The theme of the TED conference this year “What the World Needs Now…”. PUR believes the world needs water. Working with TBWA\Chiat\Day LA, is providing all attendees at TED with a Sigg water bottle and water filtration stations throughout the conference in an effort to exclude bottled water from the event and the waste that they produce. Once attendees receive their bottle, they will be encouraged to go to a photo kiosk and have their picture taken with their bottle to post to social media sites.

Every time a photo is posted, clean water will be donated to people that need it. Every time someone tweets about it, water will be donated. And when you visit the PUR Facebook page, you can click to donate water (at no personal cost) on a daily basis.

Here are a few facts about why it is important to get behind this initiative.

(1) A billion people have no clean water to drink.

(2) PUR’s goal is to raise 200,000 liters of clean drinking water during the TED conference.

(3) 200,000 liters = enough water to provide a village of 250 people clean water for an entire year.

(4) 200,000 liters = enough to avert 8,000 days of illness from dirty water.

(5) 100 liters, which is given for each photo taken at the conference, can provide 50 days of clean water to someone who would otherwise go without.

So here is how you can help.

ON TWITTER (@PURtweets):

Tweet to Donate 10 Liters of Clean Water by clicking: http://is.gd/7Yt0J

ON FACEBOOK (Facebook.com/PUR):

Visit the album on Facebook and share to your profile: http://bit.ly/dDrztz

So go tweet, go to Facebook and go give water to people that need it.

This is one of the coolest examples of todays brand behavior: The Pepsi Refresh Everything Project. See, what they say about themselves: “We’re looking for people, businesses, and non-profits with ideas that will have a positive impact. Look around your community and think about how you want to change it.” and check it out. Simply click HERE for all the necessary information.

FYI: The Pepsi Refresh Project Round 1 Voting and Round 2 Submissions are NOW OPEN! It’s time to start campaigning for the ideas you like, voting for the ideas that will make the world better, and submitting your ideas for Round 2!

If you have any comments or suggestions please email Rob Schwartz.

It’s amazing how digital technology has evolved from a source of intriguing gadgets to a backbone of our daily lives, increasingly blurring the line between the real world and the virtual one. It has never been easier, more fun, or more inspiring to connect and interact with alternate environments in realtime.

Here are four interesting examples:

(1) Frictionless Picture in Video Embedding

(2) Barcode Replacement

(3) Tomorrows E-reading Experience

(4) Augmented Hyper Reality

If you have any comments or suggestions please email Michael Zorn.