Helo TC Helicopter

App-driven toy helicopter puts flying at your fingertips
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The latest in iPhone- and iPad-specific gadgets, Griffin Techonology’s Helo TC Touch RC Helicopter recently launched to the cheers of tech-savy kids “ages 14 and up” around the world. As a leap forward in app-powered innovations, the “Flight Deck” module attaches to your iOS device and works in conjunction with the Helo TC app to control and direct the helicopter in flight.

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Although the agile little vehicle is impressive enough, the software is the real winner of the bunch. The iOS-specific controller works with multiple generations of iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. For a familiar remote-control feeling use the joystick controls on your iOS device or switch controls and tilt your device to fly the mini-chopper. When you’ve found a path you like to fly over and over, use the app’s Flight Plan to record up to three routes to fly on demand anytime.

Keeping the twin-rotored helicopter flying high, the craft is constructed of a lightweight metal frame encased in a polycarbonate body; it charges (and recharges) by any USB power source. At just $50, the Helo TC has been in and out of stock since its release, so keep an eye on Griffin Technology online to claim one for yourself, then head to iTunes for the free app download.


Kent Blazek’s "Nexus Kitset" Lamp

Nexus Kitset

Industrial designer Kent Blazek is pleased to present a new pendant lamp design, the “Nexus Kitset,” designed and manufactured in his native New Zealand.

Nexus Kitset

Nexus Kitset

The some-assembly-required pendant lamp actually consists of 60 identical blackened okoume plywood pieces, held together by plastic rivets; when the lamp is fully assembled, the pieces form asphere—or technically, a “deltoidal hexecontahedron”—half a meter in diameter, with a basic light fixture at its heart. “This is helped by the flexibility and memory of plywood itself, which when overlapped and connected with the plastic rivets, creates an even pull, creating the spherical shape.”

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First Look at NYC Urban Design Week Schedule

Mark your calendar for Urban Design Week, a new public festival created to celebrate New York’s streetscapes, sidewalks, and public spaces. Today the Institute for Urban Design published the full schedule of events, which will kick off on Thursday, September 15, with the launch of By the City/For the City: An Atlas of Possibility for the Future of New York, a book that brings together design ideas submitted for the By the City/For the City competition. “New York has such an exceptionally rich public realm, and there are so many ways for individual citizens to get involved in shaping their city” says Anne Guiney, executive director of the Institute. “We see Urban Design Week as an opportunity to provide more people with the tools to do just that.” Stock your toolbox at events organized in partnership with more than 50 non-profit organizations, design firms, and city agencies. Among the discussions, tours, and screenings that caught our eye: a celebration on the High Line of trains on film, a walking tour of the Brooklyn Bridge, a chat about “Public Art, Science, and the Sustainable City,” and the U.S. premiere of Gary Hustwit‘s new film, Urbanized.

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La Guerre est Déclarée

Coup de coeur pour le film “La Guerre est déclarée” réalisé par Valérie Donzelli : l’itinéraire d’un couple face au cancer de son enfant. Pour l’occasion, Fubiz & Wildbunch vous offre 20 places à gagner par tirage au sort sur Facebook. La bande annonce est à découvrir dans la suite.

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Core77 Design Award 2011: Transcendenz, Student Runner-Up for Speculative Objects/Concepts

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Over the next months we will be highlighting award-winning projects and ideas from this year’s Core77 Design Awards! For full details on the project, jury commenting and more information about the awards program, go to Core77DesignAwards.com

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Designer: Michael Harboun
Location: Paris, France
Category: Speculative Objects/Concepts
Award: Student Runner-Up



Transcendenz

In a world in which we are constantly bombarded with injunctions to react or to distract ourselves it gets scarcely possible in our everyday life to dwell upon the essential, the existential, the metaphysical… Transcendenz transforms the reality around us and enables us to live and share immersive, thoughtful experiences.

Transcendenz is a personal “design reaction” to the world in which we are living. By observing our modern societies, a certain paradox caught my interest. This paradox concerns the way we behave in time. On one hand we are, in our everyday life, constantly trying to be efficient, organized and quick. As time is money, no time should be lost unnecessarily. We try to save every single minute and to be as productive as possible, which makes us busy people. On the other hand, when we are not working, we suddenly have so much time for ourselves that we don’t know what to do with it anymore. Not knowing where to invest our time, most of us will simply consume it throughout different mediums. Facebook, YouTube, TV or videogames are some perfect examples. These information technologies provide us with a time of connection, distraction or interaction, thus taking away from us the empty time. The empty time is the most essential time. It is the time in which we are fully conscious about ourselves and our environment. It is the time in which we are sensitive to fundamental questionings and think about the existential; the type of thoughts which bring us back to our human nature, the only animal able to think beyond what he sees with his eyes and imagine the invisible. After my analysis, I aimed to create a concept which would link our modern information technologies to the invisible reality of metaphysics.

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Core77: What’s the latest news or development with your project?

Transcendenz has been labelled by the APCI with an Design Observeur 2012, a label sponsored by the French Ministry for the Economy, Industry and Employment, and will soonly be part of an exhibition at the famous Cite des Sciences et de l’Industrie in Paris from the 9th of November 2011 to the 11th of March 2012.

Any humorous incidents while you were making your project?

