A new device from Amazon, leaked photos of the newest iPhone, a floating electric car and a bionic kangaroo are just a few of the technologies that caught our eye this week.
1. Terrestrial LIDAR Technology
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and sometimes that beauty is flawed. Matthew Shaw and William Trossell of ScanLabs Projects premiered a new show called Noise: Error in the Void, which features images produced from terrestrial LIDAR technology. But instead of featuring the visually impressive 3-D images typical of this tech, they two artists showed off laser scanned images with glitches, skips, artefacts and other errors. The results are eerily beautiful. See a video here.
2. Floating Hotel
With sea levels rising, floating buildings are all the rage. Here is one example. The Ark hotel concept, from Russia-based Remistudio is actually designed not only for floods but for earthquakes, too. It was conceived of by the architects for the “Architecture for Disaster Relief,” program sponsored by the International Union of Architects.
The Ark is designed to float and gets structural strength from arch-shaped beams and cables that also provide stability during a quake. The lack of traditional internal supports save on materials and provide more living space inside. And its designed to generate its own energy and life-support systems.
3. Fire TV
Amazon's vice president of Kindle, Peter Larsen, displays Amazon's newest gadget, the Fire TV, which went on sale this week for US$99. The box along with a remote control device also allows users to listen to music or to play games with a separate controller.
4. Drops of Light
Tokyo-based Torafu Architects collaborated with a glass artist to produce "Water Balloon," a light installation designed for the Eco & Art Award 2014 exhibition. The handcrafted pendants contain tiny air bubbles to diffuse light in interesting patterns.
5. Curvy Lamp
Just when LEDs were coming onto the stage, LG is introduce OLEDs - organic light emitting diodes. The flexible material allows for the curvy shape of the Table Lamp, which in addition too looking elegant, also has Bluetooth and a smartphone app.
6. Motor Cycle Slash Security Camera
Japan Security System Company commissioned artist Chicara Nagata to design a security camera for hotel lobbies and upmarket storefronts. The result was a motorcycle with a 360-degree field of view. Nagata replaced the head and tail lights with off-the-shelf video cameras and added two side-facing cameras in front of the seat. Even though there's a motor, it's unclear how one would steer this security camera or put on the brakes.
7. Floating Electric Car
You don't see the words "floating" and "electric" together too often. But they've been paired when this amphibious vehicle was conceived of by the Japanese company Fomm. Their Concept One car was inspired by the tsunami that inundated Japan in 2011, and is meant to mobilize citizens in the event of a disaster. Although it's unclear where the electricity might come from should a natural disaster wipe out a city's infrastructure, this car, if charged up, has a water jet generator to propel it through flooded roads.
8. Bionic Roo
German-based Festo is known for their innovative robots. Every year, the company creates a new design as part of its "Bionic Learning Network," which seeks to use "principles from nature to provide inspiration for technical applications." This year, they presented BionicKangaroo, a robot that realistically emulates the jumping behaviour of real kangaroos. Like a real kangaroo, this robot efficiently recovers energy in its legs after landing from one jump in order to spring into the next one.
9. New iPhone?
This week, the French website Nowhereelse.fr revealed leaked images of an phone purported to be Apple's iPhone 6. It was thinner than the iPhone 5, had almost no bezel on the sides and had a screen that measured 4.7 inches diagonally. The new gadget from Apple is rumoured to be called the iPhone Air.
10. Wearable Tech
Several Dutch fashion innovators showed off what was hot in wearable tech. There was a quilted onesie that doubled as a Wi-Fi hotspot and a suit that contained sports solar cells. This dress, called the "Intimacy 2.0" from Studio Roosegaarde, contains sensors that track the wearer's heartbeat. When it elevates, the dress becomes more transparent. Talk about wearing your heart on your sleeve.
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