industrialdesign
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Concept 'HTC 1' is the phone we wish HTC would make
Designer Andrew Kim has cooked up a concept smartphone for HTC dubbed the "1" that makes the company's current offerings look, well... last generation. The device, built from a brass housing (coated in silver) eschews the phone-maker's recent crop of fairly standard looking mobile devices for something decidedly more sophisticated -- and cans the familiar Sense interface in the process. Not only is the shell of the phone rethought, the new UI (Sense mono) takes a cleaner, more thoughtful, high-end approach as well, joining Synergy like functions (combined messaging) with a Helvetica heavy interface that looks streamlined and mature. Some notable features of the hardware include stereo speakers (located at the top and bottom of the phone), a kickstand which is actually the bottom portion of the casing, and the lofty concept of a built-in UV light which kills germs on the surface of the phone while you charge up. As far as concepts go, this is one of the finest we've seen, so hit the source link below and take a look at the full spread.
Objet 3D printing put to the test in Iron Man 2 (video)
We got a pretty good look at some of the tech of Iron Man 2 recently, and it looks like the flick's gadgety goodness extends behind the camera as well. It appears that all that bad ass armor is actually produced on the fly by the film's production company, Legacy Effects, using an Objet Eden 3D printer. The company describes the process as "print-to-wear" – pieces come out of the printer, get applied with paint, and make their way to the actors. And since the designs begin with an actual scan of the actor's body, they are much more comfortable. Believe us, there is nothing that a director wants to see less than a cranky Robert Downey, Jr. on their set. For more info on how the device is being used throughout the creative process, check out the video after the break.
HMK 561 electric bike concept seats you on the battery, makes you significantly more attractive
Most electric bikes are fairly sordid affairs, little more than an ordinary bicycle with a motorized hub, a strap-on battery pack and regenerative braking capabilities (if you're lucky). Not this HMK 561 electric bicycle concept, which took home an iF Design Award for some seriously forward thinking. It's not just the stylish forward rake of this juiced cruiser that's innovative, it's the frame -- composed completely of a conductive carbon fiber weave that allows the bike's body to not just pass electricity to the motors, but actually store it like a giant capacitor. Factor in integrated lights and a pinch of that aforesaid regenerative braking at each axle, and you've just about got the bicycle of our dreams. Oh, and did we mention a prototype has already been built? Yeah. %Gallery-88012%
Dell Froot desktop is a concept design that's less tasty than it sounds
Imagine the day when all-in-one desktops really mean it -- no keyboard, no mouse, and not even a screen panel. This is precisely Pauline Carlos' idea with her Froot concept -- supposedly an entry for a Dell sustainable design contest. Sure, the color options are rather odd if not unappetizing, but if it only takes a virtual keyboard, a projector (maybe an efficient pico), a biodegradable chassis and Windows XP to save the planet, then we're happy to oblige. Hey, there's even a slot-loading optical drive, but bamboo discs are hard to come by these days. Now add some touchscreen Light Touch magic and we might be tempted to buy it, otherwise that cursor isn't going to work without a mouse. One more pic after the break.
Z Corp's 3D printers available to Hawaiian school students, the wealthy
We're eagerly awaiting the day when 3D printers achieve the same sort of ubiquity as their two dimensional brethren -- we can only imagine the sweet office pranks that will become available once we can conjure tiny objects from our imaginations (via AutoCAD). It looks like the fine folks over at Hawaii's State Department of Education have more civic-minded uses for the machine, however. As high school students from throughout the islands complete their 3D design projects they send the files to the education office in Honolulu, which manufactures physical models with a Z Corporation 3D printer and ships them back to the students, who can then review the model and refine their design. A machine like Z Corp's ZPrinter 310 Plus (seen above) will run you a cool $19,900 before shipping, sales tax, and so forth, so it looks like all of you amateur CADsters out there might want to find a pen-pal in the Pineapple State if you want to make your ID dreams a reality. Either that or do it yourself. And make sure you send us the YouTube link when you do.
