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RISD furniture design student Joseph Guerra has a noble ambition “to design useful, mass market objects that exhibit a simplicity and beauty that challenge traditional societal notions of value.” This is a goal he’s gotten closer to reaching over the past few years. Much of his early work is more art object than practical design. His latest piece, Utility Mirror, is probably the most practical, but his Flashlight is, to me at least, the most beautiful.
The flashlight’s components are housed in a CNC-cut cork case that can be disassembled to replace the batteries, making production easier. But that’s not the only practical aspect of this design. The fact that its rectangular and sits flat instead of rolling around like a typical flashlight is, perhaps, one of the unintentional bonuses. Not unintentional at all is the choice to use cork and a contrasting white handle. Cork is one of my favorite materials, and I love to see used thoughtfully or unexpectedly. Flashlights are usually made of cold, hard metal, but Guerra makes the flashlight a touchable, almost comforting object, one that you want to leave out instead of tucking it away into the tool shed.
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No matter how streamlined Apple’s designers make their products, there seems to be one necessary evil of any electronic device that not even the big brains in Cupertino can solve: cords. Everyone needs them; Nobody loves them. They’re impossible to coil up tidily, making a mess in desk drawers or snaking haphazardly over table edges. And don’t even get me started on ear buds.
But now two designers, Jesse Pliner and Lloyd Gladstone, have created JuiceTank, an iPhone charger and case in one. The unit works like a camera battery charger that plugs straight into the wall, only you don’t have to take anything out of your iPhone to charge it – you just stick the whole thing into an outlet. Sure, there are some limitations, like not being able to use your phone while its charging, but this way you can charge your phone when you’re on the go and you don’t have your cord with you. No more asking waitresses and bartenders if they have an iPhone cord you can borrow.
I just hope it gets Apple thinking about how to do away with all the cords clogging my otherwise impeccably organized desk space. Right now Pliner and Gladstone are raising funds on Kickstarter to produce the JuiceTank. Pitch in and say No More Cords!
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Anyone who uses their bike to commute to work or for more than just a leisurely Springtime spin knows that peddling away, even in the Winter, often means arriving to the office with a sweaty back and pits (and, let’s be honest here, sometimes a sweaty butt, too). It’s not the greatest way to start the day. But for many bikers, myself included, our road warriors are badges of honor, and replacing them with an electric or electric-enabled bike would be the ultimate ride of shame. Now, however, it looks like we can have our cake and eat it, too with DK City’s dbRevO, a wheel that automatically converts an ordinary bike to electric simply by replacing the front tire.
The wheel houses a motor, battery and controller that operates with a wireless console, allowing the rider to communicate with their bike and record information about their ride. It can go for 25 miles when fully charged, enough to take you from the southernmost tip of Manhattan to the top of Central Park and back again – and then back one more time. It comes in two sizes and a variety of colors with more options coming soon.
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To start, taking into account this particular instance of Qbo’s “consciousness” is done programmatically rather than arising naturally out of a deeper awareness of self should not diminish Qbo’s achievement. Qbo not only can recognize itself but also distinguish itself from other identical machines and carry on a simple conversation using speech synthesis (Festival) and recognition (Julius) programs. Qbo’s developers have simulated self-awareness through mimicking the way humans recognize themselves: we learn what we look like and verify by checking to see if our actions are mirrored. The nose flashes are the messaging system. The green robot can figure out if the the flashes coming from the black robot are his flashes and that the black robot looks enough alike to be one of his “species” which triggers the funny seduction line. Stay tuned.
Research and development by TheCorpora. [ qbo robot blog ]
about boo hill
TikTok+LunaTik Multi Touch Watch Kits from LUNATIK
TikTok is a simple snap-in design that allows the user to quickly and securely snap the iPod Nano in and out of the wrist dock.
