Hasta La Ideas

Wildlab.com’s Test Rides iPhone app is geared to help you match your body to a bicycle of appropriate size. After photographing yourself in the specific position seen above, you then mark your joint locations on-screen, enter the dimensions of a bicycle, and the app tells you whether it’s a good fit or not.

We’re excited by the human features potential of this app not just for bicycles, but for furniture and workstation design. While it probably won’t replace the classic Human Dimension and Interior Space designer’s bible anytime soon, with a few tweaks this program could quickly give you vital dimensions of people reaching for cabinets, ascending stairs, slouching into unfocused unconsciousness, et cetera.

Guys and gals at Wildlab, if you’re reading, check out this book!

via wired

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The quarter-century old nonprofit TED—Technology, Education and Design—just made their mission of spreading innovative ideas easier with their iPhone application. Aggregating the latest audio and video from the TED talks and conferences, the search function sorts through the hundreds of speakers and a bookmarking feature marks favorites.

The TED app is free, compatible with the iPhone and iPod Touch and available from iTunes.

Why not? It’s actually not that easy (at least not where we live) to find those travel friendly mini containers of shaving foam. The pharmacies usually have some during the spring holiday pre-season, and just the other day we found one at a French Carrefour supermarket, but other than that they are usually non existent These we could buy a number of and save for future trips. They are available from the American Target online store at USD 10:- for a pack of three.brbr

The likes of Stella Vine, Damien Hirst, Rankin and Stephen Wiltshire (whose view of London is shown above) have all donated work for SpectrumArt 2009, an auction to raise funds for the Cornish charity working with those affected by autistic spectrum disorders

Spectrum was formed in 1982 – originally as the Devon and Cornwall Autistic Community Trust based in a converted rectory near Truro with a staff of eleven.  The charity now helps almost 100 people from around the UK, with 23 homes in Cornwall, a special school and almost 400 staff. It also operates the Art Ark, a converted water-barge moored alongside a quay in Penryn, near Falmouth, where artists such as Stella Vine have run workshops with people with ASDs.

This year’s SpectrumArt auction, which has the theme of communication, will take place on October 31 at the Headland Hotel in Newquay. Among the donated works are ‘Flight Officer Maureen Dunlop’, a print by Stella Vine in tribute to a pilot of the Air Transport Auxiliary in World War Two.

Hello Hello by Rankin (taking the ‘communication’ theme somewhat literally)

Chris Levine’s Chris Levine Lightness of Being image of the Queen

And this tryptich from Paul McGowan, working with illustrators Mark Lascelles Thornton and Michael Cole and photographer Chris Stocker. The piece was inspired by a genuine Dartmoor Prison door which had been graffitied by prisoners and which McGowan had at his studio.

Tickets for the auction are £50 which includes dinner. Contact Jasmine Grigg, Art Project Leader, at Spectrum on 01326 371016