Most modern bicycles come with a bottle holder of one form or another. Which is why this product might seem redundant to some of you. But that’s because you’re forgetting an oft ignored class of society: the hipsters. Yes, they’re people too and like us they get dehydrated now and again. It would also seem that part of their wacky shenanigans involve an unexplainable compulsion to acquire certain types of bicycles that are conspicuously devoid of any bottle holder (or gears for that matter; a truly soothing sight to nervous downtown motorists’ worldwide). To their rescue comes Matthias Ries’ concept product called simply enough, The Bottleclip. It’s a little piece of plastic with a threaded opening that accepts most bottles on one side, and a clip that attaches to standard size bike frames on the other.
Of course, like most good ideas this is only a concept for now. But given that it’s just molded plastic, all it takes is one enterprising manufacturer to license the rights and start up production. Someone in China reading this?
I’m sure that plenty of you were at one time a college kid, or were broke and trying to make it on your own at 18. Eating pizza 5 nights a week was considered normal ordeal, which meant that you had a lot of empty boxes and old paper plates lying around. Sometimes I used to tear up the pizza box lid and use it for paper plates. It was a nice way to use less plates, and the boxes took up less room on top of the fridge when they were in pieces. Unfortunately if there were any leftover slices, we had no boxes to keep them in. Sure, we’d use ziplock bags, if anyone ever remembered to buy them.
Now enter the GreenBox. It’s a regular-looking pizza box that has some cool hidden features. The top breaks down into four small plates, while the bottom becomes a small storage box. All it takes is a few quick tears and you’re done. I know that I’d love it if my pizza started coming in one of these boxes. It’s green, I’m using less paper and plastic, not to mention the fact that the boxes are taking up less room in my kitchen.
I know they’re just a concept design, which I usually try to avoid like the plague, but I’m really hoping that someone makes these a reality. Instead of mashing your earbuds into a ball of tangled cable when you’re done using them, the YI Zipper earphones (designed by Ji Woong) feature a… wait for it… zipper design that you can… yep you guessed it… zip up, keeping them considerably tidier when crammed in your pocket. And as an added bonus, the zipper pull also features volume and hold controls, though I’m not going to hold my breath for that to happen.
When TV came along, photos, paintings and other artsy objects that people hang on the walls of their homes quickly became ignored in favor of that wonderful glowing box. But did anyone ever stop to think about how that made a lot of those household objects feel? The designers at Troika did, and to put some power back in the hands of the picture frame they came up with the TV Predator concept.
Instead of just hanging on the wall, looking all depressed because it’s being ignored, thanks to modern technology the TV Predator can finally fight back against the TV by randomly changing the channels, adjusting or muting the volume, turning them on and off at all hours of the day and doing everything it can to turn the homeowner against the boob tube. The concept was created to examine the idea that advances in AI and technology could eventually give older electronics the ability to get jealous and strike back against newer products designed to replace them. Kind of like the Futurama episode “Obsoletely Fabulous” where Bender was replaced by Robot 1-X.
We’ve all got that nagging voice in the back of our heads telling us we should make a conscious effort to use less energy, but I’ve found it’s easy to drown it out by leaving my blender running 24/7. So it doesn’t hurt to have other reminders about our wasteful ways around the house.
The SmartSwitch is an intelligent light switch that lets you know when your home, or even your local electrical grid, is using substantial amounts of power. Now it doesn’t actually prevent you from turning on the light, but thanks to a built-in ‘brake pad’ the act of sliding the switch does become more difficult during the hours of peak energy demand in your neighborhood. That way you would think twice about whether you really needed that light on, or if you could use a more energy-friendly alternative like simply opening the curtains.
What is it about designers that drives them to create objects that are just plain annoying to use? I’m sure that a lot of things sound good in their heads, but aren’t actually practical when put to the test. Take this weird Eyeclock for example.
Sure, it’s kind of cute to look at. It looks like a pair of crazy eyes, but what time is it? After staring at it for several seconds, you’ll probably be able to figure out the time. However, if you’re sitting more than a few feet away, you’ll only get a rough approximation at best. Personally, I don’t want to have to stare at a clock for more than a second or two to figure out the time. Since this is merely a concept design, there’s a good chance I won’t actually ever have to look at one.
Mousetraps are usually pretty basic gadgets. You generally either find the old wooden ones with a spring-loaded bar, or some plastic one that keeps them alive. Either way, you stick them somewhere out of the way and check on them every now and then to see if you’ve caught one. Well here’s a mousetrap that goes against all conventional thinking.
First, this trap is actually a table. So you’re going to encourage the rodents to climb on your furniture. Well once the little critter finds its way into the tube, it will trip a motion sensor that seals the door. So now you’re going to have a mouse in a tube under your table, great. Now what? Now you wait for the mouse to fall into the microbial fuel cell at the bottom of the tube. There it will find a new definition of pain and suffering as it is slowly digested over a thousand years be turned into fuel which is used to trap the next victim. This mousetrap is too cool to be real, and for now remains only a concept design.
Whether you’re a Windows person or a Mac person (or even Linux for that matter), you have to admit that the folks over at Apple have style. When you look at almost any of their products, you can tell that a great deal of time and effort went into making everything look sleek, from the outer shell down to the user interface. I good example is Cover Flow, which lets you browse through your music selection by looking at the cover art of each individual album cover. Well it seems that another designer has decided to take that same idea, and move it into the physical world.
I’m trying to think of the last time that I went to a store and picked up a music CD. Whatever it was, you can bet the case is long gone. Those things are bulky and almost as useless as the disc contained within these days. However, if you’re just dying to show off five of your favorite cases, you could set them on a custom-designed shelf to look like you’re browsing them in cover flow. Thankfully this is only a concept design. First, this look could be achieved without a special shelf, those little grooves aren’t going to do a whole lot. Second, who still owns CD cases?’
Bicyclists and cars don’t have the greatest relationship when it comes to roads. While bicyclists often ignore traffic laws, cars often ignore bicyclists, and everybody gets pissed at everyone else for being selfish jerks. Unfortunately, Light Lane could very well make all that worse… On principle it seems like an okay idea, projecting a virtual bike lane around you to help keep motorists off your ass. But, if you’re trying to make a bike lane where there isn’t a bike lane, I bet the cars trying to get around you aren’t going to be amused, to say the least.
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