New Tech Reviews Just another NEW TECH NEWS

Not much of a carpenter, but sometimes we do get stuck in a situation where we need to tackle the nail, the bang, our fingers all at one go. Desperate times call for desperate measures and the Unihammer is a likely solution. The design of the hammer is such that it increases the target area considerably. Simply place the nail underneath the detachable head and hold it in place. Next, strike the detached head with the hammer, and you my friend have saved your fingers AND embedded the nail into place.

The Structure:

The structure of UNIHAMMER is rather simple. A steel piece that can withstand the force of a hammer is used to fasten the nail in position. Using a piston mechanism to raise it up and down, and the frames on both sides keeps it perpendicular. The user is able to hold the nail perpendicularly without having to place their fingers anywhere near the nail itself, reducing the risk of hammering himself.

Designer: Ji-yun Kim

The choice so far in cell phones has been large screens and tiny keypads or tiny screens and large keypads. Finding both large-large on the same device is very rare (like the iPhone) and this may irk some hardcore texting addicts. A plausible solution can be a device that goes on to have a large display when reading a message that transforms to having a large keypad when typing in the text. This is what the Blackhole Phone is all about. I guess motion sensing technology is used to transform the digital screen form big screen to big keys, coz you need to reverse the phone to switch modes.

I reckon the ample keypad is good for pudgy fingers, now only if it were a QWERTY one!

Designer: Seunghan Song

Something about woven furniture tickles me, in a good way. The Cheig Bench is gorgeous. I love the modern form with the heavily pronounced curves. The wooden core is layered in plush D45 foam. The woven shell can be made of anything but I prefer it in nylon or recycled scraps for a truly unique look. It’s a bench, a coffee table, a foot rest, and if you want to be adventurous, turn it on its side for an instant room divider. Put a couple of them together like that and you’ve got an instant fort.

Designer: Sollo Brasil

Julia Childs called me up in my dreams and told me the Kitchen Timer is totally approved. It’s a timing device that works with specially designed recipe cards. Like any card you have instructions only the Kitchen Timer goes one step further and provides visual and audio feedback on progress. If a set of instructions says to cook the chicken for 30 minutes, the arm will slide down the card in that exact amount of time. This is precision cooking. Flaws? Imagine if you had a really long recipe. Multiple cards or is that too cumbersome?

Designer: Emma Caselton

Here are two products destined for production. The Chiseled and U-Turn faucet concepts come to us by way of Design Jordan. I love the contrast between the abrupt sharpness and the organic nature of water. Too often I see these esoteric faucet designs that look stunning on their own but would look terrible in most homes. These concepts are what I call reachably futuristic.

The Chiseled concept is the first of a high-end bathroom/kitchen faucet range designed as if carved out of a block of chrome. The wide base, extended neck and rear-mounted handle provides a dynamic profile reinforcing the stealth-inspired sharp edges and flat facets.

The U-Turn concept is a high-end bathroom & kitchen faucet range designed around user need, incorporating bathroom items or providing additional features for personal objects.The bathroom sink model provides a recess to safely place rings while washing hands. The multi-purpose U-turn features a precast opening to place toothbrushes or other accessories like a customized liquid-soap dispenser.
The larger kitchen model includes an easy-access removable soap/sponge dish mounted on a rotating spout. The U-turn tip provides grooves to hang gloves, a watch or other personal accessories.

Would you buy one? They’re supposed to hit the international market… now.

Designer: Sofian Tallal of Design Jordan

Hologram technology may still be in a full bloom, but that doesnt stop some designers from conceiving fun ideas to play around with. Like a kid in a candy store, the 3D Desktop Concept is perfect for computer-freaks like me. Natural hand movements across the black curtain to crumple and discard documents, or type out a virtual page akin to a typewriter; this concept has virtual holographic goodies by the dozens! If the idea is too overbearing then switch off the embedded tiny projectors and use this as a desk lamp!

Some features:

• A browser window can be resized by actually “pinching” and dragging the tab at bottom right.
• It would be fun if a document could be made as if you were using a typewriter. The curled paper hologram comes out of the keyboard.
• Touching the 3D objects will be possible by dragging, throwing, resizing, etc.
• By pressing the mouse body downwards, the cursor sinks (goes deeper) on screen. When you release it, it goes back to the default position (front).

Designer: Mac Funamizu

Designers from around the world have been asked to create the perfect (and I’d say wildest) martini glass for Bombay Sapphire. You might recognize a couple of these folks. And check it out: Bombay Sapphire has reached out to you, the design-concious and intelligent readers of Yanko Design to vote for your favorite. You wanted the best, YOU GOT THE BEST.

