360 DEGREES Weblog

New Yorkers hankering for a frozen treat can head over to Grom, a new transplant from Italy that serves up old style gelato made of only the freshest organic and seasonal ingredients. True to its tagline—Il gelato come una volta—Grom serves up gelato ‘as it once was,’ eschewing mass production for a slower, more authentic process.

Main flavours such as chocolate, hazelnut, coffee and pistachio are available year-round, but some of the more unique offerings vary based on when the ingredients are in season and at their freshest. Ciaculli late winter mandarins from Southern Italy, for instance, are best in March. And the company typically only purchases melons June through September. Rotating menu items based on seasonality harkens back to times when shipping or storing perishable ingredients wasn’t feasible—which adds points for authenticity and still made here story elements. More importantly, the novelty doesn’t wear off as quickly, which can keep customers coming back. Grom operates a dozen stores across Italy, with more to come to other areas of the US if the New York location is a hit. We at 360Ëš think it’s one to watch!

No longer content to offer consumers Swedish meatballs and self-assembly shelves, Ikea in Norway is now offering weary shoppers the chance to sleep over in one of its Oslo showrooms free of charge.
From July 23 to July 27, the public will be able to spend the night in special rooms set up in the store, with a choice of bridal suite, complete with hanging chandelier and a round bed, or a luxury suite that includes breakfast in bed.

Others can share a bunk in the dormitory, while parents and children can join in the fun in one of Ikea’s family rooms. (BREITBART)

Windorphins.com—a progressive energy provider? A biomolecular study guide? A Saturday morning cartoon? You’d never know by the inscrutable advertisements that are popping up nationwide. Peppered with amoeba-like cartoon characters and impregnable aphorisms, these ads—some of which span entire subway cars—are as confusing as they are ubiquitous, and mark an annoyingly successful trend in advertising.
What’s the point of an advertisement that’s hard to crack? (RADAR)

The Shanling MC-30 Music Center is proof that not all iPod docks have to look the same. It comes packed with not only iPod support, but a Hi-Fi CD player, an AM/FM tuner, and a tube power amplifier. The single-ended tube amplifier allows for 3 watts of power per channel to whatever speakers you have hooked up. And in case you missed the giant photos, it looks kind of awesome.

The squat chassis is made with brushed aluminum and has some attractive LED highlights. It’s legs aren’t just for show, either, as the caps on its two forward supports act as an input selector and volume control. So now that you’re all excited it’s time to bring you back down to Earth: $1,000 for the unit.

While I’ve heard of a “water sommelier” at some restaurants in Los Angeles, in Bill and Hillary Clinton’s adopted hometown of Chappaqua, New York there is a luxury water bar. Via Genova has nearly 80 different types of water from around the world including the 10 Thousand BC water from British Columbia for $30 U.S. and the crystal-covered Bling water for $55. The restaurant also serve a light menu. They will even cater water for events, doing water tastings and weddings. Would you go to a cafe just for the water?

We’ve talked about the mile-high club before but the new frontier is the mile-below club. A unique place that can only be reached via submarine. it turns out that the intimate quarters of a sub traveling under the sea may be the new hot spot for romantic travelers who’ve done it just about everywhere else. The London Times picks up on a Bloomberg interview last week with Hervé Jaubert, a former French navy commando who founded the submarine company Exomos that mentioned the challenges of underwater love. Bruce Jones, the president of US Submarines confirms that the sight of couples en flagrante is interesting to dolphins who bang on the windows with their noses. How long before some enterprising person creates a service to offer travelers the chance to get busy below similar to the services they offer in the sky.

Here’s the Datamask H.U.D., a personal dive computer that takes the self-contained part of SCUBA diving to the next level by placing all the information about your dive right there in front of you in a head-up display. Originally developed for the military and now available for use by the rest of us, this is one sophisticated mask.

Its Digital Optic system displays your current depth, elapsed dive time, the amount of pressure in that air cylinder on your back, and time remaining. It keeps all that information easily visible even in the murkiest conditions, and helpfully remembers the info from your past 24 dives, too. If you’re serious about your diving gear, it might be worth its $1495.95.

There’s a certain charm in old school oil based radiators but in our modern lives, it seems a bit dated. The Phoebe radiator is a modern update to that old school tech. An electrically powered heating core is surround by layers of lamellar sections that evoke a sense of Zen in its uniformness. It beautifully blends in with your home decor disguising its true function. Plug it in anywhere while you read a book, or maybe in the garden during a romantic dinner. Phoebe is designed to be used to your heart’s content.

This new house designed by Antonino Cardillo has stumped us good and proper. Is it just another vacuous interior that looks an awful lot like a museum? Or is it a very shrewd example of how shapes and colours interact when placed next to each other?

Built on a hillside somewhere in Italy, Cardillo has created a concrete ellipse that dilates to the east and west. It also just happens to look like a grey blob squatting on a hill. Inside you’re met with an enormous curve that sweeps across the central hall, forcing the eye to look down through the space at the brutal lines of the rest of the house. A smooth exterior hides the phantasmagoria of shapes inside.

AN American man has flown 300km by tying 105 large helium balloons to his lawn chair.

Kent Couch used instruments to measure his altitude and speed, a global positioning device and about four plastic bags holding 19 litres of water each as a ballast to fly through the Oregon sky, Associated Press reported.

Mr Couch, 47, landed in a farmer’s field after nine hours in the air.