Italian fashion designer Francesca Castagnacci’s bold new project called “bright fashion” weaves and integrates LED-powered fiber optics into accessory fabrics. Here is an example of the fashion statement instituted in a high heel shoe. The result is an illuminated radiance that will surely catch the eye of modern trendsetters. Each fiber optic wire is as thin as a human hair and requires an LED at either end to light up. Ladies, interested? Look in the gallery below for additional shots of this truly cutting-edge design.
In an attempt to promote their laptop line, Toshiba imagined a new marketing campaign focusing on a character named Gary. In the extended commercial, lab assistant Gary gets “deresolutionized” into glorious 8-bit form after journeying inside the 8-Bitinator 2000. The best part of the commercial is the fact the 8-bit costume is not a CGI animation; it’s a suit made from over 3,000 hand-cut foam boxes. After a viewing I find myself pining for an 8-bit version of myself; a Toshiba laptop–not so much.
MIT Lab’s Jamie Zigelbaum, Adam Kumpf, Alejandro Vazquez, and Hiroshi Ishii have come up with one of the most brilliant ideas I have ever seen. It’s one of those things you dream about or see in movies and think this will never exist in real life. Well it’s real alright, it’s called Slurp, and it works like this:
Slurp is tangible interface for manipulating abstract digital information as if it were water. Taking the form of an eyedropper, Slurp can extract (slurp up) and inject (squirt out) pointers to digital objects. We have created Slurp to explore the use of physical metaphor, feedback, and affordances in tangible interface design when working with abstract digital media types. Our goal is to privilege spatial relationships between devices and people while providing new physical manipulation techniques for ubiquitous computing environments.
You’ve got to see it to believe it, so go ahead and watch the too brief a demo in the video above. Do you see that?? You can point an eyedropper at your computer screen, suck up specific data (like a folder), and spit it onto another computer. Sure, it works similarly to transferring files to and from a PC with a USB thumb drive, but where’s the fun and magic in that? And here’s something a USB drive can’t do: suck up an MP3 and spit it into a set of speakers and get instant feedback! It also vibrates and displays light to indicate its current state of use. Are you super interested in learning more about Slurp? Look after the break to watch two more videos; one is another short demonstration and the other is ten minute presentation that details the magical eyedropper. Check out the gallery below for a closer look at it.
Designer Scianca thought long and hard about the right kind of material to use in creating a new dress. Her eureka moment told her: recycled VHS tapes. And you know what? I think it looks downright sexy. I’m just stuck wondering what movies/home videos she’s wearing. Look after the break for an additional shot.
The Marina Bay Sands Skypark, designed by architect Moshe Safdie, features a 150 meter long infinity swimming pool that stretches across three skyscraper structures 200 meters in the sky. With the edge of the swimming pool so close, how come the man pictured above is practicing his breast stroke without any sign of fear? It’s because falling off the edge won’t result in death by falling 55 stories to the ground; swimmers fall into a catchment area where excess water is re-released back into the main pool area. The hotel is the current record holder for having the largest pool at this height. Construction cost was around $80 million dollars. Other amenities include a “bar, restaurant and spa, botanical garden with 250 species of trees and 650 plants, and an observation deck that provides a panoramic view of the waterfront.” The observation deck can hold 900 people, while the Skypark itself can fit 3,900 people total. Look in the gallery below for images of the visually splendid Singapore-based hotel.
OK fine it won’t. But the Infinity Cocktail Table will provide a stellar optical illusion thanks to a clever use mirrors and LED lighting. Want to entertain your guests with it? That’ll be $880.
The Disco Chair, designed by Kiwi&Pom, is made from 200 meters of electroluminescent wire. When connected to a power source, the owner can enable the pulse setting to make the chair flash bright, vibrant neon colors “creating an instant disco installation.” Neat-0.
Cardboard Warfare is like Light Warfare, but replace the light painting with cardboard and lots of post-edits with After Effects and Photoshop. 427 manual frames to rotoscope, 59 layers of sound effects, and 254 program crashes later, this work of art was completed. Very impressive.
…they make you grow! These here are “Play Condoms” designed by Ben Marsh. They’re condoms packaged inside plastic Game Boy cartridges. But why?
The packaging aims create a desire to purchase the product for aesthetic reasons, rather than the necessity of condoms. Simply by owning the product, safe sex is promoted.
OK, then. But with titles like Donkey Shlong and Sextris, how could you refuse?! Look in the gallery below for additional shots of the packaging.
This proposed bridge has two objectives: to act as a “crossing facility” by connecting Hong Kong with mainland China and to solve the driving-on-the-right-side-of-the-road problem:
Hong Kong has traffic on the left where china has traffic on the right In principle this has to be taken into consideration with the border crossing facilities. Within the proposed master layout plan this leads to fairly unarticulated intersections. It solves the switch, but does not communicate it ‘explicitly’.
The “flipper” aims to redirect traffic in an efficient safe way. Here’s the design under consideration:
Designer Varun Vachhar has created Console Font, a new font style that derives its shape from video game systems. You’ll quickly notice that his alphabet/number set is inspired by classic oldies like the Atari 2600 controller, failed machines like the Nokia N-Gage, and modern systems like the Wii and the forthcoming Playstation Move. He promises to make the font a free download at some point. Look in the gallery below and see if you can decipher some words.
Ho-ly crap. This is awesome. One Freddie Wong has created a masterpiece with “Light Warfare”, a short film of sorts that revels in the photography technique known as light painting. Wong explains:
The idea behind light painting is that if you open the shutter, you can draw lines by moving the flashlight around in front of the lens. So hold the shutter open, get in front, and try drawing something in the air. If you have a camera flash, you can have someone stand in place, and flash them. Then have them hold still and draw around them. Experiment!
Basically light painting can take place when you play around with slow shutter speeds captured in a dark environment as you move a camera around a light source. You might be thinking to yourself, “Haven’t I seen something like this before?” The answer is yes; light painting is also known as “light graffiti” and you can refer back to this post to jumpstart your memory. What makes this video so spectacular is that Wong takes things to a whole ‘nother level by grouping a bunch of stills together and making a video out of them in a process known as stop motion. If any of this intrigues you, head over to Wong’s blog where you’ll find a tutorial for light painting; also peek after the break for a behind-the-scenes look at how “Light Warfare” was made.
