Hasta La Gadget!

What do nineteen of Japan’s leading companies think will be the major problems facing society in 2030? A new exhibition in Tokyo Midtown Design Hub called ‘Changing the World Through Design‘ is using installations to provide visitors with a glimpse of what the likes of Toyota, Mitsubishi and Fujitsu think.

The exhibition’s overall theme is the design of future society, and it explores some of the major challenges facing societies both now and in the future. The space is organised into five broad themes reflecting these concerns: ‘Energy’, ‘Education’, ‘Agriculture’, ‘Resilience’, and ‘Community’.

Each company’s installation is contained in a “light capsule”: a glowing semisphere with two holes, one rimmed in black and the other in white, that allow visitors to peer into the capsule to see the installation from different vantage points. The installations are visual representations of a particular issue or challenge, and each hole allows visitors to literally see both what the company views as its existing challenge as well as a potential solution to the challenge in the future.

Rohto’s Capsule

In the ‘Agriculture’ theme, the capsule for Rohto, a pharmaceutical company dealing with health and beauty products, showed the figures of people ploughing the land through one hole, while the second revealed the entire image of a ying-yang symbol. The installation mirrored the emphasis the company wants to place on mutually beneficial projects between developed and developing countries.

Viewed from the second hole, visitors can see the full installation

In the ‘Education’ theme, Gree, one of Japan’s biggest social networking services that focuses on mobile games, stressed the importance of using technology to teach, and highlighted the potential of games as a learning tool.

Viewed from the first hole, visitors see the back of a girl studying

Viewing the installation from the second hole reveals that the girl is using a smart device to learn instead of traditional textbooks

Tour company H.I.S‘s focused on their role in supporting travel as an important part of education. Their display showcased their efforts to encourage and provide opportunities to Japanese students who want to broaden their horizons by travelling overseas to volunteer in countries like Bangladesh, Burma and Cambodia.

Under the theme of ‘Resilience’, Honda’s installation showcased the company’s focus on projects dealing with making decisions that could save lives in disaster situations. Accompanying the installation was a description of a system which would use smartphones and GPS to identify and inform Honda drivers of locations to escape to in times of disaster.

The use of installations to visually present future challenges and social innovations is quite a unique way of relating the goals and directions of the companies featured. The idea of the capsule is also an interesting one, and it really tries to get visitors engaged with thinking about the future and the present as connected realities.

Through the 19 capsules, each of the featured companies consider the new roles and values they will have to take on in the future, and it is interesting to consider which themes and challenges each company chose to present their installation under. Companies like NEC, Mitsui, JR East and Mistubishi all centered on the issues dealing with the management of resources and energy, while food and beverage companies like Kirin and Watami focused on projects dealing with supporting food production in earthquake-struck areas and sustainable agriculture respectively.

Kirin’s installation

Rebirth Project’s Genki Dama Display

The direction that each company is choosing to take also implies that particular research facilities, technological innovations and assets associated with these companies will also be allocated to particular industries and projects, and this will ultimately play a role in shaping the nature and types of innovation that we will witness in the future.

Participating companies: H.I.S., Gree, Kirin, Toppan Printing, Toyota Marketing Japan, NEC (Japan), Patagonia Japan, JR East, Fujitsu, Honda Motor, Mitsui & Co., Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings, Mitsubishi Corporation, Yamaha Music Japan, Lush Japan, Ricoh, Rebirth Project, Rohto Pharmaceutical, Watami.

Most days, I make my daily java using a stove-top espresso maker. They make coffee quite quickly, and I don’t have to surveil it while it’s working, so I can do some other tasks at the same time. This coffeemaker is very minimal. You don’t need much to make your own cup, almost anywhere.

The MANUAL Coffeemaker was designed by Craighton Berman, a design studio based in Chicago. It focuses your coffee-making efforts on a single cup at a time, ensuring you’ll get the best cup of java possible.

This is a slow extraction coffee appliance, and it will sit quietly on your counter top, allowing you to control the preparation. It’s been designed to maximize the time that the water and ground come in contact, ensuring the most robust cup of joe.

It’s an interesting idea, and I can see this working well in office settings which sometimes do not have a drip coffeemaker where people usually have to settle for instant coffee.

[via Leibal via designyoutrust]

Home decor that doubles as actual functional stuff is totally in demand these days, mostly because people are living in homes with such limited space. Another one of these items is the aptly-called “Metal Folder” by Debra Folz.

Instead of flimsy cardboard, these standard size folders are constructed from aluminum. You can’t exactly open or close them, and you won’t be able to staple into it with in case you want to fasten your papers. However, you can mount it to your wall and slip documents into it as you walk past, so you can come back and get them later.

They’re available in silver and ivory and are priced at $48(USD) on Debra’s website.

[via BLTD]

If you’re a regular follower of Technabob, you know I’m a big fan of 3D printing tech. As prices come down, and speed and accuracy come up, 3D printers will become ubiquitous. While most 3D printing is done by melting plastic, did you know that you sugar can be used to make 3D prints too?

Kyle and Liz von Hasseln of The Sugar Lab have developed a method for printing complex geometric forms using sugar. They intend on using their technology to create sugar sculptures for topping cakes, but many of their current examples stand on their own as works of art.

The duo previously developed a 3D printing method which used the light produced by an off-the-shelf printer, and moved by a robotic arm, to create large sculptures out of resin.

It’s unclear what method is used to print their sugar sculptures, though it involves alternating sugar layers with water and alcohol to harden the sculptures as they’re printed.

If you’re interested in incorporating 3D printed sugar sculptures into your event, you can contact them over on their website for more information.

[via Co.Design via Neatorama]

The Mindstorms line already makes it possible to create robots, machines and other moving and highly interactive toys out of LEGO. But the company isn’t resting on its laurels. Recently LEGO teamed up with Sony to make what they’re calling Toy Alive – prototype LEGO bricks that have motors, LEDs and even cameras.

Toy Alive was one of the prototypes shown off by Sony Computer Science Laboratories Tokyo at its 25th Anniversary open house. As you’ll see in the video below, the embedded gadgets can be controlled wirelessly. There are motors that let you race LEGO, actuators that can be used to destroy LEGO structures on cue and a LEGO toy with a built-in camera that sends footage to an iPad app.

Sony researcher Alexis Andre explained that the collaboration aims to look at ways to combine the strengths of videogames and LEGO. The Toy Alive prototypes provide kids with a wider array of interactivity compared to normal LEGO toys without restricting their imaginations, as most videogames do. You can listen to Andre talk about Toy Alive at around 0:58 in the video below:

It’s like a real world Little Big Planet.

[via Network World & The Japan Times via Topless Robot]