WITness Watch

During ancient times, people used to read time with there bare eyes by observing the position of the sun. Later on, through various developments, we are now using time devices to read the time change, but still our eyes are the key witness of the changing times. WITness is a concept timepiece that was built to demonstrate the unavoidable relationship between the eyes and the time. This device can be powered up by pressing the side buttons for 2 seconds and it will go back in standby mode automatically. Standby mode is designed to save energy by using only 35% of the LED power. It comprises a flexible bracelet type watchband and a quick locking system for easy and efficient wearing.







Source : http://www.tuvie.com

10 Tips To Reduce Stress

Source : http://www.huntingtonhealth.com

While you may not be able to solve the biggest stressors in your life, you can do something about many of the smaller stressors that "nickel and dime you to death." Here are some proven stress reducers you can implement in daily life to help:


• Get up 15 minutes earlier each morning. That gives you a little more time to eat something, run back to get something you forgot, or enjoy a cup of coffee before heading out the door. If you drive to work, a 15 or 20 minute head start may decrease some of the traffic you face, and make the commute less stressful.

• Prepare for mishaps. Make an extra copy of your house key and bury it in your neighbors' yard; make a second copy of your car key and tape it under your coworker's desk. Both may allow you to get home and inside the house if you loose your keys. If you do have to use them, pat yourself on the back for being smart.

• Don't do something if you will have to lie about it afterwards. While this may seem obvious, the nagging guilt we feel often wears us down or makes us anxious about getting caught… Sure, it may be more time consuming to fax your resume to new job sites from Kinko's, but you don't have to worry about being caught.

• Do something healthy for yourself. That could mean taking the stairs once a day instead of the elevator, picking one day a week to have a salad for lunch, or eating fresh fruit instead of a candy bar. What's the overall effect on your health? Maybe not much, but small steps lead to bigger ones, and doing something simple for your body is the best way to start.

• Write it down. There is an old Chinese proverb that goes, "The palest ink is better than the most retentive memory." All those "Seven Secrets" tips are based on writing things down. Write down goals, errands, chores, due dates for projects and library books… Instead of just a "To Do" list, keep a "Have Done" list too. Move things over to that list after having completed them. At the end of the day, review how productive you were.

• Do something special on a whim. Buy flowers for your partner unexpectedly. Sneak a small greeting card that says "I love you" into your child's lunch box. Bring donuts, bagels, or muffins to the office for others one morning. You get the picture. Someone else's smile and "Thanks" can sometimes make a bad day better.

• Be willing to forgive others. Allowing others the right to make a mistake goes a long way toward forgiving yourself for mistakes. Assume that others are doing the best they can. Mark Twain once said, "Never attribute to malice what can easily be attributed to stupidity." This goes a long way toward doing the best you can as well.

• Don't eat lunch at your desk. Get away to somewhere quiet or different if only for a 15 or 20 minute break.

• Delegate new jobs. Say no to avoid additional responsibilities. Simplify. Put your best effort into a task, and ask yourself, "Is it really that important?" before you decide to do it over. Learn to ignore others' criticism sometimes.

• Get up and stretch periodically. Twist side to side and bend front to back. Roll your head around to stretch your neck a bit. Trade shoulder rubs with a coworker. If you used to smoke, but have stopped, get up and take a break anyway when you feel the need to smoke. A quick trip to the water cooler, to a coworker's desk, or to the restroom doesn't provide the nicotine a cigarette used to, but it does give you the break and moment's respite a cigarette did.

Source : http://www.psychpage.com

Napkin Pc

Passion

The Napkin PC aims to bring out the creative passion of the user both individually and in group sessions. It encourages spreading out and allows for multiple creative workflows that can interact or just as easily stay independent. It encourages group interaction and collaboration by allowing any number of interfaces that can be passed around or pinned up, but which all communicate with a central network.

Users’ Culture & Lifestyle







The primary users are creative professionals including those in any field of design, but also expanding to include business and marketing professionals who use creative thinking to come up with business plans or marketing campaigns.
Their primary need is to have a simple system to help keep their creativity moving and maintain good collaborative communication. They want to drink a cup of coffee, pick up a pen and let their creativity flow, without having to sit down later to actually document and organize the information later.
The Napkin PC is a continuously additive system, where each new idea is already documented and organized with references and connections to related ideas. In addition each Napkin interface is an instant portal to the entire network giving quick and easy access and sharing of ideas and reference material.


