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An intense dream can leave you in sweats and existential wonder. But just moments later, it evaporates from your mind to never be experienced again.The fleeting nature of dreams is why many keep a dream journal by their bedside to jot down the story before it disappears. The design studio Modem imagined another, more modern recording device. Called the Dream Recorder, its something like a bedside clock radio that uses AI to log your dreams and play them back to you.[Photo: Courtesy of Dream Recorder]When you wake up in the morning, you pick up the recorder and dictate what you remember of your dream. That ensuing transcript is sent to an AI video generator in the cloud, which creates a short video of it. Whats important to Modem is the ritual, done without an app or phone, is performed with an object dedicated to youa sort of generated visual diary of dreams.The thing that happens in your head isn’t going to be magically recreated by this video generator, says project contributor Mark Hinch. But it will hopefully capture the essence of the perhaps bizarre, weird, fragmented ideas of what happened in your head in the story.The dreams themselves are rendered through an intentionally ethereal aesthetic, at a low fi 240-by-240-pixel resolution thats meant to mirror the way we remember a dream, but also sidestep too much literality when things naturally dont match up. For instance, it blurs faces so that you never see someone who doesnt match up with what you remember. And rather than saving every dream you ever have forever, the Dream Recorder has been designed to flush its memory much like you doholding onto dreams for a week at most before overwriting them with whatever you dream up next.[Photo: Courtesy of Dream Recorder]Instead of selling the device, Modem shares the code on Github, along with all the items you need to buy to build it, ranging from a Raspberry Pi processor to USB microphones and capacitive touch sensors, via Amazon links. The body can be printed via an online service like Shapeways, and it all connects together without soldering. (Dreams cost between about a penny and 14 cents apiece, depending on the AI service you connect to render them.)But the Dream Recorder is admittedly less interesting as another product with features to be scrutinized than it is as a greater idea, and model of experimentation thats been lacking in the race toward AGI or building the next unicorn. With so much of the AI conversation focused on companions, productivity tools, or generative whatever, its easy to block out the more transcendental possibilities like being able to literally speak to whales. Modem cut through the productization of AI with a new dose of wonder. The Dream Recorder is fascinating not just for what it literally does, but as a rare, tangible beacon for a future that feels just within our grasp. (Dream recording inherently seems feasible within our electrical brain patterns and new AI capabilitiesso much so that Samsung filed a patent around a UI to control your dreams.) And much like a good sci-fi novel, it offers us an anchor to discuss and debate what it all means until a world of inventors actually leads us there.We hope to inspire the new generation coming of age in the age of intelligence . . . showing them that there’s a more mindful alternative to the very distracted world, says Bas van de Poel, cofounder of Modem. Perhaps using the engines of wisdom and mindfulness, and combining them with the logic of computer science, will be sort of like the ultimate dream, he says.
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E-Commerce
There have been five 1 in 1,000-year floods” this summer alone in the continental U.S. Heavy rains have poured over Texas, North Carolina, New Mexico, Illinois, and Florida over the past months causing streets to flood, homes to suffer irreparable damage, and people to lose their lives, loved ones, and pets. The death toll alone in Texas is at 135 as of July 25, as search efforts begin to end with only three more persons still missingthe result of over three weeks of searching. The 0.1% chance of these floods occurring makes their recent frequency alarming. This, coupled with other recent flash floods across major East Coast states like New York, Massachusetts, and New Jersey and projected flash floods in central and southwestern U.S., makes for increasingly unsettling future forecasts. But are these weather patterns actually out of the normor are these floods becoming more common? How rare are 1,000-year floods? The phrase “1 in 1,000-year floods” comes from the fact that statistically, floods of that intensity and destruction are likely to happen once every 1,000 years (or a 0.1% likelihood). In 2024, there were 35 1,000-year floods across the U.S. and more than triple that number of 100-year floods, which have a statistical probability of happening 1% of the time. As far as I’m aware, if we tracked 1 in 1,000-year flood events over time, you wouldnt necessarily see a discernible increase in the number of events per year, says Allie Mazurek, a climatologist at the Colorado Climate Center. However, on a more general scale, we are expecting to see more extreme precipitation events in a warmer climate. An interactive map from the Colorado Climate Centerwhich is updated in near real-timetracks high precipitation events across the country. It combines past research and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Atlas 14, a precipitation frequency data interface, to track high-precipitation events from 2002 to today in every state but Washington and Oregon (their data has yet to be updated on NOAA’s precipitation server). The data sets visually depict the number of 1,000-year heavy precipitation rates from 2002 to 2024. Each year follows similar patterns and frequency. But that doesnt mean rainfall and subsequent flooding isnt intensifying. Mazurek says there are two factors at play for these natural disasters: the frequency in which rain falls, and the intensityhow much it rains in a short amount of time. According to independent climate research group Climate Central, 88% of 144 locations across all nine climate regions in the U.S. have experienced a 15% increase in hourly rainfall intensity since 1970. Nearly two-thirds of those locations experienced at least a 10% increase in the same period. Mazurek says these trends come down to one primary effect of climate changehumidity. Rising temperatures create wet air Essentially, when you have warmer temperatures, that allows more water to exist in the vapor phase, and therefore, you get more water up in the atmosphere, Mazurek said. Then when you get a thunderstorm, there is more water available to it when it starts to precipitate and make rainfall. If youre adding more water to the atmosphere, you’ll get more rainfall as a result. Climate Central says that for every single Fahrenheit degree of Earth warming, the air holds 4% more moisture. Give that the Earths temperature has risen by roughly 2 degrees Fahrenheit since the preindustrial era, there’s simply often more water available to create intense rainfall. So while the statistical probability of these floods occurring won’t change, their severity could get worse Mitigation and adaptation Flash floods arent expected to subside anytime soon this summer, with Accuweather meteorologists warning that additional flooding events can be expected due to this summers continued trend of high precipitation predictions. I think there’s definitely more work that all of us together could work on for extreme rainfall and flood events from meteorologists to emergency managers, Mazurek said. We all obviously have more work to do communicating those kinds of events and keeping people safe. I think that is still a very active area of research. However, with recent Trump administration changes to climate policy, emergency weather cuts at NOAA, and the dismantling of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), these efforts may become more and more difficult, even as climate-driven natural disasters increase. “We expect kind of both sides of the extremes to get more extreme, Mazurek said. Heavy precipitation, extreme rains, flooding events, as well as drought. They each work off their own feedback.”
