The meteor–or comet fragment–was only a few tens of meters in diameter, according to modern estimates based on its 15 megatons energy blast. This 3D simulation, however, shows what something like Apophis will do if it hit Earth. I saw it a while ago on the web, but now it is available in glorious HD, so you can see all the gritty-nitty detail of good old planet Earth getting completely obliterated.

Kind of helps putting things in perspective. NASA and the rest of the world better get up to speed on their anti-asteroid alert and destroy system, I don’t care what they say about weaponising space.

The fact is that these things are very real, and they are lurking out there. So with that in mind, keep your list of things to do before you die handy. You never know what awaits for us in 2009. [YouTube--Thanks Louise]

I asked several designers what they thought, but Kara Johnson, the lead of the Materials Team at design company IDEO, had the final word based on her focused expertise related to the question at hand. Her answer is a bit heady, but I won’t get in the way of what she’s telling us about tomorrow’s gadget materials.

“Plastic as we know it is kind of on the way out, especially when it’s painted. No one likes the way your phone’s paint chips at the corners after a few months of use. Unpainted plastic is the future. And we need to move beyond injection molding, look at sheet processes to build structure from a series of 2D layers, instead of molding a complete 3D structure.

Glass, as a part of the screen, won’t go away very quickly. But maybe we’ll find ways to use glass so that it’s more difficult to create cracks with an accidental drop on the kitchen floor. Maybe there are lessons to be learned from automotive glass windshields or scratch resistant coatings on eyewear. And why not etch the glass?

Metal will continue to be a player in the world of gadgets. It’s beautiful and appropriate to create thin, mobile, technology-based products. Extruded aluminium is a design opportunity that has not yet been fully explored in terms of form or function. With the introduction of laser etching or chemical etching or a detailed craft process like wire filigree, we should be exploring the use of pattern on metal or to create surfaces. This is more evident in large-scale products or architecture where metal is used to create elegant structures or to create a frame for other elements of pattern. By translating innovations in metal from a large scale to something small, we will find new design opportunities, too.

So what’s next?

I think we need to experiment with how we design the buttons that connect hardware and software experiences. This is a design element whose materiality has been relatively unchanged, and there is more opportunity here to create ceramic or wood details (where the drop test requirements can be quietly avoided)…What if the power button was made of stone? What if the LEDs shine through a thin layer of bamboo? We also need to experiment with the screen itself, this element has been limited to the display of information. What if the screen folds or unfolds? What if the glass is textured or etched with communication icons or pattern? Finally, in the future, I think that we should experiment with creating decoration or function by introducing incredibly surprising technologies (high-tech or low-tech) – like ferrofluid or starch-based plastics.

If the next generation of gadgets is about experimenting with materials or materiality, then it will only be not about what materials we use but how we use materials to tell stories.

What does vinyl mean to music and media players? Can phone be made of fabric so it is ready-to-wear, like the clothes you keep in your closet? What does traditional craft mean to high-tech products? What is the physical connection between these objects of fetish and the internet buzz that proceeds/follows each product launch? How do we create real and tangible advertising for the next CE products? And look for the introduction of “new” materials in the small details of each product…the platform of these devices is relatively standardized by its components, phones and laptops are a commodity. The design is in the details and the story you tell.”

—Kara Johnson, lead of the Materials Team at IDEO, is the co-author of Materials and Design: The Art and Science of Material Selection in Product Design and the forthcoming book, I Miss My Pencil

Each family member customises their own fitness profile, and then scuttles over to a video wall to choose either a specific workout or interaction with a video-based instructor. Panasonic’s Total Living Space Solution system will then keep track of everybody’s progress. The company said its concept will see the light of day about three to five years from now. I personally can’t wait, since I’m convinced the best way to ensure my family’s continued health is to put them in front of a tv screen for even more hours of the day. [Crave]

Yes, the MMR25 will have nine motors in each wheel, one to spin the main structure and eight more to control smaller embedded wheels for traction while deftly manoeuvring along the highway, maybe even driving sideways. Special “oblique aerodynamics” mean that the sideways driving won’t be penalised by wind resistance, either.

There’s no glass: It’s too damn heavy, and you won’t need it, what with visual information coming in via a crazy camera array that feeds a 360-degree panoramic screen that surrounds your “pod.”

It’s plenty power efficient, too, getting 1,000 miles per charge out of lightweight composite-nano-fiber-jiggied lithium-based batteries. (Now word on explodeyness, but presumably that’s solved too.)

We’re gonna go one step further and guess that the electric charge itself will come from just an hour or two under the hot sun, thanks to efficient solar cells. But ha ha, that would just be ludicrous, right? [Jalopnik]

The Frankenstein stadium of the future is composed of some technology that we have already heard about–like new Cowboys stadium and its gigantic video screen. However, you may not have come across plans for a single-piece steel roof that makes taunts more audible to opposing players in Liverpool F.C.’s new stadium, or the wireless screens set to be built in Oakland’s new Cisco field. The interactive screens will allow visitors to order food, pull up stats, and even find the shortest bathroom lines from the comfort of their seat. There are also plans that make stadiums greener, cooler, and more flexible when it comes to configurations. Check out PopSci for more info. [PopSci]

Professor Vertegaal forsees drink cans with RSS feeds or movie trailers, and touch-sensitive computers that change shape when you need them for different purposes. It’s a combination of three-dimensional multi-touch, flexible display technology and smart materials like e-ink. Vertegaal even compares our use of current “flat” computer technology to life in the novel Flatland, and argues that the future is going to be about 3D computing and displays.

To this end, his Human Media Laboratory at Queens University is working on projects and prototypes of these things for real. There’s a Coke can with RSS feed; a completely foldable paper computer, which lets you navigate an ebook much more “naturally” by turning the pages; and a workbench that simulates a display on any object, using front-projection for now, but with the aim of having stand-alone devices when the technology catches up.

This last sort of multi-shaped, smart material computer “would be a final frontier in the design of computer interfaces that turn the natural world into software, and software into the natural world” he says, in an upcoming publication in the Communications of Association of Computing Machinery. And yes, it all seems very neat, but do we really want animated movie clips on our morning box of Cheerios? What do you think, guys? [Physorg via ]