Insect Artwork: Debug by Edhv
Dutch designers of the Edhv team show a series of pictures achieved by tracking the path of tiny insects.
An experimental technology tracking software allows the mapping of the movement patterns of different species of insect. A new medium of artwork coming from life.
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Bullet Train Concept Without Train Stopping
The bullet train is moving all the time. If there are 30 stations between Beijing and Guangzhou , just stopping and accelerating again at each station will waste both energy and time.
A mere 5 min stop per station will result in a total loss of 5 min x 30 stations or 2.5 hours of train journey time!
Recharging USB Devices with the Rubik’s Cube by Zheng Weixi
Cube Magic Charger by Zheng Weixi’s is just a concept for now but I hope this becomes a reality soon and we show our love for the Mother Earth.
Simply touch it until it gets its satisfaction and watch your phone or other electronic devices start recharging.
Via [Yanko Design]
Hacking Nerves to Revive Paralyzed Limbs
A neural engineer from Case Western Reserve University is reviving paralysed limbs with an electricity hack. Schiefer, a neural engineer at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. is describing an experiment in which pulses of electricity are used to control the muscles of an unconscious patient, as if they were a marionette. It represents the beginnings of a new generation of devices that he hopes will allow people with paralysed legs to regain control of their muscles and so be able to stand, or even walk again.
The cuff was temporarily implanted on the femoral nerves of seven patients undergoing routine thigh surgery. Pulses of current 250 microseconds long were used to selectively and independently activate the muscles that extend the knee and flex the hip joint when a person stands up. The pulses were not enough to bend the joints as much as they would when standing, but the results suggest that longer pulses should stimulate the muscles to provide enough force to support the body’s weight.
Via [New Scientist]
Osusowake Planting System, by Studio kenma
Osusowake which means sharing in Japanese booms the possibilities of conventional potting. This planting system, designed by Kenma, re-thinks the notion of plants, allowing to grow and distribute them to your friends and family.
Vesta Life Headphones
Soyun Kim, Leah Thomas, Young Bang, and Hojin Choi, four women coming from totally different backgrounds have found themselves in a dynamic originality to created Vesta life headphones.
The Vestalife headphones have a smart design. The headphones are covered in a fabric “headband” that can be swapped out to match an outfit. The earbuds are made of fabric and have a leather insert so that you pull the earbuds out by the bud and not the cord. Will Vestalife headphones change the way men see women when they’re listening to music? Only time will tell.
In Utero Images Glimpse Animals Inside the Womb
A joint project between the National Geographic Channel and Channel 4, the series used advanced high definition cameras to capture animals and embryos during pregnancy and birth. $Techniques included infrared and 4-D scanning techniques, as well as a host of realistic computer-generated models. Now you can see fetal dog, elephants, penguins, and dolphins still inside the womb.
Mirror Watch by Cheuk Kee Lai
SDWorks, a commercial platform attached to the Hong Kong Polytechnic University’s School of Design now started to produce the Mirror Watch – a combination mirror/ LED watch by student designer Cheuk Kee Lai.
Cheuk Kee Lai focused on dual functionality: the mirrored surface reveals a LED digital watch only when needed, and for the rest of the time the watch becomes an elegant reflective piece.
SolarCharger 906 by i.Tech Dynamic
i.Tech Dynamic has launched on the market a solar charger for mobile devices. SolarCharger 906 is about the size of a deck of cards and lets on-the-go users charge their mobile devices such as cellphone, PDA, GPS, PMP with solar energy. This device features monocrystalline solar panel and does efficient solar conversion. Other than sunlight, the portable charger can also get power from a PC via USB port.
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Recycle Water by Filtering it Using Different Plants
Designers Jun Yasumoto, Vincent Vandenbrouk, Olivier Pigasse, and Alban Le Henry came up with the concept when looking for new ways to recycle precious H2O.After you have washed in the special eco-shower the water passes down into a series of physical filters and is treated by plants such as reeds and rushes growing around your feet.
