Tag: concept
Turn your iPhone into a scanner
When’s the last time you used a scanner?
For me, the answer’s probably “years ago”. It’s something that’s completely exited my life, for some reason. Probably because I just don’t seem to ever get stuff on paper any more. Not stuff that needs to be on my PC, anyway.
Well, an Industrial Design student at the University of Cincinnati, Kyle A Koch, has come up with a big cardboard construct that can be used to scan stuff in using your iPhone. You’ll also need some decent light, and the picture quality won’t even approach ‘medium’, but hey – you never know when it could come in handy.
(via Likecool)
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Lightbulb/speaker mashups suddenly all over the web
Okay, ‘all over the web’ is perhaps a bit of an exaggeration, but just the other day, we spotted the Soundbulb over at Yanko Design. Today, I spotted this concept Bulb-Sound-Speaker over at Crunchgear. Two lamp-speakers in a week? I’m calling that a trend. Before the end of the month, we’ll be swimming in the things.
Silliness aside, it’s quite a cool concept, and could prove useful in public places – restaurants, elevators, etc. Of the two, only the Soundbulb works as a light as well, but they both rely on Bluetooth to ferry the music around the place wirelessly. Would I use one of these? No. Do I think they’d sell? Most definitely.
(via Yanko Design and Crunchgear)
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HP shows off "Firefly" concept gaming laptop
Pity it’s just a concept, but at least one laptop that HP will be showing off at CES next week looks *amazing*. Laptop Magazine has managed to get a hands-on of the HP Firefly – an innovative gaming laptop. Click over the jump for the full details of this beast.
Concept Mac "triBook": fold out wings for extra screen space
Portable computers are great but they’re not known for their screen real estate. The concept “triBook” based on an Apple notebook computer is a pretty impressive idea which solves that.
As the photo shows, it features a fairly standard notebook but with two additional side screens that fold out and can be angled to provide additional working/gaming space on each side of the main display. Together, they offer a total 21-inch diagonal widescreen…
The μTRON Keyboard – a terrifying new form of Japanese brain torture
As if typing isn’t a difficult and tiresome enough chore that only exists because voice and brain recognition technology is STILL rubbish, here’s something to make it harder. The μTRON Keyboard. A keyboard that’s been chopped up and rearranged. An invention that could halve office productivity over night.
The μTRON Keyboard comes in two pieces, with the space bar relegated…
Samsung develops foldable mobile phone with big OLED screen
Samsung has been playing around with flexible displays for several years, as has Sony, but now Samsung has developed a working prototype of a mobile phone which uses a foldable OLED screen to enable a much larger display to be fitted into a handheld device.
Take a look at the device when it’s closed and it looks like a fairly standard handset with a general-purpose display on the front. Unfold it (as shown in the video below) and you have access to a much larger screen for playing movies and games.
The advantage of using flexible material is that you end up with a seamless display rather than two separate ones. I could see this being expanded to create even larger displays that can be folded away into a sensibly-sized mobile phone handset, or perhaps built in to other portable devices such as netbooks and DVD players…
Nike concept sunglasses give you the benefit of hindsight
Here’s some nifty concept sunglasses from Nike which curve your field of vision, so you can actually (sort-of) see behind you! Normal field of view is 180°, but this extends that 25° on each side, giving you an effective 230° vision range. Useful for seeing that taxi that’s about to knock you over. Nike say:
“To get technical, high power, diverging Fresnel zones aligned vertically distort into view an extra 25º of view on either side. In doing this, vision is radically distorted in the periphery, but as the eye detects only motion in that area, little clarity is lost in the process.”
Still, it remains just a concept. Sorry, but you won’t be getting your hands on these just yet.
Nike (via CrunchGear)
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Higher definition YouTube collage: Rickrolling to new extremes
While YouTube might be taking its time upgrading the resolution of uploaded videos, one enterprising developer has coded up a web page to display a synchronised YouTube video wall, allowing four videos to be played almost seamlessly.
It all feels a bit hit and miss, and relies on someone creating four videos, one for each quarter of a much larger original video.
Given that the highest non-widescreen YouTube videos currently play at 480 x 360 resolution, creating a 2×2 wall offers up a 960 x 720 video. It’s not quite high definition, and there’s definitely some judder, not to mention the YouTube watermark plastered all over the screen, but it’s an interesting experiment…
Semicircular headphones, so you don't get hit by a bus
These semicircular bluetooth headphones, from designer Seohyun Baek, are designed for cyclists. The idea is that they fit into your ears, but don’t block out external noise – like that lorry frantically beeping at you to get out the way…
The Scan Toaster: concept USB gizmo burns pictures onto toast
There seems to be a fascination with burning recognisable images into toast, and we’ve covered quite a few already, but this concept (which I really hope Electrolux decide to make) is for a USB-powered Scan Toaster.
One of the nine finalists of this year’s DesignLab competition, the Scan Toaster can “print” news, weather, and pictures on to bread, and was developed by Sung Bae Chang of Sejong University in South Korea.
The concept is fairly simple. Plug in the toaster to a free USB port, place the bread, and the software will then start burning whatever it is you want.
I’m sure overzealous health and safety officers would instantly ban this should it ever make it to production. I suppose in an age of saving paper, this method of creating a hard copy of a document needn’t go to waste after being read. Just don’t try to fax it.
And now, for your stomach’s pleasure, here are the Top Ten Tech Toasties. If you can recreate these in an ordinary toaster, we’ll be really impressed. Click on the image below to see the whole gallery.
(Via OhGizmo)
