Oh! Gizmo

By David Ponce

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?

A few more pictures if you keep reading.

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By Andrew Liszewski

I’m sure one day space tourism will be affordable for almost anyone, but at the moment it’s still a privilege reserved for those with millions of dollars to burn. But if you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to take a trip on the Soyuz rocket, this Soyuz Chair is probably as close as you’re going to get. The chair accurately simulates the 3 stages of a Soyuz rocket launch as it reclines you into launch position, and presumably shakes and rumbles while you don a pair of headphones and a blindfold to help you forget you’re really just sitting in a modified recliner.

The Soyuz Chair was created by Nelly Ben Hayoun as part of the Royal College of Art’s Design Interactions Thesis Show which is currently running until July 5th.

[ Design Interactions - The Soyuz Chair ] VIA [ Core77 ]

By Andrew Liszewski

The easy route here would have been to find 32 old vacuum tubes and simply dress them up like standard chess pieces, but artist Paul Fryer opted to take the difficult route instead. His ‘Chess Set for Tesla’ still features 32 vacuum tubes, but they actually connect to each square on the chess board and when plugged in they show an icon on top representing what piece they are. According to the All Visual Arts site there were actually 7 of these produced, but since it was created last year I have my doubts any of them are still available.

[ Chess Set for Tesla ] VIA [ MAKE: Blog ]

By Andrew Liszewski

I don’t know what possessed François Knorreck to create the Snaefell, a handcrafted motorcycle/sports car hybrid, but the results are like a terrible traffic accident gone right. The motorcycle part of the Snaefell is based on a Laverda, while the sidecar is a mashup of a Volkswagen GTI, an Audi 80 and a Citroen Xantia. Overall the creation cost about $21,000+ to build, but what’s more impressive is that it took François 10 years and over 10,000 hours to make it a reality! Congratulations?

[ Snaefell Project - Completed!... ] VIA [ Autoblog ]

By Andrew Liszewski

For some reason dirty laundry manages to avoid my obsessive desire for organization and tidiness, so it just piles up in a corner until laundry day rolls around. But instead of being an eyesore, this clever cushionless stool known as Todd puts your dirty clothes to good use.

Created by llot llov, the metal frame stool really only becomes usable once you’ve piled a few dirty garments on top, making it comfortable to sit on. And depending on the size of your wardrobe, the Todd stool can even provide a different seating experience or color palette on a week-to-week basis. Sadly though, it’s not available for sale.

[ llot llov - Todd Stool ] VIA [ Wired Gadget Lab ]

By Andrew Liszewski

A few months ago we brought you the Squidarella umbrella from SquidLondon which uses hydrochromatic inks to change from black & white to a full-color rainbow design when it gets wet, or in other words, whenever it gets out in the rain. At the time the umbrellas were available in very limited quantities, but SquidLondon has just released a new Skyline Squidarella collection, featuring the London skyline, that’s now available for purchase online from Beyond the Valley for about $35. And if you’d like to see the Squidarella in action getting a good soaking, check out the video I’ve included after the jump.

[ SquidLondon Squidarella ]

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By Andrew Liszewski

First there was Tengu, then there was a wooden Tengu, and now you can get one of three new versions known as the Tengu All Stars. They pretty much do exactly what the original version of Tengu did, except these come with the addition of a rocking head of hair and actual personalities! From left to right you’ve got Rotten, Stardust and Woodstock and each one includes a set of decals allowing you to dress them up with sunglasses, facial hair, tattoos and other musical genre appropriate adornments.

All 3 are available from the Tengu website for about $40 each.

[ Tengu All Stars ] VIA [ technabob ]

By Andrew Liszewski

So, does someone want to help me figure out how and why this CD clock radio from Sonoro costs a whopping $550? Let’s see, it’s got a slot loading CD player that’s MP3-friendly, nothing special there. A ‘top-quality’ AM/FM radio, not exactly a bleeding edge innovation either. An iPod dock that will also recharge your player? Hmm… Well I guess if you haven’t set foot in an electronics store in the past 10 years this might seem like a technological breakthrough, but other than that, I’m hard-pressed to find a reason why anyone would drop $550 on this thing. Oh wait, I didn’t notice the shiny black finish and glowing accents! Now I get it!

[ Sonora Eklipse CD Clock Radio With iPod Dock ] VIA [ Better Living Through Design ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Life’s got you down? Well apparently you can turn things around by simply strapping this unique Ever-Increasing watch to your wrist. It’s part of the SeaHope EleeNo Cyber collection and the time is displayed via a series of always climbing line graphs. So even though you may be feeling down, life will always be looking up! Yeah, I know, it’s a bit of a stretch. But if one of the thing’s that’s been getting you down is the inability to read your watch in direct sunlight, you’ll be happy to hear that the Ever-Increasing watch also features a special coating on the color LCD that makes it easy to see even in bright light! $206 from the Japan Trend Shop.

[ SeaHope Ever-Increasing Watch ]