Maddock House / Marc Boutin

The Marc Boutin Architectural Collaborative designed the Maddock house in Calgary, Canada.

This design, developed for a family of four, creates a series of sophisticated relationships between interior and exterior space. Critical to the design is the embracing of the dramatic views to the Rocky Mountains and the city centre to the west. In order to enhance this valuable site amenity, the social spaces on all levels are wrapped around view terraces with expansive floor to ceiling glazing — via CONTEMPORIST

Orange Octi-Plush

Deep Orange plush toy from our OCTI-PLUSH collection. The body of the plushie is about 3 1/4 inches wide and 2 1/2 inches tall. The legs are 2 1/4 inches long. All 100% handmade, quality craftsmanship — via CuteStorm

IMI International Management Institute Kolkata / Abin Design Studio

The client brief required a management institute of international standards. Provisions for state of the art facilities and smart classrooms have been made for. The latest technological provisions in the institute allow for worldwide exchange of knowledge, through conventions and seminars. The architectural language of the built form is a representation of this. The colored façade gives it a unique identity and is the first of its kind to be built in India [Abin Design Studio] — via ArchDaily

Muehle Glashuette Marinus GMT

Set to be presented at Baselworld 2011 show, the new Mühle Glashütte Marinus GMT automatic diving watch offers a useful second time zone function at an affordable price.

The watch is powered by a modified ETA 2983-2 automatic movement that features a bespoke woodpecker neck regulation and is equipped with a branded Muehle winding rotor that features the signature Glashuette solar grinding.

The movement is also turned 30 degrees clockwise so that the setting crown is now placed at 4 o’clock, which makes the Marinus GMT more comfortable to wear — via World Watch Review

Shower Squid

Go 20,000 leagues under the shower with this friendly squid, equipped with nine tentacles for gripping your shampoo, soap and washing extras, without disappearing into the bathroom void! Wildly convenient, this functional creature even holds your bottles upside down, so you conquer every last drop — via UncommonGoods

Germany identifies a secure way to deal with spam

In theory, stopping spam is easy: just make it uneconomic to send millions of messages by charging for each one sent, or make senders authenticate their identity to stop address spoofing and simplify blocking.

In practice, that would involve building a secure, parallel e-mail infrastructure linking electronic authentication with real-world identities: a daunting task. Yet that’s just what Germany is about to do.

De-mail — a play on the country-code abbreviation for Deutschland (Germany) and the word e-mail — is a government-backed service in which all messages will be encrypted and digitally signed so they cannot be intercepted or modified in transit. Businesses and individuals wanting to send or receive De-mail messages will have to prove their real-world identity and associate that with a new De-mail address from a government-approved service provider. The service will be enabled by a new law that the government expects will be in force by the end of this month. It will allow service providers to charge for sending messages if they wish — via redwolf.newsvine.com

HD3 Slyde Digital Touch Watch

The upcoming HD3 Slyde digital touch watch will be equipped with a high-definition touch-screen that will effectively let you have dozens of watches on your wrist at just a fraction of a price.

Created by Jorg Hysek Jr who happens to be a son of the famous watchmaker Jorg Hysek, the watch uses the same approach to the user interface that was first developed by Apple.

It takes just a simple slide of a finger to page through different functions of a watch or even change the dial layout altogether — via World Watch Review

Gel deal to benefit university

A revolutionary new gel for healing wounds after sinus surgery has been successfully commercialised in a lucrative collaborative deal for the University of Otago.

Otago University officials say the exact financial details are commercially sensitive, but it is understood the deal is likely to substantially boost university research funds — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Essential Plugins for Every WordPress Installation

One of the reasons why people gravitate toward WordPress is the seemingly unlimited numbers of open source plugins available. Today, I’d like to go over a few plugins that I think absolutely warrant your attention. I’m sure I’ve missed some, though, so make sure to chime in within the comments! Hopefully, this article will morph into an absolute monster of a list that can act as a reference for fellow WordPress developers — via Nettuts+

Camel meat scare

Camel meat in the dog bowl is in the spot light today after a recent report published in the Australian Veterinary Journal.

According to the report, three dogs were euthanased after contracting severe liver disease and the common denominator was that they had all eaten a mixture of camel meat and sweet potato. All three were found to have the toxin indospicine in their systems — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Atlantic Seaport Day Retrograde

At Baselworld 2011 the Swiss watchmaker will present its new Atlantic Seaport Day Retrograde watch.

Available both with a Swiss quartz Ronda 7004.P movement and with the well-known automatic ETA 2824-2 caliber, the watch will feature a retrograde day of week indicator, an off-centered big date aperture at 1 o’clock and an oversized subsidiary seconds display at 6 o’clock — via World Watch Review

Iditarod Race goes high tech with GPS devices

When the 39th Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race starts in Anchorage on Saturday, 62 mushers and their dogs will embark on an annual trek that has evolved far from its shoestring roots.

The leading contenders are professionals, working year-round to prepare for the race and financed by corporate sponsors. There is a significant monetary reward at the end — $50,400 (31,023.02 pounds) and a new truck for the winner, and smaller cash prizes for all the finishers.

Mushers are equipped with the most high-tech outdoors equipment available, including custom-made sleds with adjustable runners for varying snow conditions and, starting this year, global-positioning-satellite (GPS) devices to check on their progress — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Le Petite Prince Nursery School / AR+TE Architects

The project [AR+TE Architects] is built in an area surrounded by public facilities in a residential suburban character near Paris. The proposed extension is built while maintaining the wooded character of the bottom plot. The neighboring houses are built in traditional forms with gabled roofs, thereby extending the crib comes with a gabled roof curved. To insert the building in an environmentally sound approach, structure, roofing and siding are made entirely of wood components — via ArchDaily