Gizmag: Good Thinking

The award-winning PUYL for cyclists combines a light with a pump

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 10:19:52 +1100

Most cyclists would agree that the two most likely things to forget after heading out on a journey are a light and a tire pump. It would make perfect sense, then, to combine the two into one handy accessory, which is exactly what designer Kai Malte Roever has done with the “PUYL”. The bonus is that when you pump up your tires, you're also charging the LED light...

Tags: Bike, Concept, Cyclist, Environmental, Prototype

Related Articles:

Take a stroll through virtual reality on the CyberWalk omni-directional treadmill

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:02:06 +1100

Jogging on the spot has gone high tech thanks to an omni-directional treadmill that allows you to walk in any direction while staying centered on the treadmill. When coupled with virtual reality (VR) technology it offers the potential for truly natural walking and immersion in virtual environments...

Tags: motion, Prototype, Treadmill, Virtual Reality

Related Articles:

Douwe Egbert’s BeMoved: are you prepared to dance for your coffee?

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:25:18 +1100

You might rely on your morning or afternoon coffee fix from the office machine to get you through the day, but are you willing to dance or jump for it? You may have to, if the "BeMoved" coffee machine concept from Douwe Egbert takes off. This machine may well be the world’s first coffee machine that is operated by movement alone. Yep, looks like you are going to expend some energy in order to get your morning hit...

Tags: Coffee, Office

Related Articles:

Local libraries to offer free eBook rentals

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 11:03:24 +1100

It would come as no surprise to hear that your typical local library isn’t exactly a hive of activity these days. The availability of information online and swathes of technology capable of distracting us during quieter times has seen memberships declining. But a scheme designed to embrace modern alternatives to the weighty tome could breathe new life back into the service. Taking a leaf from Amazon’s book, if you’ll pardon the pun, select local libraries in the UK are now subsidizing conventional methods by offering eBook rentals online. ..

Tags: Amazon, EBook, Electronic reader, Kindle

Related Articles:

Energy generating Murakami rocking chair powers its own light source

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 11:01:45 +1000

Not long ago you could retire to your favorite rocking chair after a hearty evening meal and read a good book or catch up on the day’s news. But now with global warming and energy consumption going through the roof, who can relax? Thank goodness for the Murakami Chair – a rocking chair that generates enough power through its rocking motion to power its own reading lamp. ..

Tags: Chair, Kinetic energy, Murakami, OLED, Rocking

Related Articles:

Research highlights environmentally friendly nature of digital music distribution

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 08:25:28 +1000

Despite the music industry being relatively slow to catch on to the fact that accessing music online is clearly the way forwards, the phasing out of DRM and appearance of innovative new services that offer consumers more choice, convenience and easy access to tunes, suggests that things are finally falling into place. One area that is often omitted when discussing the pros and cons of online is the environment, and it stands to reason that there would be a noticeable impact when you remove the cost of both printing CDs and delivering them to the consumer. ..

Tags: Delivery, Disc, environment, Internet, Music, Streaming

Related Articles:

Virtual cop ‘Officer Garcia’ helps dispense blind justice

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 13:26:50 +1000

DNA testing in recent years has resulted in many wrongly-accused citizens being exonerated of crimes they didn’t commit. For example, investigations conducted by the Innocence Project, an organization started in New York City, led to the exoneration of more than 220 citizens convicted of serious felonies. An analysis of the first 130 exonerated revealed that mistaken eyewitness identification was a contributing factor in 101 (77 percent) of those cases. It is believed that many cases of mistaken identity are caused by police inadvertently influencing eyewitnesses as they look through photo-arrays, searching for the perpetrators. Enter ‘Officer Garcia’ – an impartial virtual detective who guides witnesses through the identification process without the risk of imparting any influence...

Tags: Avatar, Daugherty, Eyewitness, Identification, Officer, Photo, Photoarrays, University of North Carolina, Witness

Related Articles:

Intel Point-of-Sale by Frog Design: How shopping should be

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 10:16:21 +1000

Internet shopping is a true marvel of the modern age. Not only does it open up whole new worlds of temptation but it can also save you money. And it does away with annoying or incompetent sales personnel. Despite all of its benefits, buying online is somewhat lacking in one important area - you can't try before you buy, something particularly important when shopping for your clothes. However, with the Point-Of-Sale kiosk concept from Intel, the two experiences might at last find common ground to become the much-needed savior of High Street shopping...

