At the Milan Furniture Fair in April, Magis launched a cardboard playhouse designed by the Spanish designer, Javier Mariscal. Now available in the UK as part of the Mariscal: Drawing Life exhibition at London’s Design Museum (more on the show itself, in the next few days) “Villa Julia” is a bijou residence with some handsome cladding work and its own garden tap. Viewing recommended…

A gripping tale of microbes, medicine & money UNDER OUR SKIN investigates the untold story of Lyme disease, an emerging epidemic larger than AIDS. Each year thousands go undiagnosed or misdiagnosed, often told that their symptoms are “all in their head.” Following the stories of patients and physicians fighting the disease, the film brings into focus a haunting picture of the health care system and a medical establishment all too willing to put profits ahead of patients.

T-Mobile just recently released the Dash 3G and it was made evident that they would soon be unveiling a Google Android-based phone, second in the genre from the company, finally the day has come and the T-Mobile myTouch 3G with Google is up for the grabs at $199 baked with a two year contract. First made public at the GSMA Mobile World Congress earlier this year, the myTouch 3G manufactured by HTC, and unlike the previous, dubbed the HTC Magic; it features a 3.2-inch touchscreen with 320×480 pixel resolutions.

Sans a physical keyboard, the myTouch 3G is smaller than the iPhone but does support the most needed 3G and Wi-Fi. Supporting 512MB of internal memory, for more storage the handset will be sold with a 4GB microSD, but in case you are looking for more space, the storage can be further extended. The sleek phone in a attractive display and user-friendly interface will be available for T-Mobile customers beginning July 8, while others will have to wait till August.

Data.gov launched with 47 datasets from across the government.

That’s a tiny fraction of the Feds’ gargantuan information stores, and the site is clearly in beta, but open-government advocates see the new site as a sign of good things to come for government transparency.

“Data.gov says that our information is your information,” said Ellen Miller, executive director of the Sunlight Foundation. “It bothers me less that there are 50 feeds available today because it represents this enormous change in attitude about what public means. It means it’s online. It’s means it’s available. I think it’s a dramatic breakthrough in the role of government.”

The sheer scale of government data presents many problems, as we’ve noted in the Open Up Government Data wiki. More than 100 government agencies collect data and statistics. Though some agencies have done a great job of getting data and documents online, the accessibility and usability of government data overall can be improved and standardized. With impressive attention to detail and metadata, Data.gov appears to be a step in that direction, but not everyone is satisfied with the new effort.

While ReadWriteWeb’s Marshall Kirkpatrick noted that the effort was “exciting,” he criticized the lack of datasets available at launch.

“There are many, many sets of data available from the federal government but the Data.gov site says it was selective about quality and standards when choosing what to include,” Kirkpatrick wrote. “It’s hard not to compare other sources of government data and feel disappointed, though.”

USGovXML.com, for example, was coded by Robert Loftin from his New Jersey home office beginning just last July. Loftin managed to include far more data than the official effort.

“When I was pulling this stuff together for personal enrichment,” Loftin told Wired.com, “I began to feel frustrated that there were so many places I had to go to, to get the information I was looking for.”

Lofton’s experience, though, provides some insight into why the task is harder than it first appears. In December of 2008, he sent setters to two dozen chief information officers at different government agencies asking them for a simple list of their “publicly available web services and XML data sources.”

After all that effort, he received three responses from Homeland Security, NASA and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. In all cases, the responses were cursory, less than a page, and 23 other agency CIOs did nothing with his requests. That said, Loftin notes that many lower-level technical-support people have proven very helpful at a variety of agencies. Given that he was developing a publicly available source of information, he was dismayed by the lackluster response.

“It sort of shocked me,” Loftin said. “I even wrote to senators and congressmen.”

But to no avail. He aggregated his dozens of sources on his own.

Loftin’s experience shows how hard it can be to extract information from agencies. And even the new federal CIO, Vivek Kundra, who was celebrated for the data policies he implemented in his last gig as CIO of Washington, D.C., probably faces an uphill battle making government data more open.

