Hasta La Ideas

There were no shortage of smart watches at CES this year, but PEBBLE seemed to be the only maker who evolved the industrial design of the smart watch beyond a mini smartphone stuck on your wrist. It was only a matter of time before these devices moved from the literal semantic play of a mini smartphone with a strap to a mass adoption state that aligned with fashion trend. Cheers to PEBBLE for getting there first.

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News: American biotechnology company Bioglow has applied synthetic biology processes to develop ornamental glowing plants that its founder claims are “truly the first of their kind.”

Bioglow, which is based at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in St Louis, Missouri, claims its Starlight Avatar is the first plant that is able to light up autonomously, without the need for external treatments or stimuli such as chemicals or ultraviolet lighting.

“There are no comparables on the market, these are truly first of their kind,” the plants’ creator and Bioglow founder Alexander Krichevsky told Dezeen.

Krichevsky, a specialist in microbiology, developed the plants by introducing DNA from luminescent marine bacteria to the chloroplast genome of a common houseplant, so the stem and leaves constantly emit a faint light similar to that produced by fireflies and other bioluminescent organisms.

Krichevsky is working on increasing the brightness of the plants, which currently need to be viewed in a darkened room. He told Dezeen that his technique could attract a new audience to the ornamental plant market and eventually provoke a revolution in lighting design.

“We think that glowing plants will particularly be of interest to the fans of the movie Avatar,” said Krichevsky, referring to the 2009 science fiction feature film set on an alien planet where flora and fauna are illuminated at night.

He added that they could also be used as efficient light sources for interiors, architecture or transport infrastructure. “In the long term we see use of glowing plants in contemporary lighting design, namely in landscaping and architecture as well as in transportation, marking driveways and highways with natural light that does not require electricity,” he pointed out. “We also have a capacity to make plants glow in response to environmental cues, making them effective environmental and agricultural sensors.”

Prospective buyers will be able to bid for one of a limited number of the Starlight Avatar plants via an online auction due to take place in late January. The plants are shipped in cultivation boxes containing a plastic nutrient-rich gel and can be transferred to a plant pot when fully developed. Each plant has a life cycle of two to three months.

Main image is by Dan Saunders.

The post World’s first glow-in-the-dark plant
genetically engineered appeared first on Dezeen.

Visitors to London department store Selfridges can take a virtual reality tour created by technology company Inition inside a helmet by fashion designer Gareth Pugh (+ slideshow).

Gareth Pugh worked with Inition to create a “multi-sensory experience” called Monolith, installed at Selfridges for the Festival of Imagination taking place this month.

“The inspiration for this piece really came from the desire to create a totally immersive experience,” said Pugh. “I’ve always believed in the importance of fashion film and new technology as a means of communication.”

The visitor enters a soundproofed booth and completely covers their head with a pointy black helmet, which Pugh designed specifically for the installation based on costumes he created for the Royal Ballet.

Using an Oculus Rift virtual reality display embedded in the headpiece, the wearer is taken on a journey through monochromatic cityscapes, undulating walls and figures with silhouettes that are also similar to Pugh’s costumes.

“It’s an abstract narrative based on Gareth’s life, his works and his experiences,” senior creative at Inition Alex Lambert told Dezeen.

Once geared up, a 360-degree white environment is visible all around. “When you’re inside [the headpiece] you are transported to another world,” said Lambert. “It’s a totally immersive, full 360-degree virtual world that you can look around.”

The experience begins when staring at a spinning black cube found in the artificial world. “Aesthetically it looks very similar to Gareth’s work, and as soon as you look at that cube and it spins for a certain period of time it starts,” Lambert explained.

Hand rails are installed around the sides of the compact space in case the user loses their balance during the experience. Industrial music by London artist Matthew Stone accompanies the visuals.

The chamber is located in Selfridges’ menswear department on the first level, next to a selection of Pugh’s garments.

The project was developed as one of a series of experimental installations and pop-ups at the Festival of Imagination that runs all this month, as well as to coincide with the London Collections: Men fashion event that took place in the British capital last week.

Inition also collaborated with Dezeen to create an augmented reality shop at Selfridges for the festival, which features Zaha Hadid’s superyacht design and watches from our online store.

Other projects around the store include a temporary auditorium in the basement designed by OMA.

Here’s some more information sent to us by Inition:

Experience fashion designer Gareth Pugh’s virtual reality journey at Selfridges

Creative production company Inition produces a mind-bending virtual reality experience launched by Selfridges to mark fashion designer Gareth Pugh’s first appearance on the London Collection: Men’s Schedule.

The Monolith installation includes a futuristic cutting edge immersive journey into the inspirations and aesthetics of the acclaimed designer’s vision for his new collection.

