although few attempts at ‘open design‘ have endured, openprosthetics.org seems to be working. it is a forum for sharing prosthetic designs, and it is motivated in large part by amputees and their families who are seeking better, cheaper, and more functional alternatives to traditional prosthetics. take a look at the prosthetic fishing rod (above) for […]
Category Archives: futurecraft
shared limbs
Also posted in blogogracy, conviviality, livingbreathing, open objects, product design
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shake a wrist
master cyber-seamtress leah buechley showed her ‘bracelets‘ at the siggraph 2007 unravel fashion show. amazingly she can make circuits completely soft, such as this supple LED-studded bracelet with an accelerometer that propagates lights beams when shaken. from the catalog: Woven bracelets—created on traditional bead looms out of beads, conductive thread and surface mount LEDs—function as […]
Also posted in fabrication, product design, soft/glowing, visualization
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public display of affection
i taped barabara layne’s ‘jacket antics‘ at the siggraph 2007 unravel fashion show – a set of jackets woven with LED marquees on their backs. the displays are an extension of the woven fabric, with the added ability to connect two people holding hands into a single display. from the catalog: Jacket Antics feature unique […]
Also posted in fabrication, materials, product design, soft/glowing
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robo-fabric
the shape memory alloy nitinol has the ability to spring back to its original forged shape when heated, allowing soft actuation without motors. italian fashion designers grado zero made a shirt that rolled up its own sleeves when the wire (and the wearer) overheat (above). later joanna berzowska and marcelo coelho made kukkia and vilkas, […]
Also posted in livingbreathing, materials, soft/glowing
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how things are taken apart
panasonic has a highly evolved electronics recycling program, in part because of japan’s mandate that half of materials be re-used or recycled by manufacturers. their metec site shows the extend to which televisions, air conditioners, refrigerators and washing machines can be broken down to their component materials for re-manufacturing. aside from the advantage of such […]
Also posted in fabrication, marketing, materials, open objects, product design
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sunny screens
with the recent introduction of consumer electronics targeted to the developing world, a considerable amount of innovation has gone into making low-cost displays that work in sunlight and consume less energy. i spotted these two prototypes at SIGGRAPH today: the dual-mode reflective/emissive LCD in OLPC’s XO hundred-dollar laptop (above) and electronic ink in motorola’s F3 […]
Also posted in energy, product design
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meticulous models
for years computer modeling has been a technical pursuit, much like drafting once was, without the artistic merit of its tangible counterparts. that’s why i find frederick wessler‘s work interesting: he carefully crafts computer models of objects that have a particular significance to him, such as his father’s wrench or this medical kit (above) and […]
Also posted in 3d, fabrication, product design, visualization
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war weave
while reading enlisting madison avenue: the marketing approach to earning popular support in theaters of operation (a handbook for ‘shaping’ the opinion of ‘indigenous’ populations in US-occupied countries) via chris c, i came across many failures and few successes. one of the biggest problems in US propaganda efforts is that many ‘shaping’ attempts find their […]
Also posted in blogogracy, fabrication, marketing, product design, soft/glowing, visualization
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