Cool Beemer

Do you like car designs? Check out this BMW GINA Light Visionary Model.






I see some practical issues, and probably it is not that safe. But who cares, it looks great, and if you don't like it you can shape it yourself ... from cruiser to racer ... over and over again.





Photo and video by BMW

Meeting people

In 1996 Philips published “Vision of the future”, a book with futuristic concepts from their designer lab. The concept that probably intrigued me most was the “Hot badge” . I quote “Increasingly, the pace of life and demands of work mean that there is often little opportunity to make social contact. Hot badges are simple short-range communicators which will facilitate initial contact between people who have similar interests. … transmit information … receive information … interests overlap … badges will signal … easier … break the ice”.
I can see some added value in the Hot badge. Since you can program it, you can tweak its parameters for a specific night out. Your badge then picks cherries, but you still have to do the hard work and eat them..

Well that was back in 1996, now, 12 years later Eugene Ahn takes the concept one step further with the CyranoSuit. The sensor filled CyranoSuit will judge your situation and give you conversation suggestions on a printout. The funny thing is that the device is meant to help you out in what should be a romantic situation. Can you imagine having a conversation and having to wait for a piece of paper from your pocket all the time? I guess you have to be a damn good actor to pull this off.

Gadget craving

Having to buy a new hard-drive, since my old one no longer spins its rounds, I got lost in the enormous variety of speeds, sizes and other specifications. It made me realize it sometimes just takes a day from must-have to has-been. Buying gadgets is great from an economic perspective and it gives an excellent thrill to hold your new toy, but what does it mean to our environment?

I’m talking about our hunger for whatever is new, shiny, fast or trendy. Whether it’s that extra inch, the additional megapixel, the extended memory or that telephone with new features. It’s what I call gadget craving. We long for goodies, sometimes with no other need then just to own them and identify with.

Do we ever realize what kind of waist we produce with all our devices? They contain heavy metals, high-end plastics and nasty chemicals. We still don’t succeed in real recycling, most goodies end up on our landfills.

Now that I’m all excited about my replacement, I’m afraid my old one will end up there as well.

OLPC XO-2

Last night I checked out the redesign of the OLPC-XO. The low budget machine turned into a real nice to have gadget. Let me sum up few remarkable specifications of this XOXO or XO-2 as it is called:

· Dual 16x9 proportioned sunlight-readable touch screens.
· Keyboard and touchpad both replaced by touch screens.
· Physically smaller than XO-1; size and weight more like a book.
· 1 watt power consumption.

Combine these specs with the OLPC concept itself and you have a powerful and good looking machine.

Although I think OLPC is a wonderful initiative and the people behind it are really upright I wonder whether it will ever by a success. The new design doesn't take my doubts away, the opposite, it strengthens them. Isn't it too slick, too fancy? Don't we think a starving kid from a 3rd world slums would rather sell it for a few dollars or find something to eat then connect to his local network?