schulze and webb’s availabot is an ambient reminder of whether your friend is logged in to chat. it’s a good idea to take non-essential functions off your computer desktop, but it’s too bad you have to connect the doll via USB and keep it on your physical desktop. i’ve always imagined a set of dolls […]
Author Archives: leo
voodoo chat
Posted in evil robots, livingbreathing, possessed products, surveillance, tangible, visualization
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snug-fab
mass customization is only slowly gaining ground in industries such as automobiles, and usually only with cosmetic choices like the color of seats. a number of shoe manufacturers have interfaces for customers to select colors and styles, but use standard forms that compromise fit. unfortunately not all countries have craftspeople cabable of custom shoe-making, in […]
Posted in 3d, fabrication, futurecraft, marketing, product design
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light prophet
if art can predict culture, then design foreshadows technology – the ingo maurer retrospective at the cooper-hewitt is an astonishing exhibit. time and time again the genius better know for winged bulbs impresses with his use of technology for design. he was among the first to use low-voltage halogens hung from uninsulated cables suspended wall-to-wall […]
Posted in futurecraft, product design, soft/glowing
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improvisation
open-source design promises a lot of invention but has trouble motivating a lot of people to contribute design work. but one kind of distributed design is flourishing: improvised explosive devices, which are the most effective tool against the american military in iraq. () one video demonstrates the user experience:
Posted in customization, futurecraft, guerilla, open objects, possessed products
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patronizing design
apple fans seem to enjoy design that limits choices, requires new skills and costs a lot. but my problem with apple isn’t just because they are unabashedly unfriendly to the environment. the most significant things you can do to reduce environmental impact are to allow for easy upgrades, repair and to encourage long product life […]
Posted in conviviality, marketing, product design
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paperCAD
papercraft is the most versatile personal fabrication system: all you need is a printer, scissors and glue. now there’s a CAD for papercraft called pepakura that unfolds any three-dimensional model, adds the tabs and prepares the pattern to be printed on an A4 sheet of paper. Using tyvek or felt you can even make durable, […]
Posted in customization, fabrication, futurecraft, product design
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digital dwelling
i visited moishe safdie’s habitat yesterday, a 40-year-old futurist masterpiece that was a lot more exciting to walk through than a lot of crazy buildings. this dated vision of the future is still inhabited, in fact renovated, and it makes the point that you can design for customization in architecture: you’ll hardly notice all of […]
Posted in architecture, conviviality, customization
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light-bombs
no matter what anyone may think LEDs do not make something a bomb and bombs usually don’t have little lights on them anyways
Posted in soft/glowing
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