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"Are you frustrated that low-end 3D printers don't have the quality to make the true beauty of your designs real? Do you dream of having the power and resolution of a truly professional machine on your desktop? We've created an easy-to-use system that rivals the output of high-end printers at a fraction of the cost."

Design trends are influenced by both form and function, but also bow to limitations of existing technology. When we look back at flat-screen TVs compared to LCDs, then further to the bulky cathode ray tube (remember these?), it's obvious we've come a long way. Within a few years, according to industry reps, we'll say the same about store displays, vehicle lighting and kitchen countertops.

Gamification is the concept of applying game-design thinking to non-game applications to make them more fun and engaging.

In a major new development in the world of health IT, the Data Privacy Lab in the Institute of Quantitative Social Science at Harvard University will soon unveil a health record bank (HRB) that allows anyone to own and manage a complete, secure, digital copy of their health records and wellness information with a free account. This is the first time that a prominent academic institution is hosting an HRB for use by the general public and communities nationwide. The service, called MyDataCan, is a secure and trustworthy technical infrastructure for receiving, storing and facilitating consumer-controlled access to personal information, including medical data. Its design is extensible to cover various forms of personal data, customizable through third-party applications, and benefits from a multimillion-dollar investment by Harvard.

People Powered Health is a programme from NESTA, working with the Innovation Unit, to support the design and delivery of innovative services for people that are living with long term health conditions The programme focuses on co-production - that people's needs are better met when they are involved in an equal and reciprocal relationship with professionals - working together to get things done.  It is a radical approach to public services that is built around six characteristics:  Recognising people as assets Building on people's capabilities Promoting mutuality and reciprocity Developing peer support networks Breaking down barriers between professionals and users Facilitating rather than delivering

Facebook has turned on its new data center in western North Carolina, the second computing facility the company has designed and built solely for its own use.

Geoffrey Dorne, graphiste designer, propose les résultats d'un travail de recherche mené en 2009 et 2012 dans le cadre de l'EnsadLab, laboratoire de l'École Nationale des Arts Décoratifs, sur la thématique de l'identité numérique. Ce dossier de 37 pages présente une vision de l'identité numérique qui capitalise des articles de blogs, des écrits de chercheurs et paroles d'experts. La qualité de cette étude est de proposer une mise en forme visuelle des données et des concepts ce qui facilite l'appropriation de l'expression polysémique « identité numérique ».

This week's visualization comes from Interactive Things, a design and technology studio based in Zurich, Switzerland. The company has been working on a project called "Ville Vivante" - the living city. Here's how the coordinators describe the project: "Based on the premise that the mobile phone has become the center of our everyday communication and main source of information, the City of Geneva, in cooperation with the Lift conference, decided to take the challenge to visualize the digital traces created by our mobile phones ... the goal of the project was to visualize the urban flow of everyday life and make it visible to passersby at the local train station."

Pardon the hyperbole, but this may be one of the biggest partnerships in education since chalk met the chalkboard. MIT has officially joined forces with Khan Academy to launch a new set of educational videos. In this new partnership, MIT students will be making videos, not the professors. It's a truly inspiring time in education when you see a school ask its own students to become the teachers. It's like the ultimate flipped classroom. It's a flipped school. "Our students have responded with all the energy and enthusiasm we knew they would. We worked with them to design the program, and the results are fantastic." -Ian A. Waitz, Dean of the School of Engineering and the Jerome C. Hunsaker Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

A task force exploring ways that open governance can be brought to public administration in Quebec has produced a welcome report that represents a step in the right direction. The report lays out an impressive series of recommendations on how to improve public accountability in real time, as well as facilitate more citizen input on the design of government policy. It rightly takes the view that more openness is the key to restoring public trust in government, something currently in sparse supply in this province.

Earlier today, Harvard and MIT announced edX, an open-source technology platform designed to deliver online courses. Now, anyone from around the world with an Internet connection can have access to, what MIT President Susan Hockfield called, "one of the best kept secrets of Cambridge and the entire higher education community" - the "richness of collaborations" between Harvard and MIT.

S'il est une question qui concerne aujourd'hui les dirigeants d'entreprises dans un contexte de transition entre « l'ancien monde » et « le monde numérique », c'est certainement « comment créer, transformer et capturer la valeur dans les écosystèmes numériques, alors même que la notion-même de valeur change dans un monde numérique » ? Pour permettre aux dirigeants d'entreprises de mieux anticiper ces mutations et notamment les indispensables évolutions de leurs modèles d'affaires, le CIGREF vient de présenter « Les Essentiels » du Programme international de recherche « Information Systems Dynamics », porté par la Fondation CIGREF. Avec ces « Essentiels », la Fondation CIGREF propose une synthèse de chacun des projets de recherche portés par le programme « ISD », programme lancé afin de « dessiner les contours possibles de l'entreprise de 2020, en tenant compte à la fois de l'histoire des usages des systèmes d'information dans l'entreprise et des émergences en cours ». Le programme ISD a retenu le design organisationnel comme perspective conceptuelle centrale, à partir de la prise en compte de cinq dimensions (ou tendances) en interaction : stratégique, organisationnelle, sociétale, technologique et réglementaire.

A l'occasion d'un voyage d'études organisé par la 27e Région, nous sommes allés à la découverte de l'innovation sociale britannique, en rencontrant la plupart des cabinets de design et les principaux acteurs qui participent à redéfinir le rôle des usagers dans les services publics. Comment l'innovation s'inscrit-elle concrètement dans la vie des gens ? Peut-on faire de l'innovation sans technologie ? L'innovation sert-elle à faire de la politique ? Immersion.

Living PlanIT's model for a city of the future is being developed with the legislated endorsement of Municipality of Paredes in northern Portugal and the national government. Called PlanIT Valley, it has been designated a Project of National Interest (PIN) by the Portuguese Government. It will be built in a series of phases and will accommodate a population of 225,000 when completed in 2015.

Storing huge amounts of data is all well and good but the big advantage of collecting data is using it to help better understand your business, allowing you to become more efficient or to design better products. That has been the message of business intelligence products and data warehouses for years. But the analytics market is changing dramatically, with BI tools working with more data, more integrated analytics platforms, more in-memory databases, a renewed emphasis on real-time data analysis and data visualization, and a recent push toward so-called "predictive analytics."

McDonald's has used crowdsourcing to find new ideas for its burgers. Finalists can get their own burger design created and sold to over two million daily visitors in outlets across Germany.

La complexité n'est-elle pas devenue une caractéristique de nos sociétés, plutôt qu'un bug ? Comment pourrions-nous regagner le contrôle de nos flots d'information, de notre temps ? Pouvons-nous aborder la complexité d'une façon plus productive ? Pouvons-nous mieux la comprendre, mieux la maîtriser ? Tel étaient les questions adressées par les organisateurs de la seconde édition de la conférence Lift France qui se tenait la semaine dernière à Marseille, à la fois à un designer, à un vidéaste et à une ethnologue. Forcément, cela a apporté des réponses multiples.

Recently, a major theft occurred involving the Bitcoin, a primary player in the new "cryptocurrency" market. In this attack, nearly $500,000 worth of this new currency was stolen. Stored on a host of computer networks throughout the world, Bitcoins exist only in digital form and are nearly untraceable. A crime like this wouldn't have been possible just a few years ago, and although crime has existed for millennia, the types of crime (and the methods used to prevent and punish it) will look astonishingly different in the near future.