As summer lurches forward, suburbia becomes a beauty contest of lawns, each aspiring to be the best shade of green. But who's the greenest one of all? The Grass Scanner can tell you. Designed by Alice Wang, this conceptual device takes readings from three patches of grass, figuring out where your lawn places in a Pantone color swatch of greens. Once you have your Pantone code, you can compare your lawns greenness to the "average" grass colors of various parks in the U.K. (I'm guessing Wang is British.)

The Grass Scanner seems like it would be an easy enough thing to build, though I can't see the demand being there… it's easy enough to tell if a lawn is a nice shade of green without the Pantone code, and in any case people who are in this game compete with their neighbors, not public parks. Still, cool pic — is that Frank Gorshin?

Alice Wang, via We Make Money Not Art