Today, a new online game, Evoke, begins that hopes to solve some of the worlds major issues.

Watch the trailer of the game below:

EVOKE trailer (a new online game) from Alchemy on Vimeo.

Listen to the game creator give an explanation of the project here:

EVOKE is free to play and open to anyone, anywhere.

The game begins on March 3, 2010. Players can join the game at any time.

Players who successfully complete ten game challenges in ten weeks will be able to claim their honors: Certified World Bank Institute Social Innovator – Class of 2010.

Top players will also earn online mentorships with experienced social innovators and business leaders from around the world, and scholarships to share their vision for the future at the EVOKE Summit in Washington DC.

EVOKE was developed by the World Bank Institute, the learning and knowledge arm of the World Bank Group, and directed by alternate reality game master Jane McGonigal.

[via UrgentEvoke]

So join us in seeing if we can have some fun while making the world a better place.

The Eyewriter from Evan Roth on Vimeo.

The site explains:

Members of Free Art and Technology (FAT), OpenFrameworks, the Graffiti Research Lab, and The Ebeling Group communities have teamed-up with a legendary LA graffiti writer, publisher and activist, named Tony Quan, aka TEMPTONE. Tony was diagnosed with ALS in 2003, a disease which has left him almost completely physically paralyzed… except for his eyes. This international team is working together to create a low-cost, open source eye-tracking system that will allow ALS patients to draw using just their eyes. The long-term goal is to create a professional/social network of software developers, hardware hackers, urban projection artists and ALS patients from around the world who are using local materials and open source research to creatively connect and make eye art.

Eyewriter is a new collaborative project in a long list of urban communicative design from G.R.L. For anyone not familiar with the Graffiti Research Lab; they use open-source tech to expand the creativity of urban art. They have completed dozens of projects from the first LED throwies, to 3D laser projections. Their site is definitely worth a long visit.

More pics from Tempt One below-

Art is a tool of empowerment and social change, and I consider myself blessed to be able to create and and use my work to promote health reform, bring awareness about ALS and help others – Tony Quan, aka Tempt One

Visit Eyewiter.org for more info, or to get involved.

We purchased USB Batteries last year for the concept alone. They don’t work that great. They literally last only days in a mouse or wiimote. The upside is that are easily chargeable on the fly. So, I usually carry them in my laptop bag for emergencies. The ones we got are from Kikkerland Design (who do great product design btw).

I can’t find any info about the batteries on their site, so maybe it was discontinued. I would be interested to try other USB battery brands (for example USBCELL), if anyone is interested in mailing us some. But, I am not sure if we will purchase anymore without some better battery life.

When MTFY was at Greener Gadgets a while back we were given a sample pack of Fuji Eniviromax batteries. They are not USB or rechargeable. But, they can be thrown out with regular trash. Non-toxic batteries is a nice change for a bit. Fuji explains:

The materials that make up a Fuji EnviroMAX battery are derived from the basic elements of the Earth. There is nothing inside a Fuji EnviroMAX battery that will harm the environment if it is disposed of through normal waste systems. …Fuji EnviroMAX batteries contain no harmful mercury, cadmium – nor are they packaged with dangerous (and non-recyclable) PVC plastic.

Fuji goes on to talk about how the factory itself is environmentally friendly. They say the manufacturing process does not release any ozone depleting compounds- so that is a plus. The packaging is seen below.

Though we all would love to say that every battery in our entire home is rechargeable and environmentally friendly, that is not the way we live. There are numerous devices/gadgets throughout the MTFY space that need immediate  power. We have a recycle container of batteries that we take to IKEA every few months. But I know most work places just toss them. I do feel better knowing that at the very least, that if my batteries aren’t cradle to cradle, they are at least biodegradable.

Fuji says that are battery are more powerful then traditional batteries, do better in extreme climates, and have a long shelf life. They also state that they use “Reverse Current Protection”.