Tags: Concept, Intel, Kiosk, Online, Point-of-sale, Retail, Shopping, Smart

Related Articles:

Cocoon meat and fish 'maker' wins Electrolux Design Lab 2009

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 08:24:08 +1000

A conceptual cooker that “makes” meat and fish has taken out first prize in the Electrolux Design Lab 2009 competition. Cocoon uses radio frequency identification (RFID) signals to identify muscle cells in meat and fish dishes and "grow" food in a process described as being similar to making popcorn in a microwave. ..

Tags: Design, Electrolux, food

Related Articles:

Become a human packhorse with the Yoke Shopper

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 17:33:12 +1000

As a manly man who will eschew a shopping trolley in favor of carting a multitude of plastic shopping bags (on the rare occasion I forget my more environmentally friendly cloth bag, mind you) to the car - only to find I don’t have the third hand required to find my keys and open the boot - I would probably be the perfect candidate for the Yoke Shopper. This ingeniously simple device allows shoppers to lock together a number of plastic shopping bags and carry them on a shoulder...

Tags: Bags, Design, Ergonomic, Shopping, Shoulder, Yoke

Related Articles:

2009 BraunPrize shines a light on young design talent

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 02:52:52 +1000

Young German designer Johanna Schoemaker was last night awarded the prestigious International BraunPrize during a ceremony at the company's headquarters in Kronberg. Schoemaker's elegant Clam OLED Lamp was among four worthy designs shortlisted by the jury from a field of more than 1000 entries from 54 countries...

Tags: Braun, Design, Lighting, OLED

Related Articles:

The cheapest iPhone dock available

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 22:20:08 +1000

Spent all your money just getting your hands on an iPhone or iPod touch and can’t afford a whiz-bang dock or stand to go with it? Well there’s no need to leave your beloved device simply lying about like so much deskbound flotsam and jetsam any longer, because French industrial designer Julien Madérou has come up with a stand that won’t set you back any more than the cost of a sheet of paper...

Tags: Cheap, Dock, iPhone, iPod, MadÃ©rou, Paper, Template

Related Articles:

Smart Grid City now online

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 09:18:20 +1000

Boulder, Colorado has just become the world's first city to benefit from an intelligent power supply monitoring system. The Smart Grid City system aims to make outages easier to predict and/or prevent, manage power flow throughout the infrastructure and give customers greater access to energy information and more control over how much they use. Xcel Energy constantly monitors the grid network for any irregularities, allowing the company to fix problems before they happen...

Tags: Boulder, City, Grid, Infrastructure, Monitoring, Network, Power, Smart, Xcel

Related Articles:

Steel 'Velcro' supports 35 metric tons, looks scary

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 11:02:37 +1000

A new material called Metaklett is like hook-and-loop (“Velcro”) made out of steel and much scarier. One side of the material bristles with sharp spikes and the other side has jagged steel brushes. Looking something like the mouth of a prehistoric shark, a square meter of Metaklett can support up to 35 metric tons and withstand heat of up to 800 degrees Celsius. Developed at the Technical University of Munich, Germany, researchers borrowed from the traditional hook-and-loop concept to design a fastener for extreme loads and environments such as automotive, building, or military applications...

Tags: Fastener, Hook-and-loop, Metaklett, Steel, Velcro

Related Articles:

Phase change materials for the perfect cup of coffee

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 10:02:00 +1000

You know how it is … you make or buy that perfect cup of coffee or tea only to have it go cold before you’ve finished because the phone rang or your boss interrupted your break with some urgent assignment. Well, there’s great news for coffee-lovers (and tea connoisseurs). Two German scientists have put their heads together to come up with a hot drink receptacle that keeps your beverage at the perfect drinking temperature for up to 30 minutes. ..

Tags: Beer, Coffee, Drinking, Fraunhofer, Phase change material, Temperature

Related Articles:

Transforming Fotel armchair rocks

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 14:46:09 +1000

Nothing is more relaxing than the gentle action of a rocking chair, but what is exciting about this one is not just its contemporary look, but that it will convert to a comfortable armchair in about 20 seconds. Perfect for meditating on the veranda just like grandma, or catching a quick snooze in the office. ..

Tags: Carbon, Chair, Convertible, Design, Gizmag, Office

Related Articles:

Stem Glass Tray - the wine-drinker's palette

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 17:09:06 +1000

From the category of “why didn’t I think of that?” comes the stem glass tray – a clever item for waiters (and heavy drinkers) that makes carrying up to eight wine glasses so much easier. It’s basically a tray with little holes in which you place the wine glass stems and a ninth hole for your thumb...

