Design posts

Image by 1up.com Every now and then the question of whether video games should qualify as art or not comes to the fore. A few years ago Roger Ebert famously concluded in his book “Answer Man” that games cannot be art because there is choice involved. Why anybody would want to know what an old man with bad taste in film thinks about video games is beyond me, but there you have it. Since then many have pointed out inconsistencies in his characterization of things, chiefly, that he used plays of all things as one of his main examples, and plays are all about choice: who is going to play the characters, what is…

I really, really hope I never get audited like this. Surely you know of EnergyStar – if you’re a PC user, you probably see their logo every time you boot up your machine. They’re the guys in charge of setting up guidelines to regulate the power consumption and efficiency of products. Recently, a bunch of Congressional auditors went to work to test the thoroughness of the EnergyStar program. And they were hella sneaky about it. …If you can call this sneaky: they submitted a bunch of very-clearly-fake products for approval, including an ‘air purifier’ that consisted of a feather duster…

Flexible displays might be on the way and widely used sooner than we think. 

Recently, HP unveiled a new idea in a demo of its flexible display technology. CTO Phil McKinney rolled up one of HP’s flexible displays…and it was immediately destroyed. “You’re probably good for about half a dozen times before the material will just fail,” explained McKinney. Uh, Phil? That doesn’t sound like progress. But that’s not the point. The displays aren’t meant to be rolled up – at least, not after the manufacturing process. What HP’s real goal is, is to produce a new, cost-effective…

I’m completely fed up with hotels that stay in once place, man. Had it up to here. Haven’t you? They way they…don’t move? What kind of middle-aged barbarism is that? Thank goodness the hotel industry has finally caught up with today’s nomad. Rotel Tours is a German company that – yes – provides hotel accommodations, crammed into an enormous bus. A pimped-out Mercedes 0404 that kinda looks more like a firetruck on steroids than anything, Rotel’s rides accommodate 24 passengers, each of whom get their own passenger seat and coffin-like sleeping berth. All 24 have to share a toilet,…

A true gentleman – a man who respects the finer things – realizes the value of slowing it down. Taking time out. Maybe have the manservant fix a beverage. Maybe take the Segway out to the patio. Maybe type an email. Maybe type it slowly. For this gentleman, designer Erik Campbell has developed a keyboard. What Campbell has designed is a jellyfish new take on the concept of the ‘chorded’ keyboard – chorded referring to music. Like you strum guitar strings in concert with each other, so too do you press the five buttons on Campbell’s keyboard to produce different characters. Frankly, I found 150…

iPhones? Wii’s? Bet you think those are pretty fancy, right? Well, when it comes to sheer wow factor, those technologies have little on Skinput, which lets you control things by simply pressing different parts of your skin. Your skin! The system, which was developed by researchers from Carnegie Mellon and Microsoft, turns the human body into an interface. But rather than using electrical impulses, which is how the iPhone and other touch screens work, it actually measures the movement of sound made by tapping different parts of the arm or hand. But in addition to measuring acoustic waves, the…

If you’re not familiar with the telltale sound of a didgeridoo, Australia’s famous aboriginal instrument, think ‘being run over by a musical train’. If the thought of being run over by a musical train appeals to you, read on. 24-year-old Kyle Evans is a didgeridoo enthusiast. Apparently, such a thing exists. He is also an electronic music enthusiast. These two musical styles would appear as apples and oranges to most, but not to Kyle. After an experiment  with a Big Gulp and a USB adapter failed, Evans went on to develop his now-Bluetooth-based model, which plays notes strikingly similar…

For all the talk of a reading revolution and Amazon, Sony and now Apple are creating, all of this new technology doesn’t actually change reading very much. There’s some text on a blank background and – well, that’s about it. But a new concept developed by Swedish firm Tobii Technology promises to change all that by turning the tables on the reader – in this case, the book reads you. By using a combination of web programming languages and a tracking camera, what Tobii Technology call Text 2.0 actually tracks your eye movements to see what you are reading. Focus on a word for a while with a screwed-up face…

Now that we finally have confirmation a new Nintendo DS is on the way – with 3D no less! – we’re also free to wonder what the new device might look like. And as mind-blowingly successful as Nintendo products have been, they’ve never exactly exuded sexiness. Well, designer Mario Troise has a solution for old Ninty with this drop-dead gorgeous rendering of a possible DS that makes the line between the handheld’s eponymous dual screens invisible. Sure, it’s got a decidedly ‘Macbook feel’ to it – but is that really a bad thing? As sleek as the concept is, it also contains some great ideas, like a 3D projecting…

Spike Jonze has teamed up with Absolut Vodka to present ‘I’m Here’, a touching short film about robots in love. The best part? The film is available free to watch online. Potential viewers have to be quick, though, as ‘seating’ for each screening of the film is limited. Viewers can log in with their Facebook accounts for a really unique experience. I’m not going to spoil anything, though – just check out the trailer and go watch it. It’s a beautiful film. As if robots couldn’t be any more rad today. [Via Laughing Squid]…