Hasta La Ideas

Riders can use their iPhone as the dashboard for this electric bike designed by Spanish transport firm The Electric Mobility Company.

A free app allows the user to connect their Apple iPhone with the Xkuty One bike, and set parameters such as maximum speed, acceleration style and battery consumption. The phone then clips to the centre of the handlebars to act as a speedometer and monitor battery life.

Using the iPhone’s gyroscope, which monitors orientation and angular momentum, the app can be programmed to call an emergency contact if it senses a collision or fall.

The Electric Mobility Company claims it is “the world’s first electric bike with full iPhone integration”.

“Xkuty was born from our belief that we need to change the way we travel,” said the company’s CEO Carlos Felipe. “The objective was to develop an affordable, intuitive and simple alternative to the more traditional urban transportation.”

The silent bike can reach speeds of 35 kilometres-per-hour and features hydraulic brakes at the front and back. Seat and handlebar grip colours can be chosen from a range of bright shades, with helmet trims to match.

The model will from cost €2800 (£2360) once available and a waiting list for the product has been set up on the company’s website.

Other bicycles on Dezeen include one that can be pedalled with hands and feet at the same time, and another made from the same strong and lightweight plastic used in fighter jet canopies.

See more bicycles »
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Here’s some more information from The Electric Mobility Company:

Xkuty One: No Noise, No Fumes, No Sweat!

The Electric Mobility Company introduce Xkuty: the world’s first electric bike with full iPhone integration.

Innovative urban transport company, The Electric Mobility Company, are announcing the launch of their revelation in modern transport; Xkuty One, the first fully iPhone integrated electric bike.

Xkuty is the whole package

Xkuty’s beautifully simple design makes it the perfect city companion. From the commuter vehicle of smartest businessman to the round-town runaround of the city fresher, its clean lines and fully customisable design makes Xkuty a hit with anyone who sees it. And Xkuty’s not just beautiful, it’s intelligent too! The Xkuty ethos focuses on efficiency, sustainability and environmental awareness. With its light frame and silent electric motor, Xkuty allows you to tour the city with no noise, no fumes and no effort!

Xkuty wants to make the world a better place

“Xkuty was born from our belief that we need to change the way we travel,” says Carlos Felipe, CEO of The Electric Mobility Company. “The objective was to develop an affordable, intuitive and simple alternative to the more traditional urban transportation. We wanted something that offered more than just function to the rider, something deeper that put the the emphasis on emotion and the relationship between vehicle and rider. Thus, Xkuty was born.”

Xkuty loves your iPhone (and your iPhone loves Xkuty right back)

Thanks to the Xkuty App, available to download free from the Apple App Store, your iPhone becomes the control panel of your Xkuty, allowing you to modify the key parameters of your bike: set your maximum speed, control the power curve, select various acceleration styles and even adjust battery consumption with ECO and Sport modes.

The Xkuty App not only allows you to control your Xkuty throughout the ride, but also keeps an eye on your bike when you’re not around! Using the iPhone gyroscope, if it detects your Xkuty has fallen over it automatically calls the number of your choice to alert you.

Xkuty has friends in high places

In conjunction with Aspar team, Xkuty saw its debut during the twelfth season of 2013 Moto GP at Silverstone Circuit, a celebration of speed, engineering and motorcycling. The Aspar team will have six Xkuty bikes as support vehicles for the next two seasons, throughout the Championships which will be held in San Marino, Spain, Malaysia and Japan.

The post Xkuty One electric bike by
The Electric Mobility Company appeared first on Dezeen.

Réalisé par Wilfrid Brimo pour l’agence BBDO Paris, la nouvelle campagne « Sensations » de la marque Mercedes-Benz est impressionnante. De l’équipe de Polo à la cantatrice en passant par un cerf, chaque protagoniste façonne la voiture à sa façon pour un rendu visuel rappelant les valeurs de la marque.

