Excuse the pun. Who says that advertising can’t help people? This innovative bus stop poster combines creative with functionality as it doubles as a charging station for mobile phones.
Despite Vitamin Water actually have very little to do with technology, the message is beautifully simple. It tells you that the drink will revive, restore and recharge your internal batteries, much like what the poster will do for your phone.
(Source: www.trendhunter.com)
Posted in advertising, baby creative, creative, design, drink, technology, transport
Tagged advertising, billboard, bus, creative, iPhone, technology, transport, vitamin water
We think this is unbelievably cool. In 2008, Emotiv developed the EPOC neuro-headset that allows users to interact with video games using their emotions alone. And now, the company has developed an app called EmoLens that lets one navigate through and tag pictures on Flickr using their emotions as well. What sets Emotiv’s headset apart from similar apparatuses is that it’s for sale to the public — the headset itself costs about £190 ($300) while the EmoLens software goes for £25 ($40).
The EmoLens app distinguishes four separate emotions (happy, sad, anger, fear) to determine how one feels about a certain image on Flickr. The image is tagged by the respective emotion, and once the feeling fades, the app displays another image pertaining to the user’s selected topic. Essentially, the headset allows the user to control Flickr without ever touching the keyboard or mouse, through the use of brain signals and blinking. Watch this video below to see a detailed explanation of how it works. We want one!!
(Souce: Dvice)
Posted in creative, design, home, technology
Tagged creative, emotions, Emotiv, Flickr, science, technology, video games
Isn’t it annoying when you’re in a rush and have to upload something on a memory stick, but you can’t seem to be able to find the right side to insert it? This is one of many little frustrations of every day life.
So how to avoid it? Design a USB port that only has right sides, no wrong, by integrating two contact layers that can slide to make room according to the way you insert it. Why didn’t someone think of that before?
However, is it something that we really need? Yes, it is frustrating, but isn’t showing we are getting lazier, and cannot cope with problems anymore? Even the smallest ones, that are actually more inconviences than actual problems?
(Source: Dvice)
We might appear a bit phone obsessed, as this will be the second post this week about mobile phones, but this is potentially one of the coolest thing we’ve seen this year – there’s probably going to be many more to come. After all, it’s only January.
It’s only at a conceptual stage, and we’re not sure current technological means would allow such a phone to be produced yet, especially for it to be sold at a somewhat reasonable price. But if it was to be, one day, I guess we could kiss bye bye to the iPhone, because the Line Phone, as it’s called, beats it in terms of design and interactivity. As opposed to any touch-screen phone you’d be able to find on the market today, this one doesn’t restrict the tactile control to the screen: the sides of the phone are also used as controllers, and no buttons involved, and that’s not all. Putting the phones next to each other would allow sharing to be very easy, just slide files from one to another, and… transfer complete!
They can also turn into some sort of a screen to play video games. However, why would you own 6 of these phones so that you can play games or watch a movie? That we don’t really get though. Why not just get a screen?
But the fact is if this phone was to be, it would be a killer.
Watch the video to see what the future might hold for us.
(Source: TNW)
The iPhone seems to have become the Holy Grail of technology. People have queued all night to get their hands on the iPhone 4, half of the people in a tube carriage will have one in hand, the App’ Store grows bigger every day, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to be dethroned anytime soon.
However, as popular as the iPhone might be in the Western world, it is far from being the best selling phone in the world. So who’s beaten it? The Nokia 1100 with 250 million people having one worldwide, whereas the iPhone has sold an ‘unimpressive’ 75 million.
The Nokia 1100 is far from being as fancy as the iPhone: black and white screen, real buttons to press (rather than stroking the oh so fragile screen of the iPhone), and no Apps! It pretty much looks like the old Nokia phones we remember as our first mobile phones.
It has become a must have in third world countries, and is being used to raise awareness of HIV and other disease through texts, which we think is a great and clever initiative.
This is the sort of findings that make us reconsider our fancy lifestyle and how it impacts on our way of thinking. As Alissa Walker (source of this article) says:
For anything to truly be impactful on a global scale, it’s definitely not going to be an app.
Yes, Apps won’t save the world.
(Source: good.is)
We don’t really get the current tablet frenzy. We see iPads everywhere, and yes, they do look pretty good, but what’s wrong with a good old laptop or notebook? Some of them are just about the same size…
But entering the market soon is BlackBerry with their PlayBook, and well… to compete with the iPad, better have something good in stock, right? Good thing is, it looks like they do.
Not only is it the first professional tablet, but it’s also the fastest one to date, and features an HDMI port, a good news for all the game lovers out there, as it means a higher-quality and more immersive platform.
For the Blackberry afficionados, gaming is probably not the principal need this tablet will have to satisfy, but not to worry, BlackBerry didn’t lose their ‘professional’ mojo. The device allows multi-tasking, plenty of applications, and all the traditional goodies BlackBerry devices offer. It also has 2 cameras (one at the front, one at the back) which allow for conference calls between BlackBerry devices: making it an improved version of BlackBerry Messenger.
