Ghosts in America by Mel Lim for Manifest Equality

Check out our latest art piece for Manifest Equality. We are so happy and honored to be part of this great cause.

Manifest Equality

Why have you chosen to participate in Manifest Equality?
All men and women are created EQUAL. No matter where you are from, where you grew up, what family you were born into, we all deserve the same rights as everyone else.

Describe a bit about your submission to the gallery or the process you are putting into it.
The red, white and blue stripes that drape over our bodies represent the censorship our society and government have placed on us. We can no longer be heard, or seen, our sexuality questioned, probed and censored. We are treated like second class citizens. When you rape us of our rights, you also hurt the children that they love.

But now is the time, where we must fight for our civil rights as American citizens. Our feet maybe shackled, but we are united as one. We fight! We demand justice, love, equality and respect.

We are not plastic Barbie dolls but we want to show you how superficial our world is.

From Left to Right:
Couple 1: A typical white hetero sexual couple with a child.
Couple 2: A lesbian couple with an adopted girl.
Couple 3: A gay couple with an adopted baby.
Couple 4: An inter-racial couple.
Couple 5: A transgender couple.

Which person do you identify with? Hopefully all.

What else would you like to manifest?
All products, objects or ideas should be designed with green accord, for the betterment of human interaction, progression of science and/or towards a good cause.

Close up of art piece.

Deluxe suite at Vdara. Image courtesy of Vdara Hotel & Spa website.

I love Vdara Hotel and Spa in Vegas. I am not a big fan of the Sin City, but I would definitely return to enjoy their spa. It is part of the Vegas CityCenter™ development by MGM Mirage™ and is designed by renowned architect Rafael Vinoly.

City Center. Image courtesy of Vdara Hotel & Spa website.

I’ve heard much about the new City Center development, mostly negative reviews, from unpopular local reception to it’s expansive development while in the midst of a recession. Nonetheless, as a designer, I am always up to see new developments and design.

Bar Vdara. Image courtesy of Vdara Hotel & Spa website.

The City Center development has actually earned six distinct Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED®) Gold certifications for CityCenter™ from the U.S. Green Building Council. They’ve used wood products from responsibly managed forests; high efficiency water use, both inside the building and outdoors; alternative fuel options for limousines; and an improvement of more than 30 percent in energy efficiency over standard building codes. (This info was taken from their website.)

Interiors of Vdara

The overall experience at Vdara was a great one! We would definitely come back.

Our check in took us 20 long minutes. If they had more people at the counter, we would have been okay. The room was clean, modern and exactly how we like our hotels to be. After all it’s designed by Rafael Vinoly. We enjoyed our spacious room and bath tub.

Room service.

We also used it’s concierge service for dinner reservations. They were efficient and attentive.

Our highlight was definitely, it’s Spa. I was very disappointed to not be able to use the pool (still not opened), but was absolutely blown away by it’s excellent spa service. I used the gym, the hot plunge, the dry sauna, steam room, had an Arnica Muscle Repair Massage and a Signature Spa Pedicure Hot Stone Treatment. They were excellent!!!

Our check out was not too troublesome. We did the in-room over the TV menu checkout. It was quick. BUT I had to wait 20 minutes for the bell service to pick up our bags.

They kept our bags for us while we enjoy a few more hours of Vegas and they also arranged for our shuttle service. We had a few drinks at their Bar Vdara downstairs, which was quite empty but we loved it.

We love how whenever we walked over from Bellagio (connected through walkway) and enter Vdara, it smelled nice, it was bright and just simply refreshing.

We would highly recommend this hotel, for someone seeking a non-gaming, non-smoking, quiet and upscale well-designed hotel.

Vdara Spa. Image courtesy of Vdara Hotel & Spa website.

Crystals

Crystals. Image courtesy of Crystals at City Center website.

It was just so fun walking around enjoying architecture in Vegas. Really strange for me to say that, since I’ve always been a little apprehensive about the themed “architecture” on the strip. But to see Crystals, designed by my 2 most admired architects Daniel Libeskind and David Rockwell, in person, was just simply cool.

Crystals boasts top restaurants such as Beso and designer labels from Bottega Veneta, Bvlgari, Cartier, and Carolina Herrera. I was not busy shopping, of course, but was truly enjoying the details of the interior design, sculptures and floor patterns.

I would have LOVED to work on this project!!

I guess I am the type of consumer that does not embrace new technology IMMEDIATELY. I will make my own purchasing decision as I see the technology mature. I am not easily persuaded by trends, friends or peer pressure. Briefly going over TV tech, first it was the big CRT screen, then the huge project screen. They both had the lousiest definition and yet, many consumers embraced them for it’s size. Hmmmm…Finally there was HD. Even with HDTV, I waited until hardware technology converged with HDMI and Cable broadcasting technology

Let’s look at the improvement in TV definition. In the replacement of VHS with DVD, there was a small 20% increase in picture quality. When Blu-Ray replaced DVD, there was a huge, 200% increase in picture quality. TV sets simultaneously went from those heavy tubes and foggy projections to light-weight wide-screen thin-panel displays capable of 1080p. Finally Cable TV was broadcasting an HD signal and the big manufacturers were putting out HD Blu-Ray players and game consoles. Everything seemed to come together, so we finally bought our first true HDTV, a Sony XBR Bravia. That was 2 years ago….

