How can you make a regular football better?
Well, it gets kicked around a lot. On rough grounds, it's likely to get scruffy quite easily as well.
But one of the biggest problems with footballs is that they deflate often.
The local bicycle shop is usually the place to breathe life back into it and get it bouncing again.
The other problem is the rubber bladder. Once punctured, end of game.
Nendo has created an airless football that can be put together in a few minutes.
It's like a 54 part puzzle designed to be assembled with the same hexagonal colour highlights that give the football its familiar look.
Inspired by woven Japanese bamboo balls, with interweaving and interlocking pieces that come together to form a smooth circle
And kids from anywhere don't have to scrimp and scrounge to get one
No worries about the ball deflating over time.
It has the same bounce and feel of regular footballs. That was an important consideration.
Broken pieces can be replaced and the ball maintains its structure and feel over time.
Perfectly set for the rough and tumble of on-field treatment.
Designed to make disappointments disappear from everyday football
Sourav's second innings
Sometime ago, it made the prime time headlines.
Former Indian cricket captain Sourav Ganguly and Fortune oil brand ambassador had a heart attack.
The ultimate brand nightmare.
Having the celebrity stricken by the condition he was endorsing against.
It was all over social media.
And predictably enough, the brand announced a complete withdrawal of the current campaign.
It looked like the relationship was over and Fortune would opt for safer options.
After Sourav emerged from hospital came the news that he would continue to be the face of the brand
The campaign would be reworked with the new reality
That's a courageous step but predictably, it went from the front pages to the inner sections.
While the heart attack and its aftermath was trending on social media, this news barely went reported.
In essence, it demonstrates how weaknesses and downfall attracts attention, not courage.
Fortune has a mountain to climb. And the agency has its work cut out to bring customers back into the fold. A comeback story with a twist.
It won't be easy. Even though it is the right way.
And if it is done with sensitivity, it could become a classic.
I'm rooting for Sourav's second innings.
Update: Alas, it looks as if the brand has moved on and replaced him with another celebrity.
The colors of the family tree
Have you looked through old B&W pictures and wondered what the world looked like back then?
There's a certain resonance to shades of gray but once in a while it evokes curiosity.
The Singapore government worked on a project to convert old B&W images into color
They wanted to keep the texture and feel of the old pictures.
However, they're not using artists to do the job. There are just too many for it to be done manually.
Apart from the cost and time, a project like this would entail, it was not practical
So they used a bank of pictures to train the AI to work its magic on the palette
You can see the results, both the successful and the failed ones in the links below.
It worked best on high resolution pictures featuring humans and natural scenery.
Not the saturated, glossy and detailed millions of colors you see in images today.
May be that's for the best.
A colorful but slightly faded version of the world then
Not just in sepia
The project is now open for anyone to upload and experiment with their old B&W images
Are there family pictures you would like to see in color?
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