rights-reserved – Tech Today w/ Ken May

Jaasta: Is This E-Ink Keyboard (Finally) The End For Time-Honored Design Tradition?

There’s a certain respect afforded to the rare designer who has reached the highest levels of keyboard shortcuttery—a masterfulness attained only when the self and the software (be it CAD or Adobe) become one. Whilst effortless key stroke knowledge of a chosen tool can be achieved through years of dedicated daily practice—young devotees required to spend many consecutive days and nights in intimate communion with their keyboards in pursuit of perfection—only true touch typing demi-gods can commit multiple program key combinations to memory, laying down one set and picking up another in the time it takes to switch between screen. This ancient art and time-honored tradition (handed down across generations for millennia decades) could, however, be about to fade into insignificance. Jaasta is a promising customisable E-Ink auxiliary keyboard soon to run the gauntlet of a crowdfunding campaign. Whilst customizable keyboards are really nothing new (see ’05 , ’09 and ’13 ) this challenge to QWERTY conformity— simple and use-case driven in it’s vision; enabled by rapid developments in E-Ink technology—could be the most convincing yet. (more…)

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Jaasta: Is This E-Ink Keyboard (Finally) The End For Time-Honored Design Tradition?

Pforzheim Design Students and Hankook Tire Team Up for Futuristic Wheel Concepts

It’s time again for Hankook Tire’s biennial design school team-up, where they task ID students with developing futuristic tire concepts. Last time ’round they paired up with Cincinnati’s DAAP , and this year they’re at Germany’s University of Design, Engineering and Business in Pforzheim. And once again, not only did the students did not disappoint, but pulled off some real socks-knockers! The central trend is to stop looking at the tire as a rubber cladding for a wheel, and to think of it instead as something that works together with an actively transforming wheel to create some ker-azy functionality. Now maybe I’m biased because I know ID students were involved, but the following video showing the three winning concepts in action is more exciting than any action movie trailer you’ll see: (more…)

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Pforzheim Design Students and Hankook Tire Team Up for Futuristic Wheel Concepts

Autodesk University 2014: The Future of Making Is Here

Local Motors ‘ Strati, the world’s first 3D printed car. Last week, Las Vegas played host to Autodesk University, Autodesk’s annual gathering—part conference, part continuing education—for 9, 000 professional designers, engineers and animators. Below is a summary of some of the big ideas and themes that will be shaping the conversation around making in 2015. It’s alive! Design is a living process that lives past the moment of creation—a key theme for this year’s Autodesk University . From featured speakers and workshop presenters to the company’s CTO and CEO, the message was clear: we are moving swiftly past the Internet of Things, where devices interact with us, toward a broader, more complex and, ultimately, more valuable Community of Things, where products interact with each other and respond collaboratively to the environments in which they exist. Jeff Kowalski, Chief Technology Officer and SVP, Autodesk Hardware is hot, hot, hot. Three elements in the design process and manufacturing are supporting the innovation that will drive this evolution—an evolution that’s not just on the way, it’s already here. First, the advancement of 3D printing, micro-molding, capital and funding options means that production is more flexible and robust than ever before. Second, demand is continuing to grow from “a few sizes fit all” to individual customization (see Normal’s custom-fit ear buds after the jump). And finally, our attitudes towards products are changing. For a variety of reasons—sustainability, cost, our own hyper-individualized mentalities and even our desire to create better communities—we are starting to expect that products will be responsive, change and get better over time. (more…)

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Autodesk University 2014: The Future of Making Is Here