Tags: Glass, Glasses, Tray, Waiters, Wine

Related Articles:

NASA and Goodyear develop puncture proof tire for the 21st Century

Sun, 16 Aug 2009 19:31:15 +1000

It looks like seventies science fiction television is (finally) going to meet reality with NASA planning to set up a real Moonbase Alpha by 2020. In order to meet the heavy load/long range transport requirements of life on the moon, NASA recently teamed up with Goodyear to review and redesign some 40-year-old technology in the shape of the airless tires first seen on the Lunar Rover Vehicles of Apollo missions...

Tags: Design, Lunar, Moon, NASA, Research, Rover, Terrain, Tires, Traction, Transport, Wheel

Related Articles:

From AAA to D: the one-size-fits-all rechargeable battery concept

Tue, 04 Aug 2009 09:52:06 +1000

People think deeply about everything, even batteries. Comedian Demetri Martin, for example, decided the reason there’s no B-Battery is because it’d sound like you had a stutter asking for one. A group of Korean designers, on the other hand, has decided what the world really needs is a rechargeable nickel hydroxide battery that, thanks to a memory foam casing, can squeeze down to fit any size from AAA to D. ..

Tags: AtoD battery, Batteries, Concept, Memory foam, Rechargeable battery

Related Articles:

South African bank arms ATMs with pepper spray, blinds employees

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 16:24:05 +1000

Who’d want to work for a bank in South Africa? If violent attacks on ATMs weren’t enough – more than 500 were bombed last year – then the ATMs themselves start turning on you. In a desperate attempt to stem the growing tide of crime, Absa Bank fitted pepper spray to 11 cash machines in Western Cape, a popular tourist area. But, so far, the spray has only prevented three maintenance workers from doing their jobs...

Tags: Absa Bank, ATM, Pepper spray, Security

Related Articles:

Interpreting sign language is just the beginning for the AcceleGlove open source dataglove

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 19:00:05 +1000

After years in the making, the AcceleGlove open source data glove is now available for purchase. Originally designed for use as an automated American Sign Language (ASL) interpreter, the AcceleGlove can also be used for a host of other applications thanks to its open source Software Development Kit (SDK). Developers and hobbyists alike can adapt the glove for use in assistive technology, rehabilitation, robotics, video gaming, virtual reality or a computing input device to name a few...

Tags: ASL, Cochlear, Haptics, Input Device, Open Source, Sensors

Related Articles:

Routers of the future... maybe

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 18:31:58 +1000

There are exceptions, but for the most part routers are decidedly unglamorous, which is why they are generally secreted away under a desk or otherwise hidden from view. With the Internet now so much a part of daily life they are almost invisible. So long as their lights keep flashing to provide us with our Internet fix we don’t even notice them. Now the UK’s largest broadband provider, TalkTalk, has asked Goldsmiths, University of London to give the humble router a face-lift with their vision of what the routers of the future might look like – and they’re probably not what you expected. ..

Tags: Clock, Concept, Design, Ethernet, furniture, Internet, Wireless

Related Articles:

BeerPaq CarboPouch looks odd, keeps beer fresh

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 10:46:27 +1000

There’s nothing like kicking back with a cold bottle of beer on, well, any day really. But if Beverage Pouch Group LLC has its way, you may soon be sipping your favorite artisanal ale from a plastic pouch. The BeerPaQ CarboPouch line of beverage packs looks like something astronauts might use to pack their brewskies on the International Space Station, but the manufacturer says they are an ideal container for small craft breweries and micro brewers...

Tags: Beer, Beverage, packaging

Related Articles:

Google Chrome OS - coming soon to a netbook near you

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 16:20:21 +1000

After a gestation period of nine months, Google Chrome is about to have a baby. The father (Google) has announced that it is gearing up to launch a new open source, lightweight operating system. Aimed initially at the netbook sector, Google is working with the likes of Acer, Hewlett-Packard and Lenovo to bring the system to market in the second half of 2010...

Tags: Google, Internet, Linux, Netbook, Open Source, Operating system, Security, System

Related Articles:

Prototype system enables the visually impaired to ‘see’ the world with sound

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 21:35:29 +1000

If you’re lucky enough to have perfect eye sight, it is incredibly difficult to imagine what the world is like for a visually impaired person. There have been some astounding breakthroughs in the development of new technologies to assist the blind which aim to replicate the function of the eye, but this project takes a totally different approach. The Cognitive Aid System for Blind People (CASBLiP) uses lasers and digital video images to create a three-dimensional acoustic map which, when relayed through headphones, enables users to "see" the world with sound...

Tags: Blind, Research

Related Articles: