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Our cities are huge networks of solar energy collectors, as our buildings literally bake in the sun all day. While solar panels are increasingly being installed on rooftops to capture and distribute the energy produced by the sun’s light, very few people have found ways to turn them into exciting design elements. Urban Tiles, which is the graduation project ofMeidad Marzana student atBezalel Academy of Artin Jerusalem, hopes to turn solar panels from passive radiation collectors to active participants in the architectural dialog of any city....

It’s just below freezing in New York City right now. Our noses are running and flu season has already taken its first wave of victims. So, when local media guruUrbanDaddyadvertised its latest Perks series, called “Park Here,” a massive indoor park boasting 74 degrees, catered food from NYC’s best restaurants, and projected movies, we paid attention. UrbanDaddy began as a free daily email devoted to bringing New Yorkers everything they need to know....

We all know the term ‘wireless’ headphones is a big fat lie. No matter how long the battery life, you eventually need to charge them. And guess what: that involves a wire! Even with so-called wireless charging headphones, the charging stand involves a wire too. Urbanista’s new Los Angeles headphones are solar-powered, so they can rightfully be called wireless headphones. At $199, they promise to never need to be connected so long as you have access to light — sunlight or otherwise....

There are a lot of people online with a lot of opinions so it’s unsurprising that polling technology has taken off.Urtakis a publisher polling tool that has been a few years in the making by two Harvard gents, Aaron Gibralter and Mark Lizoain, who are now fully immersed inNew York City’s TechStarsaccelerator program. The problem with polling tools likeGoPollGo, which we recently featured, is that only one entity is asking a question so it’s not as robust as it could be considering the Internet’s flair for crowdsourcing....

Beirut Springbrought our attention to a letter from the US Ambassador to Syria, addressed to the people of Syria. Interestingly enough, the US ambassador’s choice of medium was a Facebooknote. While the US Embassy in Syria’s Facebookpagehas been around for a while, the ambassador didn’t start to address the public through the social network until May this year. Middle Easterngovernmentsare only just starting to catch up with the social networking game, but for US officials, the use of Facebook and Twitter is nothing particularly new....