Gareth Pugh says: “The inspiration for this piece really came from the desire to create a totally immersive experience. I’ve always believed in the importance of fashion film and new technology as a means of communication, but the team at Inition were able to propose a new and exciting way for us to approach this project. It’s an exciting opportunity to re-imagine my aesthetic in a totally new context.”

Pugh worked with Inition 3D artists to ensure the multi-sensory experience truly reflected his inspirations.

“This was a very exciting project to work on, as it was very creatively led but also had a number of new technical aspects that needed to be overcome in order to achieve the desired feeling that Gareth wanted to convey,” says Inition senior 3D artist Lee Spooner.

After entering a soundproofed chamber, users wear a characteristically geometric Gareth Pugh VR headset, which harnesses Oculus Rift technology to bring the 3D visuals to life. Virtual reality has never been used in a retail setting in such a way before.

With hand rails provided in case of momentary loss of balance, the two minute futuristic fashion film and part fairground ride begins, featuring monochromatic cityscapes, undulating walls and signature stark shapes, all underscored by an industrial gritty sound track produced by London based artist Matthew Stone.

Inition has been producing virtual reality experiences since 2001 but with recent advances in technology, imagination can now be less constrained, as perfectly illustrated by the Gareth Pugh’s Selfridges installation.

“Our history of creating bespoke experiences using emerging technology platforms was a natural fit with the pioneering work of Pugh and the innovative approach to retail taken by Selfridges. This is a market with huge potential for digital technologies and Inition is delighted to be pushing boundaries within this space,” says Ainsley Henn, Producer at Inition.

“It was nice to be able to let our creativity and imaginations run free, and early on we had a good understanding with Gareth about the direction he wanted this immersive experience to take,” says Lee Spooner.

Gareth Pugh continued, “The title, Monolith, is the perfect description for this piece: something singular and imposing, and in some way otherworldly. I imagine that each person will view it differently, but I would hope that it’s something memorable and engaging. Ultimately the installation requires a little commitment, you need to step into that world – from the padded sound proofed booth to the angular head piece required to view the installation… they’re all considered parts of this unique experience.”

The Monolith installation is now open to the public and is located in the Menswear department of Selfridges (London) on Level 1.

The post “Immersive virtual world” by Gareth Pugh
and Inition installed at Selfridges appeared first on Dezeen.

News: American manufacturer 3D Systems has unveiled the world’s first 3D printers for food at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

The Chefjet and Chefjet Pro are the first professionally certified, kitchen-ready 3D food printers, on display at 3D System‘s stand at CES this week.

The machines were launched with the pastry chef in mind, and so far they can print in milk chocolate or sugar in three flavours: mint, cherry and sour apple.

“The machine uses an ink jet print head that’s just like the one you would find in your desktop 2D printer,” explained 3D Systems’ Liz von Hasseln. “It spreads a very fine layer of sugar then paints water onto the surface of the sugar, and that water allows the sugar to recrystalise and harden to form these complex geometries.”

A “digital cookbook” will allow those unfamiliar with CAD modelling to generate and print complex objects with ease.

The ChefJet is aimed at the domestic market and will retail at under $5000 (£3000). It produces single-colour edible prints for items like sugar cubes and cake decorations.

The ChefJet Pro will be priced at under $10,000 (£6000) and produce full colour prints with a larger build volume. Both will be available in the second half of 2014.

The launch by 3D systems grows out of its acquisition of The Sugar Lab, the 3D-printing cake decorating business founded by architecture graduate von Hasseln and her husband, Kyle von Hasseln.

In 2011 the husband-and-wife team wanted to try and “print” a birthday cake so they hacked a 3D printer and, after much trial and error, successfully printed a mini cup cake with cursive sugar script. The couple, who both have backgrounds in molecular biology, then launched The Sugar Lab in July 2013 and it was acquired by 3D Systems in September 2013.

3D Systems’ creative director Janne Kyttanen told Dezeen that the company was working on 3D printed food when we interviewed him for our Print Shift publication this time last year. “Food is the next frontier of 3-D printing,” he said. “We’re already printing in chocolate, so a lot of these things will be possible in the next few years.”

The post First food 3D printer launched
by 3D Systems appeared first on Dezeen.

Modern life is jam-packed with two things: cables and batteries. So many things must be plugged in or charged up regularly that it’s hard to keep up. Rechargeable batteries are especially burdensome because you’ve got to keep track of which are charged, which aren’t, where the charger is, and so on. Isn’t technology supposed to make life easier?

Last year I wrote about organizing, storing and buying cables wisely, and today I’m going to look at batteries. Let’s begin by looking at the different types and the best use for each, as outlined by Michael Bluejay.