TikTok + LunaTik products were conceived by, Scott Wilson, founder of MINIMAL and former Global Creative Director for Nike Watches. They have been realized and made available to you through the magic of crowd-funding. The idea to use the Nano as a wristwatch was an obvious one ever since Steve Jobs announced the 6th generation iPod Nano. The Nano is an incredibly complex technological breakthrough and Apple’s sheer ability to offer a multi-touch full color display and battery in such a small package is no small feat. Wilson approached the industry leading brands but they were not interested in developing it. So he decided to put them on Kickstarter.com, a fundraising website for creative projects. The response was overwhelming. The goal was to raise $15K in 30 days but instead they ended up with nearly $1M, shattering all Kickstarter records and instantly validating their designs globally. At this moment LunTik is busy fulfilling orders globally and have partnered with Apple’s leading fulfillment and logistics partner.
[ mnml ][ lunatik ] [ kickstarter ]
a new eBook available for iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, Kindle, Nook, Android, Mac and PC.
KieranTimberlake is pleased to announce the release of
Cellophane House™. Cellophane House™ chronicles the conception, assembly, display and disassembly of a five-story, off-site fabricated dwelling made of transparent, recyclable materials commissioned by The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) for the exhibition Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling.
Designed by Stephen Kieran and James Timberlake and their architecture firm KieranTimberlake, Cellophane House™ takes a radically different approach to off-site fabrication, reinventing the way buildings are assembled, what they are made of, and the experience of living in them. It demonstrates an end-of-life strategy that, enabled by an innovative structural frame and variety of connectors, makes disassembly and waste-divergence inherent in the building’s construction.
The book contains a detailed discussion of the house and 105 color photographs and illustrations. The iBooks version contains a time-lapse video of the assembly process.
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about phil patton
if the last time you raised your hand in mrs. murphy’s third grade classroom was a couple of decades ago, it’s hard to imagine the grade school experience with laptops playing just as vital a role as pencils and wide-ruled paper.
But imagine your day now. How many hours do you use your laptop? Just like the rest of the world, schools are becoming increasingly reliant on laptops, but as learning tools, not to YouTube the Double-Rainbow guy for the third time this week. Lots of schools around the world can hardly afford the roof over their heads, let alone laptops. That’s why One Laptop Per Child is an important, socially impactful charity that uses donations to get real results.
They even developed their own laptop, the XO “rugged, low-cost, low-power” laptop that’s easy to read outside for those schools that don’t have buildings to operate from. In countries where libraries are small and outdated, or, in some cases, nonexistent, access to the Internet is an invaluable resource for children who would otherwise have no contact with the world outside their own. Children in many developing nations are already becoming more educated than their parents’ generation, meaning they will be the first crop of young adults with the knowledge and ingenuity to pull their struggling economies out of a slump, and these laptops are the first step. All donations are accepted. $199 buys a laptop.
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for some people watches are a status symbol – the bigger and blingier the better.
For others they merely tell the time. We’re not concerned with either group, only with those who consider a watch like any other design element in their life, as something that’s functional but also interesting, designed to make life both easier and better. For those people there is & Design, a Japanese studio with four bold watches, the Pentagon, the Hexagon, the Icon and the LED. Let all those who can’t read time without a little help (like actual numbers on a watch face) be warned. These timepieces are stripped away of all extraneous information and rely on simple geometric shapes and basic yet striking color combinations. The first one to grab my eye was the Icon, which, with “a nod to the era of 8-bit computer graphics” has a face like an old Mac icon. The Hexagon and Pentagon take similar design cues, and the LED rounds out the bunch with a pop of color. ($75, at the MoMA store)
designer: & design
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there are ear phones and then there are ear phones, as in ear buds that are sculpted to fit the minute specifications of your ear, providing unparalleled fit, comfort and sound quality.
That’s what Ultimate Ears has specialized in since 1995, when their products were available only to professional musicians who swore by their UE ear phones for live performances. They not only protect the musician’s hearing onstage, but the customized micro-speakers fitted specially for their ears ensures crystal clear feedback. Five years ago UE developed a series of consumer models for all us who aren’t in touring rock bands. The universal fit ranges from $20-$400, but a customized pair – the ultimate Ultimate Ear experience – will cost you upwards of $999. Buy one for someone who’s been extra nice this year, or buy a pair for yourself and receive a free Portable iPod Dock ($100) for your friend.
producer: ultimate ears
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