If there's one thing that REALLY annoys me it's wires! Yeah, it seems silly since we think that we need them. In my mind, even as a kid, I thought there must be a way to transmit electricity with out wires or at least figure out a better way to power our appliances and gadgets. Well, as luck/fate would have it, Marin Soljacic at MIT has finally got the technology at a point where it will be widely available in the next few years!! I first heard about this a couple years ago on MIT's Technology Review website (it's one of my favorite sites! yeah, so what I'm a nerd.) but at the time it was big and impractical. In addition to just making sense and being more convenient, this could have major impact from an environmental perspective. Of course, companies will not stop putting wires on products anytime soon but in the future we will hopefully see a dramatic decrease in the use of PVC & copper for wires. Wires actually account for a major percentage of PVC consumption. There's also the environmental perspective of just how an area looks. whether in your house or on the street, wires are an unsightly eyesore. Think about how much better Tokyo will look without the wires everywhere!
I could go on and on about this but read about it more on his company's website- WiTricity
Just a couple of months ago I posted THESE amazing flat speakers coming out of Taiwan. And now I see these that were actually published even earlier. I think the ones from Taiwan will actually sound better though but still these are amazing!
A groundbreaking new loudspeaker, less than 0.25mm thick, has been developed by University of Warwick engineers, it's flat, flexible, could be hung on a wall like a picture, and its particular method of sound generation could make public announcements in places like passenger terminals clearer, crisper, and easier to hear.
Lightweight and inexpensive to manufacture, the speakers are slim and flexible: they could be concealed inside ceiling tiles or car interiors, or printed with a design and hung on the wall like a picture.
If you're slightly crazy like me, you've thought about the possibility of flat, flexible speakers and if you're even partially out there you've considered paper speakers. Well, our dreams our becoming a reality. Scientists in Taiwan have developed a flexible paper speaker by sandwiching paper and CNTs together.
”Aside from use in family, stereo, or automobile hi-fi equipment, it can also be used in earphones or for industrial antinoise purposes,” says Johnsee Lee, president of Taiwan’s Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), where the technology has been under development since 2006.
The device, named fleXpeaker, is basically a sandwich of paper and metal filled with an electroactive polymer that contracts and expands with an audio signal’s electric field.
”It’s soft [and can] easily fit in different curves,” says Ming-Daw Chen, division director of ITRI’s Electronics and Optoelectronics Research Laboratories. ”Therefore, the product customization can be done in diverse fields, such as art for public facilities, interior design,...costume accessories, and others.”
I doubt these will ever fully replace traditional cone speakers but for many applications these will hopefully become the standard. Read more about it >HERE<
One of the best things I've seen crossing boundaries between music and design is RFID Radio concept by someone by the name of D.A.R.Y.L. His idea is that these paper radios with RFID chips will be programmed only to play a certain station. You would need to subscribe to the station via iTunes and have a special speaker also with an RFID tag. I guess the radio would have a passive tag and the desktop speaker would have an active tag? Honestly, RFID is probably NOT the best technology for this product but it's still a great concept and is along the lines of Yuri Suzuki's Graffiti Radio concept which is also brilliant.
Check out more of D.A.R.Y.L.'s creations at Real Tomato
Amazing project!!! I hope to work on some things like this in the not too distant future. (plug: stay tuned for the release of my sound/art/design project nearing completion of phase1 in the next couple of months.) The concept of creating visuals based on tracking movement through a defined space is something I really wanted to explore but just didn't have the budget for. This shows what is possible when using very sophisticated technologies in highly creative ways. Also thanks to companies like Toyota for realizing the importance of art/design and spending tons of money on this. Say what you will about the corporate 'machine' but the fact is that machine helps a lot of ideas to become manifested. What a creatively diverse team too!
These images are from the virtual aerial tour done for New York by Australian based firm PixelCase. They specialize in this kind of work and I have to say that I'm super impressed. It's quite amazing really. The distortion features are cool but for some views can be a distraction. Anyway, imagine what the future of this will be!
