Hasta La Gadget!

Part of the problem with the steampunk aesthetic is that it’s a mish-mash of at least a half-dozen eras and styles, and as a result these pseudo-Victorian mods have little substance.

The real steam-engine Victorians were industrialists and colonialists. They were all about power. Gears, pulleys, and exposed wood-grain were all functional. These guys didn’t hide those things away behind a filagreed veneer because they liked the swagger. But most self-proclaimed steampunk designs are only swagger — and they’ve usually tacked on the filagree, too.

That’s why Keen Footwear’s Portland shoestore (called Keen Garage) is so refreshing. The retro-industrial look, which refits reclaimed materials, has a stylized look, but performs important functions as well. The annotated images below give you an overview of how their setup works:

The entire shop is only 900 square feet.

If the futurists profiled by our Charlie Sorrel are right, and interior design will be a driven by the need to maximize the utility of increasingly dwindling space, we would do well to learn some lessons from the past. After the jump, check out some more historical space-maximizing design technology.

First, though, another dig at contemporary steampunk-as-style.

Kate Beaton writes and draws a comic-historical cartoon called “Hark! A Vagrant”. My favorite strip is probably “Brunel Is Tired of These Time Traveling Assholes.” In it, the legendary inventor meets a guy straight out of faux-Victorian sci-fi who’s proud of his gear:

Time-Traveller: “Isambard Kingdom Brunel! Wow! Check out my awesome steampunk goggles.”
Brunel (bored): “What do they do?”
Time-Traveller (proudly pointing at his head): “Check it. Gears.”
Brunel (fists clenched): “Tell me they do SOMEthing.”
Time-Traveller (proudly pointing at his feet): “I put a shitload of cogs and watches on my boot.”

Here are some space-saving desks that that builder of railways and steamships would be proud of.

Keen Garage: Upcycled design mixes steampunk and outdoor footwear for a new Portland concept shop [Cool Hunting]

See Also:

• Steampunk culture: an introduction for Guardian readers
• Steam-Driven Dreams: The Wondrously Whimsical World of Steampunk
• Victorian Mod Gives iMac a Woody Look
• Even More Brazilian Steampunk
• Steampunk Robots: Beautiful Toy Nightmares
• NSFW: Make My Vibrator Vintage

The Swimsense from Finis is like a bike computer for swimmers, only instead of counting wheel-revolutions, it counts strokes. The new wrist-mounted computer is waterproof (of course) and contains a motion detector which detects “stroke types, records the number of laps swum, total distance, calories burned, lap time, pace and stroke count.” Phew.

The smart part is that motion-sensor, which uses accelerometers to detect what kind of stroke you are swimming based on your arm movements, differentiating between the stately breaststroke, the blind backstroke, the all-conquering freestyle and the flailing, rescue-me-please-I’m-drowning butterfly. Combining this info with settings for the pool-length and your weight, age and gender, the Swimsense then presents a breakdown of what you have done in an online workout viewer. All you do is upload the data via USB.

My swimming is pretty much limited to splashing from the li-lo to the pool-bar, but the more sporting mermaids and mermen out there can add this to their Christmas list: the Swimsense will be $200 when it launches for the 2010 holiday season.

New Product: Swimsense [Finis Blog. Thanks, Jennifer!]

Swimsense product page [Finis]

See Also:

• Waterproof MP3 Players Won't Make You Swim Like Phelps
• High-Tech Swimsuits Approved by Olympic Committee Promise to Even …

Follow us for real-time tech news: Charlie Sorrel and Gadget Lab on Twitter.

The kids may be ditching wristwatches for time-telling smartphones, but manufacturers and designers still have some tricks just-barely-up-their-long-sleeves. The trick seems to be making watches more like smartphones by packing in extra functions or forgoing utility altogether for pure aesthetics or prestige.

Now, I can’t really read the spiral watch in the video above, but I appreciate the beauty and concept of the thing. The designer, Denis Guidone, says “I don’t like to design watches, what I really like is to design time.” This really puts us on another plane. If Marcel Duchamp were alive today, I’m sure he’d be making timepieces. (Dali, definitely.)

The “architecture you can wear” web magazine/design store Yanko Design has been highlighting clever takes on the wristwatch like this all summer, including design firm o.d.m.’s digital watch that puts the screen on the sides and the buttons in the middle, and a really gorgeous and surprisingly affordable piece by Daniel Will-Harris that lights up the numbers showing hours and minutes in color:

Image from Yanko Design

Let’s suppose, though, that you want your watch to DO stuff. Computerworld reports on watch manufacturers who are stoked about using the new Bluetooth spec, which makes it easier to hold connections on low-power devices, to pair your wristwatch with a computer the same way you would a mouse, keyboard or phone:

That means a watch or other device with a standard coin-cell or “button” battery that is worn on a wrist, kept in a pocket or worn on a necklace could communicate with a person’s smartphone or laptop. Using the wireless connection, the watch could display data received from the larger device, Bluetooth Special Interest Group Executive Director Michael Foley said Wednesday…

“The specification opens up new categories of Bluetooth devices,” he said. “You could replicate your phone on your watch for caller ID information or [to activate] a music player.”

