GNR8 new/s

(not) a lamp

Designer: david graas

The lamp is actually the cardboard box that it came in, if you know what i mean. One of those products that makes you wonder how come you haven't seen it before. Or, have you...

solar wallpaper

Designers: Marta Lwin, Ty Whitfield, Teresita Cochran, and Ramakrishnan Subramanian

In a similar vein to Front Design's Light Sensitive Wallpaper, "solar wallpaper" (designed at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program) uses light (or lack thereof) as it's primary catalyst.

By embedding electroluminescent materials into the design pattern of the wall paper and incorporating a built-in light sensor, the wallpaper can respond to the lighting requirement of a room, acting as a decorative element when a room is naturally bright, and as a flat wallpaper light when the room requires more light. With power supplied from a solar charged battery, it can also be manually controlled to increase or decrease luminosity. Sustainable, efficient, functional, and technologically sexy.

hugms

Designer: Mark Argo

Have you ever wanted to send a hug to someone, or tell them you love them, without getting bogged down in some humdrum chitchat about dinner or the kids or whatever...if the answer is yes, you need a hugms.

The latest in a growing number of "emotional technology" products, hugms is a device designed for sending someone you care about a hug using your mobile phone.

once hugms is connected to your mobile phone all you have to do is send it the phone number of the person you'd like to hug and then squeeze. sensors inside the device read how long and how hard you have squeezed and will format a text message based on your hug.

for example, a long squeeze would look like

'hhhhhhuuuuuuuuuuggggggg'

while a short and hard squeeze would look like

'hhHHUUUUUUugg'

hugms also communicates with light and color. the strength of the squeeze is mapped to a change in color. if the person you're hugging also has a hugms, then your message will also trigger the same color change. finally, your loved one can return the hug to you, either by squeezing their hugms or just replying to the text message. once received your hugms will glow a warm color, giving you the knowledge that you're being hugged in return.

LED Underwear

Designers: Puff Buff

Here's one for the now-i've-seen-everything file:

Polish designers puff buff have carried out LED experimentation to it's logical extreme: LED underwear. We don't have much information about the design or the designers (and please excuse the tiny image), but what's the difference.

What can we say...finally! Or maybe, ok everybody...move along...there's nothing to see here.

Audio Cubes

Designer: Bert Schiettecatte

From the Audio Cubes site:

This is a musical interface I have been working on over the past years. It is a tangible user interface (TUI) consisting of a number of cubes made out of a plastic material. Each cube contains a digital signal processor (DSP) with optical sensors and emitters (infrared, red, green and blue LEDs). The sensors and emitters receive and send audio signals which are generated or processed by the signal processor in the cube. Each cube is powered by a rechargeable battery pack. By positioning the cubes relative to each other and moving them around, a signal processing network can be created. A musician can use this interface to learn a new way of interacting with sound and music.

OK, so technically, this should probably be considered more of an audio/sound engineering creation, but optical sensors and emitters (infrared, red, green and blue LEDs) ARE involved, the cubes are cool, and, if they can change colors to the music, then I definitely want a set.

via We Make Money Not Art

loveJackets

Concept & Design: Despina Papadopoulos

As part of an ongoing series of proposed products, from Studio 5050, that function at the interface of emotion, technology & design, the love jackets takes the concept of "finding each other" to a whole new level.

From the website:

"A  pair of jackets emits, and polls for a particular signal. Once the pair finds each other, in at least 10 feet distance, facing each other, the two beep – emitting a sound akin to crickets mating, and a pattern of LEDs blinks (light emitting diodes; small, bright, energy efficient lights). Each jacket responds only to its unique pair.

The technology used is basic: an infra-red receiver and transmitter, a PIC chip (programmable interrupt controller) that controls the LEDs and speaker output and sends out the “bits” of code that allows the pairs to find each other. The components are all surface mount which means that the technology is as transparent as possible. Instead of wires, the components are attached to the circuit board via conductive fabric “conduits.”

While the project aims to explore social interactional patterns and institute new ones, it also elaborates ways in which technology can seamlessly be integrated in garments. The aim of the project is not to create “cyber” garments, but use technology in surprising and innovative ways and place emphasis not on the technology but on its uses."

Love it

contenido neto

Designers: Miki Friedenbach & Alejandro Sarmiento

The designer's goal here is to maximize the value of waste PET (polyethylene terephthalate, the ubiquitous plastic commonly used in packaging), and to create a decentralized system of small entrepreneurial industries producing design objects made of disposed PET containers.

In the process, they came up with a beautiful light.

SqueezeMe

Designers: Enable Arts

Squeeze Me is a squishy, battery powered, water-proof toy that detects certain bio-readings and responds to change with visual feedback using light patterns. An increase in a reading will cause a change in the color and number of lights displayed. Increasing or decreasing readings will cause varying light intensities and possibly animated light sequences.

It was originally intended for children who are experiencing stress or anxiety related to an illness or medical condition. It was created for the Montefiore Children’s Hospital for children receiving dialysis or cancer treatments.

It's great that we can help kids battle stress and anxiety, but if it's ever put into production, SqueezeMe would probably help a few adults as well.

rubbish_light

Designers: gina reimann + keigo harada / sneezedesign

From the website:

Everyone's rubbish is a part of our lifestyle and personality - the light illuminates the rubbish to show you 'colour'. rubbish light brings some fun into throwing out rubbish and creates enjoyable lighting effects using undesirable artefacts.

Luminex

A result of a collaboration between Caen, an Italian hi tech company, and Swiss textile company Stabio, Luminex is the latest attempt at creating a luminous fabric.

From the website:

Luminex is a new fabric (non-reflective) that can emit its own light. It is created with threads of every type and nature that emits light in different colors.

The luminous fibers used in Luminex are special "detectors of elementary particles" fibers used in the largest scientific experiments of sub-nuclear physics.

After numerous attempts and experiments, it's finally possible to integrate a luminous fiber into a fabric, giving it its own brilliance.

Very cool. But it will be much cooler when someone actually uses this to make something that actually looks good.

Via: Apartment Therapy