Some scenes of the film have been shot inside a bus we have rented. The bus was stationed on the company’s parking lot. In one of the bus scenes, the main actor, had to dress up like a girl. He looked real. As he had to undress back later, another bus suddenly parked next to us and the driver peeked inside our bus. His reaction was worth recording too. He looked like he was hallucinating, probably thinking some very “marginal” movies were being shot on his company’s parking lot…

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Eureka moments?

After writing my thesis I had the idea of Transcendenz and the message I wanted to share but did not know the context in which I should tell the story. So one day I was sitting in the bus, looking out of the window and daydreaming as usually. The passing landscapes created some thoughts and imagery in my mind. After a certain time, I looked at the other passengers, wondering if some people would be doing the same. A unique feeling, mixing sadness and revolt, overwhelmed me as I discovered that all the people around me were absorbed into their smartphones. No one looked at each other nor were wondering about the landscape and environment through which they were travelling. In that particular moment, I knew the experience of Transcendenz should be initiated in a bus. The idea of travelling physically in space while travelling mentally inside the philosophical world of Transcendenz appealed to me like a flash of revelation.

Read on for full details on the project and jury comments.

More from Michael on the project

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Quote of Note | Ian Frazier on Theo Jansen


One of Theo Jansen’s self-propelling Strandbeests (beach animals) beside a drawing by the artist depicting the creature’s “stomach” of recycled plastic bottles containing air that can be pumped up to a high pressure by the wind and “muscles” of plastic tubing.

“Theo showed me around his small on-site workshop [near Delft, The Netherlands]. It was filled with tools like vises, saws, clamps, and heat guns for softening the plastic tubes. On perforated wallboards, tools hung neatly inside their black magic-marker outlines. From a workbench Theo picked up a piece of three-quarter-inch PVC tube about two feet long. He said this was the basic element in the Strandbeests’ construction, like protein in living things. ‘I have known about these tubes all my life,’ he told me. (He speaks good English.) ‘Building codes in Holland require that electrical wiring in buildings go through conduit tubes like these. There are millions of miles of these tubes in Holland. You see they are a cheese yellow when they are new—a good color for Holland. The tubes’ brand name used to be Polyvolt, now it is Pipelife. When we were little, we used to do this with them.’

He took a student notebook, tore out a sheet of graph paper, rolled it into a tight cone, wet the point of the cone with his tongue, tore off the base of the cone so it fit snugly into the tube, raised the tube to his lips, blew, and sent the paper dart smack into the wall, fifteen feet away. He is the unusual kind of adult who can do something he used to do when he was nine and not have it seem at all out of place. ‘I believe it is now illegal for children in Dutch schools to have these tubes,’ he said.”

Ian Frazier in his article on Dutch artist and kinetic sculptor Theo Jansen that appears in the September 5 issue of The New Yorker
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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Fostex Device Provides Much-Needed Audio Input for iPhones

Fostex

I think it was Stephen Covey who said that as children we’re taught to read, we’re taught to write, we’re taught to speak, but we’re never really taught to listen. Any time you catch a snippet of reality TV, a CNN interview, or an overhead conversation on the subway you could be forgiven for thinking conversation is dead and we’re all just a bunch of people waiting for our turn to talk.

Another place where listening is given short shrift is in product design, specifically with cameras. I see video after video online, whether designer interview, Kickstarter pitch or comedy bit where the audio just sucks. When doing my own interviews using an iPhone or digital camera, I typically carry a separate mic’d iPod just for audio. On days where I don’t have this on me—as with a recent JosephJoseph interview I lost—I always get burned because on-camera audio is not up to snuff.

So while I know this product looks cheesy, I’m extremely curious to see (and hear) the forthcoming Fostex AR-4i audio interface for iPhone dock connector. It provides you with three microphone inputs and two plug-in mics on swivels, so you can orient them interviewer/subject or point them both at the subject for stereo sound. And while the commercial is not going to win any CLIOs, it does give you the idea (plus you can hear everything being said, crystal-clear):

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Something Great by Ian Stevenson

Concordo con il pensiero di Ian Stevenson.
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Ian Stevenson

Wanted: Talented Art Director for Men’s Health

We’re tagging this gig as “must-apply.” Men’s Health magazine is looking for a talented art director to join its print and tablet design team in New York City.

In this role, you’ll assist creative team in continuously evolving the design of the magazine, while planning and executing front-of-book and feature layouts. In addition to managing freelancers and contractors, you’ll be tasked with creating forward-thinking info graphics, charts, logos, small illustrations and visual explanations for the brand. You’ll be collaborating with the creative director on a regular basis, while leading projects and maintaining standards throughout.

To be considered, you’ll need at least seven years of design and project management experience. You should have a sophisticated and modern design sensibility, and be able to work well under tight deadlines. Detail-oriented team players with expertise in CS5 and knowledge of 4-color process correction and specification should apply here.

For more job listings, go to the Mediabistro job board, and to post a job, visit our employer page. For real-time openings and employment news, follow @MBJobPost.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Wacom Inkling Digital Sketch Pen

La penna dei sogni potrebbe arrivare da Wacom. In pratica tu schizzi a mano libera, il device scansiona in live tutti i tuoi movimenti e li trasferisce su file via usb. Resta da capire il grado di precisione ma dalle premesse sembra un prodotto alquanto interessante. Guardate qui il trailer delle meraviglie.

Wacom Inkling Digital Sketch Pen