I do NOT run a “paperless” office, that’s for sure. I try to be reasonable with my use of paper at work and at home, but I still seem to be surrounded - and sometimes overwhelmed - by paper.

Recently, I was lucky enough to conduct a “slow motion” interview with Mandy Haggith, the author of Paper Trails, a book that really challenged me. I really enjoyed her writing style, it’s light, personal, and informative. It was hard reading though.

(Read the article)

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A friend and neighbor has been entertaining us with his 3D photos. They’re terrific but they require a special lens and special viewer. It’s almost like the old stereopticon - you slide the two-part photo into the viewer, and voilà, you’re right there in the picture. The downside? I couldn’t make my eyes work properly and all I ever saw were two pictures sort of superimposed on one another…

Microsoft has come up with a photo manipulation tool that makes it possible to create a - more or less - three-dimensional image on your personal computer. (Read the article)

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University of Brighton graduate David Gardener presented his Package Lamp at New Designers in London recently. This lamp is made of pulp packaging material, and is both the shipping box and the finished lamp.

The pulp structure starts off as the packaging to house the bulb plug wire and socket. When opened, the user removes these electronic parts and repositions them back in the pulp structure in their correct positions where it actually becomes the structure of the lamp, leaving no waste packaging to be thrown away.

(Read the article)

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If it lies still, print on it! That’s my motto!

Inkjet printing has made its way to the local espresso bar; at least it’s not far away! Take a look at this handy dandy little machine that will print a personalized message on the foam floating on your latte.

At SIGGRAPH 2008 - the 35th International Conference & Exposition on Computer Graphics and Interactive Technologies -  a prototype machine was taking advantage of yet one more flat surface to present a computer generated image. (Read the article)

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Taking a page from Henry Ford and his Model T car, you can have your business card in any size you want, as long as it’s 2″ by 3 1/2″. While that’s not exactly true - case in point: my MOO cards are 1 1/8″ by 2 3/4″ - it might as well be gospel.

I’ve never met Emerson Taylor, but I think he’s got a great design future ahead of him! (Read the article)

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Full immersion in a holographic experience is in the demonstration stage. While it’s not yet the holodeck, no tactile feedback to users, it can’t be that far off until we can actually experience a fully interactive holographic display. Combining multitouch software from Obscura Digital and the Musion Eyeliner hologram projection system is the first step.

Look, ma, no hands!

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