'David Bowie Is': a retrospective

The V&A Museum was lucky enough to gain access to the David Bowie Archive to curate the museum's latest attraction.

The sold-out exhibition, titled 'David Bowie Is', features over 300 pieces, including costumes, photographs, album covers and video exerts from films and live performances.

Spanning the career of the Brixton-born musician, the retrospective also includes some more personal items such as never-before-seen storyboards, handwritten set lists and lyrics, as well as some of Bowie’s own sketches, musical scores and diary entries, revealing the evolution of his creative ideas.

The exhibition was brought together by the V&A's theatre and performance curators Victoria Broackes and Geoffrey Marsh and will explore the creative processes of Bowie as a musical innovator and cultural icon, tracing his shifting style and sustained reinvention across five decades.

'David Bowie Is' opened on the 23rd March and will run until the 11th August 2013. Find out more here.

Twitter for business relaunched

Twitter has relaunched its business platform; Twitter for Business.

The relaunch includes best practice guides and case studies from companies such as Porsche and Hubspot. The site has been redesigned to make it easier for anyone to use; either a seasoned marketer or a small business owner.

Encouraging businesses to utilise Twitter is pretty simple, getting them to advertise and spend is more difficult and the relaunch of this platform lends itself to the idea that Twitter wants to be a bigger advertising medium than before.

Twitter has also released the video below outlining some quick tips to enhance your Twitter usage.

10 of the most unusual homes in the world

Delightfull, a lighting company, has compiled a list of 10 homes that have an unusual characteristic. From the world's slimmest house to a replica Flintstones' house, it has them all.

The collection is a series of 'homes' that have been designed and built with a unique idea behind them, including a 1sq.m house (not sure how you could really live in there),  a fully transparent house and our favourite, a house with a giant slide.

Take a look at the full list here.

Payphones become time machines in Manhatten

In New York City a project by Droga5 in collaboration with the New Museum has allowed inhabitants to listen to the sounds and memories of 1993. 

Part of an exhibition which highlights 1993 as a year of change for the city and the world titled "NYC 1993: Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star," the payphone experience gets users to call a special number from selected phones across the city, which in turn allows them to relive that location in 1993.

The phone project titled Recalling 1993 is a huge undertaking, using tour guides and locals to re-tell stories, and is the first use of the payphones whose future is facing some speculation since the age of the smart phone.

An interactive map of the payphones included can be found here. Below is a video outlining the project.

Recalling 1993 from Droga5 NY on Vimeo.

Touchscreen gestures brought to life

An artist has decided to immortalise gestures used with touchscreen products. In her project 'Multi-touch gestures', Gabriele Meldaikyte built 5 different sculptures that used the main gestures associated with touchscreen devices.

The gestures, which seem to be becoming second nature to most, including some babies trying to swipe a magazine to read it, are also seen as a signature of the Apple iPhone.

Gabriele believes that these will be completely different in 10 years time, and so wanted to immortalise them by translating this interface language of communication into 3D objects which mimic every multi-touch gesture.

Minimalist ballet posters increase attendance

When designer Gil Shuler was asked by a friend to create a series of posters for the Charleston Ballet company's 2012-13 season, he felt they should head in an opposite direction to previously.

The company used to feature principle performers as the centrepiece for their posters, now the focus is on the feet.

The simple and seemingly effective new deisgn has the point shoe, a classic article of ballet clothing, as the focal point of the posters.

The response so far has been positive for the company with an increase in ticket sales and Shuler had been asked on many occassions for reprints.

Google Chrome experiment creates perfect time-waster

Google's latest innovation in time-wasting fun is the Chrome World Wide Maze, and it isn't an April Fool's joke.

Coming from Japan, it is a browser experiment that turns any Web page of your choosing into a 3-D maze. You guide a marble via a smart phone synced with your computer (and, of course, installed with Chrome for Mobile for this to work properly). The aim is to collect 'power-ups' whilst completing the maze, and avoiding falling off.

The mobile-phone-as-game-controller idea has promise and isn't much different from the Wii U's current setup. It isn't the first time Google has played with this idea previously releasing Chrome Super Sync Sports and hopefully won't be the last.

Take a look at the promotional videos below.

Heinz creating a noise with Beanz

We're sure that most of you will be familiar with the childhood rhyme that gives the adage of beans being a musical fruit, now Heinz are playing on that with some deluxe flavours.

The 5 special flavours, will be available from London's Fortnum & Mason in a special pack which includes a themed bowl and a special spoon that will play music or sounds whilst you eat.

The spoons contain a special MP3 player with pre-recorded sounds that can only be heard whilst eating through vibrations that travel up the jaw-bone to the ear.

Each flavour has a distinct sound associated with it, be it an Elgar ditty played with a cheese wire or the sound of rustling garlic skins. 

The special edition bowls are also tailored to the unique flavours which includes, cheese, curry, barbecue, garlic and herb, and chili.