The idea of this weird looking bracelet popped out from the head of Nicolas Meiresonne, a student from Belgium, Antwerp. The goal was to design a watch that will give the user a perception of time and some sort of experience. → Read More
While the radio business may be finished—CBS Radio, no one is going to suffer through commercials to listen to pre-selected, cookie-cutter music when they have a perfectly viable iPod in their pocket—there’s still plenty of industrial designers out there who are able to put their own little spin on the device. Take this White Fruit Radio, for example, It’s made of sycamore, a main event wood, and there’s a row of LEDs on the inside. Where the exactly radio transmitter is, who know. More importantly, who cares. You’re supposed to rub your finger across the top to tune it! Looks neat, but like I said, radio is dead so, you know, best put your design skills toward something else. → Read More
This little guy, the Febot, charges your batteries, literally. Like, it literally charges Duracell (and other, lesser brands) batteries. Well, “literally” is a bit strong, as it’s only a concept, but whatever. → Read More
This is the Lull, a fancy children’s lamp that works in conjunction with the day/night cycle. That is, in the morning the lamp opens open not unlike a flower, shining light on your child’s face. Wake up. In the evening, the lamp closes and slowly dims, allowing your child to fall asleep while counting sheep or some such. → Read More
I’m not crazy about touchscreen keyboards — BUT! – I could probably make an exception for the Plica, if it ever comes out in real life. It’s a folding Nintendo DS-style device that can be used in landscape or portrait mode with one or both screens. It’s brainchild of industrial designer James Piatt, who’s thoughtfully made the hinges of the device into a USB port and a headphone jack. Nice work. [via Newlaunches] → Read More
Can you tell it’s summertime yet? This delightful little concept that’ll never actually be manufactured, called Sweet Honey, combines aroma therapy with lossy MP3s, which just has to be a match made in Heaven. The little bulb thing on the other end of the headphone wire contains a scented tablet. Depending on the type of music being played, different scents are released. Fact: when you play emo, the stench of failure emanates from the device. → Read More
Here’s a pencil-tiny cell phone (currently just a concept) for people with small pockets. From the looks of the device, there doesn’t appear to be much in the way of gobbledygook to confuse the older segment of society — except that they’d have to either squint or do that thing where they lift up their glasses and pull the thing WAY away from their face to see what’s going on. Other than that, looks like we’ve simply got a numeric keypad, a mute button, a speaker, and a mic. Oh, and that sweet-looking fold-out screen. That’s the ticket right there. It’s just a concept device, but there’s no saying that it couldn’t be done. via textually.org → Read More
Stunning! Imaginative! Practical! Never to be mass produced! All words and phrases you can use to describe Shiu Yuk Yuen‘s concept umbrella, the Eco Brolly, which looks a lot less douchey than that other umbrella concept from a while back. It’s a plastic sleeve that you slide newspapers, shreds of cardboard and other assorted doodads to protect you from the cold hard rain. Speaking of which, here’s a troubling anecdote. One afternoon about a month ago, it started to rain like the dickens. An elderly woman didn’t have an umbrella, so she put a plastic bag over her head. So, in the interest of not getting wet, she risked suffocation. Like, the bag was over her head and pulled tight as can be. It was both hilarious and thought-provoking. → Read More
People who think walking is too much trouble, this one’s for you. It’s a design by one Regimantas Vegele for a device that’s part Segway, part elliptical machine. Officially called Zingsniuoklis, you work it by stepping on the pedals, but rather than remaining stationary (as in the elliptical machine) your legs power forward movement. Strange, you say? A waste of time, you snicker? Hardly! How many bright ideas are the product of ceaseless energy and thankless devotion? via Yanko Design → Read More
Let’s say you live on Planet Pseudo-Science, where “weight” can be “generated” at the drop of a hat. Well, maybe not the drop of a hat, but rather the spinning of balls in a dumbbell. The comic book premise certainly sounds fun! Balls inside each dumbbell can be set to rotate at different speeds. The faster they rotate, the more weight is generated. Seeing as though we live on planet Earth, where a little thing called physics applies, this design, while neat looking, is about as worthless as it gets. The law of conservation of mass says, essentially, that matter cannot be created or destroyed in a closed system. These dumbbells claim to generate weight, which is a merely a function of gravity on mass. (That’s why you’d weigh differently on other planets—the gravitational force is different, while your mass remains constant.) Long story short, the spinning balls don’t change the dumbbells’ mass, so no change in weight could happen. And now it’s time for Poland v. Austria, two rubbish teams. via Boing Boing Gadgets and Gearfuse → Read More
Another day, another odd suit. This one, designed by Michael T. Rea, is called the “Suit for Stephen Hawking” and I don’t understand it at all. It’s made of wood, yes, but I doubt that’s its raison d’etre. Actually, the whole lot of Rea’s creations are wooden. The man’s crazy for it. via Make Blog → Read More
The EMC (“easy mobil calling,” which isn’t a typo on my part) concept cellphone aims to make life easier for the elderly. With only four face buttons, each corresponding to a separate phone number, it simplifies the arduous task of remembering, well, four different phone numbers. Granted, all cellphones have an address book, so you’re not really required to know anyone phone number to begin with—I don’t know any of my friends’ numbers at all—so I’m not too convinced of its effectiveness, but that’s largely irrelevant. → Read More
Go ahead and tell me this cellphone concept, the Egg, doesn’t look better than the HTC Diamond. The color scheme, the contours and curves, the UI, it all looks better, I think, than the Diamond. Yes, the Diamond has the advantage of being a “real” cellphone, but these days I tend to like concepts more than actual, finished products. → Read More
The thing about this concept lamp is that you get to show your own design chops. Designer Michail Komarov made it so that a series of interlocking tubes (that sounds familiar) can be arranged in any number of shapes and styles to suit your discerning taste. The way it’s arranged in this picture, I’d have no qualms putting that in my absolutely wonderful apartment. I swear, all these designs are so much better than the real junk we put up with. → Read More
San Francisco, CA
