The ______ Cards

This is my favorite for the day. These _____ cards have little punch holes in a white foreground with the backing available in a variety of colors so you can create your own greeting cards. Check out the website where you can pop out the punches and create your own design. I will update the post when I find out where to buy these. I'm also trying to figure out who exactly makes them... looks like some company named breed. Whatever. Cool concept.

Check out the Flickr group for other peoples' creations.

via designboom

UPDATE

The link to buy the cards works now. $10 plus shipping gets you 5 cards in the colors pictured above. Go here.

Polaroid PoGo Instant Digital Camera

While nothing can replace the old Instamatic Polaroid, this new take on an old idea, the Polaroid PoGo, is probably long overdue. While there hasn't been any word on picture quality or the cost of Polaroid PoGo™ ZINK Photo Paper™, the prints will be 2"x3" and the camera itself weighs in at around 10 oz.

The printing process uses "inkless printing [which] embeds color into the paper – no ink cartridges or ribbons needed." While it is a highly technical process, and you can read about it here, I can paraphrase by saying that the paper has a special coating which allows the camera to create different colors with precise and varying applications of heat. The manufacturer claims that the range of colors is in the millions, but as I said, there has not been any independent word on picture quality.

I was going to mention that, per our discussion yesterday, this sounds like a real alternative to the toxic and polluting ink cartridge printers currently available. Then I thought about what sort of horrendous chemicals must have been used to create the ZINK system, and I thought better of it. Then I thought I would tell you all about it here, and I did. Case closed.

Look for the Polaroid PoGo Instant Digital Camera beginning in March 2009 for $200.

via gizmodo

Wallpaper* Magazine's Best of 2008

Wallpaper* is a well-respected design mag, and since I like their choices, I am linking their Best of 2008 award winners. My favorites are the Banq restaurant in Boston, pictured above, and pictured below is the BMW Welt in Germany. Just Germany. Because it's such a tiny country, you really don't need to be more specific than that, do you? No, you don't.

Spranq Ecofont

Dutch design firm Spranq has developed this new font to reduce the amount of ink used in printing. According to research, electronic waste accounts for only 2% of all landfill trash in the United States each year, but fully 70% of the toxic waste generated. The Spranq team researched ink usage and appearance and came up with the model above, with small unprinted circles in the midst of the larger character.

Spranq claims that ecofont saves 20% of the ink used by other fonts while still maintaining a high level of readability. They also remind us that ink is only part of the battle: paper choice and printer choice are also important factors in reducing this source of pollution. On average, ink will take 450 years to break down in a landfill.

You can get Ecofont free of charge here.

via CH

Apple to Drop DRM on iTunes, Adopt Variable Pricing Scheme

Apple announced today at the MacWorld convention in San Francisco that it would be dropping Digital Rights Media on iTunes music downloads. What this means is you are no longer forced to use iTunes as your media player for your (legally) downloaded musical content.

If you want to retroactively 'upgrade' your purchased music by removing DRM restrictions, you have to pay $0.30 per song. Yes. You must pay for every song you have previously purchased in order to bail it out of the iTunes jail. The alternative, of course, is to do what people have been doing for quite some time and acquire an application that jailbreaks your music for you.

As far as new content, things are a little more hopeful for those of us who live life outside the Top 40: there will be new pricing 'tiers' at $0.69, $0.99, and $1.29 per song, and it will be up to the discretion of the labels who own the music to decide how much to charge for a given artist/album. Hopefully this results in the lower tier for 'new' artist music on iTunes, because sometimes looking for torrents is too much work and I just want to pay for the damn album.

Finally, iTunes will now be available for iPhone users over AT&Ts 3G network. This feature was previously only available with a wifi connection.

via engadget

Magnogrip

While I haven't seen it in action, I approve of the concept of the Magnogrip. There is nothing worse than engaging in some DIY activity only to realize you will need to pause and go get another drillbit in order to successfully complete your task (in reality, there are many things worse than that, such as drilling into a conduit or water pipe) or dropping screws on the floor and having to crawl around on all fours like a squirrel looking into the cracks in the floorboards.

Its fabric construct consists of durable heavy duty canvas, industrial grade velcro and high-powered magnets that are strong enough to hold a hammer. What kind of hammer is not discussed, and therefore I approach this claim with substantial skepticism. Mostly because my hammer kicks ass and won't be held down by any mamby-pamby magnetic bracelet. No sir.

The Magnogrip is priced at $14.99 here.

via core77

Freeloader solar charger

UK company Solar Technology brings it with this slick multi-device solar charger. iPods, PSPs, and cell phones can all be hooked up to this thing and get full charges. Check out the list of provided connectors here. It has hit the market at $43 a pop, and you can get it here.

I'm picturing attaching this thing to the window on long flights to keep my gear up and running. It will be sweet to have an ipod that won't die 8 hours into a 13 hour flight.

via dvice