Designs

Geek Out

Concept Island Megayacht Makes Even The Rich Ask Why

2:00AM July 25, 2011 | Jack Loftus

I’ve read Tom Swift’s A Modest Proposal, so forgive me a moment, but I couldn’t help but wonder if the poor would make the best fuel for this floating in-your-face exuberance from the folks at Yacht Island Design. More »


Cars

Your Car Doors Might Be Turned Into Batteries Soon

2:20PM September 28, 2010 | Ariel Schwartz - FastCompany

Electric vehicle batteries are big, heavy, and expensive. Volvo hopes to tackle all three problem with one creative solution: body panels that double as car batteries. More »


Cars

Britain’s Train Expert Unveils His Next Transportation Icon

2:40AM July 16, 2010 | Kyle VanHemert

Paul Priestman, designer of Britain’s widely-used Virgin Pendolino train cars, thinks his country is in need of a new transportation icon, one that upholds the legacy of the Rolls Royce and the Concorde. His vision? The double-decker Mercury train. More »


Pepper Mouth Peripheral Stinks When You Swear Online

11:00AM June 20, 2010 | Kyle VanHemert

If you suspect you’ve been cursing a bit too much in your inter-office emails and e-cards, you might want to set a port aside for the Pepper Mouth, a concept peripheral that stinks when you swear. Consider yourself Pavlov’s typist. More »


Sperm-Shaped Snowmobile Concept Would No Doubt Finish Fast

4:30AM October 12, 2009 | Jack Loftus

Apparently British designer Evangelos Gicas took one look at those old, bulky snowmobiles we’re riding around on today and said to himself, let’s go faster, shall we? More »


Gaming

Zoo Weekly’s Xbox 360 And PS4 Designs Will Never, Ever Happen

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11:20AM March 30, 2009 | Nick Broughall

Apparently the guys at Zoo Weekly were chatting with industry insiders from Japan, Hong Kong and America to find out what we can expect from the next generation gaming consoles from Microsoft and Sony. The rundowns they give, while entertaining for their fantastic nature, will never, ever happen in the real world. But the designs sure are nice… More »


Mobile

Samsung Demonstrates Folding OLED Mobile Phone, Vindicates Thousands of Ridiculous Concepts

7:49PM November 24, 2008 | John Herrman

Buried amongst the piles of Newer! Bigger! Better! TVs, pico projectors and paper-thin, flapping OLED screens at FPD in Japan was an absolute gem: a folding OLED phone concept from Samsung. This isn’t some half-assed, flat-to-sightly-bowed demo either: this thing folds over on itself completely. In its folded mode it looks quite similar to the D900, but the phone opens like a book to reveal a massive, bright OLED screen, creased down the middle. While we’ve got this luscious, luscious video, we don’t have much in the way of specs, and it goes without saying that this stuff is probably a long way from making it to market. [OLED Display]

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Computing

Designing the New MacBook: Why It Couldn’t Have FireWire

8:40AM October 29, 2008 | Matt Buchanan

Rainer Brockerhoff’s studied dissection of the new MacBook’s design—how certain design choices intersect with the realities of components to produce real notebooks—perfectly explains how they are not simply a wishlist of parts and features that magically come together. There are always compromises.

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Habitat Machines: Tomorrow’s Architecture From Yesterday’s Appliances

12:00PM September 17, 2008 | Wilson Rothman

At first you see buildings of tomorrow, set on bleak plots of land against bleak skies. But then you notice the coffee pots. And the bathroom scales. And the meat grinders, the electric razors, the cake tins, the cheese graters and, well, you tell me. This is not a Photoshop contest, these are actual sculptures wittily erected by artist David Trautrimas for an exhibit entitled Habitat Machines opening next week at Toronto’s Le Gallery. There’s another haunting image below, and a few more over at Dezeen. Now I gotta go hack open my Kitchen-Aid stand mixer, to see if I can’t just show the world Wilsonberg 2028. [Dezeen]

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iRiver Concepts Feel Straight Out of Terry Gilliam’s Brain

10:00PM August 31, 2008 | Jesus Diaz

newVideoPlayer("/gilliamiriver_gizmodo.flv", 520, 410,""); Apart from their Spinn 70s-retro analogue goodness, iRiver had two beautiful concept products in their IFA 2008 stand which had a design that looked further into the past, as far as the beginning of the 20th century. As you can see in the video, both their Clix speaker–inspired by the shape of cathode ray tubes–and their pipe music player–which you can blow to mute (insert joke here), and connect it to a speaker resembling a phonograph horn–look both intriguing and beautiful. [More IFA 2008 Coverage]

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