Reverse Current Protection- A device which senses when there is a reversal in the normal direction of current in an electric power system, indicating an abnormal condition of the system, and which initiates appropriate action to prevent damage to the system. — via Answers.com

We decided to test the sample pack we were given. Heidi has been using the Enviromax AAA batteries in her mouse for a while now, and they are working great. 4 weeks of 9-11 hour a day use- not bad. I am going to order some AA for my Xbox 360 controller- update soon. As far as the biodegradable factor, that will take a little more time to assess. I wonder if we should throw some in our worm composter. Thoughts anyone?

Fuji says they have no plans to develop rechargeable batteries in this range. Instead, you will have to make due with disposing of these batteries as you go.

The average person in North America throws out about eight household batteries per year. About three billion batteries are sold annually in the U.S. averaging about ten per person. Batteries contain heavy metals such as mercury, lead, cadmium, and nickel, which can contaminate the environment when batteries are improperly disposed of. When incinerated, certain metals might be released into the air or can concentrate in the ash created by the combustion process. Batteries produce many potential problems or hazards. They pollute lakes and the water supply and contribute to heavy metals that potentially may seep from landfills. They also contain strong corrosive acids, which are an environmental, and health hazard. —via nexplanrecycling.com

Cadmium also leaks into the air when burned, which in turn creates more toxic waste. So that said, using Fuji Enviromax batteries is a great start.

Take Away
The best option for a battery, would be a biodegradable rechargeable battery. The very best option would be to not need one at all. For example getting more products that use solar or kinetic energy.

According to MercyCorps.org

Mercy Corps is a team of 3700 professionals helping turn crisis into opportunity for millions around the world. By trade, we are engineers, financial analysts, drivers, community organizers, project managers, public health experts, administrators, social entrepreneurs and logisticians. In spirit, we are activists, optimists, innovators and proud partners of the people we serve.

What I like about Mercy Corps is what they are calling Action Centers. These are actual storefronts in major cities where people can donate their time to help the world. Weather its a minute or a lifetime, all are welcome. They also have a very impressive site at actioncenter.org. The site ranges from telling heart felt current life stories, to actual causes you can get involved in right away.

The next group I want to touch on is DesigNYC.

Design impacts our daily lives in smart, ingenious and often unexpected ways — from the structures we live in, to the public spaces we convene in, to the graphic systems that inform us, and the interactive experiences that connect us.

We created desigNYC with the mission of improving life in NYC by connecting nonprofits and community groups in need of design services with professional, pro bono design resources.

Their site is easy to use, and has a clean layout (it was made for designers ). DesigNYC creates a great outlet for creatives who want to do some good for the world.

Lastly, their is the Center for Urban Pedagogy. I was actually on CUPs site earlier that day, and had no idea that they were speaking at Design and the City. They create teaching tools about land use and urban development in New York City. This cute video explains it really well-

What Is Affordable Housing? from the Center for Urban Pedagogy on Vimeo.

A stop-action animation on the technical definitions of affordable housing — by Rosten Woo and John Mangin of CUP, animator/designer Jeff Lai, and Glen Cummings of MTWTF. Narrated by Lisa Burriss. Sound by Rosten Woo.

What MTFY really likes is the Who Lives Here online map. Check it out for yourself here. We are a sucker for great information aesthetics, and this delivers. Look at the Lower East Side for a surprising comparison of low to high income housing and affordability. This stuff was previously not easily accessible  to the general public. Now, you can print or save a PDF of a particular area for future reference- nice.

There is a part 2 to Design and the City on December 3rd. Go to the Nau site for more info. And buy some amazing sustainable fashion while you are on the site, or at the store.

How did you get your start in the baked goods industry?

In the kitchen, of course! I grew up baking with my mom, and when I got to NYC I found that some of my favorite days were spent cooking and baking in my small apartment. Friends and coworkers were always excited when I brought them baked goods, so I had a lot of positive reinforcement.

How did the idea for Baking for Good come about?

There were really two inspirations for it. First, my mom received a gift of baked goods from a friend when my grandmother got sick. I thought it was such a thoughtful gesture, and one that was more personal than flowers. I also started thinking about the way my schools did fundraising when I was growing up – lots of door-to-door sales of things people probably didn’t want. I put two and two together and created this online bakery based on the idea of a local bake sale.