BOMBAY SAPPHIRE Asks Yanko Design Readers to Vote
Have your say and be entered into the draw to win

To celebrate design week in the cocktail capital of the world, the Bombay Sapphire Foundation will be announcing the winner of this years global Designer Glass Competition and it wants you to help decide who is awarded this grand prize.

By voting for your favourite glass, you could be one of ten lucky readers chosen to win a copy of A Most Elegant Partnership, a book by BOMBAY SAPPHIRE that charts the evolution of the martini cocktail and its glass, and a bottle of BOMBAY SAPPHIRE gin.

Neat, huh? Below are the entrants to this martinitastic design contest with each of their names and respective countries of origin. Be sure to visit the Bombay Sapphire Foundation Designer Glass Competition Website and vote away! -Note, you’ll have to go through a short “be of age” thing at the beginning, but it’s short.

Designer: Various Designers for Bombay Sapphire

Martini Ice Cold – LOY KAI YI TIFFANY, SINGAPORE

Close Glass – NATHAN STUDER, SWITZERLAND

Globe – NATHAN STUDER, SWITZERLAND

Jewel – MICHAEL KARLSSON, SWEDEN

Liquid Sapphire – MICHAEL KARLSSON, SWEDEN

Moonlight – GIUSEPPE CELENTANO, ITALY

Sensual Paradise – GIUSEPPE CELENTANO, ITALY

Fulfilled – OLA DABROWSKA AND ADAM GROCH, POLAND

Comet – OLA DABROWSKA AND ADAM GROCH, POLAND

The < yu: > enables real time biometric feedback – the kind of information that could revolutionize medical diagnosis. It’s a soft bracelet mesh that checks your vital signs and even draws painless blood samples. It interfaces with you computer and acts as an alarm clock by applying pressure. With a flick of the rest, the device tightens and takes real time biometric readings to be transmitted to a computer and physician.

Designers: Ewald Neuhofer, Talia Radford, Thomas Schiefer & Georg Milde

Miranda is a surface tile with hairs that can be manipulated to createdifferent shades in the surface. These shades can be used as a mediumfor illustration, communication or visual effect.Miranda is an adaptable wall mural measuring 3 square metres andcomposed of silicone wall base tiles with over 65,000 injectionmoulded polypropylene fibers sitting in tiny ball and socket jointson the surface of the wall. I used to do this with my parent’s carpeting. About time somebody made it into a product of high art.

Designer: Giles Miller

Just the other day I was thinking about how amazing it would be to be able to hold a camera with one hand and “shoot it” like a pistol. What a bunch of ease that would be – but it’d be impossible to do! It’d look just like a gun, right? And what sort of place wouldn’t suspect you of wrongdoing when you’re carrying what appears to be a firearm? Tuh-dah! Florent Cuchet’s got the solution: the sport-oriented “Trigger” camera.

Super simple. Super kawaii.

NOTE the title is a bit deceiving as this camera will inevitably be a digital camera, thus no “film” – but you being such intelligent folks, I’m sure you got the idea right away.

What Cuchet’s done here is to take the traditional camera and par it down like one of those for-children cameras. What this camera is is super simplification. It has only a few options on a toothed click-wheel: “movie, classic snapshot, and moving snapshot.” With the “moving” option being the one that’s got the super-high shutter speed for those traveling a billion miles an hour on their skateboard.

I’ll take the first tester if you want, Cuchet!

Designer: Florent Cuchet

Hooray! The tabbing of folders -and the entire organized world- has come nearly full circle! First they put tabs on folders, then they put tabs on desktops, then they put them on internet browsers, now they’re on the bathroom cabinet. Of course!

The main function of this cabinet seems to be “keeping personal items that you might want to keep hidden from a partner of flatmate.” I don’t know about that, especially if you’ve got a roommate who’s ever used a folder or a computer before… or even opened basically any sort of drawer or door before…

But this cabinet is cute and nice nonetheless. It’s made of oak, metal, and glass. Each portion is distinguishable from the other by color, just like your toothbrushes.

Designer: Lewis Taylor

Whats Hot: Eco-friendly tag, meaning Solar Power; Bluetooth, A2DP/AVRCP, latest NXT panel technology, two kinds of styles: one for desks and the other for mobile phones.

Whats Not: Concept, concept, concept! And I fancy the desk version more than the soft version.

Designer: Tryi Yeh

The family structure is undergoing a massive reconstruction, and the Smart Sun Solar Cooker addresses this need by being suitable for 1-2 persons. It features solar energy and induction heating, with the top cover of the cooker being laced highly-efficient solar cells that can harness solar energy even on a cloudy day. For induction heating, the stored solar energy is utilized and the food cooks in specialized pot (3 sizes) using steam as a medium.