Market Viability

The design appeals to business professionals. It is ideal for work groups of around 6 people (a typical brainstorming meeting) although the system is easily expandable for larger business.
The viable markets are any business that works with creative professionals. Any company that relies on brainstorming and group collaboration would benefit from using a Napkin PC.
A secondary market is creative professionals who work alone or in smaller groups, but who want the same ability to spread out and use multiple workflows.

Size

See page titled “Dimensions”
Napkin interface: 180mm x 180mm x 2mm
Pen stylus: 140mm x 9mm x 10mm
Base station: 160mm x 150mm x 150mm
Mobile station: 45mm x 36mm x 15 mm

Overview of Design

The Napkin PC is innovative because of its multi-flexibility. It can have multiple users, multiple interfaces, and multiple configurations. It breaks the PC down to only the interface— a pen and a space— and then gives you a multitude of both so you can let your creativity run wild.

User & Context

The users are creative professionals who work in collaborative groups. The PC is designed to be used for brainstorming, ideation, meetings, think tanks, etc. — anywhere where creativity is the driving force.

Scenarios of Use




There are two new usage scenarios delivered by the PC. First is the brainstorming workflow. Creativity that normally starts on paper and whiteboards goes instead directly into the PC without the user changing their behavior. This creativity is richer because of the innumerable software tools and resources available on every Napkin interface. It can also be shared, compiled, and compared instantly for a smooth, speedy workflow.
The second scenario is a replacement for printing. Instead of ever putting ink on paper, the interfaces themselves instantly become “prints” when power is removed. They would then be used just like a print, pinned up, handed around, reviewed, etc. When the print is no longer needed the interface is simply returned to the base station as a fresh Napkin.


User Interface
The interface consists of any number of Napkins and one of the Pens. When powered by the Pen, the Napkin is a multi-touch input display which responds to human touch as well as the Pen. The intuitive use of a pen and paper is exploited by the design, making it very easy to use. Also the ability to work on multiple interfaces in parallel, instead of shuffling through windows on a single interface, makes multitasking much easier.

Aesthetics

The Base station is designed to interact like a napkin holder. The user can grab an interface from the stack in the middle of the table. The computer itself is somewhat hidden in the Napkin holder, its only reminder being the OLED status display on the front. The user only really interacts with the Napkins and the Pens. This helps them maintain hands-on, creative freedom. The square Napkin form is used because it is modular, but also because it conveys the idea of being one of many. This helps the user stay relaxed and open minded because less importance is put on a single interface.

Technical Aspects

The key technologies are full color e-Paper, multi-touch input, Inductive power circuits, and high speed RF wireless connections. The e-Paper is key because of its low power consumption, thinness and flexibility, and ability to retain an image without power. Multi-touch is simply the future of intuitive input that makes the PC fun, fast, and easy to use. The inductive power circuits are crucial because they allow wireless power transfer and make the interface Napkin simple and inexpensive enough to be used in large numbers. High speed RF continues to keep everything wireless and intuitively seamless.

Ecology

The environmental sustainability of the PC is most innovative with the Napkin interface. It is the most numerous component and the one most likely to need replacing due to wear over a few years. Therefore it is beneficial to make it easy to recycle which is accomplished by powering it with an inductive circuit. This eliminates a hard-to-recycle internal battery.
The second, and likely more impactful, innovation is the use of the interface as an instant “print.” This eliminates the need for printers, paper, and ink, which are used in large amounts during the creative process.

Source : http://www.tuvie.com

Green Building Concepts

Source : http://www.finehomebuilding.com

Green building takes sustainable development concepts which can then be applied to a vast array of practices tied to building construction. In doing so they increase the efficiency of resources—water, energy, materials and waste—while reducing the impact the construction project has on humans, health, and the environment.

There are many building life cycles that can be managed with green building concepts in mind, such as design, construction, operation, maintenance, and waste removal/disposal. Green building can reduce operating costs by increasing productivity and using less water and energy, improve health by improving indoor air quality, and reduce environmental impacts. We’ll break down each building concept below.