How has the response been so far?

It’s been really wonderful! We’ve seen orders come in from across the country, and people have been sending the products for a variety of reasons, both happy and sad. We’ve also seen a wide range of causes that people are choosing to donate to, and we’ve received a lot of requests for new causes to add.

What is your ultimate goal for the company and charities you plan to help (monetarily and otherwise)?

I hope our baked goods become a favorite gift to give and receive, both because they are sweet and delicious, and because they help support great causes. I also hope that we can truly make a difference for organizations large and small by bringing them much-deserved attention and funding.

What has been your favorite thing so far about putting together the business?

It’s hard to resist saying that my favorite thing has been sampling all of the baked goods. That’s definitely one of them. But I’ve also truly enjoyed and appreciated learning about the causes on our site and speaking with the amazing people who run them.

Any other thoughts etc you would like to share out there?

Read about our causes, then check out our baked goods and think of someone special in your life who might like to receive them.

Thanks Emily, and we look forward to trying your gourmet brownies.

Go to Baking for Good now.

What is Baking for Good you ask? Well, so did we – and we got an answer : ) In short, imagine an online version of the bake sale you used to have when you were a kid.
In the future we’ll hear more about what makes them tick, but in the mean time we’ve got their press release to explain who they are, what they are setting out to do and links to their website below. We’ve also gone through their site and highlighted some of the items that we can’t wait to try out for ourselves.

A Little Sugar Goes a Long Way: Baking for Good Launches

Baking for Good will sell made-to-order, all-natural, gourmet baked goods and give 15% of every purchase to a cause the customer chooses.

New York, NY (September 1, 2009) – BakingforGood.com launches today, offering customers nationwide a selection of handmade brownies, cookies, and other baked goods with a social conscience: 15% of every purchase goes to a cause the customer chooses. “We want to bring the bake sale online and into the 21st century,” says CEO and founder Emily Dubner. “Our goal is to give people and organizations around the country a new way to raise and donate money, bit by bit and batch by batch.”

Baking for Good sells all-natural, baked-to-order treats, allowing customers to personalize their orders. Dubner, a 25-year-old former management consultant, says that this customer control makes Baking for Good’s treats perfect as gifts or as favors for weddings, showers, and other events. “Our products are great for any occasion or for no occasion at all. They make a wonderful alternative to flowers, because they’re thoughtful, original, and sweet, and they let you give back to the community.”

Fifteen percent of every purchase at Baking for Good’s website goes to a cause the customer chooses, and customers can add to their automatic donation at checkout. Causes include nonprofits such as the ASPCA and the Fresh Air Fund and community fundraisers such as school groups, children’s sports teams, and marathon efforts.

For more information, to start shopping at the online bakery, or to get your favorite charity on board, visit www.BakingforGood.com.

Some of our favorites listed on the site include their Gluten-Free Mint Choc Chip, Toffee Crispy Rice Squares and the Coconut Chocolate Chunk Blondies.

We’ve also heard that they are nominated for the Shine a Light small business grant competition – check out more information below:

“More than 70,000 advertising professionals have lost their jobs in this Great Recession. Lemonade is about what happens when people who were once paid to be creative in advertising are forced to be creative with their own lives.”

The old adage goes, ‘when life gives you lemons, make lemonade’.

Erik Proulx was a copywriter working the 9-5 and when he joined the rank and file of the millions of others that are currently unemployed he didn’t let the time go to waste. Erik created the blog Please Feed The Animals for ad industry creatives who were laid off to come together and create a larger community for themselves.
But over the past while he has added screenwriter to his resume. On top of the new title, he’s also added the beginnings of a great film to his portfolio – a film who’s trailer can be seen above.
Watching this adventure unfold from afar has been inspiring on many various levels – but we especially can’t wait to see the full movie as it matures.

Film’s Official Website
Great Blog Post/Commentary by the director.
Follow the Twitter #lemonademovie for live discussion.

In a world in which information is like air, what happens to power?