SHADOW, Hunter Lee Soik and Jason Carvalho

Hunter Lee Soik is no stranger to the creative process. He’s worked as a creative consultant on Jay-Z & Kanye West’s Watch The Throne tour and is now taking on the app space. Soik and co-founder Jason Carvalho created SHADOW, an app that helps users record and track their dreams through a process of waking them at the perfect time so they can remember and record descriptions on their phones. (You know, those enlightening few moments when you can barely remember what was going on in your head overnight.) The goal: To create a community of dreamers with accessible data on dream patterns from users around the world.

The Kickstarter campaign launched this morning and has already raised $8,400 of its $50,000 goal. We took a few minutes to chat with Soik on his favorite parts of the app and where he sees the “dream community” in five years.

Core77: What was the process of creating SHADOW like and how did you test the app?

Hunter Lee Soik: We’re focused on two things: Assembling a great team and building a great product. We’ve shared alpha versions of the app with the team and advisors, and their feedback has really influenced the product we’re building. We’re a small team, but we’re all over the world. I’m in New York, my co-founder Jay is in Vancouver, our design and engineering are in Berlin. So geographically and culturally we have a lot of diversity, but we also have this dream in common. This variety of input has been invaluable, so we decided to open that feedback loop up even more and ask our Kickstarter backers to help steer the development by telling us which device they want the app on first.

(more…)

Lisbon Architecture Triennale: these prototypical structures by London studio Cohen Van Balen are designed to sustain genetically modified plants that could prevent wolves from contracting rabies (+ movie).

Entitled And Nowhere a Shadow, the structures were installed by Cohen Van Balen in the woodland district of Future Perfect – an exhibition of a futuristic city on show as part of the Lisbon Architecture Triennale 2013.

“We were inspired by the idea of symbiosis, the relationships between plants and animals, and the beautifully complex systems in nature where an animal and a plant keep each other alive” Revital Cohen told Dezeen. “We wanted to design a plant to keep a wolf alive from extinction.”

The metal structures would feed biologically engineered nutrients to the blueberry plants, while metal prongs at the base would stimulate the wolves’ as they brush past, encouraging them to stop and eat the fruits.

“Wolves in the wild, can only touch each other at one point,” Tuur Van Balen explained. “As a human being, you can grab the wolf at two points. So we added these massagers that touch the animal at two points and the wolves really like it.”

The movement of the wolves would also generate electricity for the devices, powering surveillance cameras that stream footage of the animals across the internet.

“Maybe a way for the animal to keep itself from extinction is to become a form of entertainment,” said Cohen. “If there were cameras in the forest, maybe there would be people willing to watch and pay to watch it.”

Although the technology to embed anti-rabies vaccine in plants is not yet developed, the designers say it could be done with five years of research.

To test the concept, they attached regular blueberry plants to the structures and allowed a wolf to explore the exhibition, capturing the results on film.

“Many Native Americans believe that men and wolves were brothers, but then western culture invented these mythologies of the big bad wolf as symbolising everything’s thats wild and dangerous in nature,” Van Balen told Dezeen.

“But it is only when the wolf has rabies that it becomes the big bad wolf from the stories. It’s the only time when it becomes dangerous to humans and violent,” he added.

The Future Perfect exhibition was curated by architect Liam Young as an exploration into how technology will shape the cities of the future. The show also includes sculptural dresses made by dunking people into wax.

The Lisbon Architecture Triennale continues until 15 December. Follow Dezeen’s coverage of the event »

Here’s a project description from the exhibition organisers:

The Wilds – And Nowhere a Shadow There is no nature anymore. We are wandering a new kind of wilderness, where the line between biology and technology is becoming increasingly indistinguishable. Through genetic modification, engineered meat, cosmetic surgery and geo-engineering we are remaking our world from the scale of cells to the scale of continents.

The woods, wild and mysteri­ous from afar, appear as a stage on which every element is considered. Genetically engineered plants, artificially sustained, are hanging from the trees, embedded in the ecology yet detached from it. Their scaffolding systems of gleaming steel and neon light sway in the wind, waiting.

Grey wolves approach the struc­tures during the night to scratch their body on the steel branches. In an intri­cate arrangement of devised symbio­sis, the contraption takes on the role of host organism. The wolf’s move­ments generate electricity for the system, while the blueberries are engineered to contain rabies vaccine in its fruit to protect the animal from self-destruction. Cameras transmit footage of the wolf’s presence around the globe, adorned in invisible garlands of elec­tric display, to be enjoyed by those whose passion for the spectacle of wilderness sustains its survival.

