Sometimes I fantasize about living off the grid (how I’ll ever get by without my laptop really is a fantasy if you ask me)… but the dream is always shattered when I start thinking about practical things, like light. Where will my light come from after dark, because I’m not buying a year supply of candles or kerosene. Leave it up to the fine folks at Inhabitat.com to come up with the perfect answer.
The bamboo flow lights are a self-sustaining public lighting solution that is based on the principle of vertical wind power plants. Not only are they beautiful but they can catch the wind from any directions. In addition it is made entirely from bamboo (an abundant, sustainable and renewable resource) and recyclable electronic components (LEDs, wires and dynamo).
Initially designed for the coastal areas in Columbia, where they can’t get connected to the grid, this design is about to be tested in several other places. So keep your eyes open as these could be popping up in a city near you.
It seems like everywhere I look every gadget/tech related blog is talking only about the iPad (including this one!). I’ve never been much of one to follow the group so I’m just gonna post whatever I wanna post (and it’s not because I’m resentful of the fact that I don’t have an iPad yet… no really, it’s not).
I found some cool nerdy design related stuff I’m going to post about instead. First, ceramic tiles modeled off the old school 3 1/2 inch floppy disks.
Designed by Australian design firm ENESS, these tiles are sadly not for sale. Though if they were they would totally corner the computer nerd market. I can already envision my kitchen countertops, or possibly the top surface area of what was previously a normal computer desk. If you know someone who can make ceramics these wouldn’t be hard to do. I think I still have a 3 1/2 inch floppy tucked away somewhere that could be used as a mold (no idea what is on it but some things just have sentimental value, you know?).
Second is a modular floor covering concept from Kyoto based design student Shin Yamashita and unfortunately titled “The Land Peel”…
Made out of an insulating material, this floor covering converts into furniture. Need a seat and a TV tray to watch that next episode of Fringe while eating dinner, you say? No Problem!
Would you like to face east while working on your laptop today, but make it face west tomorrow? You can do that too.
I can see how this type of thing would go over well in Japan. I probably would have preferred this type of thing in my shoebox apartment as opposed to the table that came out of the wall and desk that couldn’t be moved along with the most uncomfortable chairs possibly in existence. And it looks like it can be totally customized as to size and shape. Here in the States I don’t see it garnering much popularity except possibly in children’s game rooms or daycare centers. But maybe I’m just not using my imagination.
What would make it much cooler would be to make it out of actual tatami mat material. Lose the gray with the primary colored accents. But what I really want to know is where did they get that tiny lamp?
These days every small thing I can do to eliminate waste is of interest to me. One of the few things that really get on my nerves are batteries. Rechargeable are great, but they are still toxic. And E-waste is getting to be a bigger and bigger problem. So when I saw Adele Peters’ Corky mouse I got pretty excited.
It’s one of 18 finalists in this year’s Greener Gadgets Design Competition. The mouse uses kinetic energy to power it and is also made from 100% recycled plastic components and recycled and biodegradable cork. The Corky mouse uses piezoelectricity to generate energy every time you click, use the scroll wheel, or even move it around.
Plans for the mouse include regional sourcing and assembly, product take-back and recycling, and disassembly data will be easily accessible for recycling centers. So this mouse seems all around to be a more sustainable option. And cork feels nice, doesn’t it? Much nicer than plastic any day.
After watching the series finale of Dollhouse (which made me very sad and also a firm believer that Joss Whedon should finally give the Fox Network a huge middle finger) I found this little treasure, which to me would be exactly the kind of tech that would belong in such a dystopian future.
A grenade shaped USB drive!
It’s tiny and malicious looking, and perfect for the nerdy rebel in me that fantasizes about overthrowing the current corporate paradigm that would allow such destructive tech loose on the planet in order to mind control the populace.
Wait. Sorry. Did I get carried away? Man that show was good.
But back to reality here.
Seriously though. Grenade shaped USB drives that can hold up to 8GB of your most important data. I’m sure Topher Brink would approve.
I’ve always thought the MacBook built in speakers were pretty good, considering. But as we all know they lack oomph. Those tiny speakers just can’t produce those long waveforms we like to call bass. So as I sit here and listen to the latest Marbert Rocel through my MacBook speakers (because AirTunes is a consistent disappointment and it saddens me to sit here at look at my lovely Klipsch speakers just sitting there, silent) I remember seeing a GadgetLab post that could solve my issue. The BassJump Subwoofer.
All it requires is access to a USB port and the installation of a preference pane and BAM! You have BASS!
So whether you are sitting around the apartment listening to the latest Massive Attack while writing macabre short stories (like me), or surfing the internet while taking a trip down memory lane with The Pharcyde’s Bizarre Ride II (also like me), you won’t be missing out on half of what makes both of those album’s great, i.e. the bass-line.
With everything being about touch screens lately it only makes sense that eventually the problem of using gloves would come up. It’s cold outside, you’re wearing gloves, your iPhone rings, and you have to take the gloves off to answer it because otherwise the screen won’t register the change in capacitance between the screen and your finger in order to execute the command you are trying to give it.
See, that’s how touch screens work. The human body is a conductor of electric current, and when you touch the screen of a capacitive touch screen device it detects the distortion of the electrostatic field (apologies to those of you who know this already, but I’ve found myself explaining it to several of my friends recently who have iPhones but know nothing about how they work).
I’ve heard there are special gloves on the market that you can use to solve this problem. But why purchase a whole new set of gloves (expensive ones probably) when yours are just dandy?
There is a solution. A really really CHEAP solution, that takes just the tiniest bit of DIY spirit.
There is a whole how-to article on Instructables.com, so I won’t go through the steps here. But the gist of it is that you sew a little conductive thread (yes, there is such a thing) into the tips of the fingers of your gloves. It completes a circuit with your flesh and blood finger, and viola! You can now use your touch screens without taking off your gloves.
Now go and check out all the other fun stuff you can do with conductive threads, you crafty DIY nerds you!
Also, if you don’t want to order a whole spool of thread, you can order just a few feet of it from here
With my return to GadgetMETER (after a several week winter vacation from blogging) I thought I’d start my blog year off with some super high-tech future gadgetry. The International Robot Exhibition was held back in November. Among the exhibits was the NAO next generation humanoid robot.
Created by Alderbaran Robotics, this 23-inch tall robot has a full range of motion that allows it to walk, pick up small objects and process audio and visual data to navigate it’s way around. Also, it’s cute. Not incredibly useful, yet, but really really cute.
And it’s not even Japanese, it’s French. Color me surprised.
Here’s a little video of it in action:
Before you start thinking “oh, how underwhelming“, stop and think about how far we’ve come. It’s only the beginning (or beginning of the middle, maybe).
Anything with “cyberglove” in the title is going to have serious cool potential in my book. The robotic hand can be operated remotely by a human wearing the sensor glove to perform actions as delicate as cradling an egg, changing a lightbulb or writing with a pen.
Maybe it doesn’t have a lot of consumer applications, but how cool would it be to have “Remote robotics operator” as your job title?
Via dvice.com
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