Category Archives: traceability

rate my landman

The Extract project is an internet-based advocacy effort for land-owners being targeted by the oil and gas industries. Unaware of their rights, their land’s value or the health risks of drilling near residential areas, many residents of mineral-rich states unwittingly sacrifice the mineral rights to their property resulting in the propagation of thousands of wells […]

Also posted in blogogracy, environment | Comments closed

craft cam

At distancelab last week I saw Elena Corchero’s Handmade, a wearable camera for capturing the work you do with your hands. This is a simple, wearable solution to the problem of documenting manual tasks for a variety of new media, including DIY sites such as instructables for which the process of documenting a task can […]

Also posted in fabrication, futurecraft, marketing, soft/glowing, supply chain, surveillance | Comments closed

fish map

The world’s fisheries are being depleted at an alarming rate, but they don’t have to be. Unregulated and unsustainable fishing practices pollute waters, decimate fish populations and co-dependent species. Recently a number of leading Ocean groups have released guides to help consumers select sustainable fish – notably the environmental defense fund’s pocket sushi selector (pdf), […]

Also posted in food, maps, open objects, possessed products | Comments closed

slice of the pod pie

Andy Lippman pointed me to the work of the Personal Computing Industry Center at UC Irvine and specifically to some papers that analyze the global economic impact of the computer industry. In “Who Captures Value in a Global Innovation System? The case of Apple’s iPod (pdf)” the authors analyze how the profit from a single […]

Also posted in fabrication, product design, retail, supply chain | Comments closed

farm map 3

I recently met with Season to Taste Catering Chef Robert Harris, who told me about Chicago-based Green caterer Greg Christian. He has published a number of tools and started several initiatives to promote eating locally and sustainably through his website. Among them: a map (above) of the farms he uses to source food in the […]

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code maker

Kaywa offers a QR code generator and a reader you can download to your cell phone so that you too can begin authoring and spectating in the internet of things.

Also posted in 2d, blogogracy | Comments closed

chip chop shops

Hiroshi pointed me to this BusinessWeek investigation on microchip counterfeiting, which explains how electronic waste recycling is profitable: used circuit boards are baked over coal fires to loosen precious microchips. These are rinsed in the local river and sorted according to manufacturer. The chips can be re-sold as is, or their markings can be sanded […]

Also posted in environment, fabrication, materials, supply chain, upcycling | Comments closed

being wrong

Patagonia’s Footprint Chronicles is a remarkable feat for a fashion company: a visualization of their products’ global supply chains on a map, along with videos of each step in the manufacturing process, and descriptions of each item in terms of distance traveled, CO2 emissions, waste generated and energy consumption. Not only is it impressive that […]

Also posted in blogogracy, fabrication, fashion, free & open, futurecraft, marketing, materials, open objects, product design, supply chain, visualization | Comments closed