Looks a little weird but somehow it still makes me want to sit on it. Volkswagen foldable “Bik.e” electric bicycle concept. The VW bik.e is an electric bike that is designed to quickly fold down and fit in the spare tire compartment of a car. The bike has a range of over 12 miles and has a top speed of 12.5 miles per hour. When the batteries are drained, the bike can apparently be recharged by a car’s DC current or plugged into a typical household AC outlet. VW does intend develop the idea towards a production version. No date has been announced as to when the bik.e might go on sale or whether it will be offered as an option when purchasing a VW vehicle.
Private jets are basically a middle finger to the environment, but we suppose that if they’re going to be made, they should be well-designed. And to that end, Embraer, the Brazilian small-plane maker, has tapped BMW DesignworksUSA to design the interiors of its Phenom 100 and Phenom 300 luxury executive jets. (Is there any other kind?)
The collaboration represents six years of work, and the designs don’t much resemble a BMW–rather, they’re a bit more like a Bentley seen through the gimlet eye of an efficiency-minded German. For example, principles derived from BMW’s expertise in designing car controls were integrated into the cockpit layout and instrumentation; and BMW DesignworksUSA has applied in-motion know-how in designing under-seat baggage storage and tiny details such as cup holders and in-seat controls. (from fcompany) Gorgeous wonder what the budget was!……
Mimosa by Jason Bruges Studio an installation, featuring light panels that open and close like flowers. The installation aims to mimic the behaviour of the Mimosa family of plants, folding up or flattening out in response to the presence of viewers. Each panel represents a flower petal, dimming in intensity as it closes. Beautiful!
Puma has partnered with The Fuse Project to completely redesign the packaging for their shoes. A team spent 21 months studying different boxes and packaging schemes, searching for the most efficient, sustainable way to get shoes to consumers. They finally came to the solution of foregoing a box altogether, and instead used a special bag and a cardboard sheet.
The Fuse Project explains: By providing structure to a cardboard sheet, the bag uses 65% less cardboard than the standard shoe box, has no laminated printing, no tissue paper, takes up less space and weighs less in shipping, and replaces the plastic retail bag. The cardboard structure is die cut from one flat piece of material and has no additional printing or assembly, thus it can be returned to the stream faster and more efficiently. The structure was created with four walls that taper in to allow for secured stacking, another important element left over from the original shoebox.
The bag is non-woven which means less work and waste (it is stitched with heat). It protects the shoes from dust and dirt in the warehouse and during shipping. The “clever little bag” is an iconic brand element upon leaving the store as it replaces the plastic shopping bag, and it is also used for shoe storage in travel suitcases. The bag is made of non-woven polyester consisting of recycled PET, and eventually is also recyclable. Puma claims that this new design will save about 8,500 tons of paper, 20 million Mega joules of electricity, 1 million litres of fuel oil, 1 million litres of water and 500,000 litres of diesel. Nice mother nature thanks you puma! (from:PSFK)
Awesome, but I doubt its actually real. I know that HIFANA are the real deal but the shoes as mixers hmmmm… nice job on NIKE again jumping on the cultural band wagon.
Projection mapped installation by Alcatel-Lucent. Great example of simplicity in form with dimensional color to create the sublime, created by SUPERBIEN
Speed of Light is a series of immersive light installations by UnitedVisualArtists. Commisioned by Virgin Media to celebrate the tenth anniversary of broadband in the UK. The installations explore the themes of communication and modernity. UnitedVisualArtists decided to use fibre optics as it’s a perfect fit to the broadband theme. At the entrance, the visitors are asked a question, they can speak their answers into a microphone. That input is then used by several parts of the installation to guide the lasers. Wish i could go and see it for myself.
Interesting view in how a digital world a new generation of kids are exploring mixtape culture by rediscovering an analog medium. Ahhh brings back memories, wonder how many of the “crushes” I had still have their “mixtapes” ha…
Swype provides a faster and easier way to input text on any screen. With one continuous finger or stylus motion across the screen keyboard, the patented technology enables users to input words faster and easier than other data input methods—at over 50 words per minute. The application is designed to work across a variety of devices such as phones, tablets, game consoles, kiosks, televisions, virtual screens and more. Simply Trace a a path, The word “quick” was generated from tracing the path shown above in a fraction of a second, by roughly aiming to pass through the letters of the word. A key advantage to Swype is that there is no need to be very accurate, enabling very rapid text entry. Awesome…no need to even spell these days!
Published by Bonnier and the largest science+tech magazine in the world, is launching Popular Science+ — the first magazine on the Mag+ platform, articles are arranged side by side. You swipe left and right to go between them. For big pictures, it’s fun to hold your finger between two pages, holding and moving to pan around.Swipe down to read. Tap left to see the pictures, tap right to read again. These two modes of the reading experience are about browsing and drinking in the magazine, versus close reading. Pull the drawer up with two fingers to see the table of contents and your other issues. Swipe right and left with two fingers to zip across pages to the next section. Dog-ear a page by turning down the top-right corner.
There’s a store in the magazine. When a new issue comes out, you purchase it right there. Beautiful!
Each day, we are surrounded by seemingly insignificant objects, taking them from one place to the other, or leaving them on a table for weeks, without paying any attention to them. We ignore or forget them, using things only when we need to, making sure they don’t interfere or inhabit our space. But what if they were not so stable and subservient? What if they could swivel, bounce or even fly. And what if they did so all at the same time? Imagine a place where objects could live and move, harmoniously, and of their own accord. Without interfering with each other these objects would bounce, roll, turn and cross each other’s paths. The experiment is about re-discovering our daily surroundings.
The making of the interactive video that was originally made for If You Could Collaborate exhibition. Each object is assigned to a letter on the keyboard, and can be activated or deactivated at any time. The online version is also now up on dansedance.com Bloody brilliant nicely executed!
Celyn Brazier has some new updates on his site, loving the concept/illustrations he did for World Wildlife Fund, We are all connected. Great use of the circle motif not overplayed and hits on the idea spot on.
