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Furniture Mate Free-Standing Solution to Mounting Your Flat-Panel TV
Posted by Sean Fallon at 8:00 AM on November 22, 2008
If you have a flat panel TV, wall mounting is the way to go—but getting things set up is an undeniable pain in the arse. Salamander designs have devised an alternative option for lazy people like myself who want the wall mount look without the work. The Synchro Furniture Mate slides in behind your cabinet, resulting in a fairly elegant simulation of a standard wall-mount. It can hold TVs between 32" and 60" with a maximum weight of 50kg and it features adjustable height and a manual swivel of 30-degrees. The mount itself runs at $US599, but for $US299 more you can go the extra lazy route and have the remote-control, motorised kit attached—enabling you to make viewing adjustments from the comfort of your couch.
At last you can avoid the hassle of taking 
I can't speak for everyone here, but most of us have 3, 4 or 5 industrial-sized oxygen tanks just rolling around, taking up precious space in our homes. Well here's a tip that'll put Martha Stewart's upcoming book Oxygen Tank Decorating Made Easy straight to the bottom of the charts. Just stick a lampshade on the thing, run some wiring through the base and presto—you have a cute lamp. If, of course, you already used up all of your oxygen tanks during our Halloween decorating extravaganza special from last month, this lamp is still available for an undisclosed price. [
This Infinity Bookcase is almost as cool as the 
You may not know it by name, but the classic Ovalia Egg Chair probably streamed into your consciousness via the background of some MTV hipster video or the seating at a really, really cool grandma's house. (Actually, we're sure that you spotted an Ovalia chair in the shot after the jump, at minimum.) Now the Ovalia Egg Chair is getting reissued with the support of JBL.
This is not, quite, a Japanese puzzle box: But it is a transforming storage unit that has so many sliding, slotting, complex inner drawers, pockets and shelves that it comes close to being a puzzle. Designed by Martin Sammer, Transformer Shelf is just a solid shelving unit when "closed," but sliding it open reveals its labyrinthine innards, intended so that you can configure it however you want, and jamming lots of storage options into one unit. Somewhere in there there's an entrance to Narnia...I just know it. [
You may be tempted to buy the Neon Scarface Rifle Lamp, and you may even notice that it has an affordable $US67 price tag. But we don't recommend the purchase because somewhere, deep beneath the Earth's crust, there lives a little mole-like man who keeps a very large list, and people who buy things like this lamp, Elvis plaques and fart detectors go on that list. While no one knows the ramifications of having one's name written on the sacred paper, we're pretty certain that it has nothing to do with free ice cream and puppies, or spontaneous fornication with aspiring models. [
You may have thought the 
These simple Mobile Lights by Kyouei Design hang from the ceiling from fishing line to create a glowing kinetic sculpture with the size and shape of your choosing. Each piece is equipped with an LED, solar panel and AA battery backup, absorbing light during the day and emitting it at night. But what's more impressive is that the Mobile Lights can actually be purchased.
This iBook G4 lamp was the gift from a girlfriend to a very lucky birthday boy. Essentially just an old iBook case stuffed with fluorescent lighting tubes, the simple mod recreates the glorious Pulp Fiction briefcase effect: Those who witness the full glowing beauty of the lamp must wonder if today is the day of Apple's Rapture. Patience, my friends. Our victory will come soon enough. And some of you with awesome lamp-making girlfriends need to expedite the process. [
Nobody knows exactly what Bill Gates is doing with 
British designer Osian Batyka-Williams has gone on a recycling bent, turning unwanted, but hard to reuse objects into unique, if not particularly comfortable looking chair designs. For instance, his cutlery chair draws attention to the fact that some restaurants change their cutlery as often as every nine months, which is interesting, but all I can think about is how it'll put a fork in my butt when I try to spoon. Check out some of his other chair ideas. [
The "Out of Sight Out of Mind" (OSOM) table concept has everything a neat freak could possibly want in a workspace—plenty of space, tons of modular storage units and ergonomic design touches like an writing/typing space that can be angled for comfort. You can even customise the layout to suit your needs. Again, it is only a concept at the moment but it definitely has potential.
When we originally spotted the X-ray bulb lamp, we imagined an awesome Halloween party scattered with black light and some amazing bulb that showed our skeletons. Alas, the X-ray lamp only shows its own guts, in a sense, displaying the X-ray of an incandescent or CFL bulb. Intended for exhibition at the moment, we hope that X-ray bulbs hit that market one day—whether it be these pieces of art or some neato bulb that lets us examine the contents of a beloved's stomach. [
It's called the walking chair, but we know better. This four-legged wheelchair replacement, on exhibit at Robo Japan 2008, is not about traversing uneven terrain or allowing mechanical creations to move more like organic beings. It's about man fusing with both insects and robots to create a new race founded on pure 80s cartoon awesomeness. (Yeah, we know that insects have six legs and this thing only has four, but let's not kill the moment just this once, alright?) [
Kudos to the design team at the UK-based firm Freshwest for putting a fresh, humourous spin on the concept of what a 
Tokujin Yoshioka likes chairs as much as the next chair designer, but he's not accustomed to using standard building materials. His latest project, the Venus Chair, is not built but grown. He shapes a sponge-like substrate called polyester elastomer into a sort of chair skeleton and then submerges it into a tank to grow crystals inside and out. The result is fit for Superman, except he'd never fit in this tiny scale model. He'd need something more like this full-blown La-Z-Boy version:
I can't say that I am all that thrilled with the look of the Powerwise desk, but the concept of sliding off the surface to reveal a hidden 8-port charging station is definitely intriguing. Each one of the outlets features its own on/off switch and there are storage drawers to keep your cords neatly tucked away. It kind of reminds me of the desks I had in elementary school—except this one is filled with gadgets instead of the stinking remnants of fruits and vegetables plucked out of my lunches. If the heart of this design was implemented in a more standard style desk, I would be sold. [
Anyone who's read about the sickening, 
Can Man place a pricetag on the comfort of his rump? Yes. Yes he can. And the Embody chair—the sequel to the iconic, $US1.5 billion grossing 
If you're looking for a coffee table with a bit more personality than yet another flatpacked piece of furniture from Ikea, take a look at Joel Hester's awesome handmade coffee tables.