These watches are probably still over a year away, though, as nobody’s made an announcement just yet. The ones with virus-templated nanobatteries that last forever are a long ways off.

Image from Rolex

Finally, there’s the classic non-timekeeping function of a wristwatch — showing neither utility nor idiosyncratic taste but socially recognized status and power. Luckily for high-end watchmakers, the psychosocial cachet of their products doesn’t seem to be trailing off.

In “Why Do We Care About Luxury Brands?” Jonah Lehrer writes about what our continued desire for genuine Rolex watches, Hermes Bags and real (not sure ’nuff) iPhones has in common with our childhood objects of affection:

Although we outgrow stuffed animals, we never get beyond the irrational logic of authenticity and essentialism. There are certain things whose value depends largely on their legitimacy. While I might listen to bootleg music on my iPhone, I want the phone to be genuine. I want that Apple logo to be real. Why? Because the brand has effectively woven itself into my emotional brain. Because when I see that logo, I don’t see a functional object. Instead, I’ve learned to respond to everything that isn’t functional, all those subtle connotations conveyed in the glossy ads. There are many blankets in the world. But there is only one blankie. The best brands are blankies.

Sometimes it’s nice to look at your watch, not even to check the time, but just to remind yourself that it’s there.

See Also:

• Gallery: Sexy, Strange New Timepieces Debut at Basel Watch Fair
• Tokyo Flash E-Ink Watch
• It’s Beer O’Clock! Watch Has Built-In Bottle Opener
• Void’s Slab-Like Retro Watch Is Impossible to Read
• LED Nerd Watch Tells Time in Hex, Binary, Octal
• Tiny Clip-On Timepieces Turn Anything Into a Watch
• New Watch Takes Electronic Ink Beyond Books
• World’s ‘Most Feature-Packed Watch’ is Also its Ugliest

The roll-up tool-bag is probably only hours younger than the invention of tools themselves: Soon after whacking away at a monolith with a femur, or cutting his thumb on a sharpened flint, the handy caveman would have needed a place to stow his kit. One dead, skinned woolly mammoth later – thunk! shik-shak! – and the tool-roll was born, complete with a furry surface on which our inventive neanderthal friend could wipe his greasy hands.

My poor knowledge of history aside, the tool roll is a great invention. And Timbukt2’s Tool Shed tool-roll (say that five times quickly) is now on my shopping list. The $35 tarp bag has pockets for your bike tools with an elastic strip at the top to keep long wrenches in place, and a netting pocket for small spares, chain-ring bolts and so on. The roll lies flat in use and once you’re done, you cinch it up and toss it in your bag.

Importantly, it’s also greaseproof. The Tool Shed comes in at a half-kilo (1.1-pounds): not the lightest roll, but it looks like it might last long enough to be your only roll.

I have a couple Timbukt2 bags already, and I love them. Just one thing, Timbukt2 designers: the strap on my mini-messenger bag is way too stiff. It’s nice that it’ll outlast me, but does it have to cut into my neck every time I wear it, too?

Tool Shed [Timbukt2 via Uncrate]

See Also:

• Timbuk2 Hidden Messenger Bag
• Timbuk2 Command TSA-Compliant Laptop Bag
• Wired Magazine: Brand-New Bag

Follow us for real-time tech news: Charlie Sorrel and Gadget Lab on Twitter..

Oh man! If I had a pair of those great Nike Hyperdunk 2015 sneakers (aka. The Official Shoes of Gadget Lab, aka. Marty McFly’s self-lacing shoes from Back to the Future 2 and 3), then I’d be hacking them with this amazing lace-tying mod on Instructables.

The project, by Blake Bevin, uses an Arduino-controlled sensor to detect when you put your foot into the sneaker. Then, it fires a motor which tensions the laces. That’s it, although because of time and money constraints Bevin only modified one shoe.

In addition to the essential parts, Bevin also added some electronic “bells and whistles” in the form of redundant circuit-boards and LEDs. The project, which you can follow step-by-step, is rather complex, but if you are an experienced Arduino hacker, then probably the hardest part is finding sneakers with enough 1980s style-cues to be worthy of the job.

In practical terms, though, you’d probably want to stick with your fingers, as the whole array adds a startling amount of bulky circuitry to the heel. Also, if you’re planning a trip, either pack these in your hold baggage or just jump in the DeLorean.

Power Laces- the Auto lacing shoe [Instructables via Gear Fuse]

See Also:

• Gallery: Hands-On With Nike's Hyperdunk 2015s
• Nike Hyperdunks Make Disappointing Debut, Still No McFly
• McFly 2015s Patented by Nike
• The Real 2015 McFly Shoe from Back to the Future Appears on eBay …