Design posts

It would be uncustomary for me to let a day go by without showing off something designy and musical. Taking a break from all that DJ gear I’ve been hyped about recently, here’s Yamaha’s Silent Guitar.Yeah, it looks like it fell out of Tron. Awesome, right? Right. If you’re a music buff, you’ll be well aware that the Silent Guitar has actually been kicking around for nine years. But the internet was young and stupid in 2001, and Yamaha has just updated it 2010-style, so what better time than now to show off to the rest of the readers one of the strangest pieces of musical tech out there. Seriously, the Silent…

Today is Toronto’s FanExpo. In celebration of utter geekdom for all, I present to you this day the Alien Pez dispenser – the most terrifying candy delivery system ever released. Childhood: ruined. Designed by Peter Davidson, I have never in my life wanted a Pez dispenser more than this one. And that’s saying something. I’m not even a fan of the franchise. What? Don’t give me that look – I’m already nerd levels of enthusiastic for a million other franchises. It’s exhausting work! Somebody else can have Alien. But if you’re an avid Pez collector, don’t start eBaying just yet – unfortunately, there…

Regular readers of Techi know that we love Digg and that, most of the time anyway, Digg loves us. So when Digg rolled out version 4 of its social aggregation site – or v4 as many have called it – many, including us, were excited, particularly because there have been rumors of Digg’s waning influence. The refresh promised to not only reinvigorate the platform, but also make it competitive with the massive influence of Facebook and increasing presence of Twitter. Alas, not all is well with the new Digg. In fact, many people are downright angry at some of the changes and flaws with the new site. Complaints…

I was going to ask you if you enjoy rad things, but I know you. You’re a tech blog-surfing, web-savvy, geek-chic internet all-star. I don’t need to ask stupid questions. Let’s just move on. Speaking of things which identify as rad, check this out. Or, like, don’t, whatever, but your Thursday will be less rad if you don’t rad it up with this. Designer Ivan Mavrovic doesn’t dick around when it comes to steampunking anything and everything in his world. Frankly, as far as steampunk artists go, he’s possibly one of the most adept I’ve ever seen, the list of reasons including but not limited to the fact that…

Man, there is just some really neat tech flying around today. Seriously, it’s a Wednesday to remember. Not many Wednesdays are worth remembering, so be thankful. Yeah, so the whole ‘throwing a projector onto a surface to interact with a physical object’ card has been totally played, but I’ve never seen it as mesmerizing as this. Dubbed ‘vinyl+’, artist Jonas Bohatsch has taken a regular turntable and jazzed it up with visual interactivity, allowing for a uniquely synaesthetic experience. “The behaviour of the visuals projected will change depending on various variables,” Bohatsch explains….

Most publications are beginning to accept the death of print media. Magazines had a good, what, 100-year run or so? With all these iPads and Kindles and gadgets and things, it’s just time to move on. The future is paved in pixels. But not Successful Farming. Successful Farming is hardcore. Successful Farming looks on at all these namby-pamby ‘high-tech’ publications like Wired, and Popular Mechanics, and scoffs as they fall back to the internet. Sissies. Successful Farming is a hair-chested, steak-eating MANgazine that plays Guitar Hero 2 on Expert and murders thousands of trees to present…

Yo, dawg. I heard you like Twitter, so I installed a keyboard in your shoe, so you can tweet while you walk. Seriously, not much is known about this shoe, beyond that it exists. An exercise in geek chic (oh man, exercise… pun totally not intended, but welcome), the keyboard is almost certainly non-functional, and just a hip sole design. And yes, it would probably be unwise to stick a keyboard on the underside of one’s footwear anyway. But imagine if you could get good at it, or something? Like, sure, you’d be walking like a tap-dancing zombie, but if you live in a highly populated urban center, you won’t…

For years we have heard about self-sustaining homes that can take advantage of the latest technology to harness solar energy and provide the most economical usage of available resources, but we haven’t been seeing them. However, a few families in the UK are getting some eco love with the Home for Life project. Perhaps this marks the beginning of affordable eco-friendly housing? In order to create a self-sustainable, carbon-neutral home, the Danish concept of an “Active House” So what does a house of the future have? Just about everything you could imagine to maximize eco-friendliness: Air-tight…

You know those douchebags who wear their sunglasses absolutely everywhere, right? Can I ask you a question? …Would you like to be one of them? Polaroid is hoping you will. Buddying up with RealD – I always say that in the movie guy voice, don’t you? – Polaroid has unleashed into the world a ‘collection’ of ‘premium’ ‘sunglasses’ that ‘protect’ your eyes from ‘sunlight’ and ’2D’. The Polaroid 3D Eyewear is designed not only as a replacement for traditional flimsy disposable RealD glasses, but also as a fashion statement. No, really. I swear, you’re reading this correctly. This is a thing. Polaroid…

I don’t normally like talking about iPad cases. Your Techi time is precious, and I’m not about to waste it on a piece of molded plastic. With that in mind, I’ve got this great piece of molded plastic I’d like to show you. It holds your iPad, and everything. In all seriousness, though, this isn’t the wrong kind of rad. The iPort is a for real-real grown up serious dock that transforms your iPad (or iPod Touch, if you get the smaller one (or iPhone, if you get the smaller one, and are unwise)) into a wall controller for music systems or other tasks that need roboticizin’. To be honest, that’s just about the long…