The smartness factor comes into play with the cooker hooking up to the net to a proposed Samsung healthy & sustainable cooking network. Needless to say, via the site one can upload the cooking stats and determine nutritional value of the meal.

A plausible design, till the net connection part; considering our hectic lives, I really wonder how many of us will have the time and inclination to actually determine the nutrition/health facts.

Designers: Anil Dincer and Murat Ozveri for DesignQuadro

I dont know about your city, but the weather bureau of my hometown is often sniggered at, for their in-accurate predictions. When they say it will rain (like they predicted a couple of days ago) you can be sure it will be bright and sunny. I would like to gift them this Window Phone, that makes accurate predictions and even changes its display to reflect the climatic conditions outdoors. Maybe I should keep the phone for myself and bug the bureau with my updates.

Designer: Seunghan Song

This must be a sign, the end to human intelligence – the day when we create TVs to further enable our couch potato ways. The Share TV looks like any other except the screen is actually made of two bezaless (is that even a word?) OLED screens you can separate for individual viewing needs.

In hindsight, this may be a “tastic” (new made-up word for the day) idea. You got two kids fighting over programming and one of them is your husband. Just spit the TV in half and let them go about their ways. Problem is, that isn’t exactly sharing which goes against the very name of this product. Still, I want one.

Designers: Kim Seulgi & Evan Yiwei Ma

I’m guilty of it, haphazardly slinging my clothes, new and worn, all over the place. Why not at least go for the semblance of organization if it can be done tastefully right? That’s the idea behind the aptly named Clothes Hanger. It provides a functional solution to hanging everything from clothes, bags and laundry without making you feel like Mr. Clean. It’s meant to look messy, in an organized way. The thing even doubles as a drying rack. My my, we’re designing for the lazy now. I love it. Excuse me while I get my dog to hit the publish button. I can’t reach it.

Designer: Therese Glimskr

As proven by my 4th grade science project, adequate sun exposure will in fact, disinfect standing water. Now give me money. UV filtration isn’t new. People do it all over the world. What the SODIS does better is provide long-term durability and viability. The briefcase-like water jug is made of a high tech material which resists scratching. Scratches inhibit proper UV filtration which means jugs have to be replaced and as we know, the people who use devices like these can’t exactly do that.

Let me tell you why I like this concept. First, someone thought enough to put a 6 liter jug into a briefcase making it much easier to transport. They thought enough to choose a material that can resist scratches better than cheap plastics. Thirdly they’ve done the research and figured out it will only cost $2 to manufacture these life saving water vessels. Kudos to the designer Samuel Rock. Nice name man.

Now give me money.

Designer: Samuel Rock

No more approximations, not even if youre blind. A reassuring sound of Tikk, tikk… tekk, two fingers and some Braille embossed cylinders, mix them up and you got yourself the Tikk-Tekk Rainbow! Its a low-cost universal measuring tool that uses a string (ranging from 1cm to 100 cm) wrapped within the casing, and is extended between the finger tips. Kinda like how you use your hands to gesture an estimated distance; only Tikk-Tekk gives you the exact numbers.

Designers: Guopeng Liang & Yun Li

Oh no! This is not just a chair. It’s “My Bedside Chair” -for your derrier. But not just for your derrier. Nay! Tis also for a bit of the old storage. What you put in there is your book and your pencil. It’s got some nice features, too! Like for example it’s made of solid ash wood and leather. What more could you want of a chair than wood?

Check it out. This particular chair was made to be used as “both a temporary and permanent substitute for a bedside table.” Ho wow! So now you’ve got a place to set your glass of water, plugged in cellphone, nightlight, and bottle of whiskey!

Oh you don’t have all those things – oh you’re not that old – well then you can keep the whiskey in the drawer!

That’s it! Case closed. Perfect chair.

Designer: Lewis Taylor

And for those of you who still buy CD albums? Hands up, everybody who still purchases music CDs from the record store. Wild! Some of you do? Alright then, let’s get on with it. Here’s a way for you CD-o-philes to get your aesthetic pleasure on. You open your cd, listen to it for a while, then put it away – where? In your brand new “Qubo” case, right up there on your wall! Isn’t that pretty?

The Qubo stores one cd package and its accompanying album. The album case fits in the inside of the Qubo, sliding in on a vertical drawer, while the cd fits on a big of high-density foam on the front.

Pretty!

Hope you own a lot of Radiohead and White Stripes albums!

