... while other designers thought of it all

I do like the design spirit of the 50ies and 60ies - especially in the US. Nothing was bold enough to satisfy the consumer interest in newer and better things. There were the huge cars with fins like space ships and everything was streamlined , aero dynamic and futuristic. It was the time of new expressions of  what can to be considered modern. I like this ad of the lawnmower and the tagline. So husband tends the lawn in air-conditioned luxury while the rest of the family has to wait it out sweating in the sun. Where's the fridge in there ?

10 Types of Innovation

From Doblin Consulting group, a strong methodology to map how innovative your concept/ idea/ solution is a well as a useful framework to assess innovation in general. For instance how and where would you map Apple in this framework? (Pictures from blogs by other people that illustrates the above).

http://www.doblin.com/AboutInno/innotypes.html

some designers just don't get it

ok, this is a design concept, but still... this steam iron concept by nico klaeber was designed for the male user, which is why it looks stealth, is all edgy and black. Are male hands any different than female hands ? Have all male turned into cyborgs with robotic hands ? I like concepts for challenging paradigms, but sometimes some ideas are just out of whack.

Supermind made in China

The Chinese supercomputer, called the Tianhe-1A, crunches numbers at warp speed – at a mind-boggling two thousand trillion calculations a second.
The £50 million machine took 200 engineers two years to build, and needs to be housed in 103 refridgerated cabinets.It has a speed of 2.507 petaflops – 1.4 times as powerful as the current supercomputer, the Cray XT5 Jaguar at the U.S. Department of Energy, which has held the crown for the past year. Professor Jack Dongarra, who compiles the rankings of the world’s fastest 500 supercomputers, said the Chinese computer ‘blows away the existing No 1 machine’.
Mr Dongarra’s list is not due to be completed until next week, but he predicts that no other machine will come close to matching the Tianhe.‘It’s definitely a game changer,’ said Mark Seager, chief technology officer for computing at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the U.S.
The Tianhe-1A, whose name means Milky Way in mandarin, has 14,000 times the processing power of a normal machine.
It also contains 7,000 graphics processors – the type used in video games – to further boost its power.
But despite its incredible speed the Tianhe-1A is also greener than the current top supercomputer – with the difference in energy consumption enough to provide electricity to more than 5,000 homes for a year.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1324557/China-builds-worlds-fastest-supercomputer.html#ixzz13hsgoz00

macro art

two examples of macro photography and hardly anyone knows what this could be. This two pictures could easily trade as pieces of modern art, but are in fact a close-up of chrystallized soya souce (top) and a film of soap (bottom). Unfortunately I can't find the link anymore.

the miniaturization of living

Looking at the typical skyhigh living towers in the city scape of Hong Kong the reference to a bee hive comes to mind. Given the fact that living space is so limited in this city while property prices are going through the roof one wonders what next our developers come with : Cram more people in even lesser space ? May be the future of living in a metropolis would mean that we share space when needed in public areas, rent or lease anything we have to use, but don't need to keep and sleep in rented boxes like the concept design above - anywhere in the city. Perhaps that would also solve the problem of accumulating too much stuff during a lifetime.

how will we evolve ?

An interesting subject : How will we humans evolve in the next 100 to 1000 years and how will we look like ? Numerous scientists have created very different scenarios and some are even predicting we may still be around in 4 million years (i think not) and walk around looking like cyborgs or coneheads. The more realistic prediction appears to be the one that we will vanish due to a severe and rapidly changing strain of a lethal virus with 100 years from now. Another quite interesting concept by a Dr. Curry at the London School of Economics was that humans evolve to a height of almost 7 feet, can reach an age of 120 and have a brown skin color (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1531602/This-is-the-shape-of-things-to-come-for-mankind.html) . He also assumes that around year 100 000 we have evolved into two species - the ones that are superior and an inferior human species that is shorter, grubby and less intelligent. There are some interesting assumptions in his Bravo study, but i would like to challenge him in the time frame required for the appearance of a human sub species or even a split. AJ

why some of us could have done better...

