Conceptual Taxi System Puts Civility Back in Urban Transport
When summoning a taxi in a busy urban center, waiting for a driver who is available, paying attention and willing to pick you up can get frustrating…not to mention the annoying “upstreamers” just waiting to snag that ride before you. This curbside taxi communication system was created by a group of design students at the Xi’an University of Design and Technology and recently won the Red Dot Award for a public space concept. It uses a system of lights, tactile curbside buttons and driver interaction to make hailing a taxi quick and easy. When a customer needs a cab, they just step onto the pressure-sensitive plate on the curb.
Game Theory 101: Game Theory Made Easy
Personal and Historical Perspectives of Hans Bethe
Quirky Mouse Design Requires You Take Play Breaks at Work
If there’s one thing just about every office could use, it’s more fun, right? Sitting in front of a computer for eight (or ten, or twelve…) hours a day just isn’t natural. For optimum mental and physical health it’s important to take frequent breaks. This mouse concept from Shih-Chan Chiu forces you to stop working once in a while and act like a kid. The Yo-Yo Mouse is just what it says: a wireless mouse that’s also a yo-yo. The fun part of this design (other than the fact that it’s a toy) is that it is actually charged by the yo-yo action.
How Mathematics Can Make Smart People Dumb - Ben O'Neill
Mathematics can sometimes make smart people dumb. Let me explain what I mean by this. I don't mean that it is dumb not to be good at mathematics. After all, mathematics is a highly abstract and challenging discipline requiring many years (decades even) of study, and there are plenty of very smart people who have little understanding of it, and little ability to use it. What I mean is that mathematics quite often bamboozles people into accepting very silly arguments — arguments that are so silly that if you stated them without draping them in mathematical negligee, you would instantly become an object of ridicule to all those people who flunked out at basic algebra back in high school. The danger of mathematical arguments is that a person can sometimes follow an absurd path of reasoning without being alerted to its absurdity, due to the fact that their mind is so lost in the verbiage of mathematical equations that their common sense fails to penetrate it. But wait a minute. Notes
11 cheap gifts guaranteed to impress science geeks
Science comes up with a lot of awesome stuff, and you don't need a Ph.D, a secret lab, or government funding to get your hands on some of the coolest discoveries. We've got a list of 11 mostly affordable gifts that are guaranteed to blow your mind, whether or not you're a science geek. Click on any image to see it enlarged. 1. Aerogel Also known as frozen smoke, Aerogel is the world's lowest density solid, clocking in at 96% air. Aerogel isn't just neat, it's useful. Price: $35 2. Inside these sealed glass balls live shrimp, algae, and bacteria, all swimming around in filtered seawater. EcoSpheres came out of research looking at ways to develop self-contained ecosystems for long duration space travel. Price: $80 3. NASA has been trying to figure out how to get a sample of rock back from Mars for a while now. Every once in a while, a meteorite smashes into Mars hard enough to eject some rocks out into orbit around the sun. Price: $70+ 4. Price: $150 5. Price: $110 6. Price: $80 7. Price: $15 8.
Pointer in Disguise: Weird Mouse Looks Like a Plastic Battery
Although we’ve seen plenty of wacky mouse designs and concepts, this one deviates so much from the familiar form factor that it would be easy to miss the fact that it’s a mouse at all. It looks more like a battery with buttons – but it could in fact be the future of input devices. The wireless MENDO Kandenshi Mouse is a small cylinder that you grasp with your thumb on top and index and middle fingers wrapped around the side. The left and right buttons occupy one side of the cylinder while the top houses a hidden USB plug, which is presumably the dongle that pairs the mouse with the computer. The Kandenshi Mouse really does look just like a large battery, complete with the little nubbin on top. It looks like some design student’s thesis project (and probably was at some point) but this unusual mouse is actually set to go on sale in Japan very soon.
Math doesn't suck, you do.
Every time I hear someone say "I suck at math," I immediately think he or she is a moron. If you suck at math, what you really suck at is following instructions. This shirt is birth control. Sucking at math is like sucking at cooking. I'm tired of eating shitty food because you're too much of a dipshit to follow a recipe. Also, I'm tired of hearing people brag about how they can't cook like it's some kind of badge of honor. Math is exactly like cooking: just follow the recipe. Math isn't some voodoo that only smart people understand. Theoretical math is cool as shit. Ever heard of Pascal's triangle? No, because you're too busy saying the same tired excuse every other dickhead spews out about math: "when will I ever use this in life?" First of all, if you're leading your life in such a way that you never have to do math, congratulations, you are a donkey. Why is math the only discipline that has to put up with this bullshit? People didn't invent this stuff because they were bored.
Watch Your Mouth: Toothbrush Keeps an Eye on Cavities
We all know how important brushing is for healthy teeth, but it’s not easy to know if you’re brushing as well as you should. The Tooth Guardian concept integrates a tiny camera into a toothbrush to let you see exactly what’s going on with your pearly whites. Designed by Yu-Hsin Lin, Chu-Che Chang and Shang-Hsuan Lu, the Tooth Guardian is a conceptual design that would help cut down on dentist visits by giving you a good look at potential problem areas. You can see where plaque is starting to build up and even catch cavities when they’re still small. There’s a small LED on the head of the toothbrush to illuminate your mouth, and the tiny closed-circuit camera projects images from your pie hole right onto your bathroom mirror.
Sayonara, Squeezing: Perfect Toothbrush for Travelers
You probably wouldn’t think of carrying around a pen without ink, so why do we all carry around toothbrushes that we have to load up prior to use? This invention from Kawamura Ganjavian makes perfect sense: it’s a toothbrush with a toothpaste reservoir right in the handle. When you’re going on a trip, you pre-load the reservoir with the appropriate number of toothpaste servings. Then, simply twist the handle to squeeze some paste onto the bristles and get to brushing. Of course, you could also use the Twist & Brush when you aren’t on the road.
VW’s Delivery Van Concept is Slick + Semi-Autonomous
Most concept cars seem to be rich in style but somewhat lacking in function. The Volkswagen eT! concept is brimming with both. The concept delivery/courier van was dreamed up by a group of designers and developers from Volkswagen Group Research, the German Post Office and the University of Art at Braunschweig. The idea was to imagine what light commercial vehicles will look like in the near future. The eT! Couriers and other delivery people would benefit from the joystick feature, which allows the driver to sit on the right-hand (passenger) side of the vehicle and drive using a controller. This concept is a crazily adaptive design that could be modified slightly to be relevant to a wide variety of industries and applications.
The Kids' Guide to Digital ... - Jenni Bidner - Google Books