I definitely have a biased view on the new 3D-TV technology. Firstly, I simply cannot imagine wearing silly 3D glasses in our living room. Secondly, should we even be entertaining this 3D-TV when we haven’t even perfected our current HD technology? I have some 300 Cable channels of which only 20 are on HD! And how about those “fake” HD channels, the ones that slap on the HD logo in the corner, but the picture is cutoff on the sides (SD format), or stretched out so you see super-WIDE people.

Like any brand new gadget, 3D-TV’s price point is still high for the average consumer. The 3D glasses are uncomfortable and pricey, most above the $100 mark. There is also the issue of viewing angle. Most of these pictures look best from a straight-on view so I guess we should pile on top of each other on the couch to enjoy our movie? And not to mention, the poor attempt to push the no-glasses-3D-TV’s that look bad enough for you to go check your eyes for a new prescription.

Nonetheless, there is an impressive development on HDTV at CES – Ultra thin LCD screens. LG showed their LED based LCD screen that was less than an inch thick. Samsung showed off their slim LED that was a surprising 7mm thick.

Information – Touch and Global
Other great technology was Intel Infoscape HD wall. This wall was an interactive real time news source of oceanic floating icons that you can walk up to and interact with. You can touch and instantly receive a pop-up news source of photos, video or text from anywhere in the world.
Engadget has a great write up on this >>

Intel Infoscape HD Wall

And of course there is Microsoft. It’s interactive Surface Tables were pretty cool. It’s very interesting to watch attendees walk up and touch the table surface map and bring up satellite images of their home just outside of Paris, another instantly zoom into his old boarding school in Mumbai thousands of miles away. Or better yet, watching attendees form friendships as they play interactive games simply by touching the surfaces. Pretty cool to witness how great technology can form and strengthen human relationships.

Microsoft Surface Table

Microsoft Surface Tables

The Microsoft booth features an interactive audio wall to encourage visitors to play with the wall’s lighted tiles.

The Microsoft booth features an interactive audio wall to encourage visitors to play with the wall’s lighted tiles.

Individuality
Back in 2007, while in Tokyo, touring the Sony Building, we saw this huge Canvas @ Sony campaign. It’s a collaboration of Sony and young contemporary artists in Japan where artists expressed their own unique styles onto the Vaio laptop, Walkman®, headphones and cellphones.

Now in 2010, here in the US, we are noticing this trend…finally catching up to American manufacturers. I am not sure if it’s because there is this urge to push “individuality” onto gadgets and accessories. It looks everyone is attempting to do the Murakami Vuitton trend. Either way, I think it’s pretty cool. I particularly like iSkin. Much like iPhones, we see people wanted to get a personalized case for their laptop and other devices.

iSkin laptop bags featuring designs by artists.

And that wraps up our CES highlights.

As a sustainable designer as well as thrifty consumer, it’s always hard to justify any type of purchase. At this show, the biggest question I asked myself was, “What is going to by categorized as a luxury purchase and what is going to be a necessity?”

This year at CES, there was a huge emphasis on mobile technology, smartphones, gps tech, e-readers and of course 3D TV.

Lg Chocolate Touch

Right now smartphone operating systems are battling for their percentage of the market. The CES conference panelists each had different takes on the direction the industry is going. Pankaj Kedia of Global Ecosystem Programs kept drilling home to us that as we move toward smarter and smarter phones, these devices essentially become pocket computers, PC’s. According to Kedia, this will inevitably lead to one dominant mobile OS. But since his current business plan plugs into Intel, (also being a former Intel employee), I couldn’t get passed his optimism and potential bias views. I believe having competing standards for smart phone’s operating systems will boost technology and innovation. Even Mark VandenBrink, VP of Samsung said “We are just giving consumers what they want.” He also went on to say, as most of the panelists agreed with this retail bottom-line, consumers will be the ones determining the market.

Other mobile tech topics include how all chips are set differently, causing compatibility problems, and the ease of App development. Looks like the big guys like Apple and Intel are the ones spearheading the creation of hardware and software platforms. Supposedly half of the smart phone market ownerships are due to the ease of Apps development, the other half is the acceptance of the products by consumers.

For example, in the European market, 66% of the smartphone OS is Symbian, 12% Apple (and growing), 10% Windows Mobile, and 10% RIM. Apple’s iPhone has gained the 12% market hold against Symbian’s long-existing market share due to its ease of developing apps for programmers combined with a device that consumers have embraced. Windows Mobile is trailing and others like Palm and Nokia are coming up with their own “App” store solutions. However no one has yet surpassed 100,000 Apps like Apple. Consumers get what they want and developers get to create and launch their App easily/quickly.

As to the immediate battles between the hardware of Google Nexus, Android, Palm, Blackberry, and Iphone…no comments. I am sticking to my iPhone for now.