Humans are excellent designers, engineers, artists and creators. But sometimes it reaches it's limits and we continue to create until we face the complete picture of a problem. That's probably why teamwork, but also leadership skills are so important.

the creation of irrelevance 3

aehmmm... i leave it to everyone's imagination what this device is for, but it's called 'ten tongues', usually used by females after having been approached by a helpless and useless 'pants enhancer dude'.

the creation of irrelevance 2

Ok...that's a bit below the beltline, but I laughed out loud when i came across this : A 'trouser expander' for the insecure male. I am sure this is just a gimmick item, but any woman would most certainly laugh and inflate this thing until it bursts inside the poor chaps pants.

the creation of irrelevance 1

I thought at first this was some kind of joke, but this is for real. A little plastic device pushed over ones thumb to help keep pages of a book apart. And it's called 'thumbthing'. Reminds me of the 'hair flippomat' - an invention i seriously considered to bring to market.
http://www.thumbthing.com/index_e.htm

meet Ranitomeya Benedicta

Over 1200 new species have been discovered in the Amazon lately and this little fellah is one of them. To me this is one of the coolest and most hip frogs on the planet (found in Peru). While we humans create artificial 'skins' to differentiate from one another and reflect our status within society this one just wants to be left in peace by pretending he's a little bag of poison. It almost looks like a red frog wearing a neoprene suit. Colors of nature. AJ

Insane

This picture has just been recorded as a world record for the most tagged online photo. It shows the crowd of visitors at the Glastenbury festival this year in a hi-res panorama shot and Facebook users can find themselfs or their friends and create a tag online. So far it reached almost 9000  tags. AJ
http://glastonbury.orange.co.uk/glastotag/

Retired : Sony Walkman

Sony has just recently announced that they will officially stop the production of 'portable cassette tape players' or the 'walkman' as we all know it. While we all listen to our music collection of a lifetime using a tiny thing we can clip to our shirt collars in the present day it should not be forgotten how 'music on the go' started. I remember when i got my first walkman in the mid 70ies that looked similar to the one above and how hyped i was listening to my music while my mum was nagging about my dirty clothes not being in the hamper. I remember the clunky buttons and forward/ reverse that sounded like i was about to shredder my tape (which happened on a few occasions). I even 'customized' my walkman at some point, hand-painting it bright red. Unfortunately some of the paint got on the magnetic head and playback sounded like the whining of a stray cat. That was the end of my first walkman and the start of newer and better devices to be used.
Amazing piece of tech it was back then. AJ

plants in motion

hah... an interesting concept of NY based designer Marco Castro - plants on the roof of buses as one attempt to reclaim forgotten spaces as he calls it. He estimated if all buses of the NY fleet (about 4500) were covered with plants it could cover a total area of 35 acres of rolling green. I thought that was a really cool idea. AJ
http://busroots.org/

Space tourism means decimated icebergs

 Given that they haven't started yet, imagine what'll happen to this lace in the Arctic above? (Pic taken by PJ last Dec as we flew over the arctic, the Bering Sea down to Asia...oh and I wasn't flying with Branson - I was traveling economy class in a regular plane ;-)

space tourism... and what that means for the rest of us

from 2012 Vertu limited edition phone owners can also travel to the rim of space for a cool 200 000 bucks.
'Space tourists' ,as they are called, can take a Virgin Galactic flight that takes them to a hight of 16 km to look at our good old planet as long as it is still around. However - Geoscientists believe that an estimated
1000 or more flights per year will have a big impact on our climate as small particles - left overs of the huge amount of fuel being burned - will remain in the stratosphere and may even have an impact to the layer of Ozone.
Now - this may seem far fetched, but i'll be mad like crazy to experience more of this super-hot summer days only to have some rich blokes sip champagne in out space. AJ

Nokia- from Vertu to Timbuktoo...

And on the other side of the coin is the Nokia 1100. Great article (URL below) on how most of the world still uses a basic phone, and that users in those parts of the world exist in such furiously enormous numbers that Nokia losing market share in those markets to local players (with low prices and successful bottom up innovation strategies) are of a greater concern to them than their smartphone making inroads with the wealthy human populace. Additonally the writer has an interesting take on what smart phones in these humongous people-packed-economies bursting at the seams with micro-entrepreneurs on BOP budgets but just-in-time assembly+deliverables will need to be about!

http://gizmodo.com/5634258/the-most-popular-phone-in-the-world

Sad achievement for Hong Kong - maybe there's hope yet!

From Springwise...

