How do you feel about having a mobile phone that pulses with a heartbeat or rises and falls as if calmly breathing in your pocket?
Nah, me neither – that would just be too freaky.
But Fabian Hemmert does have some less creepy ideas when it comes to shape-shifting blowers.
In the video below he talks through his prototypes that he presented at his TEDxBerlin talk in November last year.
One of his designs is a phone that can get thicker on any of its four corners, and another that can shift its center of gravity so that they’re easier to handle.
I think it would be kinda neat to have a status bar that could get physically heavier as it gets weighed down with icons
I also dig the idea of rotating a phone into landscape mode and it altering itself so that it makes itself into a kickstand.
Watch, be amazed and slightly baffled at the video below.
Sony Europe is helping a young team in its bid to stop the devasting effects of wildfires.
The team of six, whose ‘Forest Guard’ idea won the recent Climate Actions contest, were invited to Sony’s headquarters in Basingstoke to work with Sony engineers on making their idea come alive for the first time.
The team behind the innovative ‘Forest Guard’ concept are from Northern California where forest fires are rife and they are keen to highlight that the carbon dioxide emitted during these fires can equal that produced by several million cars on the road in a year.
They travelled over to Europe to present their impressive wildfire detection solution using a network of solar-powered CCTV cameras and citizen fire watchers over the web to obtain advance warning of these fires before they manage to spread and cause a devastating impact.
The team spent a couple of days with the Sony specialists in order to hone and refine their idea where they were actively involved in the workshops and brainstorming sessions.
Morgan David, Divisional Director, Research and Development (R&D) at Sony lead the team of engineers that worked with the team to develop the ‘Forest Guard’ technology: “We were really impressed by this innovative idea and felt we were in the perfect position to bring our knowledge of technology and engineering to the project and help them make it into a reality. To help solve problems to climate change through technology is at the heart of Sony’s philosophy”.
The Forest Guard team were winners of the Climate Actions contest at this year’s Children’s Climate Call competition held 1st – 3rd May in Copenhagen, Denmark organised by the LEGO Group and FIRST Scandinavia. The competition attracted over 140,000 children and teenagers from more than 40 countries, 700 of which took part in the European finals in Copenhagen.
Sony was a partner with the Climate Actions contest and it was here that the plan for Sony to give the ‘Forest Guard’ the benefit of its experience and expertise came together.
The problem of forest fires is not something solely limited to the United States; a recent spate of wildfires across Southern Europe and in Canada has highlighted the real need for something to be done to prevent the spread of these potentially deadly fires.
Check out the behind the scenes vid below and well done to the Forest Guard team!
Douwe Egberts have an odd idea.
When I stride up to the coffee machine wishing to refill my empty mug with another wonderfully caffeinated hit I’m looking to do simply that.
Now, Douwe Egberts thinks that I’m missing out on something.
They wish that we could enjoy a more interactive experience.
Enter the BeMoved which has the unusual goal [...]
Funai has an added bonus in their pico projector – the ability to make any surface multitouch.
This prototype uses a Nippon Signal MEMS scanner and a heap of clever tech that when all combined is able to throw multitouch capabilities to whatever surface the projected image hits!
Just think, bedroom wall, office whiteboard, your desk – [...]
If you’re looking for a way to cruise the footpaths with something a little more portable than a Segway then perhaps you should visit Honda on your shopping spree.
Honda has developed a personal mobility technology, the U3-X, that kinda looks like a futuristic unicycle.
The experimental device fits between the rider’s legs – how many [...]
I was honoured with being one of the first members of the press to actually be shown around the Future Technology lab at Sony’s R&D base in Stuttgart.
The lab’s General Manager, Dr. Gabriele Nelles, spoke to us about the clever dye-sensitised solar cells that they are working on – the Hana-Akari lamps (pictured) were exhibited [...]
The Twitterverse tweeted the ‘breaking news’, a Youtube video of the CrunchPad prototype unboxing has been spotted and all kinds of folk got excited – including Gizmodo.
Loic Le Meur, the Seesmic.com founder who has close ties with Michael Arrington, posted the video of what appeared to be the earlier prototype which came in red plastic shown [...]
If you’re still happily leaving all your gadgety gear on stand-by and you’re comfortable with leaving your amp, power amp, Blu-ray player, etc on while you’re playing Left4Dead on your monster gaming rig perhaps some guilt-therapy is in order.
Dubbed the Wilting Flower, it’s a visual reminder of how much electricity you’re guzzling.
When you’re being thrifty [...]
Those whacky, crazy and imaginative people over at KDDI AU Design Project in Japan have come up with this great funky concept for the next generation of music-phones.
Named Box To Play, it starts off as a really neat mobile blower with the regular keypad, camera and stuff…. but then the magic happens!
It transforms into its own speaker system with a graphic [...]
Granted, it’s not the prettiest notebook you”ll ever see.
There are also nicer split keyboards out there in the battle against RSI.
But, when you spit that keyboard; there’s only another screen inside!
Yup – two screens folded up into one keyboard. What would be really neat is if that secondary screen was also a nice glass touch [...]
ZAP mentioned this green vehicle at the Detroit Motor show earlier in the year and it looks like the company has now finally turned out a prototype.
Looking like an American retro-rodded version of the Grinall Scorpion it apparently isn’t capable of moving off the parking lot on its own just yet.
That should soon change as it was reportedly on [...]
Most of you readers here will have seen quite a handful of e-papers and designs using e-Ink but Epson’s new prototype display demands a closer look!
Why? Well it features an eye lovingly high resolution for its dimensions: 3104 x 4128, swaggering in at something like 385ppi.
According to FarEastGizmos, The e-ink is being supplied by E-Ink (duh!) and the [...]
Samsung SDI, the manufacturer’s display team (not in the acrobatic sense – as far as I know), has been showing off a 12.1-inch laptop with an AMOLED display!
It has 1280 x 768 resolution and what appears to be a ~shudder~ touchy-odd-flat keyboard.
The prototype is being tarted around at SID 2008.
As to what’s going on at the rear of the screen – [...]
Still counting down the days til the release of the delectable Nokia N96?
Mobile-review apparently knows the right wheels to grease in order to get their mits on a prototype unit scarily early!
There’s a HUGE review of the new N Series which will give you intimate knowledge of the N96’s strengths and points for improvement.
Strangely, the [...]
On my regular visit to Yanko Design I saw this interesting USB block of ‘choc’. Although non-edible it looks quite a handy tool to me.
You can navigate via a touch screen on the hard-drive central bar to organise the files on each block and then take the relevant bite-sized bit away with you.
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How do you feel about having a mobile phone that pulses with a heartbeat or rises and falls as if calmly breathing in your pocket?
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