And as for its look? Well, it pretty much resembles all the other tablets on the market: it’s black and square.
(Source: TheCoolist)
We’ve just come across something amazing! We can’t believe no-one ever thought of it before.
The Solaris Sun Shading System is no traditional sunshade: it is multi-functional, looks great, and it is eco-friendly, and that, we particularly like.
The umbrella is made of solar panels, using the light it shields you from to generate energy. It features 3 power sockets, rechargeable battery pack, and a power indicator. Workaholics and geeks will no longer be stuck indoors during summer holidays.
We also love the way it looks, we all know that solar panels are not always very appealing to the eye. And well… it protects the environment. For once, we don’t even have one little negative comment to add.
It just makes us a bit sad as we so wished summer was back!
(Source: My Modern Met)
Posted in creative, design, environment, green
Tagged creative, design, ecological, environment, green, Solar panels, technology
Electrolux Design Lab held a competition, asking 1,300 industrial designers to come up with the electrical appliances of the future. On the brief, they stated that by 2050, a person, on average, would only have 35.2 square meters to occupy. Let’s face it, that’s not a lot of space. It scares us a little bit. So the appliance had to be designed not only to be uber high-tech and potentially eco-friendly, but also to be very small.
Here are a few of our favourite ones:
Michael Edenius’ Clean Closet
Not only does it easily store and browse your clothes, it also cleans them using molecular technology. This is the end of water wastes and polluting detergent, hooray! We’re just a bit concerned about its size. It is definitely not taking much space, conforming to the requirements of the brief. But that also means that it doesn’t leave much space for the clothes themselves!
Matthew Gilbride’s Kitchen Elements
It’s an all in one kitchen, literally. These shelves are simply magical. They work as a fridge, a cooker, and… well, shelves. The best part? No doors and no wires, and they could even be solar powered. The whole white and minimal look will definitely appeal to the Apple fans.
Nicolas Hubert – External Refrigerator
At first view, it doesn’t really look like it would save any space. It’s pretty much the same size as current fridges. But it’s actually meant to be fixed outside a window. The sliding door makes it easy to access. It’s also good because it means at winter, it won’t need to run on power, and during summer, the heat generated can just draft away.
Ahi Andy Mohsen’s Eco Celaner – portable Dishwasher
It is, for sure, very portable. But most importantly, just like the Clean Closet, it is water-free, as it uses ultrasonic waves. What’s even better, it turns the food into reusable waste. Eco-friendly. Period.
We are so impressed by the ideas that have come out of this competition. Especially as we like when people focus on more than just looks, which tends to be the case far too often at the moment. Check out the other finalists on the website: there’s a virtual kitchen, a gooey fridge, a micro induction heater and a very strange washing machine.
(Source: Wired)
Posted in creative, design, environment, green, home
Tagged creative, design, ecological, environment, green, renewable, technology
If you have walked past Trafalgar Square this past week end, you have probably noticed the robot invasion. The installation by Clemens Weisshaar and Reed Kram is called Outrace, and is part of the London Design Festival. It will occupy Trafalgar Square for another 3 days.
The machines come all the way from an Audi factory in Germany, where they normally glue and weld car parts together. But the two designers have hijacked the machines to turn them into light-writers. By accessing the Outrace website via a computer or mobile device, people can send messages to be drawn by the machines.
The movements of their ‘heads’ draw letters, which are captured by long exposure cameras, as the robots are adorned with lights. The message then appears on Trafalgar Square, but is also sent to the sender to publish on Facebook. The impact of the installation is then not restricted to the physical location of the machines, but is also transmitted worldwide using social media. And it looks pretty cool.
The sight of those machines is part beautiful, part scary: they sort of look like they are dancing, but their movements are also so quick that they remind us of those robots going all crazy and homicidal in sci-fi movies.
We are going to try to light-write something. If we manage to get a slot, we shall post the result here.
(Source: FT and Coolhunter)
This campaign amazes us for two reasons.
First of all, this is a brilliant product! This radio station, Magic FM, uses a special frequency that kills mosquitoes. So goodbye hunting them down with horribly smelly insecticides. Hello to peace of mind, knowing you can enjoy some tunes without a ‘zzzzzz’ ruining it for you.
The campaign itself is also pretty cool. It’s simple and easy on the eye. And the conversation between the mosquito and the radio, using references to some classic songs is clever and amusing.
Unfortunately for us, this is a Romanian station. And we’re not really sure it works online. Their website, where it explains it all, is in Romanian, so it’s all gibberish to us. And it only works on mosquitoes. What about all those others flying and crawling creatures?
(Source: Ads of the World)
Posted in advertising, creative, home
Tagged advertising, creative, mosquitoes, radio, technology
