Passive Data Will Save the World:

Over the past few weeks, Draw Something has become the new mobile gam-ing sensation. Although it was released less than two months ago, it has al-ready garnered over 25 million downloads and more than 1.5 billion pictures have been drawn.

Draw Something, a New Twist on Pictionary, Charms Mobile Gamers:

With the use of the ingenious Rechner iPhone app, the most common math-ematical function keys are replaced with finger swipes. Rechner yields a 200% increase in efficiency and was completed from start to finish in 16 days.

Suprisingly Functional: The World’s First Gesture-Based Calculator:

Researchers at the Vienna University of Technology have managed to perfect printing 3D objects at the nanoscale. Their nano 3D printer has the ability to create complex objects that are as small as a grain of sand – although they de-pict very complex structures. Some examples in this article include a race car and a model of St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna.

Watch a Nanoscale Race Car Get 3D Printed with a Laser:

After releasing a new version of its browser, The Mozilla foundation has laid out its plans for 2012. The two features that are attracting the most attention are silent updates - updates that will be downloaded and installed without the need for user intervention, and the ability to share links and updates to social networks directly from the browser.

German agency Jung Von Matt has produced the ‘Imagine’ campaign for Lego. The print advertising campaign plays with your imagination by using only the most basic stones by Lego to construct your favorite cartoon characters. With a little bit of imagination it is easy to understand the genius behind the campaign.

Lego Imagine Ad Campaign – Minimalist Versions of Your Favorite Cartoon Characters:

Chirp Clock finds tweets containing the current time and displays them on its site. Nearly every second, a user on Twitter tweets about what time it is. It could be groaning about waking up, to telling a friend when to meet, to an automated train scheduler altering when the next one is coming. By search-ing Twitter for the current time we get a tiny glimpse of how active and far reaching it is.

Chirpclock.com: Tweet the Time:

In this YouTube video, Art.com presents a new iPad app called ArtCircles, which lets you explore curated collections of the world’s greatest artworks. The app also lets you group together artwork based on words and colors. Users can spin the wheel to find something unexpected. To promote the app, Michael Langan directed a cool video that goes through some of the world’s most iconic pieces in 30 seconds.

Art.com Created a Video for the Launch of their ArtCircles App:

Mike Allen, managing partner and president of 180, Los Angeles, will be-come the agency’s global CEO. Former CEO Chris Mendola will move to the role of Chairman, and Mr. Allen will continue to oversee day-to-day manage-ment of the Los Angeles office as well as the added responsibility of 180’s global operation.

Mike Allen Named Global CEO of Omnicom Group’s 180:

PepsiCo’s Quaker Foods and Snacks North America, Chicago has shifted the creative duties for Quaker products between agencies that are part of the BBDO Worldwide unit of the Omnicom Group. The assignment is being moved to Energy BBDO, Chicago from Juniper Park, Toronto.

News From the Advertising Industry:

OgilvyOne recently led a consortium of agencies (including eCommera, Ima-no, and Ravensbourne College and Decision Technology) to win the global digital account for British Airways. OgilvyOne and the new consortium will now become responsible for all of BA’s online marketing activity, including banner ads and social media campaigns.

British Airways Appoints OgilvyOne to Global Digital Account:

The future of urban farming is under construction in Sweden as agricultural design firm Plantagon works to bring a 12-year-old vision to life: The city of Linköping will soon be home to a 17-story “vertical greenhouse.” The green-house will serve as a regenerating food bank, tackling urban sprawl while making the city self-sufficient.

A ‘Vertical Greenhouse’ Could Make a Swedish City Self-Sufficient:

Pictures of ghostly white coral colonies bleached by elevated sea tempera-tures have become symbols of the effects of global warming. Now there is a glimmer of hope that at least some corals may be more resilient than previously thought. A study suggests that certain kinds of corals subjected to bleaching adapt to endure higher water temperatures.

Some Corals May Adapt to Warming Seas:

The latest version of innovative ultra-thin flexible plastic credit cards could have a tangible place in our near future. At only 0.3mm thick, these credit cards owe their design to organic radical batteries or ORBs. Specially devel-oped circuit board integration allows this technology to translate into a num-ber of other products including flat screen displays, e-readers, and specially- built debit and credit cards.

NEC Credit Card-Thin Organic Radical Battery:

creativity + bravery

Klat Magazine3-16-12

Fast Co.Design3-12

NY Times3-16-12

PSFK3-17-12

HighSnobiety3-16-12

Geek3-11-12

Mashable3-15-12

Kottke3-12-12

YouTube3-19-12

AdAge3-16-12

Brand Republic 3-19-12

NY Times3-16-12

Wired3-13-12

Good3-12-12

HypeBeast3-13-12

Firefox’s plans for 2012: Silent updates, sharing on social networks