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Bic aims to give you a better shave via its connected razor
Bic wants to design better razors via a new prototype of a connected wet shave called the Next Bic Thing. It looks like a normal five-bladed shaver and handle, but it can capture tons of shaving data, including temperature, humidity, hair density, shaving speed, number of strokes, time spent shaving, blade dullness and even water use. Using this data, Bic will build next-gen shavers that are "perfectly adapted to today's users based on these advanced consumer insights," the company said.
Bic boils down the world's handwriting into one average typeface
As time marches on and the world grows smaller, we're left with the understanding that we - you, me, and folks across the globe - are more alike than we realize. Except, you know, when it comes to handwriting. To commemorate selling billions of pens you've seen countless times in your life, Bic has set out to create what it calls the Universal Typeface: a series of characters created by basically averaging thousands of writing samples from people across the world.
Remembering the Apple Paladin and other prototypes
Way back in 2006 we had a story from AppleGazette about 5 Apple products which never made it to production. Today there's a photo of an old "touchscreen" phone Apple prototyped circulating (although I remember digging this up when the iPhone was announced; we never ran the story it seems) and I wound up doing a whopping five minutes of research on Flickr for more Apple prototypes. Like fishing for Steve Jobs videos on YouTube, these diversions can be a lot of fun. It's a bit like staring into an alternate universe, seeing glimpses of Apple's ambitions -- often ahead of their time, and re-appearing years later in substantially refined form. The Paladin is one of those Frankenstein machines you'd never imagine would emerge out of Cupertino. While the "touchscreen phone" prototype was stylish, the Paladin looks like a Duo and a fax machine took a cue from the Wuzzles and had some freakish techno-mutt. Paladin had a pull-out keyboard with trackball. The combination of a fax machine, scanner, phone and computer probably made sense before the Newton, but molded as a typical fax machine in that old beige just seems so... uninspired. Then again, this was 1994 -- not exactly an era of innovation from Apple, unless you count endless models of Performas "progress" (the market sure didn't). The Paladin doesn't even have an Apple logo up top, instead showing Apple on the label only. Of course, the pics from Jim Abeles are showing a prototype, so there's no real reason to attach a logo at this point in the process. Mr. Abeles has a few curious prototypes on his Flickr page, including an iPhone, a 13" MacBook in very rough form, the Newton-powered Bic and Cadillac prototypes (way before the iPad), the W.A.L.T. (Wizzy Active Lifestyle Telephone), and a Mac Portable with transparent case (translucent plastic, OMG!). Apparently he's collected more, but only these ultra-rare prototypes are on Flickr. What a collection!
Orange's BIC phone comes ready to talk, doesn't require ballpoint licking first
The BIC phone has very little to do with famed pen / razor / etc. maker BIC outside of the branding agreement, but we suppose the disposable nature of dried-up writing utensils and this curious cellphone is somewhat similar. Granted, the official word from Orange is that this handset is "not a throw-away product," but unless users mail off a registration form to the carrier and wait for the phone to be activated, the mobile (and the hour of calls it comes with) will be rendered useless in two months. The selling point here is the unpack-and-talk nature, not to mention the €49 ($77) price, but those hoping to grab a low-cost phone, hack it and use it elsewhere may be heartbroken to find that this one does nothing more than talk, text and tune into FM radio. Check it out soon (if you're so inclined) in French convenience stores.[Via The Red Ferret Journal]Read - Orange press releaseRead - More details