I really like this firms' work. Their use and understanding of materials & technology to make temporary installations that leave a long-lasting impression on patrons is very impressive. The way they transform a space with form, color and light & shadow is brilliant.
Thanks to tdw for letting me know about this digital graffiti wall by YRWall. I love it when graffiti can transcend the streets and reach more people. This type of installation has HUGE potential and I'm sure we'll be seeing more of this in the future.
John Maeda is one of the great designers and visionaries of our time. He's also known to be an entertaining speaker. I've seen a few of his talks on line and saw him in-person last year. Anyway, this dude is amazing. He's one of the most accomplished artists of our time and somehow manages to have a healthy family life with five daughters, is the recent president of RISD, has degrees in computer science, design and business and is just an all-around interesting character. Imagine if him and Neri Oxman got together on a project!? Maybe they'd make a fabric that behaves like a banana peel?! who knows...
Check out his company- MaedaStudio and his blog(yeah, he keeps a blog & twitter that he updates a lot!)
Some of you have probably seen this already on the interweb but for those that haven't, it's called Golden Shellback and it is amazing!!! It was developed for the marine industry but somebody there had an epiphany- we all have electronics and get near water. Except for me, I avoid water unless it's mixed with fermented hops & barley. I haven't showered in years either...that's what deodorant is for.
Yes, that's right, a disappointment. C'mon Apple! There was soooo much hype and then you introduce a phone that is what the first version should have been. Great, now you finally have a phone that compares to Blackberry or Treo. But it still lacks basic features that even the cheapest phones have (like a headphpne jack that's flush with the body!!?) and then they made a big deal about the 2.0 firmware release features that should have been there to begin with! (such as 'delete all' for mail...big deal!) Ok, it DOES do a lot of things that no other phone does but it should do all the things that other phones do do. (HAHA..get it. Sorry, I had to for shits & giggles. Ok, I'm stopping now because I think I just pooped! No shit!)
From a design perspective, I have to question Apple's choice in material- plastic. This strikes a nerve with me for a couple of reasons. For one, it's not recycled plastic and chances are, it never will be recycled. There's also a durbility issue with plastic since it can crack and scrathes easily. (it's that super-glossy kind) Wasn't that a big issue with old iPods? If they stuck with aluminum, they could not only use a higher percentage of post-consumer waste but it could also help to keep the product out of the landfill. Not to mention the fact that it is much more durable and scratch resistant. OK, so I got three points. The third is the fact that Apple is voiding their own promise to be environmentally responsible and conscious. Which, by the way, they are not very responsible with their packaging for the iPhone either. I think consumers will be just as happy if their new iPhone came packaged in a 100% post-consumer recycled cardboard box printed with soy inks and no plastic bags. Apple does claim to be very environmentally aware and responsible about it's products but I'm not totally convinced since it is also very trendy to put this kind of stuff on your website nowadays. However, I think Apple's choice to only redsign the back and not the top was a good one to make. But what about all the things it does do or have...
The camera still sucks (except outdoors) and has no flash. Still no MMS. Still no cut and paste. Still no date on the main screen. Still no SMS features such as letting you know how many characters or how many you've used, canceling send, etc.. Still no sorting features for the iPod Still no manually moving the cursor (w/ keypad) Still no viewing quicktime or mpg vids on sites Still no flash browsing Still no full-screen browsing Still no control over the drive for downloading, importing or exporting files (such as email attachments Still only on ATT Service fees are higher than 2G version by about $15/mo. Cannot activate from home anymore (very strange since it will be available online.)
After I get 2.0 for my 2G iPhone I'm sure there will be A LOT more issues. This is just a small list from what the current version (1.1.4) doesn't have. It is only $199 though..hopefully they will offer a refund on recent purchases of the 2G model. I was also surprised that they didn't introduce a new MacBook Pro which they were expect to do. Not that I would be able to afford one, but it would make the price of the current ones a lot less and hopefully attainable for me!
