Fast Company

A new type of dry-wall could shave 20% off of cooling costs. Not too long ago, it would have been sci-fi, but "phase change" materials are making their way to the U.S.: ThermalCORE, a new type of dry-wall panel created by National Gypsum and BASF, promises to help cut...

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Monocle not included with a new line of cycling gear. Retro, a company that makes cycling apparel, has announced their newest product: A pair of jerseys emblazoned with covers from The New Yorker. The men's jersey design comes from a 1929 cover by by Theodore G. Haupt, depicting a bicycle...

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What do you do if you want to advertise on the Big Game but only have a $100,000 ad budget? Try a one–second "blink" ad. It's a daunting design challenge to get a powerful brand message to stick.Seventy-five thousand fans will jam into the Sun Life Stadium on Sunday to...

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It could be the understatement of the fresh decade to say that the government's bailout of large Wall Street firms--known as TARP--was not super popular with most folks. And for good reason: The very people who got us in this mess were, rightly or not, perceived as getting off easy...

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A map connecting the myriad risks to the global economy. Last weekend, the World Economic Forum held its annual meeting at Davos, and the theme this time was "Improve the State of the World." Which naturally meant coming to terms with the risks out there. Their economists came up with...

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Companies are leaping aboard the social media platform left, right and center...but a recent re-design to Skittles.com shows that it's not a simple game to play. Skittles change was forced by social media abuses. Last year Skittles tried a radical approach, reshaping its online presence such that the primary message...

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Twitter's quietly adapting and improving services almost as fast as people are finding new ways to use its social media powers. Today it added hovercard data previews to its Web site...just as Sun's CEO resigned with a Tweet. The hovercard idea is a relatively minor tweak to the UI presented to...

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Leave it to Madonna to be at the forefront of any and all trends coming down the pipeline. This time around, the aging pop legend has taken on energy efficiency by bankrolling the Raising Malawi Academy for Girls, a planned school in her son David's homeland. The 113-acre school will consist...

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And you thought the Detroit giant wasn't innovative. Two fascinating projects from struggling Detroit behemoth GM (and neither of the connected to the Volt): The first, a collaboration with NASA to build a next-gen robot suited both to car factories and space stations; the second, a concept for a new type...

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    As a regular reader of The Upswing, you are well aware that, as far as we are concerned things are looking, well, up. But the one area that has bugged not only us but most economy watchers has been the decided lack of new jobs associated with the recovery. A...

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The new branding is mean and bold, befitting of the nation's manliest past time. Super Bowl XLIV! The ads seem like they're gonna be only meh. So let's move on to another, crucial piece of the design: The branding itself. This year, the logo was designed by Attik, which sent...

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If you've seen Pepsi's newest "Refresh Everything" ad, you've probably felt some déjà vu. The commercial, which features Pepsi-drinkers interacting with one another across split screens, looks exactly like the music video "Hibi No Neiro" from the Japanese band SOUR, as YouTube users were quick to point out. SOUR's video went viral...

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Disney's EVP Kevin Mayer spoke at the DeSilva & Philips Dealmakers conference today, and though he said many things, it was his words about paid Hulu content through Hulu and Apple that have got us intrigued. That's because paid online content is a seriously hot topic at the moment, as...

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Let's say you want to produce an exciting design for a next-generation home electronics device. Which scenario will help you make this breakthrough happen? 1. You plan to generate a lot of "blue sky" ideas so you keep constraints at bay. There is no technology constraint or clearly defined market opportunity. The sky is...

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A heart that melts and Valentine' cards lifted from rap songs. Maybe you've noticed that we've been cajoling designers to submit their ideas for a re-design of Valentine's Day. But if you're still on the fence, here's a couple new projects to inspire you. Pictured above is the recently announced Valentine's...

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This blog is part of our Inspired Ethonomics series. Patti Prairie is the CEO of Brighter Planet, a startup whose purpose is to help manage our environmental footprint, you can follow via their blog Few movements have captured the liberal imagination like the local food movement. "Food miles" is becoming a...

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Jeffrey Hollender is practically boiling. "Twenty-five percent of the trading on the New York Stock Exchange are people who are buying and selling stocks in a matter of seconds!" booms the compact 54-year-old, pacing in front of a room of fleeced and flannelled University of Vermont business students, his turquoise...

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Turning what you see around you into stories about what's to come. In Futures Thinking: The Basics, I offered up an overview of how to engage in a foresight exercise. In Futures Thinking: Asking the Question, I explored in more detail the process of setting up a futures exercise, and how...

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These seven flights are so short that it's faster to make the trip by bus--whether they're connecting flights or not, they could be banned with only minor inconvenience. Scientists have created a new material that cleans up nuclear waste--by mimicking a venus flytrap.Obama has finally unveiled his high speed rail plans--here's...

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