Hasta La Ideas

Last month we blogged about the new line of laptop desks La Boite Concept debuted at 100% Design during London Design Week.

The LD series, available in 100, 120 or 130 watts, is still the first and only high end docking station dedicated to the laptop, as opposed to the iPhone. The USB DAC Hi-Fi sound card is integrated inside the speaker to improve the sound quality of your laptop independently from its sound output, which is projected from six speakers—two medium woofers (13cm), two tweeters with domes (silk 25mm) and two full range rear drivers for the unit’s patented Wide Stereo Sound, a system developed by La Boite Concept that improves the range of the surround sound so that a listener positioned at any point in the room gets the full surround sound effect. And whether you want to use the desk to work on or DJ from, the desktop is made from silicon in a range of colors to prevent the speakers’ vibrations from shaking the laptop.

Things seem to have gotten a little hairy for the Paris-based design studio with their new limited edition collection designed in the image and likeness of electro-pop musician Sebastien Tellier, whose long locks have been draped on either side of a unit made complete with a silhouette of Tellier’s signature sunglasses. According to Claire Marion, La Boite Concept’s UK Manager, the idea came to La Boite’s designer and co-founder, Guillaume Cagniard, while he was visiting a hair stylist friend who has thousands of hair extensions on hand. He “thought it could be funny to add hair to our LD series legs,” Marion said. “From this crazy idea, Sebastien Tellier became the inspiration.”

Cagniard took his idea to Tellier’s people, who “had such a good laugh looking at the pictures of this hairy sound system project that they said yes immediately.” Tellier used the LD to play music at a recent album release party at Galerie Perrotin by connecting it to a “magic piano” playing the album, My God Is Blue. No word yet on what a magic piano is, but perhaps La Boite Concept will come out with one soon. In the meantime you can purchase a hairy LD120 by placing a special order with Cagniard.

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You’d think two of these would’ve been axed at a design meeting, but Lenovo’s either taking no chances, holding off on making tough calls, or using an appeasement strategy to deal with internal design department beefs. In their experimentation to develop a hybrid laptop/tablet that people will want to use, they’ve developed no less than three different form factors that will hit store shelves in just a few weeks.

The ultra-lightweight Lynx is the most simple design of the three, as it’s basically a laptop where the screen pops off—or a tablet that plugs into a keyboard accessory, depending on how you look at it:

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Next month Lapka Electronics is set to release Lapka, its much anticipated new environmental monitoring device and app for the iPhone. Once you download the free app you can plug in one of four lead-free, PVC-free, water resistant sensors to track radiation, organic matter, EMF (electromagnetic fields) and humidity in your immediate environment (from right to left in the image above). The radiation sensor is professional grade, counting every particle and then translating that data into how it might be affecting you. The organic sensor uses a stainless steel probe to detect significant amounts of nitrates in raw foods and drinking water caused by residues or synthetic fertilizers. Try it out at your local farmers market to see if those high-priced organic peaches are really and truly organic. The EMF sensor detects the electromagnetic pollution caused by electronics, telecommunication transmitters and power lines. You might use it to locate the least electromagnetically polluted area in your home for your bed or your child’s room. The last sensor for humidity compares generally accepted comfort standards with the temperature and humidity in your immediate environment. (While we don’t need an app to tell us that August in New York ranks in at miserable on the comfort index, it’s nice to know when our frizzy hair, shiny faces and sweat-soaked shirts are scientifically unacceptable.)

On a more practical level, we can see the app’s ability to translate data into easy-to-read values (which it puts into context with global standards, averages and suggested tolerance ranges) being especially useful not just at home or in the office, but in public spaces like parks, airplanes, hospitals or your child’s school. You can take environmental ‘snapshots’ throughout the day to create a personalized ‘comfort diary’ that you can share with a global community of users. If enough people get involved it means that we’ll be able to view accurate, real-time environmental data from locations around the world and record and track the data to analyze changes over time. That’s not only fun and helpful for the curious everyday user, but it’s a potentially significant source of information for medical researchers looking at how environmental factors impact health and the regional spread of infection and disease. And if your goal is to make your home a less toxic environment, you can get precise feedback on changes you make to your space.

Lapka is expected to be available in December 2012 for $220.

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Tombox is a line of portable speakers produced in Germany, and their retro looks are not the result of imitative design; each speaker is an actual loudspeaker of yore, cleaned up and repurposed by a duo known only as Laudahn and Holldobler.

We reuse discarded loudspeakers and give them a second chance as portable amplifiers. The built-in, rechargable battery will keep the system running for a period of up to two weeks (depending on volume). [Each] comes with a charging device, a 3.5mm cable and plug, suitable for laptops, mp3 players and much more.

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With all the recent hubbub surrounding simplified gaming consoles, we’d be remiss to neglect our more dedicated gaming readership. Inspired by military combat equipment, the Vengeance C70 Gaming Case was designed in an ammo-box style with a rugged all-steel exterior and interior. The fourth line in Corsair’s popular gaming line Vengeance, the C70 is designed for the serious gamer with an integrated flip-up carry handle, quick release latches on the side panels for easy access, and the standard Corsair interiors that allows for expansion capabilities and cooling permutations including two places to mount liquid coolers.

The form clearly targets fans of first-person shooters—from the welded steel protection frame to the finish options that include “Military Green,” “Gunmetal Black” and “Arctic White,” the company describes the case as Combat Ready. From the reviews, the actual interior of the C70 doesn’t differ significantly from Corsair’s Obsidian 550D, but we’re interested in how the hardware design will be received by this pre-existing and dedicated group of users.

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