Pranav Mistry and the Sixth Sense
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Wow. Wow. and WOW.
I know what you’re thinking — vibrating mascara, at-home airbrushing kits, and now a USB heated eyelash curler — what will they think of next?! Though I’m still convinced that mascara that moves on its own is just a recipe for disaster, I have to admit I’m pretty intrigued by this USB beauty tool, especially as a girl who is rarely without her laptop and her makeup bag. I’m already a big fan of my Sephora heated eyelash curler… but the battery’s always drained and it doesn’t have the same satisfying squeeze-and-curl action that makes for really luxe lashes. With this device, all you do is plug it in, power it on, and revive lashes pronto! So if you’re going to have an emergency stash of back-up makeup at your desk for touch-ups and work (or in preparation for post-work happy hour), this newfangled new beauty-fiend gadget may not be so far-fetched when it comes to practicality! Price: $33.38 |
Imagine a world where stuffy French culinary academies are rendered obsolete. Where you don’t need to spend thousands on a personal chef… and you don’t need a talking rat under your chef’s hat to lead your way around the kitchen. Enter QOOQ — your sleek touchscreen guide to mouthwatering masterpieces! The device, equipped with Wi-Fi capabilities and 500 preloaded recipes, takes you step-by-step through meal preparation and even teaches you tricky-to-master techniques with tutorial videos. Sauteed your way through all of its default recipes? Subscribe to monthly downloadable updates for 12.95 EUR a month and you’ll never run out of creative things to concoct. It would be the perfect gift for any Jacques Pepin in training… but as of now, the device only comes in French. So if you have anyone on your list who has mastered the French language but doesn’t have the culinary mastery to go with it, look into the QOOQ! Price: 349 EUR |
NYC-based designer Ji Lee visualizes 10 ways we communicate in the digital age.
Li states:
The digital age has transformed the ways in which we communicate with each other. The combination of technology and power of information brings new ways on HOW, WITH WHOM and WHY we communicate. We are connected with more people than ever before. Do more options to communicate with each other connect us or alienate us more?
If you’re a product designer, a desktop 3D scanner would be worth its weight in gold. But that’s the problem–the things are friggin’ expensive.
Having an affordable way to scan something in 3D is inching closer to reality due to the efforts of one Qi Pan, a PhD candidate at the Engineering Department of Cambridge University. Pan has developed software, called PROforma, that enables a run-of-the-mill webcam to create a 3D model of what’s in front of it–as he rotates it by hand. Don’t believe it? Check it out:
via boing boing
Voici le premier téléphone mobile au monde à être équipé d’un écran LCD transparent : le Xperia Pureness. Les touches sont dissimulées et ne s’éclairent que lorsqu’on les utilise, et la notification d’appel se traduit par une illumination subtile. Disponible en exclusivité chez Colette.
Graffiti Analysis 2.0 (Digital Blackbook) – BLK River (Vienna) from Evan Roth on Vimeo.
Graffiti Analysis 2.0 takes live tags and transforms them into active 3D animations. The project is by Evan Roth and software development by Chris Sugrue—it was recently showcased at the BLK River Festival in Vienna.
We’d love to see the introduction of a television program about industrial design that isn’t an annoying reality show, but until that day comes, we’ll happily settle for National Geographic’s awesome “Ultimate Factories.” Check out this excerpt from their inside look at an Ikea factory, where we can see what makes the LACK table so rigid: board-on-frame technology, similar to what’s inside hollow-core doors.
It’s one thing to understand the technology, which is not that complicated; but it’s super-cool to see it being cranked out at the factory.
Une belle initiative de la société Esquire avec l’agence The Barbarian Group pour intégrer de l’interactivité dans la dernière édition papier du magazine. Un numéro spécial “Augmented Reality” en kiosques, avec un design et des éléments d’animation 3D par Psyop.
Check that thing out. That’s a Thorny Devil Lizard. The nasty spikes all over its body have grooves in them, and when dew collects on its body, the dew is actually drawn towards its mouth through capillary action, providing it with something to drink.
That’s a piece of bamboo. Despite being thin, it’s super-strong and resists buckling due to the “transverse bulkheads” that make up its structure.
That’s a toucan, as in Toucan Sam. Sam’s beak is “lightweight and strong thanks to a rigid foamy inside and layers of fibrous keratin tile outside.”
All of these natural phenomena and more are posted in the “Strategy” section of The Biomimicry Institute’s Ask Nature website, expressly for the purpose of inspiring designers, engineers and inventors to create bio-inspired solutions to problems we face. As the site puts it,
Imagine 3.8 billion years of design brilliance available for free, at the moment of creation, to any sustainability innovator in the world.
Imagine nature’s most elegant ideas organized by design and engineering function….
Now imagine you can meet the people who have studied these organisms, and together you can create the next great bio-inspired solution.
That’s the idea behind AskNature, the online inspiration source for the biomimicry community. Think of it as your home habitat–whether you’re a biologist who wants to share what you know about an amazing organism, or a designer, architect, engineer, or chemist looking for planet-friendly solutions. AskNature is where biology and design cross-pollinate, so bio-inspired breakthroughs can be born.
Check it all out here.