Read of the week is Subcompact Publishing, which explores how the internet reinvents industries, through the prism of publishing and Apple’s Newsstand in particular:

In product design, the simplest thought exercise is to make additions. It’s the easiest way to make an Old Thing feel like a New Thing. The more difficult exercise is to reconsider the product in the context of now. A now which may be very different from the then in which the product was originally conceived.

One recent Kickstarter project that has caught the imagination is Memoto, a life logging camera (pictured above). Hamish McKenzie explores the psychological aspects of using such devices in a thought-provoking piece for PandoDaily:

Technology aside, memory is the only proof we have that the past actually happened. And, for all its flaws and fallibility, human memory has been finely calibrated by millennia of evolution. In some cases, memory loss may be a protection mechanism so we can cope with trauma. It can also help us forgive. In other cases, memory loss is an incredible impediment, a disease. If we are increasingly able to tinker with it, it could have significant effects on our psychology, our idea of self, our concept of time, our sense of emotion. Lifelogging technology tugs at the corners of the human psyche.

Having problems getting things written? Maybe you’re working somewhere too quiet:

A new study explains why so many of us find it easier to work and learn when sitting with our laptops in coffee shops or other bustling places, and the answer is simple: modest ambient noise (around 70 decibels) triggers the part of our brains responsible for abstract and creative thinking.

So, get you to the coffee shop.

Now, how if the water flowing into that coffee shop could be used to power your laptop as well as making your coffee? That’s the idea of Rentricity, a startup profiled on GigaOm this week:

The company’s technology includes a reverse pump, a generator, and controllers that would typically be installed at a water treatment plant or underground vaults. The pump harnesses the highly pressurized water and sends that through the generator to produce electricity. The controllers monitor and manage the valves and make sure the electricity moves on to the grid.

These weekly round-ups wouldn’t be complete without some 3D Printing news. This week, it’s a mainstream service offered through Staples stores:

Staples’ Easy 3D will offer consumers, product designers, architects, healthcare professionals, educators, students and others low-cost, brilliantly coloured, photo-realistic 3D printed products from Staples stores. Customers will simply upload electronic files to the Staples Office Centre and pick up the models in their nearby Staples stores, or have them shipped to their address. Staples will produce the models with the Mcor IRIS, a 3D printer with the highest colour capability in the industry and lowest operating cost of any commercial-class 3D printer.

[via Boing Boing]