with the recent introduction of consumer electronics targeted to the developing world, a considerable amount of innovation has gone into making low-cost displays that work in sunlight and consume less energy. i spotted these two prototypes at SIGGRAPH today: the dual-mode reflective/emissive LCD in OLPC’s XO hundred-dollar laptop (above) and electronic ink in motorola’s F3 […]
Category Archives: product design
meticulous models
for years computer modeling has been a technical pursuit, much like drafting once was, without the artistic merit of its tangible counterparts. that’s why i find frederick wessler‘s work interesting: he carefully crafts computer models of objects that have a particular significance to him, such as his father’s wrench or this medical kit (above) and […]
Also posted in 3d, fabrication, futurecraft, visualization
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toddler tangibles
for only $30 fisher price sells the easy link internet launch pad, a tangible gateway to the internet that replaces the keyboard with a physical token-based, limited gaming interface to specialized webpages on their home site. for decades now tangible interaction through physical tokens has been proposed as a way to, among other things, make […]
Also posted in marketing, possessed products, surveillance, tangible
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smokeless stove
philips is field-testing a healthier and more efficient wood-burning stove for the developing world. it works by forcing air into the combustion chamber with an electric fan, making it burn hotter and a third more efficiently while producing less of the toxic smoke responsible for as many as 1.6 million deaths a year (one tenth […]
Also posted in conviviality, fabrication, open objects
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war weave
while reading enlisting madison avenue: the marketing approach to earning popular support in theaters of operation (a handbook for ‘shaping’ the opinion of ‘indigenous’ populations in US-occupied countries) via chris c, i came across many failures and few successes. one of the biggest problems in US propaganda efforts is that many ‘shaping’ attempts find their […]
Also posted in blogogracy, fabrication, futurecraft, marketing, soft/glowing, visualization
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sew local
the 100-mile suit is an attempt to build some of our simplest products – clothes – with only local resources. it was a 92% successful undertaking, with only the thread and soles of the shoes imported from elsewhere. it’s an impressively difficult task, if you think about it, and what is the point? well, the […]
Also posted in conviviality, fabrication, possessed products, soft/glowing
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fragrant upcycling
since many people have shown interest in john habraken’s wobo beer bottle bricks and up-cyling in general, i thought i would bring up yet another example: my favorite architects’ (lot-ek) 1994 chromo-lamps, crafted from discarded detergent bottles found on the streets of new york. both the quasi-lamp (top) and omni-lamp (bottom) are painstakingly assembled by […]
Also posted in fabrication, open objects, soft/glowing, upcycling
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design for humans
one of the concepts RAZR-designer marco susani expressed in the design intelligence conference that stuck with me for the past three years was ‘why do something with one hand when you can do it with two?‘ and so he designed a series of kitchen appliances with thin lips that forced a ceremonious handling rather than […]
Posted in product design
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