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Tag Archives: Concepts

Plug And Player

By Andrew Liszewski on 05/23/11 • 1 Comment

Plug And Player (Images courtesy Giha Woo)
By Andrew Liszewski

This certainly isn’t the first time we’ve written about a concept product design from Giha Woo, and I’m sure it won’t be the last. A few years ago the original iPod Shuffle was a surprise hit for Apple. Besides the cheap pricepoint, I know I really liked the fact it had a built-in USB port meaning I could keep it charged wherever I could find a PC. But Giha’s Plug and Player takes things one step further, by building a simple MP3 player into an actual plug. So wherever you can find an outlet, which are arguably far more plentiful than PCs with free USB ports, you can keep it charged.

The wide stance of European-style power plugs seems ideal for the concept, but I suspect they could also be built into North American-style plugs with minimal compromise. But since it’s just a concept with seemingly no intentions of ever being produced, it’s kind of moot to even speculate international compatibilities.

[ Plug And Player ]

Bye-5 Switch Encourages You To Turn Off The Lights With A High Five

By Andrew Liszewski on 05/19/11 • Leave a comment!

Bye-5 Switch (Images courtesy Da Deng)
By Andrew Liszewski

Just because you’re not paying the electric bill every month, doesn’t mean you should leave every light on at the office when you leave. So to encourage people to be more proactive about turning off the lights when they leave a room, designer Da Deng created this playful Bye-5 switch which can be operated with a simple high five, a skill most employable persons already have.

The switch is of course shaped like a 3D hand, complete with a skin-like texture which encourages people to give it a solid high five slap. And besides turning off the lights in the room, your positive reinforcement also activates a soft, glowing nightlight inside the hand so that people can still find their way around a now darkened room. It’s just a concept sadly, so the Clapper will continue to enjoy its monopoly in the ‘novel way to switch off the lights’ market.

[ Bye-5 Light Switch ] VIA [ Tuvie ]

Lightstarter Flashlight Will Test Your Fire Making Skills

By Andrew Liszewski on 05/17/11 • 1 Comment

Lightstarter Flashlight (Images courtesy Simple Artifact)
By Andrew Liszewski

Instead of turning a crank or awkwardly shaking it to squeeze a few minutes of illumination out of it, the Lightstarter flashlight takes the Survivorman approach by having you rub it between your hands as if you were starting a fire with a stick. Of course we all know that starting a fire in the wild isn’t quite that easy, but it’s a nice throwback to times when fire was really are our only artificial source of light. And like other dynamo powered flashlights the Lightstarter will run longer the more effort you put into it. Three seconds of rubbing gives you about thirty seconds of illumination, while a full minute rewards you with up to ten minutes of light.

Unfortunately at the moment the Lightstarter is just a concept waiting for partnership or purchase, so you’ll probably be better off actually finding a pair of sticks and starting a fire yourself than waiting for this to go into production.

[ Lightstarter Flashlight ] VIA [ Inhabitat ]

Hive iPhone Dock – Bigger Sound, Bigger Screen, No Wires

By Andrew Liszewski on 05/10/11 • 2 Comments

Hive iPhone Dock (Images courtesy ScreenDoor Studio)
By Andrew Liszewski

Another unpowered iPhone amplifier? You betcha. But instead of attaching to your bike’s handlebars, this one’s designed to simply sit on a desk. And instead of just amplifying the sound coming from the iPhone using a specially engineered scoop, the Hive also doubles the size of its display using a Fresnel lens. It’s a unique alternative to going the iPad route, and certainly considerably cheaper, but I think they’ve got a tough sell on their hands. I have no doubt it works as promised, but I’m not sure if I can see myself using it instead of just holding the iPhone closer to my face… But if it’s already struck a chord with you, head on over to Kickstarter and back it since they’ve got a long way to go to reach their $150,000 goal.

[ Hive Dock ] VIA [ I New Idea ]

Where Was This Flora Digital Flower Vase When I Needed It Yesterday?

By Andrew Liszewski on 05/09/11 • Leave a comment!

Flora Digital Flower Vase (Image courtesy designboom)
By Andrew Liszewski

I’ll tell you where it was: Trapped inside the head of Japanese designer Yoshiki Matsuyama since the Flora is nothing more than a design concept entered in designboom and Fujitsu’s ‘a life with future computing’ contest. The idea behind the Flora is simple, and lifesaving for those who live far away from their mothers. It involves 2 vases that not only each feature an internet connection, but also a built-in 3D scanner and projector. So when a real flower is placed inside one of the vases, a digital version appears in the other, accompanied with messages of goodwill or desperate requests of forgiveness for forgetting an important holiday.

