hyperpump

By leo | Published: January 13, 2007

superpump

the ovation ix is a new gas pump that allows users to be ‘more productive’ while pumping gas by watching advertisements, receiving coupons and even buying music for download. now given that gasoline in general (and pumping gas) are a waste of time, it is easy to be more productive – but does downloading music make it so? here is the new mission of this blog: we live in hyper-reality, and it’s our job to make good use of all that extra reality. rather than making customers pay for paying, why not reward them with content they might desire while they’re busy inhaling fumes?

via wired

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softronics

By leo | Published: January 3, 2007
soft typewriter by claes oldenburg

flexible batteries, flexible displays, flexible solar panels, electronic fabric, it seems like something is brewing… are electronics meant to creep out of their plastic boxes and become soft, supple, wearable, and flexible? something like this was foreshadowed years ago by claes oldenburg who made this soft typewriter (above) in 1963 along with a series of soft electronics. and along with my mantra that in the future everything will be soft and glow there have been multiple proposals for at least softening the hard shell of consumer products from televisions (left, a vintage ‘soft body’ television by cesare casati and emannuele ponzio) to sinks (right, a soft sink by hella jongerius).

soft objects.jpg

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beer bricks

By leo | Published: December 28, 2006

beer bricks by john habraken

in 1961 john habraken designed the WOrld BOttle: a new beer bottle for heineken that upcycles into a building material, turning an often-disposed and hard-to-recycle product into an empowering tool for do-it-yourself home building.

Posted in open objects, possessed products, product design, upcycling | Comments closed

green gadgets

By leo | Published: December 21, 2006

greenpeace-green-guide-to-electronics

some of the problems i had trying to find out the environmental impact of consumer electronics are 1) different guides exist that rely on different standards 2) the companies make misleading declarations and seem to be actively removing information about their processes and 3) few alternatives exist – all electronics are made of the same chips, board and casings.

greenpeace publishes a yearly guide to greener electronics, the epa has the epeat searchable product registry, british ethiscore ranks all kinds of products on a broader ethical scale, and litegreen is an on-line shopping portal that filters out bad companies.

according to one mit study, this what it takes to make a tiny 2-gram microchip:

microchip fabrication materials
Posted in possessed products, product design, visualization | Comments closed

creation story

By leo | Published: December 18, 2006

how stuff is made

natalie jeremijenko started a wiki called how stuff is made to tell the story of how various products are made, from wine bottles and american flags to colombian flowers (above). the anemic collection requires people to submit manufacturing processes to wikipedia, providing that the manufacturers are proud enough to reveal their standards.

Posted in open objects, possessed products, product design, visualization | Comments closed

blight sight

By leo | Published: December 8, 2006

object orange
object orange is a guerrilla art project that paints abandaned homes in the detroit area bright orange to highlight the blight – a kind of urban highlighter. so far four of the eleven painted homes have been demolished.
some beautiful images are with one of the artists, paul kotula
documentary on youtube
via wooster

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compact disc = expansive life cycle

By leo | Published: December 7, 2006

life cycle of a cd

the epa published this poster to show the complex processes involved in the production of compact discs – a process that’s especially costly when compared with the environmental cost of downloading music digitally

via treehugger

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traffic art

By leo | Published: December 6, 2006

guerilla public service

richard ankron makes guerilla public service art like this improvement to a sign on the freeway in LA which has been up for 5 years

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