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Vibrating pen makes it easier for Parkinson's patients to write
The ARC pen pictured above might look laughably large, but it could be the perfect option for folks with Parkinson's disease. It was created by a group of students from UK's Royal College of Art and the Imperial College London to combat a Parkinson's symptom called micrographia. That's characterized by a patient's handwriting becoming smaller and more cramped as they go along, to the point that it's not readable anymore. This pen prevents that from happening by stimulating key muscles through vibration (it's equipped with motors to make that happen), giving users more control over their hands. Further, its large size makes it more comfortable to hold than regular pens.
Knitgadget: High-tech yarn can control devices and play tunes
See the glove in this video? It's made of conductive yarn that's 80 percent polyester and 20 percent stainless steel, which gives it the power to control electronic components. In fact, its creator, Royal College of Art student Yen Chen Chang, wired it so that it functions as a wearable musical instrument that's both a keyboard and a guitar. This glove is but one of Chang's unusual creations designed to control devices without the use of buttons and touchscreens, though. He also covered a huge ball with the magical yarn to control a juicer -- the harder you squeeze the ball, the more juice you get. Then there's the mat that controls a small electric fan when you rub it, and a thin strip of knitted material that can dim and brighten a lamp when you pull on it.
'Bleeding' pants can show paralympians that they're injured
One of the biggest worries paralympians have is sustaining injuries in areas where they won't be able to feel it. After all, if they don't even know they're injured, they might end up bleeding to death. That's why a group of students from London's Imperial College and The Royal College of Art have teamed up to create Bruise pants, which show paralympians where they're injured and how severe it is. The designers sewed pressure-sensitive films made by Fuji onto a pair of Lycra leggings, marking vital points where injuries would be most damaging. In the event that any of those areas sustain impact damage, the film develops a red stain similar to blood seeping through cloth. If the color's showing up as a deep, dark magenta, that means it's time to stop and find the medics.
Touchscreen gestures turned into physical interactions
Let's say the year is 2023, and we're now interfacing with our iPhones in a totally new way. How would you explain to a young person of the future how we interacted with our iPhones back in the touchscreen days? Gabriele Meldaikyte, a student at the Royal College of Art in London, has the answer -- she's created five 3D objects out of wood, lucite and other materials that make up a museum of iPhone gestures. These mechanical objects demonstrate the tap, scroll, pinch, swipe and flick gestures through interaction. For example, the scroll gesture object (above) features a set of rollers connected by what appear to be a pair of rubber bands. Touching and "scrolling" the top roller scrolls a newspaper clipping up and down, much in the way that the iPhone gesture works. Perhaps the most clever device was the one created to demonstrate the pinch/reverse pinch gesture used to zoom in and out. The reverse pinch gesture moves a pair of lucite "arms" apart so that they lift up a magnifier over a newspaper clipping, "zooming in" on the words. The objects were exhibited at London's Victoria and Albert Museum in November at an evening event. I think if Steve Jobs was still alive, he'd want a set of these...
Engadget previews Ferrari's future hypercars at the World Design Contest (video)
Ferrari's been one of the most respected car manufacturers in the world since the 1940s, but it hasn't exactly gotten there by being bleeding-edge. In the early '60s, when rear-engined cars were sweeping the charts in Formula One, Il Commendatore -- Enzo Ferrari -- refused to take one racing, famously saying "the horse doesn't push the cart along with its nose." It would take many humiliating defeats before his company would finally put that horse where it belongs. Being an early adopter, obviously, was not a priority. It's only in the past few years, with cars like the Enzo and 458 Italia, that Ferrari has truly embraced modern ideas of whizz-bang tech to make their cars genuinely faster -- not just easier to drive. That's just the beginning. Automotive technology is finally starting to accelerate the way personal computing devices have for the past few decades. New means of propulsion are combining with ever-greater integrated systems and it's easy to see this as leading us toward a generation of cars faster and still more efficient than anything we've yet seen on the roads. Ferrari calls this four-wheeled singularity the "hypercar," and to get an idea of just what that car of the future might look like it invited 50 teams of designers from major universities around the world to compete. Join us as we look at some of the best creations. %Gallery-133210%
Robotic armpit sweats you out of harm's way, Uncanny Valley just got a lot stinkier
London-based designer Kevin Grennan has a particular stance on the yet-to-be-fought Robots vs Humans war -- it'll stink, literally. Mocking a part of our bodies we spackle to stop secretions, this Brit created a robotic armpit that sweats out pheromones so you stay out of danger. As part of his graduate exhibit at the Royal College of Art, our android-averse artiste has three smelly cyborg concepts up for your schematic consideration: there's the underarm-equipped, bomb-sniffing bot that'll warn you away with the scent of human fear, and a picker robot that enchants female assembly liners to work harder, better, faster with its manly musk. Sure it all seems harmless, that is until you enter into a trusting relationship with an oxytocin-spritzing surgical automaton. We don't blame you if any of the above has you locking the Roomba up for the night -- that's exactly Kevin's point. But there's no need to panic just yet, a future filled with "but I'm a real boy" robot-complexes is still a ways off.
