Our weekly update, where we share what’s inspiring us:

Method: 4 Things Video Games Teach Us About Motivating People

Since its introduction, gamers have played World of Warcraft for what amounts to a total of 5.93 million years. What is it about games that’s so engaging? This piece, from innovation firm Method, delves deeply into that question. Referencing a hierarchy of needs, Adam Dole looks into how we might create social change over a broad range of important issues by employing game mechanics and strategies.

Looxcie

It’s difficult to anticipate a sharable moment. Now that the Internet has become our collective family photo album and home video collection, that’s been deemed a problem. The Looxcie, a new wearable video camera, is here to solve it. Instead of a record button, the futuristic camera constantly records what you’re seeing, and then, with the click of an “instant clip” button, saves the last 30 seconds of what you’ve witnessed, even sharing it with friends and family in real-time if you wish. If only the device, which hooks around the ear, was invisible.

Ideo: Nine Examples of Branded Environments That Mimic the Web’s Fluidity

The flexibility and fluidity of the web has led to the creation of endless tailored solutions and experiences. That said, why should a brand’s specialized experience become generic and impersonal for us once we’re offline? The convenience and relevance afforded by the Internet has changed our expectations and it’s time the real world caught up with them. IDEO examines a handful of companies pushing the limits of physical spaces in order to evolve with people and their needs.

Jay-Z Hits Collection Vol. 1

This site for Jay-Z’s anthology will easily eat up ten to fifteen minutes of your time. The always handy timeline and menu musically takes the viewer on a journey through the rapper’s career, offering up videos, photos, reviews, and even tweets relating to the four phases of Jay-Z, which are each accompanied with sleek, relevant black and white motion graphics and footage.

Bushwick Augmented Reality Intervention 2010

A group of digital artists, some of whom recently displayed their art in the MoMA without permission, have augmented the realities of Bushwick, Brooklyn. If you’re in the area with a Smartphone on hand anytime soon, you might find yourself in the midst of “a virtual drug which has broken free of its Internet constraints,” a unicorn park, and plenty of other eye-boggling modifications to the neighborhood.

Google Calls Out Facebook’s Data Hypocrisy, Blocks Gmail Import

Since its beginning, Facebook has been happily mining other networks for information to help users find and recruit friends to join the ever-expanding social hub. The company’s unwillingness to reciprocate and share its own user data with those networks is finally taking a toll: Google has called them out and is blocking Facebook’s Gmail import.

Social Books Hopes to Make E-Reading Communal

Two entrepreneurs aiming to transform reading into a social activity introduced their mobile app to the world yesterday at TEDxEast. The application, Social Books, allows individuals to leave public notes in books and to comment on notes left by others. Will this make reading more exciting and engaging for those who dislike it, or will it prove to be distracting?

Ralph Lauren 4D

In what they call “a historic fusion of art, fashion and technology,” Ralph Lauren has created a few groundbreaking 4D experiences, constructed by layering models of buildings over the actual buildings, and then adding new depth, life, features and sounds to them. As icing on the cake, scents from the perfume line were released at the New York City and London live events on Wednesday.