New technologies and a closely related culture of collaboration present radical new models of social organization. This project brings together leading practitioners and thinkers in this field and asks them to determine the opportunity for government.

This hour long film, while focusing on government, gives a good introduction to social collaboration through the internet. Social collaboration, while not a new concept, is starting to pick up mass acceptance on a larger scale.  For those that don’t know, it’s the concept of being able to use the power of numbers to distribute the work load and gain a better end product that ends up helping the rest of the society. While watching this documentary (in full or in part), remember to apply the basic concepts to all areas of a process. The entire documentary can be seen embedded above. In the event that you would like to watch it at your own leisure, there is a torrent of it here.

Beyond just the video, the site also opens up the conversation to the twitterverse through #hashtags. These conversations can be seen on their website here.

For me this was a bit inspiring to see the topic being discussed in a more traditionally covered medium – the documentary. I love the concept and hope to integrate it in a lot of the work that I do personally. I hope that you’ll find it influential as well.

Us Now from Banyak Films on Vimeo.

Buy the DVD here http://banyak.co.uk/shop-usnow.php

For more information, extra clips and reviews please go to usnowfilm.com

UPDATE: If you find yourself interested in this topic, Wired just released a really good article on it as well entitled The New Socialism: Global Collectivist Society is Coming Online

Objectified – A Documentary Film by Gary Hustwit from Selectism on Vimeo.

Official site: www.objectifiedfilm.com

“About the trailer: the voices belong to Jonathan Ive, Andrew Blauvelt, Marc Newson, and Karim Rashid. The song is ‘I Like Van Halen Because My Sister Says They Are Cool’ by our friends El Ten Eleven, from their new record These Promises Are Being Videotaped [get it on iTunes]. And the font used in the trailer is… Akzidenz Grotesk! [Shout out to Paula Scher!]”

We recently had the opportunity to view Objectified at the Plaza Theatre in Atlanta with introductions and afterward by director Gary Hustwit. Yes, the same Gary who brought us Helvetica. Objectified, covers the human side of objects; the people, the processes and the aftermath. A must see for designers of all fields, but also a must see for anyone who appreciates design.

If you want some spoilers and a great write-up, read Core77’s review here.

If you haven’t seen it yet and you want to, view their schedule of upcoming screenings here.
If you’ve missed out on the chance to see it in a theatre, the DVD is set to be released sometime this summer.

I don’t infrequently tie my needs to any particular brand or product line. Although I love Apple products and require them to function on a daily basis, I  try to switch it up whenever possible by incorporating tools and technologies from a variety of sources.

And I thought nothing could top iTunes until I discovered what Songbird can do.

Songbird offers the basic functionality of iTunes  - unrestricted file capacity and unlimited playlists, navigational ease, import/export options; but tricks it out on many levels.

The open-source software offers total customization of your audio player. It offers plug-ins called “add-ons” that pull in bonuses while your music plays like concert info, data from last.fm, Shoutcast radio, and more. The MashTape add-on looks for related content like photos, video, and reviews from your bands by pulling in data from Flickr, YouTube, and Amazon. Online digital music store 7Digital recently partnered with Songbird to offer full integration. The store, currently in beta, will offer 320 kbps DRM-free MP3 downloads. They also promise to offer custom recommendations in the future based around what you’re playing from your library.

With all of these features, Songbird is a serious contender in becoming a viable alternative to iTunes. The only major downside is that Songbird doesn’t seamlessly connect to AirTunes allowing wireless playback from Songbird to a home stereo.  A quick fix is a tool called Airfoil from Rogue Amoeba (the same company that created Audio Hijack). Although it will set you back $25 it seems to do the trick.

Songbird is an open-source, fully customizable music player built on the open-source media framework Gstreamer. You can participate by hacking on the software and trying out new builds before they’re released.  A developer Recipe Book offers code snippets for “Featherers” to tinker with.They sell some pretty kick-ass t-shirts too!

Contribute: http://getsongbird.com/contribute/

Get Songbird v 1.1.1 now: http://getsongbird.com/