Sitpack and Relax on This Pocketable, Pop-Out Chair-in-a-Tube

Hot on the heel-plate-attachment-points of Noonee’s “Chairless Chair, ” the team at Mono+Mono has launched the ” Sitpack ” on Kickstarter. The Copenhagen-based design consultancy has developed what they’re calling “the world’s most compact, foldable resting device, ” and they’re looking to bring the pocketable monopod to market via a crowdfunding campaign. Designed in keeping with the seven universal design principles, the form factor looks like something made by, say, Beats, but the device itself is actually entirely mechanical: The canister splits laterally into wings (which serve as the seat), revealing a telescoping leg that extends to up to 85cm (33in). We know it’s that time of year, but don’t try this with your kid’s lightsaber toy: Originally known as “Rest”—hence the references in the video—the “Sitpack” is essentially a further reduced version of portable camp stools or those canes with a built-in tripod-stool (both of which I came across in the USPTO archive, after a commenter tipped me off about the original ‘wearable chair’ ), as they indicate in a tabulated side-by-side comparison on their Kickstarter page. They’re available for the discounted price of kr175 DKK (about $30 USD); retail will be in the kr270 DKK ($46 USD) range—not bad, considering that they’re looking to manufacture it in Denmark; see more here . Process sketches & renders The Team (more…)

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Sitpack and Relax on This Pocketable, Pop-Out Chair-in-a-Tube

LumiLor Electroluminescent Coating Has Some Serious Untapped Potential

“Everything can be a lamp with LumiLor, ” writes Darskide Scientific, the company that developed it. LumiLor is a patented coating that glows when a current is applied to it. (And yes, it’s safe to touch, as it’s sealed and insulated.) The brilliance of the system is that since it’s water-based, you can load it up into any paintspraying system or airbrush and you’re off to the races. Here’s how the process is applied: (more…)

Flotspotting: Freddie Paul’s Beer Tree

For most of us consumers, beer is something we buy in bottles and cans, its creation process something of a mystery; we have a vague notion of grains and a fermentation process being involved. Home brewers more firmly understand the science, but much of their alchemy happens inside opaque stainless steel containers, with your average home brewing set-up hewing to the Walter White Meth Lab school of design. So for his final-year design project Freddie Paul , a Product Design student at London’s South Bank University, decided to make the home brewing process more transparent. Literally. Beer Tree is a gravity fed home brewing kit for brewing craft ales. It concentrates on the brewing process as something to be enjoyed and celebrated. The process can be completely visualised from start to finish, involving the user more than traditional kits to create a strong sense of satisfaction and pride over the final product. The video gives you a better sense of what the Beer Tree looks like in action: We’re digging Paul’s use of laser-etched graphics on the control panel, his use of materials and the overall form. One commenter on the video is more critical: “It looks impossible to clean and sanitize, your mash tun will lose so much heat, it looks like you can’t vorlauf” and more brewerspeak. Another commenter is more upbeat: “My close friends and I have all agreed. We would pay good money to own one of these. Seriously consider making a Kickstarter for manufacturing of this product. I would sign up to back you TODAY.” Paul, if you’re reading this: Given that you’ve graduated and we don’t see a current employer on your Coroflot profile, perhaps the crowdsourcing is worth a go? Check out Paul’s shots of the development process after the jump. (more…)

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Flotspotting: Freddie Paul’s Beer Tree

Tesla’s New Dual-Motor, AWD Car Has Autopilot That Reads Speed Limit Signs–and Automatically Sticks to the Limit

Yesterday Tesla Motors held a press event where they announced their new all-wheel-drive models, which hit the road in December. These being electric cars, rather than using a single motor to drive all four wheels, Tesla is simply dropping a second motor into the car; with one up front and one in back, there’s no need for a driveshaft in between and all of those pesky linkages. And these cars will go from 0-60 in an absurd 3.2 seconds, in case you need to smoke a Bugatti. “This car is nuts, ” Tesla skipper Elon Musk told the audience. “It’s like taking off from a carrier deck.” (See video below for the full carrier deck/ Battlestar Galactica -esque “launch sequence.”) Some optimists assumed that at last night’s event, Musk was going to pull the sheets off of a completely self-driving car. While that’s undoubtedly a ways off, the autopilot features announced last night for the new models indicate it’s not as far off in the future as you might think. Using a combination of radar, a camera and a dozen sensors, this is what Tesla’s new models can reportedly do: – The new system will move the car over a lane when the driver uses the turn signal. – The car reads speed-limit signs and adjusts the car to the speed on the sign. – Drivers will be able to get out of the car in their driveways and watch it park itself in the garage. When drivers are ready to leave, the car will able to drive itself up, with the car’s temperature and stereo system set to the driver’s preferences. “It will come to you wherever you are, ” Musk says. “It will slowly make its way to you.” I’m not sure why you’d choose to get out of your car in the driveway rather than in the garage—most architects are thoughtful enough to put a door between the garage and the house—but then again, perhaps Musk is targeting the super-rich owners who live in manses apart from the stables. (more…)

