360 DEGREES Weblog

Ever gone on vacation and realized you left your swimsuit behind. Worry no more if you are staying at any of The Standard hotels. Sporty clothing company Quiksilver has partnered with André Balazs’ The Standard Hotels on co-branded swimwear that will be sold not only in the hotel boutiques but also poolside in special vending machines in New York, Los Angeles, Hollywood and Miami. It’s a smart collaboration, The Standard is infamous for its pool scenes.

Four different styles of men’s board shorts were designed one for each hotel but women will have to content themselves with a black string bikini. Items can be purchased online at shopthestandard.com, and the first vending machine will open in Los Angeles on August 8.

“I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll blow your house in!” So said the rather nasty wolf to the Three Little Pigs, right before eating two of the poor little porkers. These foolish creatures chose to build their houses from sticks and from straw. The idiots. But could a puff of air really topple a house, even one made of old hay? Jem Stansfield, last seen using a vacuum cleaner to scale a building, decided to find out.

The video shows a Vortex Cannon, which fires out a pulse of spinning air at 200mph. When slowed down with a high-speed camera, you can see a ring hurtling towards the hastily constructed houses. This ring is in fact a 200mph cloud, formed from moisture condensed from the air itself.

So, how did the piggies’ homes fare? Poorly, I’m afraid. The cannon even manages to blow the brick house in, wiping the smug look off that last little pig’s pink face and resulting in an unexpected third course for the wolf.

Thanks Wired

A project codenamed “Square” is the brand new iPhone-base payment processing system that’s currently being alpha tested at the also brand new Self Edge NYC. In addition to keeping the process paperless, Square makes check-out clean and easy. The innovation is in a small, plastic card reader that fits in to the headphone jack of an iPhone (or iPod Touch) and transfers the credit card’s swipe data to the app (pictured, right). After the employee enters the amount to charge the customer confirms by scrawling their signature with their finger and then either one enters the customer’s email address to send the receipt to. The payment is processed by Square for a small percentage plus a fixed fee; the funds are transferred directly to the store’s bank account, cutting both time and complexity on the processing side. The customer’s receipt includes a map showing the location of the transaction which is handy for those who record, sort and file such things (pictured below).

While allowing anyone from a hot dog vendor to a bike messenger to process credit cards on-the-go, all we can say at the moment is that consumer to business transactions are just the beginning.

We’ve written before about Annie Leibovitz’s financial woes but as Gawker reports, now her lender, Art Capital Group, is taking her to court. Leibovitz borrowed $24 million from the financial firm and as collateral the company took not only her two homes and all her negatives and the copyright to her photographs but also an agreement to sell her archives to repay the loan and the rights to arrange the sale. Art Capital has sued breach of contract saying that she isn’t letting real estate agents into her homes and is being difficult in order to block attempts to sell the photos. The suit says that the loan was offered on the assumption that Leibovitz would eventually have to sell her photos to pay back the loan when it comes due in September. As part of the agreement that Leibovitz signed, Art Capital has the rights to administer sales of the work.

At Capital has physical custody of the negatives but the company is after a bigger prize, the intellectual property rights to Leibovitz’s portfolio. In order to broker that sort of sale they need Leibovitz’s cooperation. Meanwhile, Leibovitz made an agreement with Getty Images in March to work under a “a special multi-assignment collaboration.” This deal, done without Art Capital’s knowledge, cut them out of getting commission on the photos. The suit doesn’t mention any payments that Leibovitz has made to Art Capital against the loan but it is unlikely that she has paid much of it off and as the Gawker article mentions Leibovitz’s only out may be to declare bankruptcy. One of Gawker’s commenters also makes the point that with the magazine business shrinking and the budget for lavish photo shoots on the wane, Leibovitz’s opportunities to make money may be diminished.

