Recently we have been reading and writing a lot about different towers that have been specially designed to suit the urban environment. The architect Daniel Caven has designed “The Devoid Tower” at the Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, which not only surveys different passive systems that can be included while working on a high rise design but has also taken into consideration the various design rules.

Devoid Tower

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Devoid Tower

Devoid Tower for Chicago

This tower is located in the River North area of Chicago and possesses a central volume that is perforated by an empty space. The movement and place of this particular void is planned giving utmost importance to Chicago’s environmental conditions, regarding wind speeds and sunlight. After conducting an experiment it was found that, the void slows down wind speeds, benefiting the tower to get natural ventilation through all the floor-plates. This void designed in the tower, allows it to enjoy the maximum amount of sunlight throughout the day on top of the floor plates and on the other hand permits the users to get more picturesque views.

The exterior of the tower enjoys views of Lake Michigan and River Chicago. The interior is graced with a large open space and an open floor plate due to the dia-grid structure, which welcomes the users. The tower got its final shape by the movement and form of the void. The tower holds a variety of programs on the different stories, as in the three stories at the base provide a space for retail with a beautiful view of the lake and the path alongside the river houses the restaurant. The office space is planned in the larger segment of the tower and the crown of the tower incorporates a skydeck and a five star hotel with a sky lobby which separates the office from the hotel.

Via: Evolo

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Listening to songs/music has the power to rev up the overall dining experience. From hotels to parties, the food never comes without a musical piece being playing in the background. Taking this to an all new level us designer Bartos Scharmach, with the Electrolux Beatplate. The astounding dining device will give sound to the food you eat, which will make it stand out.

Electrolux Beatplate

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Electrolux Beatplate

Electrolux Beatplate by Bartos Scharmach

The musical experience will be directly proportional to the way a particular food item is arranged on the plate. Simply, place food on the surface then arrange and move it to experience the different kind of tunes produced. The LCD surface of the device makes good use of Pixlesense technology, which has the capability to recognize food textures using infrared light. This will further produce an acoustic response, which will vary with different arrangements as well as food items.

The Electrolux Beatplate can be connected to speakers via Bluetooth technology, if you want to clearly listen to the tunes being produced. The exclusive musical compositions can further be shared with others, which will definitely win you a lot of appreciations. Both the main unit as well as the control unit are water resistant and can be washed in even in a microwave. The control unit can be charged via Micro USB slot. Apart from this, it can also be charged with the help of solar panels that act as a secondary power source.

Musical structures and sounds can be combined by linking multiple devices, which will unfurl the fun of composing music in a group. You can link as many plates as you want and create awesome tunes by simply shifting the placement of food items.

[Cheers Bartos]

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Do you find the single touch alarm activation on your smartphone/ expensive digital alarm clock a little too simple for your liking? Then you have got to try the all new alarm clock concept by designer Allison Tran. The alarm clock basically takes away all the intuitiveness of regular modern alarm clocks and replaces it with a chore-like system of turning the alarm on and off.

Alarm Clock

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Alarm Clock

Alarm Clock by Allison Tran

Since the dock of the alarm clock is wall mounted, you have to physically get up to place it back in the dock to turn it off which makes it a great gift idea for people who keep hitting the snooze button in the morning. To set an alarm, you have to first upload your own custom sound file to the mixing dock and mount it on the wall.

Then, you can adjust individual notes and sounds on the file by pulling strings and adjust the volume of each sound. To set the alarm time, you have to twist the speaker puck and remove the speaker from the dock and place it at your nightstand. When the alarm sounds off, you have to again get up and place the speaker back in the dock and pull strings till the sounds lower and the alarm is turned off.

Source: Allison Tran

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People trapped in disaster struck areas often face a hard time. Relief units may take time to arrive if the area is inaccessible by road. But, it is very necessary to provide basic medical facilities plus food and clean water. Keeping all this in mind, Jay Chang has designed an easy to use design that will provide the much needed relief when airdropped. Christened Emergency Search Capsule, it is a functional product, which will provide the much needed relief.

