Aiming to revolutionize the most basic material units of construction, these building blocks snap together like LEGO bricks while leaving space for insulation and infrastructure inside and between them.

Designed by Kite Bricks, a startup company with lofty aspirations, these Smart Bricks offer “high thermal control, full passage of pipes, wires, cables and the like, finishes for both indoors and outdoors, extraordinary tensile strength, ease of construction, safety of materials, and total application throughout a structure—floors, ceilings, and walls.”

Among other ecological and cost advantages, a core idea is to reduce the difficulty of construction and the equipment and debris associated with the building process. The bricks can be stacked by hand and are self-supporting from the start – no scaffolding needed.

As for applications: “The brick is amenable for building houses, buildings, bridges and more.. The block is constructed of high-strength concrete with unique properties that allow for … large savings in electricity expenses associated with seasonal heating and cooling. The block allows for faster, cheaper, more precise, and stronger building than is available through traditional building methods.”

Whether this approach will replace bricks as we know them remains to be seen, but the next step will certainly involve full-scale prototypes, albeit hopefully ones more creative and attractive than the rough-and-ready examples shown in the video above.

Towers convey power, and height is both literally and metaphorically connected to broader and better views – but here come kites to undermine that top-down view.

Kite photography is empowering and democratizing – increasingly inexpensive unmanned aircraft can be attached to likewise ever-cheaper, high-quality photographic devices. Kite Aerial Photography (KAP) enthusiasts like Pierre Lesage, a sampling of whose work appears here, are rapidly taking to these newer and better technologies.

Sending your camera into the sky is one thing – keeping it balanced so it takes a clean and crisp shot is quite another. Many of the latest advances thus appropriately address the issue of stability. Hence, stabilization rigs that help keep balance even with an ever-moving kite and ground controller.

The controller, in turn, has to determine how the photos-taking will unfold, via preset intervals, perhaps, or using infrared or radio controls. Of his setup, the photographer writes: “Originally this rig was made for a Canon Ixus 600, was then adapted with a video return and later adapted to welcome A Leica Dlux3.”

Until recently, taking photos from the sky meant owning (or at least renting) an airborne vehicle to carry you and your equipment aloft, then struggling through windows or other opening to take the best shot. Now, the game has changed, and almost anyone can get in on the action. Now the only thing that may get in your way is the thin kite string everything else hinges on.