Looking good

Welcome to Idealog Weekly, the free email newsletter for New Zealand commercial creatives, entrepreneurs and anyone rich with ideas.

Looking good

We’re looking pretty good these days, if we do say so ourselves. The website has had a spit-and-pixel-polish and we reckon you’ll probably be able to find your way around it now without any help from Wises. Have a look and while you’re there, read up on the woman dressing the men in black. Don’t worry, it’s nothing sinister—or worse, Will Smith—it’s The Grill with Margi Robertson of Nom*D, the dark clotheshorse of the deep dark south.

Old + less old = new

If you combine two obsolete technologies, does it make something solete (so elite) that it’s useable? We’re about to find out. The VinylDisc is … well, guess. High five if you got a record on one side and a compact disc on the other. It’s gotta be popular at events like weddings, where university and rest home dwellers vie to control the stereo. You may still have to listen to ‘Brown Eyed Girl’, but at least you can do so in your format of choice. Feel the power. (Via jwz)

PC (pretty computer)

If you’re a diehard PC fan now you can proudly open your laptop alongside those shiny Apples. Yes, on the table. Even dull Dell is now putting some sex into its packages, in a long overdue recognition that people don’t generally work with their eyes closed.

Three o’clock slump

Your company doesn’t condone drinking at work? Now it won’t have to. In the best move for employee happiness since duvet days, comes the USB-powered mini fridge. It also operates as a heater, but that’s irrelevant for our purpose: shiny happy pen pushers.

We do the thinking, they do the doing

Those who were disappointed by the ‘safe’ choice of Eden Park to host the next—can I say it yet—Rugby World Cup, won’t feel so disappointed when they see the winning project for the remodelled Camp Nou Stadium in Barcelona. They’ll just be plain old embarrassed. The new home of Barcelona FC has a forward-thinking LED powered skin that changes colour during matches. Besides that, it looks strangely like our previously proposed waterfront stadium. Those Europeans were always better at recycling than us. (Via NotCot)

Round the bend

Here’s something round for all you squares. Toshiba has developed a full-colour round LCD display, bringing with it endless possibilities for people who are averse to edges. Toshiba thinks it has great potential for vehicle instrument panels. We think that idea has great potential for upping the road toll. But round TVs would be great—you could watch it all day and only end up with your same old round eyes.

Speaking Australian

We all speak English, but communication can still be a problem with our mates in Oz. The Trans-Tasman Business Forum will teach you the language, or, at the very least, translate for you as you build up your trans-Tasman contact book. It’s on at the Hyatt Regency on November 7.

New Zealand’s second designer Saturday will be a designer week, from Friday November 9 to Saturday November 17. Dunedin will design the setting to celebrate all things design—hardware, software, technology, media, industry and fashion. Dig out something black and book your tickets.

Quote of the week

“I don’t know that somebody would rush out and buy Nom*D because Kelly Osbourne wore it. I’m just not into celebrity front rows’”

—Margi Robertson looks a gift horse in the mouth

More at Idealog online

Read more on our website: web exclusives, opinion, Idealog IP, the Idealog blogs and the Idealog podcast. See you at idealog.co.nz.

  Gena Tuffery
  Senior writer

Idealog Weekly is sent to friends, subscribers and registered website users of Idealog magazine.