Tag: concept
IFA 07: Video of Sharp's prototype 20mm thick LCD HDTVs
Remember those speccy new LCD TVs Sharp showed off in yesterday’s press conference at IFA? Yes, those stick-thin prototypes, just 20mm…
Forest fire fighting beetle-like robots in development
Robots are often developed to do highly unappealing, dangerous jobs, and these beetle-like bots in development by boffins at the University of Madgeburg-Stendal in Germany are no exception.
Their primary purpose in life is to fight forest fires.
Officially called OLE, they could theoretically run at 20-30 kmh, feature ceramic coating to protect them from temperatures of up to 1,300 degrees Celcius, and are able to retract their legs when they sense danger (like being barbecued, for example).
A team of 30 of these concept robots could cover an area of forest as large as 4,400 square miles. Unfortunately, they don’t currently exist, and there’s no clue yet when, or if, they will.
I don’t know what OLE stands for, but it’s probably in German. Any ideas?
(Via Bot Junkie)
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Sony Panoramic Digital Camera concept: will it work?
Sony has mocked up the concept of an automatic panoramic digital camera, designed by Hye-Jeong Yang.
In principle, it works by setting it on a level surface, angling it, and then letting it rotate through 360 degrees to take the panoramic photograph.
In theory, it can store pics and video to a memory card – but of course a concept can do anything.
More importantly is whether it will actually work. One commenter claims that “If it is designed to make panoramas then it should spin around the nodal point (well entrance pupil) of the lens to avoid parallax. Unless I’m missing something then this design is inherently flawed.”
The design doesn’t look quite right to me, though it’s a great concept. What do you reckon? Additionally, as there’s no real model, there are no sample photo either. Guess we’ll have to still to tripod and stitching software for the moment.
Zaha Hadid's futuristic Z.car broom-broom-brooming towards the Guggenheim Museum
Ok, forget the electricity-powered Toyota I mentioned the other day, this baby is my new dream car. For, you know, when I marry one of the Jetsons and can fly and food comes in little colour-coded pills.
Currently only a prototype winging its way to the Guggenheim Museum in New York City shortly, it was designed by architect Zaha Hadid…
A "high concept" media player
Of course, in the tech blogging scene, “high concept” is slang for “practically unusable and very unlikely to ever come out this side of Korea”.
This high-concept MP3 player from Chinese designer Can-Hong Huang (yes he can!) is torch-like in design…
Musipen: an MP3 player with a twist
There are now about 1,479 flash-memory MP3 players available to buy, and many of them have similar shapes, buttons and user interfaces. Don’t you wish someone would try to be a bit, well, innovative? So does Chris Williams. The difference is, he took up the challenge.
BBC demos Web 2.0 style Radio 1 personalisation service
The BBC has been showing off a prototype system dripping with Web 2.0 social networking interaction goodness at the MIX07 conference in Las Vegas. Using Microsoft's Silverlight software and Windows Live Messenger, the BBC has created a prototype system that…
Nokia World: video of Nokia's future mobile concepts (part 2)
Here's another video shown at the Nokia World conference by the firm's head of design Alastair Curtis. This one shows off the way they think the user interface of phones may go, turning into a whizzy touchy-feely touchscreen type affair….
