The Avcen Jetpod T-100 is a proposed flying taxi, a VQSTOL (Very Quiet Short Take-Off and Landing) vehicle that, if you believe the company that wants to produce it, could be airborne by 2010. It would be used as a transporter for groups of people between city centers and outlying areas such as airports rather [...]

In a somewhat surprising move, Apple has patented a new device-coating solar film that could be used as an alternate method for charging gadgets such as iPhones and iPods. If implemented, it could allow one to lay their phone out in the sun for an hour to get it charged back up. That’s all well [...]

REMY could be Linus’ wet dream. It’s a biometric blanket that tracks your sleep patterns. While sleeping a distant camera records body movements and when the appropriate time arrives, renders light patterns within the blanket simulating dawn. Never mind that the camera looks like a mini-boogie man in the dark.
Designer: Dasha Anokhina

It’s not often that you see devices huddled under the transportation and wearables categories, but you can certainly consider the above pictured contraption a proud member of each. Created by transportation design student Jake Loniak, the Yamaha Deus Ex Machina is an “electric, single passenger, vertically parking, wearable motorcycle, and the bike would theoretically be [...]

Let’s take a quick look around the world of crazy watches, with one a real product and two design concepts that might turn a head or two in a few years. First, above we have the Orbit Watch, a design concept aimed at Swatch that smoothes out the form and function of timekeeping. Pick your [...]

The Japanese concept design community known as Cuusoo has produced a concept device so practical and tantalizingly well designed that it’s a wonder it doesn’t already exist. Created by the Japan-based designer known as Marimo-san, the concept illustrates a cell phone that would allow the user to detach the screen portion of the phone [...]

The Brits are once more taking Singapore by storm, but this time with their snazzy, sustainable architecture. Firm Foster + Partners has plans for an over-1,600,000-square-foot (filling an entire city block), mixed-use structure that’s completely decked out with green-friendly tech.
The design of the structure maximizes the amount of natural light that filters throughout the building, [...]

You know what the biggest waste of paper is? That’s right: paper. Xerox knows a thing or to about paper, and they’ve come up with self-erasing paper that can be used over and over again. Not erasable, but self-erasing, leaving you with an entirely blank sheet of paper after 24 hours that you can reuse [...]

Detecting emotional cues is hardly a new endeavor, but this so-called Robometer concept device takes a slightly different (but not entirely unique) approach to things, with it actually promising to help you feel happy by prompting you when you stray too far into tediousness. To do that, the rig makes use of a GSR [...]

Because Japanese homes are typically small, you’ll seldom find a dryer accompanying the family washing machine, thus resulting in a sea of clothesline-dried laundry covering entire neighborhoods. The archaic practice of drying one’s clothes outside–even in the winter, rain and during pollen season–makes even less sense in the technology forward confines of Japan. The Somela [...]

Ticketime is a boarding card and a wristwatch all in one. The fringe of the ticket is made of electronic paper that could be torn off and worn as a wristwatch during the period of your travel. Before your departure, the airline company would preset the watch to the time zone of your destination. It [...]

Wondering just how we mere mortals were going to even give a robot enough smarts to completely overtake our societies? Oddly enough, some of that artificial brain power could come from studying the way fruit flies, um, fly. A completely bizarre flight simulator at Caltech actually plays “scenes” that flys react to, and considering that [...]

Last we saw the Uno electric unicycle it was looking very much like the prototype it was, but as you can see above, it seems that the teenage engineers behind it have been doing anything but slacking in the ensuing months. As Motorcycle Mojo reports, the third incarnation of the vehicle recently made its debut [...]

You’ve been babied by power outlets for far too long — if you want charged gadgets, then put a little elbow grease into it! The Hand-Crank USB Power Charger will work on most phones (and the rest, with adapters), cameras… anything with a USB port, really. It may just be your best friend on the [...]

Honda will showcase an experimental model of a walking assist device which could support walking for the elderly and other people with weakened leg muscles, at the International Trade Fair on Barrier Free Equipments & Rehabilitation for the Elderly & the Disabled (BARRIER FREE 2008) which will be held at Intex Osaka, Friday, April [...]

Samsung’s been getting pretty creative with cell cameras lately — the Instinct lets you pan around web pages by tracking movement with the camera, for example — but the company’s latest patent application, for a gesture-based phone interface, might be a little less practical. The idea is to use the phone’s camera to track [...]

If we’re ever going to colonize the moon in any serious way, we’re going to need to terraform it. That is, we’re going to need to figure out how to grow plants up there to provide oxygen. In a big of great news on that front, it looks like scientists have figured out [...]

Researches at GE (General Electric) have achieved a breakthrough in organic LEDs technology, which allows the OLEDs to be printed on a very thin sheet of material, such as wallpaper. Meaning having this technology available in the market, you can get wallpapers for your apartments or rooms, which these wallpapers allow you to change its [...]

Wearable mice aren’t exactly a new idea, but it seems that Microsoft thinks it can do things one better, with a recent patent application revealing its plans for a desk-defying device of its own. As you can see above, this one is designed to be worn even while your typing on a keyboard, with [...]

Sure, there’s plenty of far fetched concept devices from big players like Nokia, but it’s nice to see that folks without millions of dollars in research funding can also come up with equally unrealistic devices, as evidenced by this so-called “Scroll” contraption created by 13 Tech Design. What’s more, this one doesn’t get by on [...]