TouchFire - A Flexible, Featherweight Screen-Top Keyboard for the iPad!

Many people I know simply do not like attempting to type on the iPad for the same reason that several iPhone owners turned back to their Blackberry. They miss the ease of using a keyboard as you normally would. That's precisely why Steve Isaac and Brad Melmon of Seattle have come up with a thin, feather-weight device that puts the "touch" back into typing - TouchFire.



TouchFire makes typing on your iPad feel like using a normal keyboard. The silicone rubber keyboard is easy to type on, cushions your fingers and weighs less than an ounce.



It's ultra-thin and attaches to the inside of the iPad cover and folds up within the cover, so you can always keep TouchFire with your iPad without it getting in the way. It's so thin and transparent that you can even use the touch screen as you normally would and 'swipe' through it if you so desired. TouchFire fits right over the iPad keyboard and aligns itself magnetically.

Applies magnetically to position directly over the iPad keyboard:

Roll it down to use the whole screen:

It attaches easily to the iPad Smart Cover with two plastic clips:

If you don't have a SmartCover on your iPad, the TouchFire is easily stored in its handy case:


Steve Isaac and Brad Melmon, the brains behind TouchFire:


Patent Pending, Steve and Brad are presently requesting funding on kickstarter

A pledge of $45 will pre-order you the starter pack which contains a keyboard, a storage case and a pair of cover clips, all in black. Shipping is free in the U.S. Please add $10 to your pledge for shipping to Canada, $25 for International shipping.

Help support this ingenious idea and buy one for yourself or a friend here.

TouchFire® is a registered trademark of TouchFire, Inc. Seattle, WA. All rights reserved. PATENT PENDING. Put the Touch Back into Typing™ and Screen-Top Keyboard™ are trademarks of TouchFire, Inc. iPad® is a registered trademark of Apple, Inc. Cupertino, CA.

Blood Concept. Four New Unisex Fragrances Based On Blood Types.

Founded in Italy by Giovanni Castelli and Antonio Zuddas (shown below), Blood Concept is a collection of four different fragrances dictated by blood types.



The website says "Filled with legends and meanings, blood is soaked with mystery‚ fascination and respect. it’s the most tested and studied part of human body and it guards a multitude of secrets that reveals our inner and unique way of being.

BLOOD CONCEPT is a private celebration of the vivid and fascinating liquid that flows in our veins. Because blood is actually the river of life. A, B, AB and 0, retrace the evolution of manhood through time and its record of information, history and mutation, so well kept in the vital flushing of blood.

BLOOD CONCEPT is a mystic ritual with no flowers to be found: deep as primeval Africa in 0‚ aromatic as the scent of familiar land in A, bold as unpredictable itineraries in B, bold and sharp as a metropolitan skyline in AB. Ending each time with the same subtle and mysterious note: a metallic vague suspicion."




Each of the four unisex scents are described below and available in either a 40ml dropper or 60ml spray. The fabulous individual packaging shown below was designed by 2PFG

Type O:

Visceral and Intense. From the depths of the earth. Carnal and Primitive.
The packaging:


Type A:

Green and aromatic. A symbiotic relationship with nature. Reassuring and clean.
The packaging:


Type B:

Woody and spicy. A Brave Traveler and keen to discover the unknown. Nomadic and eclectic.
The Packaging:


Type AB:


Synthetic and individualist. A loner chemist stumbling upon. Unavoidable changes. Uninhibited and visionary. The packaging:


Buy Blood Concept fragrances here at Lucky Scent

UPDATED: A Look At the 9/11 Memorial, Museum and Monument Designs at Ground Zero.

above: aerial view rendering of the 9/11 Memorial

above: one of the two 9/11 Memorial bronze name-etched reflecting pools in the foreground and the 9/11 Museum Pavilion entry in the background

Today, on the 10th anniversary of the tragic terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centers' twin towers and the Pentagon, there will be several memorials taking place as we honor the victims with moments of silence and reflection.

Below, President Obama, President Bush and their wives visit the Reflections of Absence this morning:


above photo by Robert Deutsch-Pool/Getty Images

The 9/11 Memorial will be dedicated on September 11, 2011 (today) in a special ceremony for victims’ families. Therefore, it is fitting that today I share with you photos, renderings, images and information about the 9/11 Memorial; its monuments, plaza and museum at the site of Ground Zero.


above photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

above photo AFP PHOTO/POOL/Justin Lane


Reflecting Absence



above: Water Falls in the Memorial North Pool (Photo by Joe Woolhead)

The 9/11 Memorial by Michael Arad (formally named "Reflecting Absence") is located at the site of the former World Trade Center complex, and occupies approximately half of the 16-acre site. The memorial features two enormous waterfalls and reflecting pools, each about an acre in size, set within the footprints of the original twin towers.



above: an aerial renderings of 9/11 Memorial Plaza and site


above: a cross-section of the Memorial Plaza and the Museum Pavilion and interior

above and below: rendering of the Bronze Names Parapets




above: a birdseye view of the 911 Memorial Monuments at night

The 2,983 names
The 2,983 names of the men, women, and children killed in the attacks of September 11, 2001 and February 26, 1993, are inscribed into bronze parapets surrounding the twin Memorial pools, located in the footprints of the Twin Towers.



