Ausgebrannt is a series of stools and low tables by Kasper Hamacher. I actually don’t really like them, but the production process looks like fun. By the way, ausgebrannt is German for burnt out.

found at dezeen

Apple launched the iPad 2 today. To be honest, the iPad itself wasn’t the best part of the announcement. But the Smart Cover for the iPad was. It’s a protective cover for the screen which attaches itself to the iPad with 2 magnets. It snaps right in place and it doesn’t really hide the design of the device. I think it’s one of the best industrial design products I’ve seen lately. When you close the cover it will put the iPad to sleep and the other way around. Ingenious.

“Souviens toi que tu vas mourir” (remember that you will die) is a morbid version of the classic monoblock chair by pool.

found at designboom weblog

You’ll never guess what this is … They’re sunglasses designed by Jeremy Scott and Linda Farrow. You can get also get them in black, gold and translucent at Colette.

This Bench Chair by Thomas Schnur is some of the best design I’ve seen lately. All hail to the monoblock.

found via abitare

It’s again that time of the year when I’m fed up with the Berlin winter and want to ride my bicycle again. And seeing this beautiful Bruno Mini Velo 20″ Road bike doesn’t make it any better. Apparently Bruno is a Swiss brand which is quite popular in Japan, especially their mini bikes.

found at ffffound

“FLAT mirrors” by BIG-GAME is a collection of 4 silvered windshields from cars with flat windows. So if you’re a fan of Volkswagen Beetle, Citroën 2 CV, Renault 4L or a Fiat Panda, this might me something for you.

Volkswagen Beetle

Renault 4L

Last Friday I was invited by Mercedes-Benz to their TecDay Innovations event In Stuttgart, Germany. It was a day packed with design, technology and innovations, I felt like a kid in a candy store. On one hand I could say that there was way to much to discover but on the other hand I couldn’t get enough of it. So here’re 4 highlights.

The Mercedes-Benz short-distance vehicle (NAFA). This study from 1982 was an urban and short-distance concept car. It had four-wheel steering, automatic transmission and air conditioning. You might recognize that it was the starting point for the A-Class and the smart.

I didn’t ask about the brake button, it seems a little odd no?

I also had the chance to visit the Customer Research Center. Work at the CRC focuses on three main areas: the identification of customer requirements, the generation of ideas at our Innovation Studio, and the evaluation of customer acceptance. I participated in short version of their innovation workshops. The theme was about experiencing comfort in 2020. We used a brainstomp, not brainstorm, as the creative technique to start the process. The result of my team was quite good I must say.

This is the control panel for 16 features which Mercedes-Benz tested with some customers in 2003, 4 of them are now available in some of their models.

The next stop was a visit to the Driving Simulation Center. We had the chance to try out 5 different simulators including this huge one below. There’s a car inside the dome and when you combine that with 360° projections and some hydraulics, you’ll get a pretty good real life experience.

The digital landscapes around Stuttgart.

Last but not least was a short ride along in the F 800 Style, Mercedes-Benz’s current research vehicle. The car isn’t just packed with the latest technology, it does look very nice too. Also the interior doesn’t look like anything I’ve ever seen before. It was quite strange to know that I was riding along in car that was handmade and one of a kind.

This is Kodak’s first digital camera made by the Kodak Apparatus Division Research Laboratory in 1975.

It was a camera that didn’t use any film to capture still images – a camera that would capture images using a CCD imager and digitize the captured scene and store the digital info on a standard cassette.  It took 23 seconds to record the digitized image to the cassette.  The image was viewed by removing the cassette from the camera and placing it in a custom playback device.  This playback device incorporated a cassette reader and a specially built frame store.  This custom frame store received the data from the tape, interpolated the 100 captured lines to 400 lines, and generated a standard NTSC video signal, which was then sent to a television set.

found at BERG blog

I would have never thought that I would once post tea towels. Today is that day. Pieke Bergmans designed 6 tea towels for the Textile Museum in Tilburg (The Netherlands). Each one is infected by the dreaded Design Virus. Her goal is to make “personalized mass production” where irregularities are ruled in.
You can buy them for €15 a piece in blue or red at Wannekes.