Andy Lippman pointed me to the work of the Personal Computing Industry Center at UC Irvine and specifically to some papers that analyze the global economic impact of the computer industry. In “Who Captures Value in a Global Innovation System? The case of Apple’s iPod (pdf)” the authors analyze how the profit from a single […]
Category Archives: product design
light noodles
Charlie Davidson’s Hasta la Pasta is part of the redesign (tagline: for designers who don’t want to make landfill) Lighten Up collection of lamps that have vastly reduced environmental impact. Making products out of food – like these spoons and these espresso cups – guarantees that they compost well and affords alternative uses – especially […]
Also posted in furniture, futurecraft, lighting, materials, open objects, soft/glowing
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design it yourself
Enzo Mari‘s 1974 Autoprogettazioni (Design and build-it-yourself projects) are simple schemes for tables and chairs that can be made from scrap wood in a variety of proportions and configurations. You can follow the designs or even buy complete kits, but you don’t have to: just looking at these images allows the designs to be freely […]
Also posted in fabrication, free & open, furniture, open objects, supply chain
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light pipes
The tangible representation of light as material makes it fun – and intuitive – to add it and to take it away. We saw an adult version of modular light blocks at this year’s Salone Satellite; now a children’s bedside lamp by beingblease that allows the child to configure colorful magnetic tubes that bend and […]
binary weather report
Last year Ambient released an umbrella with a handle that glows if you should take it with you – a lot of electronics for a disposable water defender (especially when you consider the resources required to make a single computer chip). A much more elegant solution: umbrellatoday.com, the same simple suggestion without all the complicated […]
Also posted in visualization
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lap sack
HP announced it would start shipping laptops in reusable cloth bags instead of the usual cardboard boxes, a step toward reducing materials that have nowhere to go but away. via
Also posted in energy, environment, fabrication, futurecraft, materials, soft/glowing, supply chain
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alter doodles
No Robots Please! is an elementary school workshop by bioengineer Alan Outten where he introduced children to alternate design concepts and prompted them to invent their own. He began by introducing images mind-altering works such as the Eames’ Powers of Ten, Auger + Loizeau’s Audio Tooth, Raby + Evans’ Meat-eating products and Vacanti’s Human ear […]
Also posted in children, evil robots
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digital luck
In Taiwan last week I bought this tiny, tiny USB key fashioned as a cell phone charm with a diminutive fabric sleeve meant to make it look like a good luck charm. Aside from its ridiculously small size for a 1GB memory stick (less than 1 gram, 27 x 12 x 2mm), it has a […]
Also posted in marketing
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