Miller of the Sunlight Foundation said she thinks Kundra wanted to play it safe politically by showing government agencies that opening up their data wasn’t “threatening,” so he went after the easy, uncontroversial data.

“I suspect that they asked nicely and said, ‘What do you got?’ And this is what they got,” she said. “It’s a toe in the water.”

She expects that over the next year or two, more and more data will flow onto the site. Data.gov highlights its “Suggest Other Datasets” form prominently. It’s clear that they plan to iterate.

In the meantime, the data that is there, from residential energy consumption surveys to the US Geological Survey’s mineral resource database, is already useful. And Sunlight Labs has launched a mashup contest, Apps for America 2, that will award $10,000 to the developer who comes up with the best app using Data.gov sources. Their last contest netted more than 45 entries.

Filmmakers Michael Bernard and Gavin Froome will take us on a journey from Los Angeles to Vancouver; from 1922 up to the present exploring modernist architecture on the West Coast. A core group of architects embraced the Coast with its particular geography and values and they have left behind a legacy of beautiful and inspired dwellings. Today, architects have picked up the thread and they continue to explore and celebrate the principles established by their predecessors.

Intimate interviews and unprecedented access to architects in the film include Arthur Erickson (Vancouver), Fred Bassetti (Seattle), Hernik Bull (Berkley), Michael Folonis (Santa Monica), Dion Neutra (Los Angeles) -son and partner of Modernist pioneer Richard Neutra- , Barbara Bestor (LA) and others. They will all share their insight into the Modernist Movement, and its relevance in our lives today.

Legendary photographer Julius Shulman will also be featured along with the photographs that brought world attention to the work that has been done in Southern California. He has since been photographing architecture for 70 years and is known for steadily creating one of the most comprehensive visual chronologies of Modernist Architecture.

Dwellers in modernist houses will be also interviewed; from renowned hip-hop producer DJ Greyboy who inhabits an 1950s Edward Killingsworth-designed house in LA, to a Vancouverite who restored a vintage Ron Thom house to its original luster. They will talk about how the space that one lives in influences their life. The modernist houses themselves will take centre stage, shot in high definition: the open plans, simplicity of form and integration of site will awe and inspire.

This is pretty funny actually. Audi came out with a billboard that targeted BMW directly saying “Your move, BMW”. BMW responded and placed a billboard close to Audi’s replying “Checkmate”.

Kraft paper softwall is strong and highly robust, being made of a heavy weight paper with long fibres. Although durable and economical, kraft paper softwall is heavier and stiffer than the other versions of softwall, and thus while it compresses flat for storage and transport, it does not fold in half like paper and textile softwalls.

Paper softwall feels light and airy, whereas kraft paper softwall has a strong, grounded presence that is enhanced by its earthen colours. kraft paper softwall is robust, easy to use, and like paper softwall can be dusted, or lightly vacuumed with a brush handle, but should not be allowed to get wet.

Kraft paper softwall is 100% recyclable, and is flame retardant.

Maya Vinitsky’s Squeeze Cup, a combined juicer and cup, simplifies a two-step process—squeezing an orange and then transferring the contents into a glass—reinventing an everyday task in an unexpected way.

Exhibition: Object Factory: The Art of Industrial Ceramics,
Through September 13 at The Museum of Arts and Design

Get rid of the paper trail with the NeatDesk ($400). This compact ADF (automatic document feeder) scanner helps you declutter your desk and empty your filing cabinet, leaving more room for important stuff. Like snacks. With one-button scanning, the NeatDesk scans up to 10 receipts, 10 business cards and 10 documents at once (or a single 50 page document), and then organizes the copies and extracts the info for digital use. You can scan in a stack of business cards and populate your address book, or scan in a pile of receipts to auto-track your expenses (export to Quicken, Excel or Quickbooks), or scan in a document and turn it into a searchable PDF. The auto-organization and character recognition technology worked surprisingly well on the Mac unit we’ve been testing, and is going to make next year’s IRS holiday a little easier to deal with. With versions available for Mac OS X and Windows, you’ll be able to organize your office no matter if you’re a Mac or PC.