What do a MacBook Air and a submersible rolling pin have in common--besides both being made on planet Earth? Both are winners in this year's International Design Excellence Awards. The competition, run by the Industrial Designers Society of America and sponsored by BusinessWeek magazine, invites businesses and students the world over to submit their best inventions or design concepts.
Samsung's Design Touch concept would make touchable pictures for the visually impaired.
(Credit: IDSA)Out of 205 IDEA awards this year, some, like the iPhone, are no-brainers, while many conceptual designs do much to stretch the imagination. Though the list is brimming with interesting gadgets, a few caught our eye.
Samsung's Design Touch concept, which won a gold medal, is a digital camera for the visually impaired. The operator takes a picture, and sound is recorded for three seconds after the shutter clicks.
Knoend's Lite2Go got a bronze medal for eco-friendly packaging.
(Credit: ISDA)But audio isn't what makes this a concept camera. The Design Touch user would then be able to touch a lightweight, flexible Braille display sheet that displays the picture in 3D on an embossed surface. The 3D pictures with sound can be uploaded, reviewed, and shared.
Other products for visually impaired consumers include student concepts like a voice stick that scans text and turns it into audio, and a Braille cover for touch-screen debit card machines.
New green designs are taking hold, and winners focused on solar panels and eco-friendly boxes. Taking the problem of excess packaging one step further, U.S. company Knoend, produced a lamp that's made out of its own packaging.
The Lite2go Lamp can either be suspended or set on a table, and folds from its packaging into an energy-saving light bulb and cord. When the light burns out, the lamp can be disassembled and all parts are biodegradable or recyclable. The bronze-medal-winning lamp costs $65 in Knoend's online store.
The MaxDoor replaces regular doors with sensors, remote locks, rubber, and aluminum.
(Credit: IDSA)The MaxDoor by Brazil-based Nodesign is like no other front door. The doorknob is a sensor that can be touched to open. A remote control device locks and unlocks the door, which is aluminum, but covered by a rubbery finish and rubber seals that block out noise.
Red sensors spell out the house or apartment numbers, and a secret slot opens for mail delivery. The door may only have its place in luxury apartments, but it's already moved beyond the concept stage, so it could already be in some homes.
To see all winning designs and finalists, visit IDSA's Web site.
(Credit:
Ravi Chhatpar)
This high-end designer boutique in a trendy part of Seoul sells these bags at higher than Louis Vuitton's full prices, which is not nearly as hilarious as Louis Vuitton's unique methods in fighting back counterfeiters these days. Just look at this fake set-up of a fake bag seller that sells real bags during a recent exhibit launch party in New York. (via Notcot)
(Credit:
3Dconnexion)
That's a relief. It turns out that fellow Craver Josh Lowensohn really did have a legitimate reason for all those sudden gestures at his desk.
As it turns out, it was all born from an enthusiasm for virtual-reality gear made by 3Dconnexion that's apparently well founded: A higher-end version of the mouse he wrote about last May has been awarded this year's iF Product Design Award at the CeBit trade show in Hanover, Germany, "in recognition for its ergonomic and innovative design." The manufacturer, which is a subsidiary of Logitech, says the "SpaceExplorer" 3D motion controller was developed to be used with a conventional mouse and keyboard "for professional designers, allowing them to simultaneously pan, zoom, and rotate three-dimensional objects."
We haven't tried it out ourselves, but it seems preferable to throwing punches in the air, especially when there's expensive computer equipment within reach.
Back in the 1980s there was an expectation that when you bought a product, it would work. For example, CDs, pop one in a player and it would play. There wasn't a case of, say, a Version 2.0 CD player that refused to play a Region 9 disc. As far as I can recall, 100% of properly manufactured discs played on properly functioning machines. You pressed "play," and you heard music--no menus, no error messages, no ifs, ands, or buts.
But CD, the first truly successful consumer digital audio format, was introduced before computers sabotaged the manufacturer/consumer equilibrium. CDs had to be right from the get-go (yes, mastering techniques have slowly improved sound quality, but CDs' functionality was right from day one). Over the past twenty years the public has become increasingly docile and now regularly puts up with half-baked products and services that don't perform as advertised. Buggy software rolls out, and we beta test it. I would have expected at least some consumer backlash, but no, we waste our time whiling away hours chatting with tech support. We buy printers that don't print, put up with sluggish Internet connections or interruptions, and cell phones that drop calls. Sheep like, we pay our bills, happy consumers stuffing corporate coffers.
Over in my neck of the consumer electronics woods we have the "evolving standard" known as HDMI, and what sort of standard is that? One that makes component compatibility a guessing game. When will the industry get its act together and develop a true standard? Better yet, one that will stick around, unchanged for, I dunno, four years? HDMI was introduced in 2002, now we're up to v.1.3b, and I'm sure 1.4 will promise even better specs. So what. You may have a HDMI player hooked up to an HDMI A/V receiver and an HDMI display, but it's not exactly a sure thing that it will work. Which raises the question: why 'o' why do we let them carry out product development in public? Please don't misunderstand, I'm not railing against progress, just the never-ending race to deliver not ready for primetime formats and technologies.
A few months ago I couldn't hear multichannel audio from a SACD player hooked up to the SAME manufacturer's A/V receiver. The HDMI connection flat out refused to accept SACD multichannel audio, and since the receiver wasn't equipped with analog multichannel inputs, I could only play the stereo portion of SACD discs. The only possible explanation for this sort of thing is that the company doesn't care. And as long as we put up with their screwups, they'll keep screwing up.
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