Battery types and their best uses

Two are two main categories of household batteries: rechargeable and disposable. Each category has four main types. Let’s begin with rechargeable batteries, as they’re becoming more prevalent, both as a source of power and clutter.

Rechargeable Batteries

1. Nickel-Metal Hydride (NiMH). These are good for most applications, but don’t have the longest shelf life.
2. LSD (low self discharge) NiMH. Again, good for general use, with the added benefit of longer shelf life than non-LSD NiMH. Meaning that, once out of the charger and sitting on a shelf, they hold their charge longer.
3. Nickel-Zinc (NiZn). Use these with devices that will benefit from extra voltage like a digital camera. Note that with devices that don’t need the extra juice (say a Bluetooth computer mouse or keyboard), you should stay away from NiZn. Also, this group of batteries has a short shelf life.
4. Rechargeable Alkaline. Now we’re talking about the longest shelf life of any rechargeable battery, including LSD NiMH. Use with devices whose batteries aren’t replaced often, like radios or clocks.

If rechargeables aren’t your thing, good old disposables are still around.

Disposable Batteries

1. Alkaline. These are the inexpensive batteries that you see everywhere. Reserve for low-drain devices like remote controls.
2. High-Drain Alkaline. These are disposables meant for high-drain devices like a digital camera. Seriously though, it’s much more economical to use a rechargeable battery in this situation.
3. Lithium. These are powerful little batteries but, of course, you can’t recharge them. However, they are good for smoke detectors as the small amount of drain the detectors put on them means they’ll last a long time (but change your smoke detectors batteries twice a year, okay?).
4. Carbon Zinc, Zinc Chloride. Often the least expensive, these are good for low-drain devices. That tiny night light in Jr.’s bedroom? Here you go.

At this point, you’ve identified the type(s) of battery you need and now it’s time to store them. Perhaps you know how much fun it is to go on a hunting expedition for a working battery, or take batteries out of one device just so you can add them to another. My personal favorite is picking up a rechargeable and thinking, “Hm, is this charged? I don’t know.” Let’s eliminate all of that nonsense.

Super battery storage solutions

The Range Kleen organizer is pretty nice. I like this because it accommodates all sizes of household batteries and presents them so you can see instantly what is available. It also comes with a built-in tester, so you can know how “good” a battery is before installing it. It’s a little big, which is its only real downside.

Arts and crafts bins also work well and often have the benefit of a lid, are semi-opaque, and stackable. A few minutes with your label maker helps a lot, too.

If you’d rather save a few bucks and go DIY, consider those disposable deli containers. They don’t hold as many batteries as the larger cases, but cost a lot less. You can even get crafty and use vintage coin purses and labels, if you’d prefer not to see a big, ugly plastic bin of batteries. Chunky diner mugs work well, too.

Ninja level battery management

When you’re ready for world-class battery organization, read insights from Quentin Stafford-Fraser. Quentin recommends you do five things:

1. Spend some money on an initial cache of batteries. You’ll eliminate that last-second hunt that keeps everybody waiting.
2. Dedicate space for battery storage. Quentin uses a series of hardware bins with labels like “AAA Flat” and “AAA Charged” for easy reference. When the “flat” bins get full, he begins recharging.
3. Invest in good batteries. Quentin recommends the Sanyo Eneloop. Incidentally, that’s the same brand of battery that Apple ships with its own charger. I can attest to the fact that they last a long time. Erin uses the Amazon Basics rechargeables, which many users believe to be rebranded second-generation Eneloops.
4. Buy a decent charger. I’ve fiddled with chargers from brands you’d recognize that failed to perform to my expectations. Get yourself a good one. Again, Erin has a personal recommendation here, and suggests the La Crosse Technology recharger for AAs and AAAs.
5. Get a good tester. The Range Kleen I mentioned above ships with a tester. A stand-alone model like the ZTS MBT–1 Pulse Load Multi Battery Tester will set you back a few bucks but last a good, long time.

Disposing of old batteries properly

Even the best batteries will eventually give up the ghost. Unfortunately, there’s no single solution for getting rid of them. The process depends on the type.

According to Duracell, common alkaline batteries can be tossed into your household trash. The company notes that it hasn’t used mercury in its batteries since 1993, which is a good thing. Check with your preferred manufacturer to see how the’ve addressed concerns over their products’ chemistry.

Rechargeable, lithium, and zinc batteries should be recycled. You can find a compatible recycling center in your area via the Battery Recycling Corporation’s Call2Recycle program. You can also check the website for your local county and/or municipality’s hazardous waste program. These governmental jurisdictions almost always have a program just for battery collection.

With some planning, proper storage, and knowledge of what you need, you can eliminate a lot of battery hassles and reduce the clutter they produce at the same time.

Let Unclutterer help you get your home or office organized. Subscribe to our helpful product shipments from Quarterly today.