Hyundai QarmaQ’s Plastic Skin: Reduces Weight, Saves Gas

By Jon Alain Guzik, Editor-at-Large, Yahoo! Autos

>> Read the full article

Think Green ?!?!

Any concept vehicle with a name derived from the word the Inuit’s use for their dwellings made of Earth, whalebone, and animal skins is bound to be interesting. Hyundai Europe's Design and Technical Center in Russelsheim, Germany partnered with GE Plastics in the Netherlands to create the QarmaQ – a quirky looking Crossover Coupé concept.

One of the QarmaQ’s key features is its innovative use of recycled polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic bottles to create a large portion of the vehicle’s skin. GE says the use of plastics, instead of more traditional metal and glass, gives the vehicle a 130-pound weight savings. That weight loss equates to 20 gallons a year savings in gas, not to mention fewer plastic bottles clogging up the local landfill. These numbers are nothing to scoff when you think of all the cars on the road.

Editor's note: Not sure I want to be sitting in recycled soda bottles at speeds between say... ten to thirty-five miles an hour -- just imagine if something went wrong at fifty-five miles an hour?

Isn't your safety, health or even your life worth more than $20 in gas savings a year if you were in an accident? Hmmn, seems like an interesting idea but maybe it's just got the wrong angle. Anyway, it's just a concept -- with a beautifully sleek design.

U.S. Mint goof creates 'Godless dollars'

By JOANN LOVIGLIO, AP Writer Wed Mar 7, 4:30 PM ET

PHILADELPHIA - An unknown number of new George Washington dollar coins were mistakenly struck without their edge inscriptions, including "In God We Trust," and are fetching around $50 apiece online.

>> Read the full story

The properly struck dollar coins, bearing the likeness of the nation's first president, are inscribed along the edge with "In God We Trust," "E Pluribus Unum" and the year and mint mark. They made it past inspectors and went into circulation Feb. 15.

The U.S. Mint struck 300 million of the coins, which are golden in color and slightly larger and thicker than a quarter.

About half were made in Philadelphia and the rest in Denver. So far the mint has only received reports of error coins coming from Philadelphia, mint spokeswoman Becky Bailey said.

Bailey said it was unknown how many coins lacked the inscriptions. Ron Guth, president of Professional Coin Grading Service, one of the world's largest coin authentication companies, said he believes that at least 50,000 error coins were put in circulation.

"The first one sold for $600 before everyone knew how common they actually were," he said. "They're going for around $40 to $60 on eBay now, and they'll probably settle in the $50 range."

>> Read the full story
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Related...

U.S. Mint: http://www.usmint.gov

Prof. Coin Grading Service: http://www.pcgs.com

Very Cool Site of the Day

THE AD GENERATOR

The ad generator is a generative artwork that explores how advertising uses and manipulates language. Words and semantic structures from real corporate slogans are remixed and randomized to generate invented slogans. These slogans are then paired with related images from Flickr, thereby generating fake advertisements on the fly. By remixing corporate slogans, I intend to show how the language of advertising is both deeply meaningful, in that it represents real cultural values and desires, and yet utterly meaningless in that these ideas have no relationship to the products being sold. In using the Flickr images, the piece explores the relationship between language and image, and how meaning is constructed by the juxtaposition of the two.

The ad generator was created by Alexis Lloyd as a component of an MFA thesis project in the Design and Technology department at Parsons The New School for Design.

Adobe Creative Suite 3 is...

...well, there have been lots of rumors and the hype-ball is rolling. Abobe has now made an announcement that they will be making an announcement on March 27th. Great. Did anyone actually think they did not have plans to upgrade this product line? Good PR I guess...

>>Creative Suite 2 Product Info

Read the announcement on the "Official" Adobe blog...

Adobe Creative Suite 3 To Be Announced March 27th
The wait is nearly over! We can now confirm that Adobe Creative Suite 3 will be announced March 27, 2007. The company is celebrating the launch at an event in New York City that will be webcast live at 3:30pm ET. During the webcast, Adobe will reveal the features and suite configurations that make this the largest software release in Adobe's 25 year history.

Details on how to view the webcast will be available on Adobe.com later this week.

EDITOR'S NOTE: We are announcing Creative Suite 3 on March 27th. However, the software will not ship until later in Spring 2007.

Item #76b: Random Interface elements.

User Document and a Mockup for AspenCloud.com

This one has a bit of a "dry and chalky" feel to it -- and it has a nice silky powdered look to it.

The inner-glow is too strong though, and the bevel is too sharp on top. It also needs a name/data area on the bottom to get to the next level.

The perspective of the bottom-right corner is a bit off too.

NEW UPDATE 03/06/07:

Mockup for AspenCloud (www.aspencloud.com)

i digg photoshop