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Ambidextrous profiled Amanda West in our Fall 2006 Picking Things Up issue (“Creating a Healthy America, One Hamburger at a Time” by Angie Heile). At that time she was just in the planning stages for a feel good fast food restaurant experience.

Her vision has become a reality. Now it’s celebrating it’s 1st birthday! Amanda’s Feel Good Fresh Food Restaurant is in Berkeley on Shattuck Avenue serving burgers and baked french fries and apple fries.

Amanda’s Feel Good Fresh Food Restaurant in Berkeley celebrates its anniversary from noon to 8 p.m. July 25. Highlights of the daylong celebration include free food, entertainment and raffle prizes. The free bite lineup includes organic cookies, noon-2 p.m.; baked fries, 2-4 p.m.; organic apple fries, 4-6 p.m.; and freshly made sodas, 6-8 p.m. The restaurant is at 2122 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley. 510-548-2122.

It’s a result of applying design thinking to the fast food/dining experience. From the article:

West’s simple plan to feed Americans better burgers reminds designers of the compromises struck between what’s best for the people who use their products and what most people really want in their hearts: the same old junk they’re already grown to love.

Check out the full article Creating a Healthy America, One Burger at a Time here.

Ambidextrous is Stanford University’s Journal of Design.

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Ambidextrous profiled Amanda West in our Fall 2006 Picking Things Up issue (“Creating a Healthy America, One Hamburger at a Time” by Angie Heile). At that time she was just in the planning stages for a feel good fast food restaurant experience.

Now her vision has become a reality. Open about two months, Amanda’s Feel Good Fresh Food Restaurant is in Berkeley on Shattuck Avenue serving burgers and baked french fries and apple fries.

It’s a result of applying design thinking to the fast food/dining experience. From the article:

West’s simple plan to feed Americans better burgers reminds designers of the compromises struck between what’s best for the people who use their products and what most people really want in their hearts: the same old junk they’re already grown to love.

I just want a better burger — and the Garden of Eating blog has a nice review of Amanda’s.

Bon Appetit.

The New York Times recently had an article on “Clocky“, an alarm clock developed at the MIT Media Lab that’s now available to the public through Nanda Home.  Unlike most alarm clocks, “Clocky” has wheels (and can withstand a 2 foot drop) so that it runs away after it goes off, requiring its owner to get out of bed and retrieve it in order to turn off the alarm.

Check out this video from the BBC news on high-tech Valet Parking in Manhattan!

Neat!

Gizmodo had a cool post today including a sheet music version of the  upcoming iPhone‘s ringtone.  It’ll be interesting to see how this one little ringtone would affect cellphone culture… will people program this into their cellphones so it sounds like they own an iPhone, even though it’s not supposed to arrive for months?  Will it become as ubiquitous as the “Nokia Tone”?  Will iPhone users keep it to show they own an iPhone, or want to scrap it for something more personalized?
(Also, if you’d like to play with your very own iPhone in the meantime, perhaps you can build one out of paper and hum the ringtone to yourself.)

Teachers in England have turned to video games to help boost kids’ basic skills in reading, writing, and math. They’ve done it by completely redesigning the Atari game “Neverwinter Nights” to include more tasks that require basic skills, for example, calculating the area of the ship to determine how much can be brought with them.

… an interesting example of successfully picking up existing technology and repurposing it to help kids pick up new skills…

(from this article on BBC News)

Picking up diseses on-the-go, and in need of some high-tech germ-killing action?
Look no further than Hammacher Schlemmer’s Germ-Eliminating Light

About the size of a cellphone, it uses UV-C light and “nanotechnology” to eliminate most germs. It’s similar to the technology used to disinfect at hospitals, so it also stands as an example of consumer electronics picking up a few cues from industrial applications.  What next, a portable irradiation device?

Ambidextrous is having its Launch Party to celebrate Issue 5, “Picking Things Up” at Frog Design in Palo Alto. Click here to RSVP and be on our guest list!

Ambidextrous‘ Issue 5, “Picking Things Up” is here! Check out the preview on our website, or subscribe and get your very own copy (plus more to come) in the mail!

In anticipation of the up-and-coming Issue 5 (themed “Picking Things Up”), here’s a “Picking Things Up”-related blog preview…

Urban Ore, Berkeley CA (900 Murray Street).  Buy or trade over three acres of used goods.

From their FAQ:

Where do you buy your used materials? 

We pay for some of what comes in, but we pay only a small percentage of what we sell things for because we put a lot of labor into cleaning up people’s unwanted things and making them presentable, then merchandising them and helping customers find what they’re looking for. About 75% of the merchandise comes from community dropoffs. Folks will often come to us before going to the dump, where they will be charged a fee.  The other 25% of our merchandise is collected by the Outside Trader Department, which makes pickups in response to calls, and by our Salvage and Recycling Department. The salvagers save still-useful goods from being wasted even after people have paid to dump them at the City of Berkeley transfer station. They also convert un-resalable objects into commodities for recycling; they regularly send nonferrous and ferrous metals, and glass to market, and other materials such as ceramics to non-income-generating recycling. We want to recycle as much as we can figure out how to.