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Tesla’s New Dual-Motor, AWD Car Has Autopilot That Reads Speed Limit Signs–and Automatically Sticks to the Limit

Why Would Walmart Make Continuous 53-Foot-Long Carbon Fiber Panels? For Their Supertruck Prototype

Everyone loves to bash corporations, but few talk about how much good they can do in this world. Their immense fortunes and longevity means they can undertake radical, expensive experiments that smaller outfits simply couldn’t sustain. A good case in point is Walmart and their Advanced Vehicle Experience concept truck . Built earlier this year as a testbed for their fleet efficiency program, it features a 53-foot trailer whose roof and sidewalls are made from single-piece 53-foot-long panels of carbon fiber. This confers a weight savings of some 4, 000 pounds, meaning it can carry an extra 4, 000 in cargo to burn the same amount of fuel, or carry the same weight of cargo as before and save a tremendous amount of fuel. Creating carbon fiber panels of that length is fiendishly expensive, and a company would have to ship a lot of cargo indeed before they’d make their money back on fuel costs. In other words, you’d need a Walmart to do something like this. With 6, 000 trucks crawling our continent and logging millions of miles, the overall, long-term impact would be substantial. (more…)

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Why Would Walmart Make Continuous 53-Foot-Long Carbon Fiber Panels? For Their Supertruck Prototype

Radinn’s Electric Powered Wakeboard Lets You Go Surfing Without the Waves

With the goal of “revolutionizing the watersport industry, ” Swedish company Radinn has released their first product: an electric powered wakeboard . The carbon fiber craft carries onboard lithium batteries and is controlled via a wireless handheld remote, allowing the rider to cruise at up to 30 miles per hour. The coolest thing about having a self-propelled board is that it frees the rider from the beach. With an EPW one could navigate rivers, lakes, public fountains in Stockholm… Want. The 64-pound board’s batteries can provide 30 minutes of runtime. Currently in its final testing stages, it’s expected to go on sale next year. And no, it won’t be cheap, but if you’ve got twenty grand to throw around, you could do a lot worse. (more…)

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Radinn’s Electric Powered Wakeboard Lets You Go Surfing Without the Waves

Insane $2 Million Naturalistic Feature-Packed Swimming Pool

Animal Planet calls Anthony Archer-Willis “the best in the world for what he does—designing and delivering the ultimate swimming experience.” That’s why they gave Archer-Willis, a British landscape architect with a specialization in swimming pool and water garden design, his own show. In ” The Poolmaster , ” he designs dream swimming pools for a handful of lucky clients. While the TV show will reveal Archer-Willis’ own creations, in the following video he shows you his appreciation for another pool designer’s work. An unnamed family in Utah commissioned this absolutely insane, mammoth $2-million-dollar swimming pool, which was designed to look all-natural. With five waterfalls, a grotto, a waterslide, hidden passageways, an integrated indoor kitchen/bathroom/showering facility, a scuba diving practice area and more, this is not the average swimming pool that most of us Americans will be hitting up this holiday weekend. Watch and be amazed: (more…)

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Insane $2 Million Naturalistic Feature-Packed Swimming Pool