Though they're all important parts of sustainability, the 3Rs of waste management — reduce, reuse and recycle — are not equally effective. Rather, they're intended as a hierarchy, with the goal of first reducing waste as much as one can, then reusing as much as possible, and then finally recycling at the end of an item's useful life. Aiming to extend the “reuse” stage for more industrial materials, Houston-based RecycleMatch helps companies with unwanted waste find companies that want to reuse it.
Similar in many ways to BoxCycle — which focuses specifically on cardboard boxes — RecycleMatch seeks “to create an industrial ecosystem in which the use of energy and materials are optimized, waste is minimized, and there is an economically viable role for every product of a manufacturing process,” in the site's own words. Toward that end, companies with items to dispose of begin by listing them for free on the site, which will accept almost anything but equipment, trucks, salvage or other capital assets. The listing company's name is kept confidential, but other RecycleMatch participants can see descriptions and photos of the materials in question along with the quantities available and their location. When another company is interested and a match is made, the owner pays RecycleMatch a fee of USD 10 per ton for a period of up to three years plus a one-time match fee of USD 1,500. The buyer, meanwhile, pays a one-time finder's fee of USD 250. Users can also post “wanted” listings on the site for a one-time fee of USD 500.
More than 3 million pounds of waste materials have already been diverted from landfills, RecycleMatch says, with obvious benefits for the environment, the companies involved and any zero-waste goals being pursued. Currently, however, RecycleMatch serves only US users. One to partner with or emulate in your part of the sustainable world...? (Related: Online exchange for builders' surplus goods — Community-focused deconstruction & salvage.)


http://springwise.com/weekly/2010-10-20.htm#recyclematch

more bling for China - the Vertu case

a mobile phone for 5,500 Euros ? And that is the starting price. As Perry Oosting, chief of Nokia's Vertu brand pointed out ' we are not a bling company..' I start to wonder what else that would it be if not bling. Vertu expects a boom on the Mainland (SCMP, Oct. 26) with predicted revenue growth of 50% as they are now looking at tier two cities. Mind you - prices for this phones can go as high as a quarter million Euros for custom made versions with diamonds and all the other spiel. And Mainland Chinese consumers seem to be snapping them up - at least those who can afford to loose such phone in a cab. Is it for the value of design or the design of value ? Hmm.. AJ

sad achievement for Hong Kong

Now we know - Hong Kong is the most wasteful place in the world (SCMP, Oct. 26) and it's 7 million people have produced almost 6.5 million tonnes of waste, which is about 921 kg per head. About half of it ends up in landfills, which is why our beloved harbour will look like a drainage channel one day. Who's to blame ? It concerns all of us and should be considered a serious wake-up call. AJ

Color Psycho

It's hard to refute that a blaze of bright colors can blind the eye, leaving us helplessly desirous of possessing multiples of one product whose function remains constant...in clothes and shoes we consume a little less slowly but when the product is for the entire family, well the family can 'share' the experience and own five different colors at one time! M&M lets you possess that delight in one pack since it's cheap and therefore also easy to share. When shared, conversations are still about color...umm, I'll have the red one this time...but Vitamin Water takes this 'color Psycho' to whole new levels. It takes color packaging one step further by representing the core ingredient of the drink through vibrant colors and a strong product naming strategy such as 'Focus', 'Endurance', 'Stress-B', 'Revive' ...thereby addressing the psychology of the user, I mean at this rate an un-savvy consumer will find Vitamin Water to be nature's psychiatrist, addressing their every single mood, about 5 times a day...before work, during, at the gym, after...! PJ

http://www.glaceau.com/

What we eat per year...and what the rest of the world eats...

A nice ethnography of what people eat around the world...see URL below...
http://www.humanespot.org/content/what-world-eats-one-week

what we eat per year

well, this is based on a research in the US and certainly not comparable to other countries, but it is frightening to think that an average American (or European !) consumes close to 2000 lbs. of food per year, 110 lbs. of that just meat. It also means it's about 5.5 lbs. of food items on average per day. But it is not just that, all this stuff has to be produced, harvested, farmed, packaged, shipped, etc. before it can be consumed. I just wonder how much energy goes into all this to make before a human converts it into garbage. AJ
http://www.visualeconomics.com/food-consumption-in-america_2010-07-12/

Simple Products - Indian Masala Dabba

I love these dabba's (boxes) for cooking indian food. They are shallow about 2.5 " in height. Typically an Indian meal will require all of these in some combination or the other, and since spice quantities really differ from cook to cook and home to home there's no rigid measure to make a perfect curry :-) So it's nice to have it all in one place with a spoon to dip into the spices as and when required...ease of use & storage as well as addresses cultural aspect of spontaneous spice measures!

talking about dogs...

