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Construction to begin on Apple Store in Bologna, Italy
Above is a street view shot of the site where Apple will be breaking ground on an all new Apple Store. It's right smack dab in the middle of Bologna, Italy, a place where I'd imagine you probably shouldn't believe anything you hear. According to the Italian La Repubblica, the store will take up two levels making up 5300 square feet, with one more level on top for Apple offices and meeting rooms. The store may open as soon as spring of 2011. There's another interesting twist here -- Apple tends to get most of its "pietra serena sandstone" floors from one specific quarry in Italy, which just happens to be about 38 miles from this location. Apple apparently makes up 20 percent of the revenue of the Il Casone stone quarry, located in the small Italian town of Firenzuola. No word on if the family that owns the quarry is doing anything different for this Apple Store, but it's nice that they'll have a place nearby to, you know, go buy an iPad and give some of that money back. [via ifoapplestore]
TUAW's Daily App: Home 3D
Lest you think that all we'll be spotlighting in this space is games, here's an interesting app meant for anyone thinking about adding a couch to that living room or putting an extra bed in the back bedroom. Home 3D is an "architecture and interior design app" that allows you to model out your home in 3D, including doors and windows on a floor plan, wallpaper, and furniture, allowing you to test out your choices on your device first before tearing out a wall or repainting a room. Having all of this functionality on your iPhone or iPad is impressive (and the best home design software costs a lot more than this one -- US$3.99 for the iPhone and $4.99 for the iPad), but Home 3D does it with an impressive interface and a surprising number of features. You can use a color picker and choose from a set of pre-loaded furniture, buy more with in-app purchases, or try creating your own models or even using the iPhone's camera for textures. It's not perfect -- if you want to do serious home design, you'll probably have to go for something a little more dedicated on the desktop. But just for moving some furniture around, or maybe seeing what a room might look like with a different color of paint, Home 3D does the trick.
Piezoelectrics installed in Tokyo railway station floors generate power, wastes it
The East Japan Railway Company has been running tests on a "power-generating floor" since the beginning of January 2007, but they've just installed the system for public testing in several areas of the Tokyo station. Using piezoelectrics similar to that we've seen before in a UK discotheque, the Japanese company says the power-generating capacity of the flooring has increased ten-fold over its initial results, and they now expect to generate 1,400kW/sec per day. With that, they plan to power the display pictured above, which shows the power generatd by the floor. Sound a little redundant? Fear not: they plan on using the juice to operate automatic ticket gates in the future. [Via Inhabitat]