Design

The design process focuses on taking advantage of renewable resources right from the start. Some techniques include:

• Using sunlight through passive and active solar and photovoltaic options
• Using green roofs and rain gardens to reduce rainwater run-off
• Using packed gravel for parking lots instead of asphalt or concrete to enhance replenishment of ground water
• Use high-efficiency windows and insulation in walls, ceilings, and floors
• Use trees planted in front of windows to produce shade in the summer and maximize solar rays during winter
Green building design keeps a close check on the full life cycle impacts of the resources that make up the structure. Aesthetically, the design of the building doesn’t always take the surrounding environmental features into account.

Construction

Green building projects take building materials into account early in the process as well. Selecting what materials to use is usually part of the designing stage as well to ensure sustainability in the following years. Some materials used include:

• Rapidly renewable plant materials like bamboo and straw
• Lumber from forests certified to be sustainably managed
• Dimension stone, a natural stone or rock that has been selected and fabricated
• Recycled stone and metal and other products that are non-toxic, reusable, renewable, and/or recyclable
• Use building materials from local sources to minimize energy use due to their transportation.
Along with materials, sustainability in the construction process can also include acts such as employing local, so that opportunities and greater well-being are fostered in the local community.

Operation

The low operation costs of an efficiently constructed green building generate many long term benefits aside from sustainability. These include financial and health benefits, which can be incorporated in many ways.

Financial benefits:

Lower energy costs from some of the design processes–mentioned above, and including but not limited to:
• high efficiency windows and insulation
• passive solar building design
• Roofs that create high solar reflectance (thereby reducing heat transfer to the building) and high thermal emittance (when a large percentage of absorbed/non-reflected solar energy is able to be released). These are called “cool roofs”
• These designs/efficient materials reduce costs directly in maximizing natural light, heating and cooling, thereby requiring less electricity usage.
• capitalized natural ventilation from absorption chillers
• Heat recovery ventilation systems to recover heat from used air and transfer it to fresh air.
• Install fluorescent lighting to use 2/3 to 3/4 less energy than incandescent bulbs
• this lowers electricity use directly, as well as indirectly with cooling loads
Installing highly efficiency appliances-some interesting statistics* about appliances to note, from the National Institute of Building Sciences’ “Whole Building Design Guide“:
Older toilets use 3.7-7 gallons per flush
Dishwashers use 8-14 gallons per cycle
Top-loading washers use 45 gallons/load
A dripping faucet waste 15-21 gallons per day
Like fluorescent bulbs, high efficiency appliances will reduce energy use directly by their efficiency and also by producing less waste heat

Health Benefits:

Health benefits from green building are greater than just a better natural feeling. From the National Institute of Building Sciences’ “Whole Building Design Guide”, here are some health statistics to think about (* Notes in footer)
US EPA ranks indoor air pollution among top five environmental risks. Unhealthy air is found in up to 30% of new and renovated buildings
W.H.O. reports that indoor air pollution causes 14 times more deaths than outdoor air pollution (2.8 million lives)
Of hundreds of EPA-regulated chemicals, only ozone and sulfur dioxide are more prevalent outdoor than indoors
20 percent of all housing in the US has too much lead dust or chippings (causes kidney and red blood cell damage, impairs mental and physical development, may increase high blood pressure)
About a quarter of the nation’s largest industrial plants and water treatment facilities are in serious violation of pollution standards at any one time
An estimated 7 million Americans are made sick annually by contaminated tap water; in some rare cases this results in death
These risks can be reduced and conditions improved by following green building concepts in:
Regulating natural air ventilation and quality
Non-toxic, natural and renewable materials
Regulated water and efficient appliances



Source : http://www.archive.poly.edu


Maintenance

Maintaining a building is important to ensuring it remains sustainable and profitable. Like one would do with a car, as the building ages, it is important to check areas of the building to make sure they are still at an acceptable quality level. However, the nice thing about green building is that even though initial costs of implementation are higher, long-term maintenance is often much less of a hassle! Consider the idea of design concepts taking into account the increased usage of natural light and temperature control services–the more natural used, the less maintenance of and dependency on furnaces, air conditioners, and lighting systems you will have to worry about, as they will be used less.