Emergency Search Capsule

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Emergency Search Capsule

Emergency Search Capsule by Jay Chang

The capsule will be airdropped as an airplane or helicopter flies over the area. Successful drops will be made possible because of the presence of a parachute that has been crafted out of Mylar blankets. Emergency Search Capsule has been wedged with an alert light that flickers and produces a loud sound to fetch attention of survivors. The alert light can be swapped into white light by rotating the body of the device. The emergency capsule will provide drinking water till the help arrives. The parachute attached to the design can be used as a blanket to stay warm at night.

When the capsule is located by the survivors, it can used for transmitting signals to the base and also communicate with the rescuers. The device will send out signals when it is switched on, which will make it easy to locate survivors by using the location tracking system. Once it has served its role during the rescue operation, the same Emergency Search Capsule can be used as a lamp at home.

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Mossbo is probably a very cute way to teach your child the meaning of conservation and to pass on the message of being eco friendly. It is a small solar powered lamp that will provide light at night to your young ones, keeping them safe and sound. The cute design of the solar powered lamp, by Vivian Lo is very energy efficient and will bring forth the utility of the design manifold.

Mossbo

The user of the lamp has to charge the photovoltaic batteries in the lamp’s outer coating by placing it in the sunlight for a few hours. The batteries have been powered as such, letting them store the necessary amount of energy, which can be utilized at night.

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Mossbo

Mossbo solar lamp

The term Mossbo has been derived from the story of a creature from an extinct forest, when its home was snatched away from it. Your kids would not only love every inch of this lovely, home comfortable creation, but also relish every bit of responsibility they would be endowed with. The bright sparkling lights on the surface of the lamp indicate full power, while the crossed out lights indicate the need to recharge. You can dim the light of the lamp by a small touch and switch it off when not in use by a hard pressed touch.

The idea behind the solar powered contraption is very simple. It involves the use of parents and their children, letting them teach their kids the value of energy conservation. Mossbo has been carved out of biodegradable and renewable materials, making it a very eco friendly device. The design of the lamp is extremely eco friendly and way too useful for lighting up dark enclosures at night.

Via: CargoCollective

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When you’re sitting in an office, trying to work, it becomes almost next to necessary for you to have an access of LAN or ethernet ports. But, the problem arises when you have to ensure that you have all the necessary connectivity at hand for an uninterrupted flow of work. Having said this, the Bloc Encaste, a Table Mount Connection System is just the right tool for you.

Bloc Encasté

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Bloc Encasté

Table Mount Connection System

If you’d have ever noticed a multiple port connecting system, you would actually be able to understand how the device by Legrand actually works. The design is way too user friendly and incorporates a very unique idea within its bosom. Just like a multiple porting system, you can also connect multiple laptops, tablets or other powered device within your office. The port connects cleverly, making it a very nicely and convenient powering device. The contraption has been designed by Douglas Schaller.

Bloc Encaste fits in perfectly within surfaces and can be pulled out when it needs to be used. The designer product is very necessary when you need to integrate the multiple devices at the same time. Encaste allows you to connect VGA ports, extra monitor, projectors when you’re sitting in conference rooms. This would make commemorating meetings all the more handy and useful.

Via: DouglasSchaller

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Let’s face it, the iPhone 4S was a big fat disappointment by most standards and we couldn’t wait for the iPhone 5 to be launched soon. Amid rumors of the launch of the new iPhone, ADR Studio has created a stunning vision for what the next generation of the iPhone should look like. Just like Apple has been planning for a while, the concept is SIM free and comes with an amazing back end.

New iPhone

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New iPhon

New iPhone From ADR Studio

The concept does away with the need for a SIM card which should make the phone theft proof. With SIM free 4G LTE support, the phone would be fed the required data through the service network directly. With two panel speakers and a new audio section, the phone comes with controls placed along the edges and the top with an attractive aluminum unibody enhancing the ultra thin smartphone’s appeal. 3 Retina Displays declutter the screen and allow the central space to be used solely as a desktop and lets the bottom strip be used as an App dock. The display at the top can thus be dedicated for showing all the notifications and info alone.