Every name has a code containing N for North Pool or S for South Pool, followed by a panel number that locates it on one of the Memorial Pools.



Names are placed within nine primary groups.


Around the North Pool:
World Trade Center North
Flight 11
February 26, 1993

Around the South Pool:
World Trade Center South
First Responders
Flight 175
Pentagon
Flight 77
Flight 93

Requested adjacencies within these groups:
Names are arranged by affiliation, so that the employees of a company or the crew of a flight are together. The next-of-kin of the victims and surviving colleagues made additional requests for specific names to be inscribed next to one another. Some requests were between relatives and friends; others were between people who had just met, but who responded together as events unfolded.



This design allows the names of family, friends, and colleagues to be together, as they lived and died. The requested adjacencies reflected on the Memorial make it unique from any other in existence.


above: rendering of interior of the Memorial Hall, a view of the reflecting pools from beneath

You can search for a name on the memorial here.

Memorial Plaza by Peter Walker and Partners

above: With its grove of trees, the Memorial’s plaza is an actual green roof for the structure housing the 9/11 Memorial Museum (May 2011, Photo by Joe Woolhead).

The landscape architecture of Memorial Plaza was designed by Peter Walker and Partners of Berkeley, CA. and is one of the most sustainable, green plazas ever constructed. Its irrigation, storm water and pest management systems will conserve energy, water and other resources.



above: renderings of the 9/11 Museum Plaza

Rainwater will be collected in storage tanks below the plaza surface. A majority of the daily and monthly irrigation requirements will be met by the harvested water.


above: The Survivor Tree Blooms on the Memorial Site (Photo by Amy Dreher)

The Memorial Museum and Entry Pavilion
The Museum’s entry pavilion was designed by the Norwegian architecture firm, Snøhetta and the underground museum exhibit space by Aedas, Museum architects.

The Mission of the Memorial Museum, located at the World Trade Center site, is to bear solemn witness to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and February 26, 1993.


above: a birdseye rendering of the Museum’s entry pavilion

Visitors to the Memorial Museum will be presented with a sequence of experiences which allow for individual and personal encounters within an overall context of a historical narrative.


above: a rendering of the Museum’s entry pavilion

The nature of the Museum is such that the shell of the space, comprising existing foundations, the slurry wall and other in-situ elements of the site is as much an artifact of 9/11 as the contents of the exhibitions.


above: a rendering of the Museum atrium with Twin Tower "tridents."

Visitors will enter through a pavilion that houses an auditorium for public programming, a multi-purpose area for contemplation and refreshment and a private suite reserved for victims’ family members. Two of the original steel tridents from the Twin Towers will be enclosed within the pavilion’s grand glass atrium, standing as references to the past, while signaling hope for the future.


above: rendering of Memorial Exhibition in the heart of the museum site

Memorial Design Exhibition
The introductory exhibit leads to a gently ramped “ribbon,” toward the core exhibitions at bedrock, the archeological heart of the World Trade Center site.


above: rendering of the interior of the Museum

This descent echoes the ramp that once was used by construction workers to help build the World Trade Center and was again used in the aftermath of the attacks for the recovery and clean-up of the site and by victims’ family members to access bedrock on anniversaries of 9/11.


above: rendering of interactive tables and artifact cases

From the ramp, vistas will be created, providing a sense of the vastness of the site and the scale of the original Towers. Visitors will be able to stand between the locations of the original Twin Towers and experience their scale, which will be referenced by two metal-clad, ethereal volumes. The ramp that will bring visitors to the core Museum exhibitions has already been framed in steel and concrete.


above: rendering of space for remembrances

above: interactive tables and Wall of Faces

The final descent to the base of the site will take visitors alongside the Vesey Street Stair remnant – also known as the “Survivor Stairs,” which was used by hundreds to escape the destruction of the Towers on 9/11.


above: The "Survivor's Staircase" before being moved to the museum



After today's dedication ceremony the 9/11 Memorial will be open to the general public.

This post is in sincere remembrance of those lost in this tragedy. May they rest in peace.

More information can be found here.

some images courtesy of the LMCD and many of the computer renderings in this post were created by Squared Design Lab