Saw this winery architecture/interior over at thecoolhunter.net – I really dug how the whole space was integrated: the cushion/seats that becomes the wine rack that becomes the roof… all the objectives are accomplished in one stroke, giving the winery an extremely elegant, refined and modern look. Much better than the Gehry one, IMHO.
A new discovery could make it possible to take a “power nap” at the flick of a switch. Scientists have found a way to turn on deep sleep at will using a machine that magnetically stimulates the brain. A device worn on the head could in squeeze the benefit of eight hours’ sleep into just two or three hours.
A news clipping has reported that scientists have developed a technique – Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation – to induce slow waves through the skull and into the brain, where it activates electrical impulses that are typical of deep sleep. Apparently this could be a form of treatment for insomnia in the future, and could potentially also be used to induce a “Power Nap” that has the benefits of eight hour’s sleep in just a few hours.
The title of that news article reads “Machine Means End to Sleepless Nights”. As far as I see, that may be true for the clinical insomniacs. But I could also see it being used by people who don’t seem to quite have enough hours in a day – lawyers, auditors, office workers (basically everyone) to squeeze in yet another few more hours of work and productivity in place of sleep. It’d really be a slippery slope – if you can have a gadget that eliminates the need for you to sleep, and frees up the sleep-time for you to do whatever you want – would you use it?
In that case, the title should probably be “Machine Means Beginning of Sleepless Nights”.
Is that a Lamborghini? Not quite. No, it isn’t one of the copycat cars either. If you’re sharp enough, you’d notice the Toyota badge on the front hood. So why is Toyota, a company known for its reliable, family-oriented cars doing with a high-end performance ride like this?
Turns out this is a concept vehicle called Volta (from a few years ago, I may add). The name would give it away – it’s a high-performance hybrid car that claims a 0-60mph in 4 seconds, even while achieving an economic fuel consumption of 435 miles for a 13.7 gallon tank (that’s 700km with about 50liter for us metric folks). What’s also intriguing is the internal layout (too bad they don’t have a picture of it):
The Giugiaro-designed carbon-fiber body seats three people abreast and features “drive-by-wire” controls, allowing you to position the steering wheel and pedals in front of any one of them.
So you can be a tree-hugger even with sportiness running through your blood! When this thing makes it to production, at least.
P/S: Toyota has been named by Business Week as the 3rd most innovative company in the world – just after Apple and Google. “Toyota’s dominance in hybrids has led to gas-electric cars for its Lexus brand and could bring the first plug-in electric hybrid within the next four years. The carmaker’s famous continuous improvement process—its own unsexy but effective approach to innovation—is being copied worldwide.”
Creative recently launched its newest kid on the block – the ZEN Stone, priced at just about half of the 2nd generation iPod shuffle. I haven’t seen the actual product, but from the photograph (albeit probably heavily enhanced with Adobe® Photoshop® software), it doesn’t look too shabby. Of course, one look at it and one might scream “Shuffle Copy!”. Well that has some truth in it, though there simply aren’t too many permutations if you have the basic UI element with a rectangular IC board in it. Looks wise, I’d actually prefer this over the Shuffle, though this doesn’t clip (and comes with IMO awful color options).
What is much more interesting for me, though, is a comment that I came across over at the Engadget comments. One commenter remembered way back in 2005, when Sim Wong Hoo announced the declaration of war on Apple (Apple had then just launched the 1st generation iPod shuffle):
We’re expecting a good fight but they’re coming out with something that’s five generations older. It’s our first generation MuVo One product feature, without display, just have a (shuffle feature). We had that — that’s a four-year-old product. So I think the whole industry will just laugh at it, because the flash people — it’s worse than the cheapest Chinese player. Even the cheap, cheap Chinese brand today has display and has FM. They don’t have this kind of thing, and they expect to come out with a fight; I think it’s a non-starter to begin with. [Sim Wong Hoo, 11th Jan 2005]
Looks like he’s forced to eat his words.
From having to exchange the patent rights for “Made-for-iPod” branding rights, to launching the ZEN Stone following the success of Apple’s iPod shuffle, Creative has been forced to swallow humble pie time and again. Perhaps one of the lessons they can learn (and should have learned a long time ago), is that technological prowess is by no means the defining factor in consumer decisions and sales. The one who can best woo the customers in the field wins. And from the company’s performance in this market, it seems that they have either not learned the lesson, or are just unable to compete at the level required.
Perhaps as a result of the dismal returns that their $100million (budget for marketing head-on against Apple) has brought them, they have realigned their strategy of providing the cheaper and just-as-good me-too products. If you can’t fight them, well at least run along?
Current version is also available.
Well it’s finally out! For those of you who weren’t able to be at the Milan Design Fair 2007, both Core77 and designboom has compiled a whole lot of photos of goodness fresh (well, about a month old?) from the Fiera! Even for those fortunate ones among you who were there – I’m sure your legs didn’t carry you enough to see all that the fair has to offer – so here you go:
I used to recall my personal discovery of the mathematical rhythm in nature, and was totally fascinated by how nature embeds specific proportions in its beings. It seemed to be then that if I can master Pi and Phi, I’d probably rule the world, create master pieces in design, and stuff like that.
Well, spirals would be one of the many examples of mathematical proportions at work in nature – and this site has just about every spiral you can imagine! While I’m not exactly sure how that would be of use, it’s still a pretty (literally) good time-gnawer just browsing through the many pictures!
I stumbled across a rather old (dating all the way back to 2005), but still illuminating interview between Motorsportscenter.com and Aston Martin’s Design Director, Henrik Fisker. It’s three pages long, in which he talked quite extensively about the development process of the Aston Martin V8, as well as some other car-design topics, such as his personal favorites, goals and, well, cars in general.
“As soon as you curve a line, you lay that line over a surface, which is curving in another direction, and that line and that surface have to look good from any view when you walk around it. Once you’ve got that, that line will end somewhere, and then what you just designed at the back doesn’t line up with that now, and you have to redesign that to make it line up. There are all these aspects of the sculpture, the graphics, and the actual lines in the car. And then there are the overall proportions. There are so many things that have to come together. And that is why you can do a drawing that looks really good…you can’t turn a drawing around. You draw the perspective, which is one view – which you can make work, as a designer, it is your view – but what you don’t know is what happens when you turn this. That’s when you see it in the three dimensions.”
Anyone going “Ah! That’s exactly what I feel”?
The interview is in three parts: Part1, Part2, Part3
Amidst the usually boring graffiti on Milan’s walls – here’s a witty self-referencing one:
Guy on Left: “Maybe one day we’ll be on that wall”. Guy on Right: “Impossible”.
If you’re designing cell phones, this research presentation by Nokia’s anthropologist Jan Chipchase et al. may come in useful – statistics regarding how people carry their handphones across various cities on the globe are presented clearly and succintly.
A rather effective ad by WWF in China to illustrate the sheer amount of pollution generated in one day by a car – I never imagined it was that much (the Chinese copy on the balloon doesn’t suggest that the amount was produced in one day though the English copy does). Anyway, it’s a promotion of the WWF’s microsite: 20to20.org.
