Category: Cool Thing

Art has long been an outlet for social commentary and as climate change continues to dominate the news cycle, more artists than ever are using that outlet to inspire people to action. Valentino Vettori’s immersive Arcadia Earth installation is one stunning example of how artists can come together to create something at once beautiful and thought-provoking. With a full lineup of additional experiential artists, Arcadia Earth sprawls a massive 15 rooms, each focusing on an individual environmental threat. And because they’ll partnered with Oceania Global, visitors can rest assured that the money spent on the ticket will help conservation efforts as well. Running through January 2020 at 718 Broadway.

All photos via TimeOut, by David Mitchell.

With the new rollout of the Apple Watch updates, users will be able to track their activity trends over time, get alerts to harmful levels of ambient noises, as well as track their menstrual cycle. However small these updates may seem, they actually place a significant importance on turning a user’s Apple Watch as the control center of their health. Since its launch in 2015, Apple has made quite the improvements to its watches that in turn has made it one of the best health and fitness trackers out on the market. Other trackers such as Garmin and FitBit provide dozens of tracking models, whereas Apple is able to pack its few devices with a plethora of features that make it so appealing. Until now, for users that wanted to track their menstrual cycles FitBit has been the obvious choice and for those who want to monitor long-term fitness trends, Garmin has been theirs; with Apple’s expansion making the choice of which tracker to purchase will be far more difficult. The stand out feature on the new Watch will be its noise-monitoring capability. In the US alone, hearing loss affects tens of millions and is slow and gradual; the ability to avoid it with just one alert from a user’s wrist can decrease that number exponentially. It is of no surprise that Apple wants to be the main contender in monitoring personal health and we can expect other health developments in the very near future.

After more than 400 million products sold, Apple has pulled the iPod Nano and Shuffle off its website. The iPod Touch can still be found online however its more similar to an iPhone than its standalone music playing cousin. RIP to a generation of click wheel whirring and waiting for iTunes to sync. I think we can all remember the rise of the iPod, correlating with sites such as Napster and LimeWire, because we well know no one had that kind of money to download several hundred songs. No one will argue its convenient size and ability to create playlists that I usually ended up skipping 10 songs at a time to find the one I was in the mood for. This beginning definitely helped urge in numerous streaming services and algorithms that we all use now that have left the iPod to the curb. The remaining iPods will be sold in stores at least for a little bit longer for those of us who want to relive the glory days.

Starting in 2013 as a speaking series by Ed Finkler, Open Sourcing Mental Illness is the largest 501(c)3 non-profit dedicated to mental health in tech. They help to help shine a light on problems that have too long been a taboo discussion topic in the workplace. Since its inception Ed has given over 50 talks at conferences, meetups and corporate events spreading the message of OSMI. In addition to the talks, OSMI conducts research by polling the tech community to help gauge the attitudes towards mental health in the workplace and produces documentation to improve the workplace for those that suffer from mental health disorders.

Their 2017 fundraising campaign recently kicked off and they’re goal is to collect $50,000 to continue and expand their work.