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Water Logo by Hara Design Institute, NDC & Atelier OMOYA
Water Logo ’09 by Hara Design Institute, NDC & Atelier OMOYA for TOKYOFIBER09 use a hidden mechanism; water seeps through the fabric in groups of drops that spell out “Senseware”. The fibres are treated with an ultra-water-repellent coating at the nano level to completely repel drops of water. When the droplets of water exceed a certain size, they roll away down the sloping surface under the influence of gravity. The water drops well up to form letters on top of the sloped fabric, a new drop of water grows up to take the place of each drop that rolls away, so the water logo is constantly renewed. The water drops form tails as they roll away.
Sensia DAB and Wi-Fi Radio Delivers Big Touchscreen, Twitter and Facebook Apps
The PURE Sensia couples a DAB/DAB+ digital radio and WiFi streaming into a single model, complete with a 5.7-inch 640 x 480 capacitive touchscreen and social networking plug-in apps including Twitter, Facebook and Picasa.
The radio itself has integrated stereo speakers each with 15W RMS, a 3.5mm headphone socket and an RF remote control. Connectivity includes WiFi b/g, DAB and DAB+ support, as well as FM radio, a 3.5mm input for hooking up an external audio source, and a USB port for firmware updates (though PURE will also distribute them for wireless installation over WiFi). While it’s natively AC powered, the Sensia also has an optional internal battery pack good for up to ten hours of use.
There’s even an on-screen keyboard for searching and adding comments. The PURE Sensia radio will be on sale by Christmas in Europe, priced at £249.99
Lamp Powered By Blood by Mike Thompson
Designer Mike Thompson has designed an innovative light called “Blood Lamp” that as depicted by its name, generates power from blood.
For the lamp to produce light one must break off the top of the lamp, dissolve a tablet in the solution and use their blood to power the light. This creates a lamp that can only be used once and forces the user to consider the most important time that they need the light. It forces them to be more considerate and reflect of how wasteful we are with energy on a daily basis. There is also a deep metaphor in this as well where the blood in our bodies represents life and the energy we use everyday effects the world we live in somehow some way, thus effecting our quality of life. See, everything is cyclical. Check out Mike’s very interesting portfolio of work here.
Link Via [FLYLIYF]
Sticky Light
Sticky Light by Sticky Light is a student project at the Department of Information Physics and Computing at the Ishikawa Komuro Laboratory of the University of Tokyo.
A laser spot bounces on a figure being drawn on paper, trying to escape the labyrinth of lines. It can track the contour of objects and even augment real-time drawings. Or you could build games like air hockey or a pinball game.
Box To Play
The Box To Play phone from Japan’s KDDI AU Design Project introduces a new form factor for musical phones, as it transforms into a beautiful box shape, illuminated by a graphic equalizer on all four sides.
Aside from the sweet transformation and the graphical interface, the Box To Play also has a few other tricks up its sleeve. For one, the circular disk feature on its face allows you to act the DJ and scratch along to your favourite tunes.
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Espresso Book Machine by Blackwells
The Espresso Book Machine invented by Blackwells, is capable of printing and binding a book on-demand, while the customer waits.
Drawing on a stock of 500,000 titles — the majority of them out-of-copyright, though Blackwells are looking at adding copyrighted material to the catalogue — the machine, which looks like it was rescued from the Xerox product demo lab, is capable of churning out 100 pages per minute, chopping them up, and spitting out the resulting tome within five minutes (as shown in this video). The machine cost Blackwells £150,000, but the chain believes they’ll recoup costs within the year, and are already hoping to roll it out in other branches.
Developer On Demand Books claim that the machine is the biggest development in printing since Gutenberg started tooling around with movable type in the 15th century, and they believe that it’s the long-awaited instrument with which bookshops can compete with Amazon. However, speaking of the online retailer: earlier this year it released its own game-changer, the second edition of its Kindle e-reader, which has already proved a popular seller and could potentially do to books what the iPod did to CDs. While the Kindle is aimed at shifting electronic copies of modern texts, it can also access copyrighted material, and such a digital device, capable of storing thousands of texts, is seen by many as a preferable alternative to paper. The Espresso could find itself the literary equivalent of the Minidisc: an admirable technology that simply arrived too late to achieve its full potential.
Butterfly Technology Tube Dispenser
This tube dispensing technology is invented by UK company Butterfly Technology. A unique dispensing device to get that last drop out of a tube of face cream, toothpaste or other product.
