Design posts

Gone are the days where we only dream about being James Bond. We watch those acclaimed series of movies and wonder what it would be like to be a real life “00″ Agent. The CHOBi CAM, is your answer to taking all those photos and video without ever being noticed. Weighing in at an astounding 14 grams, this real life mini digital camera has the ability to capture photos at 2048 x 1536 px (just under 3 mega pixels), and shoot 1280 x 960 video at 30 frames per second. But the espionage doesn’t stop there. Press one button, and now this mini digital camera turns into a voice recorder. Will it fit in the palm of your…

Kitchen and bathroom accessories have become increasingly futuristic and ..just plain awesome, over the last few years. There are bathroom dryers out almost everywhere now that dry hands in 7-10 seconds. Wham, bam, thank you ma’am! Take a look at some new contemporary designs – maybe you’ll find one that will complement your style or decor perfectly. Ripple Faucet This sink and faucet are just plain cool and sort of has a Star Trek feeling to it. The red lighting and sleek circle design turn a regular sink into a modern and desirable version. The Ripple Faucet was created by Smith Newnam and Touch…

It’s no secret that we here at Techi love our bike concepts – and this one seems even cooler than most. Designed by Peter Hudas, the bike forgoes usual bike things like a chain and spokes in favor of a much more seamless design, and is aimed at urban commuters looking to trade their bus-pass in for two-wheeled style. The aim here is twofold: firstly, the design reduces the weight of the bike, making it easier to pedal to and from your destination; and secondly, by having an internal drivetrain, it makes the concept much more weather-resistant than a regular bike. Of course, most important is how cool,…

The Accessories MP3 Player by designer Lee Won-jun is future girl geek tech goodness. This fashionable device is sleek and discreet, which you may not be able to claim about other audio accessories. The Accessories MP3 Player is designed with women in mind and resembles a small piece of jewelry that fits snugly into your ear. It’s more than just functional because it’s cute, too! The other end of the device is plugged into a USB port and is attached to a gold, earring-shaped hoop. Your lady friend might appreciate getting one of these unique accessories of her very own! Right now it is just a concept…

Mexican artist Gilberto Esparza is helping nature take it all back. Esparza has created the Planta Nomada, a hybrid plant/robot that runs on water-faring microorganisms and looks bloody awesome to boot. Scary, when you consider plants can now move of their own volition, but awesome nonetheless. When the fuel source (the microscopic critters) need their own food, the plantbot shuffles towards water, where the organisms convert their food into electricty, to power the bot. The plants also get fed, too – everyone wins! No word on what the robot does when it’s not hungry – probably contemplates…

You may have heard about Shigeki Toyama and his Power Assist Suit before. Of course, there’s every likelihood you haven’t. Let’s rap about it, let me break it down. The PAS is a tool developed by Toyama and his students at the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, and when I say developed, I mean years – last time I saw this thing on the internet was circa 2006. But now, Toyama and his team are ready to have this bad boy (or girl?) manufactured, and it’s going to be available for purchase in Japan by 2012 for a cool $11000. What does it do? Why, turns you into a superhuman, of course. The suit increases…

The iPad has been dubbed as a device for content consumption and not creation, but one person wasn’t willing to live with that. Adam Kumpf went as far to actually create his own stylus for the iPad so he could better interact with art-focused applications on the iPad. It works too. The stylus was created by using materials like conductive foams, fabrics and some everyday items including an anti-static sock and pencil. Patience helps as well. As can be seen in the video above, it actually seems to work flawlessly, and it looks like fun too. Maybe this could serve as a legitimate replacement for those…

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No it’s just an old hair dryer that has been turned into a phone booth. A group of Danish students in the Interaction Design Program at The Danish Design School turned an old hair dryer into a mobile phone booth. The concept is to allow people to have a private phone conversation in public. The hairdryer is used as a headpiece that has some arduino circuits put into it and an old office chair to sit in. The user simply sits in the chair and put their head under the dryer part and then type in the number that they want to call on the dial pad. There is a microphone inside of the headpiece…

My mom used to slap my wrist a lot for playing with fire. Y’know, candles in restaurants, Grandma’s fireplace… come to think of it, I still get chastised at Christmas dinner for sticking napkins into the centerpiece. But can I really be blamed? Fire totally rules. Here comes unto my inner pyromaniac: the Apollo Tabletop Fireplace. Does exactly what it says on the tin: it’s a fireplace, that you can put on a table. Or on a bookshelf. Or on the back of your toilet. Really, I guess you could put this thing anywhere (that isn’t underwater), because apparently it’s 100% safe, as long as you don’t go trying…

Guys. Guys. Guys. Twitter is getting a redesign. Whenever I have anything to say about Twitter, I like to say it with gusto. Twitter is my goddamn lifeblood, and if I had it my way, it would be be permanently displayed on the inside of my corneas, so I could tweet while sleeping. Naturally, as this level of Twitter enthusiast, a site redesign is a big deal to me. Twitter’s design guy-in-charge Doug Bowman recently released a teaser image that shows new stats: your tweet-per-day rate, how many days you’ve been on Twitter, and even who’s been replying to you, and how often. Now you’ll know exactly how much…