Korean design studio 3F has taken a chunk of inspiration from the classic Converse sneaker for this weird piece of furniture. Vaguely resembling a giant boot, it’s covered with speakers (11 or more that we can see) to blast out your sounds, and is decorated with sketches of Converse boots flying around and doing all kinds of odd things. Its angular shape and chunky size may not be to everyone’s taste, but mainly we’re wondering what you do with it: sit on it and get your butt blasted with sound? Lean nonchalantly against it and hope not to fall? Eat your lunch off it? 3F’s tagline may well be “Furniture from Fun” but we suggest they add “befuddling but cool stuff” too. [3F-Studio via Yanko designs] galleryPost('Chucks',3,'Chucks');
3D GPS Mapping systems are at last coming to the States: Nav N Go is making its 3D-enabled GPS software suite available to manufacturers, so hopefully some upcoming devices will adopt it soon. Their 3D maps not only cover the US, but also 70 other countries, and show terrain, elevated roads and landmarks with up to 13 miles in a single view. [MobileMag via Jalopnik]
It happened again: According to not a few people, we had the fastest and most reliable liveblog around. From what I was told, we had roughly 5 minute lead on our closest competitors on images with publish times at about 10 seconds from snap, and for text, we were neck and neck with the always fast Macrumors. And we never went down. Thanks to the tech teams at Gawker and WordPress, the flying fingers of Giz’s editorial staff, and of course, all you readers who stayed fixated on the Jobsnote via the Giz.
Everyone has a wiring mess hidden somewhere in their home and sometimes its because power sockets just aren’t where you need them to be: something this concept design by Sung-hun Choi is attempting to fix. The Free Lines power strip brings your wiring out from behind the wall where it rightly belongs and drapes it artfully across your room like an electric ribbon dotted with useful power points. We like its modular design, with clip-together cables and sockets, but have to say its best feature is how fascinatingly awful it is.
From demo-ware to humour-ware to hardware in a couple of days, the fabled Manila case for the MacBook Air is now for real. Dubbed AirMail, handmade in vinyl and fleece-lined to protect your precious laptop, it even comes with that cutesy red tie at no extra cost. Of course, you could argue that designers Jona Bechtolt and Claire L. Evans have simply created a fake envelope, but that would be just silly. Available shortly for $29.95 [ManilaMac]
During the Keynote, Jobs compared the Macbook Air to Sony’s TZ ultraportable, implying it had a small keyboard and screen, was too thick, and was not that good. Here’s what Sony thinks of the Apple MacBook Air:
Mike Abary, senior vice president of VAIO product marketing, thought the engineering to get a laptop that thin was extremely impressive. But Sony had a similiar vision for an ultraportable once, a carbon fibre notebook in 2004 called the X505 (above) that eschewed the optical and was 0.3 inches thick (compared to 0.16 of the Air) at its thinnest segment. It wasn’t that well received, and research later pointed out that “Thinness is not the holy grail”. Making something that thin and sexy cost it too much usability. (Many of you agree in the comments on Giz.)
There have been a number of devices that have been developed to help people use their laptops while exercising, but lets face it —that’s dumb as hell. On the other hand, the Connect-a-Desk may actually prove useful by allowing users to work while standing or walking. I know that something like this certainly would have come in handy during CES, instead of constantly fighting for seats in the press room. Available for $US34.95. Believe it or not, there is actually a demo video —you can check it out after the break.
The Gun Operated Alarm Clock was a good conceptual design, but the Laser Target Alarm Clock has two things that its predecessor lacks. First off, it is vastly more challenging (and therefore annoying). Second (and most importantly) this device is an actual product. As you might have guessed, in order to turn the alarm clock off in the morning, you have to hit the bullseye with the included handheld laser gun. F that S. [Product Page via TFTS]
As demonstrated at this year’s CES, ultra—short throw projectors like the Hitachi CP-A100 and the Sanyo PLC-XL50 are all the rage. Epson is following the trend with two new projectors: the EMP-400We and the EMP-400W.
