Design luminary Philip Ross has developed what could be the most beautiful lamp, or even the most beautiful product, in the history of mankind.It is called Fonckel, meaning 'glisten', and you interact with it by touching it on its back. Your hand movements will then more or less literally be translated into the behavior of the light, which swoops across the entire front surface. The movie below shows it all:Fonckel is the result of Philip's PhD project at the University of Technology in Eindhoven, which ... read more »
Michael Harboun has made a leap into the future in developing the 'Transcendenz' concept for his thesis project at the Parisian design school Strate College. He envisions special glasses that read your brainwaves and can alter what you see through augmented reality technology. These glasses are transformative on a deep personal level because it can take people deeper into their consciousness, away from the distractions of the everyday world. It can make them explore their own mind, learn from other great... read more »
Nokia has been working on bendable displays for a while, and have now managed to go from concept to working demonstrator for this technology. The 'Nokia Kinetic' concept is a flexible rectangular device with a bendable touch screen. They kept interaction simple by using only twisting and horizontal bending motions as input, besides touching and sliding. Especially bending the device in order to zoom in and out seems a very natural mapping from action to function, as you either press away or bring closer ... read more »
Here are some highlights from the always delighting Dutch Design Week for this year.Many projects revolved around 'green' design thinking, and in general you could see a development towards introducing natural elements into our living spaces.Philips Design took this philosophy to the next level in their new future probe 'The Microbial Home'. This home would minimize energy usage through biological processes. In their vision, methane gas can be gathered from human and vegetable waste, and biogas can be pr... read more »
It looks like a kind of cactus straight out of Avatar, but the impressive Alphasphere is an actual interactive prototype of an electronic musical instrument. It has 48 pressure-sensitive pads that can be programmed to respond to touch by playing a sound. The player can thus pat and tap all over this cushioned orb in order to freely give shape to his own tunes. The placement and size of the pads was chosen to be somewhat optimal for intuitiveness of interaction, and gives the design an almost technobiolog... read more »
Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro has recently unveiled his latest project, an ultra-anthropomorphized mobile phone named 'Elfoid'. The concept is to have a mobile phone look more like the human being that it connects you to. Instead of just being a 'black-box'-intermediary, now the form of the device starts to take on meaning during a conversation. Whereas now the phone has no behavior yet, researchers are intending to add robotic technologies so the device can physically represent the head movements and facia... read more »
Jens Dyvik is a product-, concept-, and interaction designer from the Netherlands with some very interesting work I'd like to share with you. First, he has created a movie to reflect on the notion of the 'superstar designer', which can help all creatives from time to time to remind themselves that there is more to work than fulfilling personal ambitions. Watch it on http://www.dyvikdesign.com/ or http://www.susanchristianen.com/.In another project he imagines a hotelroom with a floor that is completely s... read more »
We view nature as being outside, instead of inside our homes. Our houses are basically meant to take us away from the perils and unpredictabilities of the natural environment. The design team at Philips Design's Probes department challenges this ingrained assumption, and in their latest project "metamorphosis" brings the good and beautiful elements of nature back into our homes.Their design work includes a series of technological objects that channel sensory patterns from the outside of the home to the i... read more »
