Richard Seymour, co-founder and director of Seymourpowell, shares two quick anecdotal stories about preparing people to receive new ideas. As much as people ask for new and innovative designs, they are often very resistant to embracing them unless they are well prepared to do so. The clip is wonderfully concise and does a great job at illustrating just how important storytelling is to the salesmanship process.

Stepping up to the plate is Patrick Baudisch, now with the Human-Computer Interaction group at Hasso Plattner Institut. He and his students have kicked multi-touch up a notch demonstrating multi-toe recognition. Their research has enabled them to recognize individuals by the heat signatures of their shoes, as well as recognize various interactions such as pointing, leaning, head tracking, and more. It may be early, but it looks like a step in the right direction.

Dwell magazine visits the design firm Smart Design and talks to Dan Formosa, and Richard Whitehall about the ‘intersection of Universal Design principals and the limitations of public bathrooms.’ The video presents an insightful yet humorous look into the use of public restrooms. Well worth a watch and if anything will provide a great topic for discussion amongst friends.

The Puyocon mouse is shown off at SIGGRAPH Asia 2009 by students at the University of Tsukuba. Unlike other mid-air input devices, the Puyocon is meant to be thrown either as an input gesture, or for passing from one to another. With 14 pressure sensors in it, it is able to capture with reasonable detail the movement of the ball. It is a bit difficult to imagine it working well with Powerpoint, it may prove very fun in combination with party games in which people toss it to each other. For more visit the Puyocon website.

Juhan Sonin gives a brief talk at O’Reilly Ignite about creating a practitioner’s guide to UI Design. The fast-paced talk speeds through many great tenets such as “Let Data Scream”, “Repeat Users Rock”, “Bitch Loud and Often”, and many more. For a more detailed look, check out his longer talk given at O’Reilly OScon, and also be sure to check out his ever-expanding website of publicly contributed design tenets.

Doubling up on its bet on tablet PCs, Microsoft is working on the dual-screen Courier booklet. Using both pen and gesture based interaction methods, the technology incorporates many of the interaction models we’ve seen developed over the past 10 years. Most interestingly is the fact that it is the first piece of technology to emphasize the light-weight notebook form factor while utilizing two displays. The potential is imaginative as usual and it will be fun to see where this leads.

Julian Treasure, author of Sound Business, speaks at TED about how the sound around us play a large role in productivity, shopping behavior, emotions, and many other ways. Once you are inspired by the talk, head on over to birdsongradio.com and get your daily 5 minute dose in.

Waving hands about to try on clothing at a store? This is how Cisco ushers out their vision for the future of shopping. Overall it just seems pretty far fetched that the main innovation in the experience shown is that of their new business router. On the other hand, Microsoft Xbox’s Project Natal may in fact be the technology that leads to such a customer experience. All in all, such an experience would be much better suited for home shopping. The primary benefit of in-store shopping really is the hands on touchy feely aspects… not the fact that they have mirrors.

10/GUI, a project by R. Clayton Miller, demonstrates a proposed means of interacting with a desktop computer via a touch interface. Stepping out of the box of traditional approaches to designing peripheral devices, Clayton takes a leap forward in not only designing the hardware aspects but also rethinking the software aspects of the computer for use with the device. Overall the idea is intriguing and inspires further thought on touch interfaces for the desktop.

In an effort to change people’s behavior to promote earth friendly and healthy activities, Volkswagen has come up with several fun and clever ideas. For instance to reduce litter, a trash big with sound effects triggered by placing trash into the bin, collected nearly twice as much trash as a near by bin. In another experiment, when using sound effects on stairs, 66% more people than normal chose the stairs over the escalator. View more videos at: TheFunTheory.com

ABC’s Nightline goes behind the scenes at Zappos to see why they have become the leading example in customer satisfaction and expose the company’s enviable corporate culture. By making investments in company moral, and customer satisfaction, their long-term vision has returned huge dividends. Zappos offers newly trained workers $2000 to quit and gives customers 365 days to return purchases with free shipping both ways. CEO Tony Hsieh has kept the call centers based in the US and says their number one focus is building the company’s culture. Whether they teach the practice in business schools or not, the proof is in the pudding. Also check out Zappos’ 10 Core Values.

Noah Zerkin, Augmented Reality Enthusiast, designed and developed the Zerkin Glove, a retrofitted paintball glove to enable computer input of the body’s motions. The sub-$300 DIY project incorporates flex sensors into the glove and arm band to enable control of augmented reality environments. Noah is currently working to develop kits to sell them commercially. Check out more videos of Noah here.

Blending the old with the new, the Chameleon Guitar uses a swappable soundboards to pick up the resonant qualities of various woods, metals, plastics, and well, pretty much anything to produce desired sounds. The boards can be built to mimic guitar sounds from classical guitars to electric guitars, and more. Designed by Amit Zoran under guidance from Pattie Maes and Marco Coppiardi, he is now working on the project as part of his Masters. Amit one day hopes to take the product to market.

Steve V, a video producer from Kitchener, Ontario, replicates the marshmallow test. An experiment in kids ability to sacrifice short-term gratification for long-term rewards, the marsh mallow experiment is interestingly academically just as it is fun to watch kids struggle with waiting the fully 20 minutes for their reward. In terms of relevance, if the child can resist the instant gratification, there is a very good chance they will be successful in life. For more details of the original landmark experiment, watch Joachim de Posada’s TED talk.

Eric Giler, CEO of MIT-inspired WiTricity, demonstrates at TED how wireless electricity works and inspires a vision of the future where devices no longer need to be plugged-in. First explored by Nicola Tesla in the 1890s, in recent years the technology has made great strides and there are many wireless charging pads on the market. The Palm Pre has even made it a showcase feature when marketing its new phone. While the technology has been around for a while, it is taking great strides in efficiency with both increases in the amount of power that can be transmitted, as well as the distance it can be transmitted. WiTricity is attempting to charge everything from electric cars to cell phones.

Slovenian inventor Aleksander Polutnik demonstrates the Enicycle, a motorized unicycle. With two in existance, the unicycle is currently patent-pending and funding is being raised to go into production. Astonishingly the Enicycle manages to pull off a much less nerdy look than the Segway.

Designer Thomas Meyerhoffer, who previously worked at companies including Apple and Porsche, is now making big waves in the surfing industry. The New York Times and Fast Company both provide a comprehensive background to the story, but as with all great design stories… best to hear the commentary from the designer himself.

Eddie Harber, product designer at the Apparel Innovation Team at Nike, gives a behind the scenes look at the Nike Pre-Cool Vest. Made from lots of recycled materials, the vest is designed to be filled with water, frozen, and worn prior to an athletic event or workout to keep the body’s core temperature cooler longer. It is great to see how such wonderful form is derived purely from function.

Project Natal, a gestural input device, is being promoted by Microsoft this year at E3 is attempting to promote their ubiquitous computing platform. Hot off the heals of several other videos promoting Microsoft’s vision for the future, Project Natal focuses on the video game arena. Nonetheless, the vision is illuminating and enticing.

Microsoft’s Dane Storrusten directs this short concept video imagining a future where technology is invisible to end users but allows the full benefits of gestural recognition, context awareness, and more. The video is one of two videos produced by INVIVIA. Also check out August de los Reye’s slightly less intricate concept video for the home environment.