Solar Sinter solar-powered 3D printer turns sand into glass, renews our faith in higher education (video)
Where would we be without the world's graduate art projects? In the case of Markus Kayser's Solar Sinter, we might never have seen the day when a solar-powered 3D printer would turn Saharan sand into a perfectly suitable glass bowl. Well, lucky for us (we suppose) we live in a world overflowing with MA students, and awash in their often confusing, sometimes inspiring projects. Solar Sinter, now on display at the Royal College of Art, falls into the latter category, taking the Earth's natural elements, and turning them into functioning pieces of a burgeoning technology. Solar Sinter uses the sun's rays in place of a laser and sand in place of resin, in a process that is perhaps more visually stunning than the results. See for yourself in the video after the break.
Antistatic E-3POD concept wins Citroen design award, job for its student creator
Who says dreaming doesn't pay? A young designer by the name of Heikki Juvonen recently won himself a six-month job placement at Citroen's PSA Design Centre in Paris after producing the most compelling response to the company's Double Challenge set to students at London's Royal College of Art. The premise was simple -- put together an aesthetic for an ultra-compact urban vehicle that Citroen could call its own, and judging by the imagery above, we can all probably agree that Heikki achieved a very distinctive look with his E-3POD. We're not yet certain how we feel about being inside the largest of the three wheels for the duration of our electrically powered journeys, but the young gent has half a year on his hands to tweak and refine his eye-catching design. We'll be ready to test-drive the prototype as soon as Citroen becomes mad enough to build one.
UK Folding Plug takes home design award, emerges in USB-infused flavor
It's far and away one of the most genius concepts we've seen in the past year, and we couldn't possibly be happier for one Min-Kyu Choi. Said designer, who recently graduated from the Royal College of Art, was recently showered with laud after the above-pictured Folding Plug nabbed the gold in the Brit Insurance Design contest. Unfortunately, we're still no closer to understanding when some moneyed manufacturer will pick this up and start producing it, but hopefully this prize will reinforce its awesomeness and catch someone's eye. In related news, we're also seeing for the first time a Folding Plug version with USB ports on the exterior, which would be just about perfect for UK-based gadget junkies. Here's hoping this dream doesn't die just before reaching the conveyor belt, yeah?
3 teams up with Royal College of Art for phones of the future
When the mobile industry turns to college programs for design guidance, the results can be... shall we say, unusual. British carrier 3 recently enlisted the help of the Royal College of Art for a look at what phones of the future might look like and do, and needless to say, the results span the full gamut from mild to wild; on the mild side, for example, is the MÜ slider (pictured) that takes social networking to an extreme by showing all of the user's networks as points on a sphere -- totally realistic, totally believable, and probably destined for reality in the not-too-distant future. Moving to the wild end of the spectrum, the Auxo actually changes shape based on your profile. We don't see that one hitting shelves any time soon, but hey, keep on dreaming, guys.[Via Shiny Shiny]
Private gaming with a PSP face scarf
Joe Malia, a student at the Royal College of Art in London, created a series of face scarves with special attachments that, at least in the above example, "lets PSP players explore their passion in complete privacy". There's also a special design that fits neatly over a CRT; the perfect way to prevent your roommate from copying your finely honed Counter-Strike tactics.