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E-Commerce
Back in 2015, Microsoft claimed our attention spans had dropped to eight secondsshorter than that of a goldfish. No ones definitively proven it, but it feels about right in the age of TikTok. Ten years later, goodness knows how long were able to hold it. Its one of the major social shifts of our lifetimes, and its one that a new generation of start-up brandsand their investorshave jumped on. These “dopamine” brands, such as Starface, Graza, and Poppi, provide younger generations with striking visual hits to draw them in with an instant high. Their packages, messages, and social content all pop, their drops sell out in minutes, and their fans queue virtually just to get their hands on them. Those limited drops, seasonal flavors, and unexpected collabs fuel hype and scarcity. These arent just products; theyre events. But with every dopamine hit comes a comedown, and many challenger brands are now struggling with staying power. Meanwhile the legacy brands languish on the sidelines, wondering what to make of it all as a chunk of their audience is tempted away. Theres a lot to learn in creating fresh news for these classic heroes, but they shouldnt feel threatened by the dopamine gang; rather, they should see an opportunity in it. If youve got iconic assets and built emotional trust over decades, youre more than halfway there. The nudge is to deliberately disrupt yourself by bringing ideas in from the outside, while finding ways to retain what it is people love about you at the core. Packaging is a powerful touchpoint to do it. Its your shop window, your sensorial hook, your cultural signal. When you get it right, it should create not just fleeting excitement, but a deep connection that creates a lasting memory. Here’s how to do dopamine design, without right. Inject hype at the edges, dont break the system Limited editions are an obvious, and often fruitful, place to start, but legacy brands can sometimes get overexcited here. Often there is a temptation to create disruption by sidelining the rule book and going crazy with the new news. When limited editions arent rooted in what people already love about the brand, they land as lazy, insincere. They often fall flat with consumers, who see straight through it. Smart design evolves from whats already there; celebrate the core brand essence by coming from a place of authenticity, then create the disruptive newness. So, when Jaffa Cakes was developing a limited-edition flavor, they began by acknowledging the product truth: the joy is in the jammy center. To make it feel more special than the established orange, an unexpected idea came about in cola-bottle flavor. This delivered an exciting dose of “Im not sure thatll work” intrigue mixed with reassuring nostalgia for the consumer. Crucially, we restrained ourselves with the packaging design in responding to this. We retained the existing layout and the brand’s visual consistency, while dramatizing the new story within it to create something new. Its a simple but effective technique, all too often brushed aside in favour of total “pack takeover” disruption. Short-term impact, long-term value Limited editions from brands work best when they riff on the thing people already love about them, whether it be format, flavor, origin story, or something else. These kinds of designs dont just deliver a momentary dopamine hit. When a drop gets it right, it builds trust and respect with consumers. Moreover it builds a momentum that has a positive halo effect back into the main brand. Look at Johnnie Walkers Squid Game Limited Editionanother entry from a brand that continues to cross-pollinate categories to deliver the unexpected. Here its bringing popular culture in to give its audience exactly what they never knew they needed. While the launch design felt dopamine, the core pack design confidently fused both brands’ assets together with mutual respect and consideration. It was a wisely thought through approach and showed us that the brand can deliver both quality whisky and moments of playful humor simultaneously. The total effect of such one-offs is that the entire brand benefits from them. Collaboration should amplify, not dilute The Heinz x Absolut collaboration was a good example of how good design can multiply brand value. Its success lay in both brands celebrating their distinctive assets in tandem in the launch collateral (Heinzs silhouette and red tones, Absoluts bottle shape and stripped-back typography). [Photo: Absolut Vodka/Heinz] The creative ideavodka pasta saucewas playful, but it was the campaign work and the packaging that sold the credibility, where the two brands came together in a way that felt creative and made sense for each partner. The most effective collaborations arent necessarily about giving each brand equal space, or one giving way for the other. Its putting egos aside to create something entirely new together, the genius child of both. Legacy brands at the center of culture Legacy brands dont need to reinvent themselves to stay relevant, but they do need to stay alert to whats happening around them. Packaging is a hugely impactful area to showcase this. It is the most visceral, sensorial, and tangible touchpoint a brand can have. A good idea at the heart can be taken to the next level when form, finish, and feel are also taken into account.Legacy brands should be more confident in the strength of their assets. Changing them creatively just a little can a have a powerful outcome. Building both brands assets through co-respect can help place a brand in the center of culture effectively enough for the audience to reappraise it on a deeper, more lasting level. It can reenergize products and brands, putting them in front of new audiences who will become the next generation of loyalists. A design that is oversaturated in dopamine can have the opposite effect, creating confusion around your brand’s identity, leaving your crowd alienated and cynical. The key is to build from what people already know and love. Thats what gives brands the permission to try something new on their packaging, and the credibility to be taken seriously when they do. Once youve cracked the code in an authentic way and succeeded at it, the stage is set for a future of endless creativity that people will come back for time and again.
Category:
E-Commerce
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