Designer: Kenneth Lylover

You may spend thousands of Dollars re-doing your home, but all the money is wasted if you dont create the correct ambiance. How do you get that? Simple, compliment what you got with the correct lighting. This is the one deciding factor that can either hype up the room, or make it dowdy and drab. Lets look at Ten Incredible Light Options that will surely glam-up your space.

10) Shattered Lights by Ira Rozhavsky

An eerie blob, perhaps? Nay, its an awesome light that can be folded and what not! The tiny LEDs on the edges give it a very kitsch look.

9) White Noise Lamp for Ill & Elderly by Shane Crozier

White Noise actually belongs in hospitals and is meant for infusing warmth in the sterile environment. But I can see it becoming a trendy room partition, like the kind you could use to demarcate the living and the dining area.

8 ) Hour Glass Night Light by Sun-Young Lee

Redefining the functioning of a night-lamp, the trendy Hour Glass Lamp will look gorgeous on any bed-side table. Its the perfect combo of green-living and style.

7) Torn Lighting by Billy May

Creating the perfect illusion of diffused lighting in your apartment, the Torn Lighting exudes a warm glow. This makes it a good option for creating a sophisticated ambience.

6) I-Quad LED Tiles by Soo-Jin Chou, Young-Hee Cho, Young-Kuk Oh, Oh-Jae Kwon & Kue-Hoo Hwang

Altho this wont create any lighting ambience, the concept of having LED tiles that interact and display images is simply awesome. Ideal for spaces like a teens room or a bachelor pad.

5) Folding Lamp by Thomas Hick

DIY Lamp; perfect for when you move into a new apartment and are gung-ho about creating magical things for it. Fold yourself a bright new lamp!

4) LED Light Show In Water by Seung-Jin Lee

Agreed you cant install this at home, but imagine looking at it from your apartment window. A gentle breeze, a glass of wine in your hand and you gazing out of the window, at this mesmerizing collection of floating lights.

3) Nomadic Lamp by Dorota Kulawik

Lights that can be peppered around the home; more like teen spirit! However, interesting enough to warrant a spot in the room; especially if a sleepover is happening.

2) The Cork Light by Won-Gye Na

The latest bar dcor, reflective of an eccentric personality, this kinda of lighting just sums up all lessons in ingenuity.

1) Pear Shaped Light by Nick Foleys

This ones really a genius. Besides adding art to your room, the lamps add a quick sense of wit to the ambience. Pick a pear light, place it elsewhere and then hook it back for re-charging. I prefer it on the tree however, that ways it looks complete.

The Source Project indulges in a whole new way of purchasing and dispensing packaged drinking water. The system requires store owners and vendors to install a Source Water Fountain outside their shops, like how you have those candy dispensing machines. You need to do a onetime purchase of the special Source Bottle from them, and then fill up the water. Every time you purchase a refill of water, you get credited a certain number of redeemable points. The highlight is the unique water-filling process and the bottle.

The bottle fills via a valve in the base; see the video as it explains the process nicely. Oh, and the points are transferred from the fountain system to the vendors log via RFiD technology.

On the face of it I quite like the idea; however it will be a bummer if you have already purchased a Source Bottle and forget to carry it with you. The bottle design is pretty sleek and slim, but that only goes on to diminish its capacity. Meaning if you consume water pretty often (like you should), then youre gonna need to tank up regularly. Also this system requires too much of an effort, no matter how sustainable and long lasting it promises to be.

Designer: Oliver Craig

We may not be able to end all wars but if this quattro is right, we can at least stop people from participating. Por que? Peace Robots serve the United Nations as an ad-hoc intervention squad. They’re subject to UN principles; neutrality and non-partisanship. “Non-lethal” systems enable them to defuse hot stops and potentially save civilian lives. Know what else? Peace Robots are not remote controlled. They’re self-governed and operate in swarms. O’rly? Please discuss.

Designers: Jupin Ghanbari, Benjamin Cselley, Jelena Stoikovic & Dominik Premauer

The Universal Phone is designed for both blind and sighted people. How? Thousands of micro pins dynamically raise and lower forming a tactile surface for all to get touchy with. Sighted people get the elusive tactile feedback they’re missing with ordinary touch-screens and blind people get a whole new interface made of braille. The idea was inspired by the little raised dot on the number 5 on almost all mobile keypads. Hey if it works, why not extrapolate the idea into a whole new interface?

Designer: Seunghan Song

Refresh is a charging station for 3 or more devices (depends on how large they are). The station comes with connectors for your most popular power hungry devices (finger points at my iPhone, Blackberry, and iPod). If your device uses mini, micro and standard USB, you’re covered too. It’s not anything fancy but as with all Bluelounge products, it’s about tidying up your space. Hit the link for a full list of compatible devices.

Designer: Bluelounge