... and their strange behavior at times. Watch this clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vdlmKSjURo

Forget this Damien Hirst...because India just gave birth to another!

It seems artists these days need to find a UGP - aka 'unique gimmick proposition ' (think Warhol making silk screens of Campbell soup thereby turning the everyday object into a prized commodity by using mass reproduction methods and thereby also retaining it's plebian-ness) and then create art around that core UGP that makes them 'them'. PJ

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/visual_arts/article6866421.ece

Some Designs Just Scare Me - 2

Are you trying to tell me if Pansy the Pug looks like this we shouldn't be frightened of what's living on land?!

forget Damian Hirst

Damian Hirst may be the wealthiest living artist, but I like to challenge the inspirational value of his art. Lesser known, but with much more impact and stories to tell is UK street artist Bansky and a new movie about him and street art in general was recently made ('Exit through the gift shop') and it is amazing what he pulled off. I like his style and the messages, but more for the fact that his art is easily accessible and may or may not last. AJ
http://banksy.co.uk/index2.html

why the design of iPhone 4 is not innovative

i find it quite interesting how everyone praises the simplicity of the design of the iPhone 4. It does look cool and pure, but it is not new or innovative. In fact the design somewhat reminds me of earlier products launched by LG (Prada phone) or Porsche Design - a black box with a metal rim. What's so new about that ? AJ

bubble car

an interesting aspect of European car manufacturing during post war times was the introduction of 'bubble cars', small cars that could seat only two adults and traveled with a max. speed of 65 km/h on 9 PS. They were especially popular in the early 50ies when the population was in desperate need of individual transportation or travel in a convenient way. Like this Messerschmitt KR 175 produced by a manufacturer of planes in Germany (the cabin design reminds of cockpits) of which only 15000 were produced and only a few hundred remain today. I like the way how individual transportation was simplified in a quite innovative and futuristic design. Wonder if that is what we are going back to. AJ

some designs just scare me

Talking about product design. I have never been a fan of this Alexander Mc Queen suitcase design for Samsonite and for some reason it gives me the creeps. I could not imagine myself pulling this off the luggage belt inside an airport or walk through a hotel lobby unless i am a well-known celebrity surgeon or specialist for heart transplants. I like the idea of biomimicry, but the anatomy of a human chest for a suitcase ? Frankly - I found this thing not just odd, but outright ugly.

recently a number of previously unknown creatures have been discovered in extreme depths of the ocean. While i found some of them truly amazing in their appearance, some others look like some genetic mistakes which have been banned to the extreme darkness of the ocean floor. Given that more than two thirds of our planet are covered by water it is hard to imagine what else lurks down there. All our attempts of exploration have been focusing on distance, height, space, but little on depth. Because this -literally - is the only place without any glimse of light at all. Total darkness. Will they be looking for oil down there some day ?

female fractality

came across this white paper where facial beauty can be defined by mathematics, or more specific, fractal geometry (J. Schmidhuber, IDSIA, Lugano,1998) - basically applying a more modern set of rules to facial geometry with reference to L.d.Vinci or Duerer. http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/locoface/newlocoface.html
I didn't bother to read through all the text, but i can imagine the sheer excitement in a scientists head being able to apply his logic and set of rules to create what he considers the 'perfect woman' (as the pic on top).
While I prefer to use common sense and personal taste to be attracted I must say he's done pretty well.

i feel reassured

Since 2003 a lot has changed in Hong Kong and everything that can be touched by humans seems to be sterilized . I like it when the place a clear sheet over elevator buttons and tell the user that it will be replaced every hour. Really ? How would I know if it is the same sheet or not ? Perhaps they should number the sheets from 1/9 to 9/9 (according to working hours). And how long does sterilization last in frequent use ?
Exactly an hour before it fades off. If there are 10 people working on 25/th floor and 200 people on the 10th
floor, are those on the 25th floor safer because their elevator button is being used less ?

mass transportation .. really ?

I love the MTR... clean, fast and efficient. Once you are inside the train. But getting there often takes more time than anticipated as one has to wait with a huge throng of people lining up (or not for some..) to access a single escalator going up or down - especially during morning or evening rush hour. And there are always two lines actually - for the ones that prefer to stay still on the right and let the escalator do the job and others who rush up the steps to the left. Mass transportation should not stop at the trains and I hate when I have to wait to get in or out of this underground tunnels.