The post And Nowhere a Shadow by Cohen Van Balen
at Future Perfect appeared first on Dezeen.

“Where can I plug this in?” is a dilemma of the contemporary age.

As phones and tablets become more popular, two problems arise. First, most wall sockets only accommodate two items each. That’s easily remedied by connecting a power strip. One plug becomes five or six, and you’re good to go.

But the solution to the first problem begets problem number two: the jumble of cables and wires is just ugly. Plus, they get tangled, swapped, and misplaced. You could spend money on a decent-looking solution or whip up your own home charging station. The following are 10 great examples I found while poking around the Internet. Each charges several devices simultaneously and looks a lot better than a power strip and a rat’s nest of wires.

1. Hidden in a drawer. I first saw this solution on Pinterest. It keeps everything out of sight completely by placing the whole lot inside a drawer. The setup is simple: drill a hole in the back of the drawer, thread the power strip cord through and plug it in. You might want to fasten the power strip to the bottom of the drawer to keep it from wobbling around with double-sided tape or velcro.
2. Converted storage box. This rig was inspired by ribbon boxes that store the ribbon inside and feed it through a small hole. Here, holes were cut into a storage box that you can find at any craft store. The holes were reinforced with oval bookplates, held in place with small brad nails. From there, the power strip was placed inside and the device cables fed through the new holes. It looks great and there’s really no need to open it.
3. Night Stand recharging station. This one wins the prize for most dramatic before-and-after photos, as an upturned cardboard box is replaced by a nice-looking end table. Holes will drilled in the rear of the unit and the charging cables fed through. Just don’t look behind it, though. I fear there’s an hidden rat’s nest against that wall.
4. Super easy plastic bin. This one isn’t long on looks but it’s probably the least expensive solution here. Plus, it gets the job done. Small holes were cut into the rear and lid so that cables could be fed through. Sure, you can see inside but it’s still nice to not have to deal with what’s inside.
5. Vintage case. Here’s a solution that is long on looks. Ryan at Weekly Geek, who put this together, describes his love of de-tangling electronic cables: “Jaws clenched and temples throbbing the world silently fades as my focus gets narrower and more fierce. That mess is broken, and I have to fix it. Why won’t they let me fix it?” His vintage-valise-as-charging-station is a thing to behold and not for he feint of heart. You can review what’s required here. The results, however, are very nice indeed.
6. Converted IKEA storage unit. I’ll admit that I love IKEA. Even those little meatballs in the cafeteria are good. In this example, an enterprising soul at IKEA Hackers converted the company’s Estetisk storage unit into a nice-looking charging station. Holes were drilled into the back and the “cubbies” were outfitted with custom plywood inserts. Well done.
7. Re-purposed plastic bottle. You got me, this only charges a single item. But look at how cute and convenient it is! By deftly cutting a plastic lotion bottle and applying some decoration, Ashley at Make It & Love It has a great-looking holder that hangs on the charger itself and corrals the phone and its cable. Very nice.
8. Old books. Some of you will balk at the idea of chopping up an old book, but the rest should check this out. Yes, it’s a single-device solution again, but it’s very nice-looking. There are several available in this Etsy shop, but I’m sure you could figure it out for yourself with an X-Acto knife and some time.
9. Converted shoe box. Here’s another quick-and-dirty solution that works well. This is similar to the storage box – you’re cutting holes in a shoe box, reinforcing them with grommets and feeding the cables through – but less expensive. Plus, since you’re starting with a shoe box, do some decorating to get it looking nice. Time to break out the Mod Podge.
10. Vintage breadbox. Finally, a converted vintage bread box. This one requires the most work and some basic carpentry skills (and the right decor) but you’d never guess there’s a jumble of wires and charging electronics inside of there.

I hope you found this list inspirational. You do have to charge your gadgets but the process needn’t result in a jumbled mess. Go forth and make a great little charging station.

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