Flora Digital Flower Vase (Images courtesy designboom)

The condition of the flowers are also linked, so unfortunately if the person on the sending end doesn’t take care of it, the digital version will wilt and eventually die as well. It’s kind of like some natural version of DRM from Teleflora that ensures the digital copy won’t last forever so that fresh flowers always have to be purchased every few weeks.

[ designboom - 'flora' digital flower vase by yoshiki matsuyama ]

Connect A Sketch Is An Etch A Sketch With Multiplayer

By Andrew Liszewski on 04/28/11 • Leave a comment!

Connect A Sketch (Images courtesy Andrew Little)
By Andrew Liszewski

The last time I used an Etch A Sketch I spent an entire lazy afternoon painstakingly scraping as much of the metallic powder off the ‘screen’ as I could. Needless to say the toy has lost some of the appeal it had for me when I was younger, but design student Andrew Little may have come up with a new way to make it interesting again. His Connect A Sketch concept features a couple of modified Etch A Sketches linked together allowing both users to collaborate on the same drawing.

I’ve no idea how the internal mechanisms work, allowing two sets of arms to control a couple of points etching away at the screen at the same time, but I feel it would make the act of doodling incredibly aliased circles and curves a bit more interesting. At the moment the Connect A Sketch setup is tethered by a colorful ribbon cable between the two units, but in the future Andrew hopes to make each device wireless, connecting to each other over the internet via a central hub website where users can logon and find other frustrated artists.

[ Connect A Sketch ] VIA [ Ubergizmo ]

Would BIC Ever Adopt Spiral Ink Chambers? Let The Conspiracy Theories Abound!

By Andrew Liszewski on 04/21/11 • 6 Comments

T&T Pen-ink Chamber (Images courtesy Han Chi-hoon, Kim Yeon-soo, Park Byong-gon & Kim Sung-geun)
By Andrew Liszewski

A lot of people think the electric car hasn’t really come to fruition because the big oil companies don’t want vehicles that aren’t dependent on fossil fuels. We’ll refer to them as crazy. However, I’m sure similar theories will come forth regarding whether or not BIC, and other disposable pen manufacturers, would be willing to adopt this clever spiral refill design created by Han Chi-hoon, Kim Yeon-soo, Park Byong-gon and Kim Sung-geun.

By using a spiral shape the chamber can hold at least twice as much ink as the standard ‘straight as an arrow’ design while still fitting inside a regular disposable pen. It’s not completely eco-friendly as the refill is still disposable, but it should at least last twice as long. But is this an idea that BIC and other companies would even entertain? Or are their profits heavily dependent on refills the same way inkjet printer manufacturers rake in the dough with exorbitantly priced cartridges? (And I realize that other factors may make this unfeasible, like higher manufacturing and shipping costs.)

[ Yanko Design - Spiral Makes a Difference ] VIA [ Wired Gadget Lab ]

Roastie Toaster Concept Allows For Perfect Toasting – Sadly Only One Slice At A Time Though

By Andrew Liszewski on 04/19/11 • 3 Comments

Roastie Toaster Concept (Images courtesy Mateusz Główka)
By Andrew Liszewski

They say if you build a better mouse trap the world will beat a path to your door, but I think what humans really need is a better way to make toast! I’ve yet to find a toaster that I can really rely on, so I’m happy to see that design students like Mateusz Główka, from the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, Poland, have set themselves upon improving its design. And I’m not saying the Roastie has quite hit the nail on the head just yet, but it definitely shows promise.

The most important aspect of the Roastie are the heating elements which are built into arms that rotate around the piece of bread, like a ferris wheel, ensuring even toasting. And since everything is built into a transparent sphere, you can easily monitor your toast for doneness and make sure it doesn’t burn. The sphere has the added bonus of trapping and concentrating the heat from the elements, so it doesn’t escape through an open slot, reducing toasting times and energy use. The kicker though? Unless it can do its thing in mere seconds, who has the patience to make toast one slice at a time? Not this guy!

[ Mateusz Główka - Roastie ] VIA [ bookofjoe ]

Transparent Chair Is Probably Easy To Clean

By Andrew Liszewski on 04/14/11 • 5 Comments

Transparent Chair (Images courtesy Nendo)
By Andrew Liszewski

Shrink wrap might be the bane of anyone eagerly trying to open a new purchase, but it turns out it’s also a handy material for making furniture! This Transparent Chair from Japanese design firm Nendo is made from three metal loops wrapped in polyurethane film that ends up supporting someone kind of a like a hammock. It certainly looks pretty comfortable, and creates the clever illusion of someone just floating in the air, but on the flipside given the film doesn’t breathe, it’s probably a real sweat factory on a hot Summer day. Thankfully though cleaning is probably as easy as just re-wrapping the frame in a fresh layer.

[ Nendo - Transparent Chair ] VIA [ designboom ]

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