Industrial design student builds Capella, the portable, unobtainable electric bike
Where most students only go so far as to render their designs, Truong Minh Nhat -- working on his senior project at the Ho Chi Minh City School of Architecture -- made a functional prototype, sourcing the parts from local manufacturers. Dubbed Capella, the lightweight vehicle folds down to a neat "backpack sized" package (well, maybe a large backpack), travels over 30 miles an hour, has a range of about 7.5 miles (on a two hour charge), and in its final, mass produced form it should weigh about 22 pounds. If you're looking for a wilder ride than most electric bike designs offer, and you happen to be reading this in Ho Chi Minh City, keep your eyes peeled.[Via Core 77]Update: This bike has a top speed of 30 km (roughly 18.6 miles) an hour.
Objet announces the Alaris 30 Desktop 3D Printer
It looks like the slow crawl towards a consumer 3D printer continues with Objet's newest outing, the Alaris 30. The relatively compact peripheral uses something called PolyJet Photopolymer Jetting to produce 600 x 600 dpi objects up to 11.5 x 7.7 x 5.9 inches in size (not too shabby when compared to the 5-inch cube of last year's Desktop Factory offering). Equally impressive is the printer's ability to manufacture small moving elements and elements as thin as 0.0011 inches. A generous build tray means that many small parts can be printed simultaneously, and the company promises up to 36 hours unattended printing from your 3D CAD files. Finished models leave the printer fully cured and hardened by UV light. There is no pricing or availability yet, but if you hit the read link below there are plenty more juicy details.[Via TFTS]
Desktop Factory's cheapo 3D printer is coming
Tinkerers, schemers, makers and DIY-buffs: grab your ball-peen hammer and heaviest piggy bank, because you're about to need a loan. A company called Desktop Factory is going to make your 3D-printing dreams a serious reality with the introduction of its 125ci 3D printer, a $4,995 hunk of concept-plastic magic which could possibly represent a paradigmatic shift for the state of three-dimensional printing for the masses. The DF crew calls the pricing "disruptively lower than the nearest competitive offering," and we're inclined to agree, as most 3D printers crest easily over the $10,000 mark. The printer takes up a paltry 25 x 20 x 20-inch space, and weighs about 90-pounds, while the maximum size of printed objects is 5 x 5 x 5-inches, and Desktop Factory says per-cubic-inch printing costs will hover somewhere around $1. One of these beautiful babies could be all yours, just put down your $495 reserve fee, and then go to work on that string of robberies you've been planning.[Via TG Daily]
Apple form factor evolution
Donationware app MacTracker is great for those times when you need to look back at the history of Apple's products or the stats of one particular machine. If you're interested in more of a visual history, however, this picture from art director and designer Edwin Tofslie should satisfy your cravings for pretty pictures. Tofslie collected images from most of the major design revisions Apple has made to many of their most significant products, including the Mac, Newton, iPod, Xserve and iPhone, as well as their displays, mice and even the AirPort Extreme stations. It's an interesting look back over the evolution of Apple's industrial design that seems to include all the major landmarks.
Nokia phone plus industrial design lecturer begets frankenhandset
Turkish industrial design lecturer Mehmet Erkök has taken a few Nokia handsets and morphed them into works of art by adding and removing bits of the original housing and keys to create new (and arguably better) handsets in the process. While we may not quite get the new aesthetic, we can appreciate the need to get under the hood of gadgets to see what makes them tick and then reassemble them with leftover beads, bits of colored plastic, and larger earpieces. If you can pick out what models these handsets may have once been, drop us a line; a before/after comparison would be fun to do.
There can only be one... 360 case design
Sure, some people aren't happy with the look of the Xbox 360 but, love it or hate it, it could have been so much worse! 360Monster has images of all the 360 "design rejects," from concepts to finalists. Sure, they're just blown up versions of the image from the SIGCHI meeting we posted about, but they've done the footwork to enhance their inferiority with added resolution. More importantly, they've reminded us (but didn't provide a link, so we will) to their original roundup of design rejects from the conceptual phase. Now those things are ugly!
