Joe Colombo designed these ‘smoke‘ glasses in 1964, an original solution to hedonistic multitasking. In an age where most of the things we hold in our hands are plastic boxes, it’s nice to be reminded of a time when ‘usability’ wasn’t defined by how many fingers your multi-touch screen could detect. Colombo’s example reminds us […]
Category Archives: human2.0
shill pill
Counterfeit medicine will amount to a $75 billion market in 2010, leaving death and disease in their wake, but it’s unclear whether Authentix‘s system for verifying pharmaceuticals are genuine is the right direction. Their method works by adding a chemical with a distinctive signature to the inactive ingredients – so that the suspect medication can […]
Also posted in livingbreathing, supply chain, surveillance, traceability
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free wheels
the whirlwind project is designing and freely licensing an open-source wheelchair design that was designed by and can be manufactured locally by individuals in wheelchairs. the chair has significant advantages over traditional models, most notably because it can be used to go up and down stairs, can handle rough terrain and allows a parent to […]
Also posted in conviviality, customization, fabrication, futurecraft, open objects, product design
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camera diaries
lindsay williams’ sensecam is a wearable digital camera with a wide-angle lens that captures time-lapse movies of the wearer’s activities. her team has done a study suggesting that the camera can be useful to help someone with dementia remember events. a woman who watched the recording could then remember events for several months, as opposed […]
Also posted in blogogracy, surveillance, visualization
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slice of life
much as columbus’ landing in the new world was once painted as a triumph against flat-earth dogma, historians have long claimed that a papal decree forbade dissection during the middle ages until vesalius boldly defied it by performing dissections in secret. in fact, no such decree ever existed, but the old bad pope, good scientist […]
Also posted in 3d, animation, marketing, visualization
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third arm
news that a woman can control a prosthetic wrist elbow and hand through nerve impulses captured at the shoulder brings us one step closer to not only smart prosthetics, but also the potential future ability to have extra-strong and maybe just plain extra limbs. drill attachment, anyone? via engadget
Posted in human2.0
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boob tunes
ian pearson suggests that breast implants could be functional, for example by containing an embedded mp3 player. the idea is not that bad:adding intelligent circuitry to aesthetic prostheses could help counterweight the stupidity of those who have them. vie engadget
Also posted in possessed products, soft/glowing
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thought control
for the first time ever thought was directly able to manipulate and control the physical world: a paralyzed man with a computer chip (left) in his brain is able to move a computer cursor (right) to draw, write and play. via nytimes
Also posted in perception
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