Smaller scale maintenance, such as cleaning the building, can also be chosen and used to improve indoor air quality, reduce water pollution, and maintain environmentally sustainable concepts. Some notions to keep in mind when choosing cleaning products are:

• choose less hazardous products to minimize negative impacts on human health, air quality and reduce water pollution
• avoid products with corrosive, carcinogenic and other irritating or volatile organic chemicals
• this will reduce hazardous waste costs when the time comes to dispose or any leftover product in the appropriate manner
• buy cleaners with returnable or recyclable packaging to reduce waste, or buy them in bulk or concentrates–with refillable/reusable containers if available
• pay careful attention that excess product is disposed of appropriately. Contact the product company or a local institute for information if you are unsure
Reduce Waste
Waste can be reduced on several levels by taking a green approach to building. In terms of construction, using the materials listed above helps divert waste from landfills. With the appropriate green-building measures, waste reduction carries on to the operation of a building as well.
• on site waste management, such as separating garbage, recycling and compost
• centralized wastewater treatment systems reuse wastewater from dishwashing or washing machines
o however these are costly and use a lot of energy–there are many smaller steps to be taken as an alternative, such as low power showerheads, converting wastewater to fertilizer via a biogas plant, and more
• making it easy for occupants to reduce energy waste as a part of their daily routines, such as intelligent building design to allow them enough light that daytime lights are unnecessary, to mention one option
Ultimately, from diverting waste from landfills in the construction process, to designing efficiently to minimize waste during operation, to ensuring on-site maintenance chooses efficient products and processes, keeping green concepts in mind throughout all stages of building life cycle will contribute to waste reduction.

Source: http://www.thegreenrocket.com

Choosing the right workout shoes

Tips on selecting the right workout shoes

While the clothes you choose for a workout are important, the sneakers you select can make a huge difference in how you perform your fitness activity, while the wrong athletic shoes can hurt your feet and even cause injury to other parts of your body.

Athletic Shoes Tailored to Your Activity

Before determining which athletic shoes will be best for your feet, consider what type of exercise you'll be doing. The exercise will help determine which athletic shoes offer the best features for your needs.

• Running. If running is your main form of exercise, look for running shoes that provide plenty of cushioning, traction, and stability. They should also be lightweight and flexible.

• Walking. Walking shoes should offer a comfortable cushion that absorbs shock, and a sole designed to support the natural walking movement of the foot.

• Court shoes. If you play tennis, volleyball, basketball, racquetball, or other court sports, find a shoe with a sturdy, stable sole that can support your feet during constant back-and-forth movement.

• Outdoor field sport shoes. If you're looking for footwear for baseball, soccer, golf, or football, you'll want shoes with cleats, spikes, or studs for better traction.

A quick tip to check a shoe's stability before you buy: Bend the shoe, holding it at both ends. It should bend naturally behind where the ball of the foot would be, since that's where your foot naturally bends. Also, make sure the heel counter is sturdy. The heel counter is a stiff cup that surrounds the heel part of the shoe. Squeeze the heel counter and make sure it doesn't cave in when you apply pressure.

Athletic Shoes: Fitting and Testing

Trying on shoes in the store can be different than wearing them during your workouts, but there are ways to make sure your shoes will fit well when you're in the middle of a hard workout:

• Shop in the afternoon. If you try on athletic shoes toward the end of the day, when your feet are more swollen, you'll get a better idea of how they fit.

• Shop in socks. When you look for athletic shoes, wear the socks that you use during a workout. You want to make sure the shoes fit properly with your athletic socks.

• Go large in the toes. Make sure that your shoes have about half an inch of wiggle room between the end of the shoe and your longest toe. If your feet are different sizes, opt for the larger shoes for better comfort.

• Snug fit in the heel. New athletic shoes shouldn't slip on your heels, but they shouldn't be too snug in the toes, either. Make sure that the ball of your foot fits easily in the widest part of the athletic shoe.

• Try them out. Test out the shoes for at least 10 minutes in the store, or even outside if the store will allow it, before you decide to buy.

If you have problem feet, talk to the sales representative at the store about what types of sneakers are best for you. If you have high arches, for example, you'll need a different style of shoe than someone with flat arches.

Remember, every athletic shoe is different, as is every foot, so don't rely on a style you find attractive or a shoe that you like on someone else. Be clear about your needs and any special foot problems you have, try on lots of different styles, and test them out in the store.

Source:www.everydayhealth.com