A motion sensor integrated into the bottom display activates the Home button and battery life is displayed with an LED edge. The same set of lights also flash when you get an incoming call. With a 4.6 inch display, the new iPhone concept comes with a 12 or 8 mp cam and runs on a quad core CPU powered by iOS 6.0.

Via: Concept-Phones

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Coffee chains have been known for serving you your custom coffee order in record time and some even allow you to place your order via an iPhone app so that by the time you pop around to the shop, you simply have to get your butt to the counter and pick your order up. But that’s just not good enough for some people who want to make their coffee drinking experience even more time saving. That really is the only explanation we could come up with for the existence of this invention.

Handpresso Auto

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Handpresso Auto

Handspresso Auto Can Make Coffee In Your Car

This in-car coffee machine is powered by the 12V cigarette lighter found in most vehicles and exerts 16 bars of pressure on E.S.E. coffee pods to get you your daily dose of caffeine literally on the go. Three audible beeps let you know when your coffee is ready though the manufacturers have not provided us with any statistics related to in-car coffee brewing related accidents and the averages about the possibility of one spilling piping hot coffee in one’s crouch and burning their nether regions irreparably.

For €150 (approximately $200), the Handpresso Auto isn’t all that cheaper than the coffee machine you have at home/office and we can’t say with any confidence whether having this thing in your car won’t get you ticket from traffic cops or not.

Via: Uncarte/ Gizmodo

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Microsoft, even with their sneaky monopolistic tactics, deliberately repression of technological innovation by other companies, consumer harassment and data theft, have given us over two decades of seamless software service and we just cannot imagine what our lives would have been like had we not had the MS Office Suite and even the Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player to guide us into the wonderful world of the World Wide Web back in the 1990s.

Project Detroit

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Project Detroit

Project Detroit Brings Windows 8 and Kinect to a Mustang

However, there are a few things that Microsoft should not be doing and messing with modern classics like the 2012 Mustang is one of them. In a bizarre attempt at inspiring their engineers to think about the future of Microsoft’s tech innovations, MS commissioned West Coast Custom to fit a 2012 Mustang with a 1967 Mustang body and threw in tablets an Xbox 360, Windows Phone controls, blazing alpine blue LED lights, Windows logo on the grille and built-in lights on the unnecessarily large wheels.

The tastelessness of the tacky retromod is further accentuated by a built-in Wi-Fi network, passenger-side dashboard with a Windows tablet, a touch screen. gauge cluster, a distracting rear windshield that can be used to flash disturbing/offensive messages at motorists behind you and live audio/video streaming via on-board or a Windows Phone screens via Kinects embedded throughout the car (that crap all over the “no talking on your cell while driving” law). The bizarre retromod is dubbed “Project Detroit” and we find it way too reminiscent of the “war” between Google Plus and Facebook. And here’s a clever hint for you, Project Detroit is NOT Facebook in this case!

Via: Jalopnik

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A Marshall Amp is coveted by many an aspiring musicians and pros alike for their awesome ability to translate chords struck on a guitar into booming sounds that can transform music arenas and garage band practices into rock nirvana. However, non-guitar players have never had any use for these stupendous bits of music tech until now. The iconic Marshall Amp has been reinvented and this time it has come to us in the guise of a fridge.

Marshall Fridge

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Marshall Fridge

World’s Coolest Marshall Amp is a Fridge!

The form of what can only be dubbed the coolest refrigerator in the world has been derived from the class Marshall Amp. Inside, the fridge offers 4.4 cubic foot of freezer/refrigerator space that can house beers and food for a whole rock band, their entourage and even a few groupies.

On the top of the fridge, clever bits like knobs that go to eleven are found that make this Amp fridge the perfect addition to the decor of a geeky/rock star hangout. The Marshall Amp Fridge starts retailing for $299 with first batches shipping out this October. If you just don’t wanna miss out on owning one of these puppies, you can also book a spot on the pre-order list and Marshall will keep you notified on when and how you can get your hands on the cool amp fridge before it hits stores.

Via: Technabob

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