Art Capital is in the business of making money off art and sometimes, artists. The company issues loans of $500,000 or more at interest rates from six percent to 16 percent to those who have artwork worthy of making such a loan. It operates like a pawn shop; if you fail to pay and you lose your precious art. Case in point, a Rubens hanging in the Art Capital offices once belonged to Veronica Hearst, the widow of Randolph Apperson Hearst. She mortgaged her art to hold onto Villa Venezio in Manalapan, Florida. She eventually lost the home in foreclosure. Artist Julian Schnabel sued Art Capital this year. He took out an $8 million loan in 2006, when he was building his pink folly known as Palazzo Chupi. Schnabel claims he paid back the loan but Art Capital says it is entitled to more money because Schnabel did not reveal there was an existing mortgage on the property. An ArtInfo article on that suit quotes Gerald Peters, a Santa Fe-based dealer who has bought paintings from Art Capital and says that “the game they have to play is rough, but the service they are providing is real. And there’s demand for it.”

Stick one of these spread heads on your tube of Colgate and give your kids all the thrills that come along with watching a plastic head regurgitate toothpaste night after night. But be warned, if you see your tot running to get his toothbrush next time Fluffy spits up a hairball, you can bet they’re thinking that if it comes out of an animal’s mouth, it must be minty and fresh.

$4.99 each

In this case, the definition of “portable” has been stretched slightly. The iConic 100 LED screen has more in common with a billboard than a television, with a surface area of 100m². The screen is actually high-def and can play back 720p video.

From there, the numbers get even bigger. The display is 12.8 meters long and 7.2 meters tall. That’s a 578-inch screen, if my math is correct, and the TV takes a half hour to set up once it has arrived. And how, you are no doubt asking, could this be called portable? That’s the trick. The Iconic comes on wheels. Giant, flatbed trailer wheels which hook up to a truck, making it technically “portable”, despite weighing 33,000Kg. It even comes with a generator so you don’t have to find a socket to plug it in.

So, is this the world’s largest portable TV? Actually, no. There’s no built-in tuner, so really it’s just a big ol’ screen.

Thanks Wired

Soar through the air and navigate the seas aboard the Antilles Seaplanes G-21 Super Goose ($TBA). A remake of the legendary Grumman Goose that ferried the likes of Hemingway and MacArthur in a long-ago era, the new Super Goose was built using the original Goose’s FAA type certificates, engineer’s drawings and blueprints, melding classic construction with modern technologies. Whether you’re island-hopping or making your way to your favorite isolated fishing hole, the Super Goose will get you there like nothing else.

Much the way consumers can solicit feedback on their own appearance through checkyourimage.com, marketers can now get early thoughts on new designs and concepts through a community of peers at Concept Feedback.

Currently in beta, Concept Feedback is designed specifically for marketers, graphic designers and web developers to provide a simple tool for getting free, sincere feedback from like-minded professionals. Website designs, ads, logos, videos, presentations and more can all be uploaded to the site and submitted for review by other members; the person posting the material keeps all rights. Using a standard review template for consistency, professionals participating on the site can then offer their constructive advice, which gets automatically collected and archived for the submitting member. A system of reputation scores, meanwhile, keeps members honest and helps interpret their advice. The result, according to Concept Feedback, can be that any design problems are caught earlier, ensuring that only high-quality ideas make it into launch.

Andrew Follett, the company’s founder and CEO, explains: “Most small business marketers and freelancers lack the budget and resources it requires to obtain useful feedback on marketing concepts. A third-party point of view can be critical to launching a website, advertising campaign or concept that is clear, concise and effective.”

It still can’t multitask, but as of today, it’s finally capable of accessing and sharing iDisk files. Apple has at long last let loose a long-awaited application for iPhone OS 3.0 that enables iPhone and iPod touch users with MobileMe accounts to access the inner sanctums of their own iDisk. The app lets you login, view files (up to 20MB or so, sayeth Apple) and share files by sending others a link via email to whatever you deem appropriate. There’s also an option to password protect those files and limit the amount of days the download is active, though viewing files is limited to iPhone-supported file types such as iWork, Office, QuickTime, PDF, etc. If you’re a paying MobileMe user, go on and give this one a download. Apps store.

That’s right, a new vending machine uses vein-reading technology to charge you for products, rather than the traditional coin slot or credit card reader. One caveat: “the system exploits your identity a bit in the process, using age and gender information on file to display an appropriate video ad while you enjoy your refreshment.”