GPS:
I attended the CES Knowledge track called GPS Navigation: What’s Down the Road where many of the current pillars of GPS leaders seemed to be outright in denial. Roger Jollis from Garmin and Jocelyn Vigreux of TomTom Inc. seemed very adamant in an immediate public dismissal of what many of us see as the inevitable smart phone invasion of the GPS industry. These makers of PND’s (Personal Navigation Device’s) should be afraid of the all inclusive smartphones with built-in GPS device. But they are not…

Roger Jollis had one main point. He asked the audience if we owned smart phones with cameras in them. 95% of the room raised their hands. Then he asked if those same people also brought along a stand alone camera for REAL photo taking. 90% of the room raised their hands again. Good point…I understand what he’s getting at. But to add to that, cameras are more of a staple in our society than GPS devices!! Can you imagine us bringing an additional GPS device when we go on trips? Or to a conference? The answer is quite obvious.

As a consumer I want the all-inclusive device that does what I want. I really reject the idea of a heavy Batman utility belt that I have to lug everywhere. It’s the same reason my kitchen has 3 appliances. Do I really want a stand alone device that is made to cook only hotdogs and another one to open canned peaches?

The GPS leaders do have a 5 year outlook, and some plan to fight the onslaught of smart phone intrusion. GPS Apps are appearing for the iPhone such as G-Map at $39.99 with its bright and readable interface, and iGO My Way offers their solution at $79.99 with a video game looking 3D building map and 3D vehicle showing your position. Perhaps another direction these companies can take are what TomTom has done with its self titled iPhone App ($99.99) that is not only visually and functionally simple, but intuitive just like their portable GPS units. This could be the compromise and niche that ends up saving the GPS device manufacturers if they choose to embrace it. Or they can just stay in denial.

The other niche they agreed upon was automobile GPS systems. With many upscale cars on the market being sold with built-in navigation, GPS companies will be pushing for installation in lower cost cars as well. This is the reason for the success of OnStar and the Sync found in Ford cars.

GPS did have an interesting start via military contract. The history as they showed us started when the US Government seeked to build GPS devices that can accomplish 3 objectives.
#1. It must be no bigger than a backpack, for example to remain mobile on a soldiers back.
#2. The GPS unit must be made for under $20,000 per unit, to keep costs reasonable (because when it comes from our taxes…$20,000 is reasonable for a GPS unit…i guess).
#3. The GPS must be accurate enough to drop 5 bombs in the same hole.
These are the 3 top things that birthed the now tiny/abundant consumer chips found in GPS units today!

GPS + Mobile + Necessity

Lok8u, Nu•M8

There is also the new multi•m8, a new GPS-enabled locator watch for adults and seniors or for extreme athletes. Multi•m8, just like nu•m8, also uses a combination of patented cellular identification technology and GPS to pinpoint the location of a wearer accurately within 10 feet. Multi•m8 includes a messaging compatible LCD screen, panic button to summon immediate help and a voice recorder.

Yes. I am one of the many geeks that found this CES show quite overwhelming but under-delivered. At least to me. I am sure many of you have read the highlights of the show from these great news sources: Cnet or CNN Tech. Hence my goal is to just share my own personal views and less of the products stuff.

Joe on the other hand, will have different insights than me, since he attended the Full Knowledge Track sessions at CES. He will have more hot notes to share, which we will on our next post.

Arrival:

The infamous Zappos Van/ Shuttle

The whole process was just amazing. Firstly, I emailed them to inquire about the tour. In a few hours, Pam Cinko emailed back and asked if we needed a ride/ shuttle. I forwarded Pam our flight info but MGM Vacations kept making changes to our flights. The peeps at Zappos had no problems at all accommodating our crazy travel changes. They were keen on getting us there. When we arrived, we were picked up by the infamous Zappos van. We arrived at the HQ, they stored our bags, greeted us with bottled water and off we went.

Zappos Lobby

The tour was about an hour, and we were given the history of Zappos, from how they run their fulfillment factory in Kentucky to handling customers at their call centers. We visited each of the merchandising departments and were encouraged to ask any questions personal or work related…it didn’t matter. Whatever happens in Zappos, stays in Zappos. Which led me to announcing through the loud speaker my True Confessions of the Day at Zappos: “Mel Lim is lactose intolerant, had cheese and is real gassy.” Yup! It was that honest, raw and uncensored. I’d figured heck, why not.

On the left: Pam Cinko our tour guide and me. On the right: Mel posing in the middle of Zappos HQ.

But as crazy as this place sounds, Zappos is a multi-million dollar business that has survived the dot com bust and has grown to almost a billion dollars in annual sales. (For those of you who are unaware, Amazon has acquired Zappos for somewhere between $850 and $925 million despite of the the recession)

So just because you see their office desks filled with candys, tchotchkes, hello kitties, and outfitted to look like a jungle enclosure, it’s a great, successful business, which many people may envy, hate or admire. I have nothing but pure admiration!

Zappos Royalty. On the left: You can see COO Alfred Lin and Fred Mossler. On the right: Mel treated like a Queen at Zappos.

Our tour ended back at the main lobby, where it’s stocked with all great business books that Tony reads. Visitors are free to take/borrow. We were then dropped off at our hotel and that’s how we started our Vegas trip!