Hasta La Gadget!

Biegert & Funk has made a name for itself thanks to its iconic clock design that tells time the way we tend to convey it to one another in conversation – with written words in five-minute increments, spelling out “half past twelve” or “a quarter to five.” After creating a number of wall and desk clocks with this design, the firm made a lot of people’s wishes come true and revealed the QLOCKTWO W, a wearable version of the design that fits on the wrist. One has been sitting on mine for the past couple of weeks, and in that time it has managed to make a strong impression on both myself and my friends and family.

With only a 10 x 11 grid of letters making up 110 characters in total (that’s less than a tweet), the QLOCKTWO W can display any time, and even though it only spells out five-minute increments, if you’re more exact, four dots at the bottom of the watch’s face indicate the specific minute, and you can cycle through to a view of the seconds ticking by with a couple presses of the QLOCKTWO’s single button. It also displays the calendar date (and if you’re unaware of the month and year, you likely have more problems than a watch can fix), and is available in English, French and German versions.

The QLOCKTWO W comes in three different finishes – polished, brushed, or black stainless steel. The face of each measures 35 x 35mm, which with a square-faced watch wears roughly similar to a 40mm standard round watch. For me, since I prefer smaller faced watches, it’s a perfect size. The square design and the non-tapering wide 24mm leather strap make it appear more substantial than you might expect, however, and it definitely attracts a lot of curiosity from onlookers.

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Biegert & Funk have done a phenomenal job with the overall look of the case and strap, which isn’t surprising given their history as a design firm. The QLOCKTWO W’s most impressive feature is its display, however. When you activate the display, words light up to reflect the current time. Unlike other watches that use a push-button LED illumination trick to show the time, I found the lighting on the QLOCKTWO to be incredibly even. The letters on the face are relatively small, but they show up clear and very easy to read thanks to the well-engineered backlighting. The amount of time the light remains active also seems perfectly engineered for reading and for showing others when they ask for the time.

In general I tend to find it hard to continue to wear watches that use a push-button activation mechanism just to display the time, but the QLOCKTWO W has managed to beat that personal preference. You can also activate a demo mode to have it display the time constantly, but you’ll burn through your battery pretty quickly doing that. One other thing to note is that while the display is among the best LED-lit watch faces I’ve ever seen, it still isn’t great for reading in bright sunlight, though in all other conditions, including overcast days, it’s easy to read without a struggle.

The Biegert & Funk QLOCKTWO W is a comfortable-wearing watch that tells the time well and does so in a manner that’s unique without being difficult or obscure. It’s also a wearable work of art thanks to the iconic design of the face and smart, industrial minimalism of the case. Starting at around $650 (a price at which you can start to get some impressive automatics), it is likely to appeal to a niche crowd, consisting not so much of watch fanatics who appreciate good design, but of design fanatics who value a good watch. Whoever the buyer, however, the QLOCKTWO W makes for an interesting, attractive addition to a collection, one that practically oozes good taste.

You can get Pantone suitcases and even Pantone Christmas ornaments, and now you can display your absurd devotion to that library of color by wrapping some color swatches around your neck. More »

Interactive furniture is pretty uncommon. After all, your first consideration in making a piece of furniture is to create something that’s sturdy, durable, and comfortable. Aesthetics usually comes second.

And then there’s the Thermochromic Table. It looks like a simple, minimalist table and bench at the outset, but it’s the finish that sets it apart from the rest.

Because of its thermochromic coating, different parts of the table might temporarily ‘change’ in color once it comes contact to someone or something hot. For example, a person’s hand or steaming cups of coffee, as you can see in the gallery below.

These tables are made by Jay Watson Design and costs £1,850 (~$3,000 USD). Or you could just buy some thermochromic paint pigment and cover your own furniture with it.

[via Geekologie]

The designer known as Hartmut Esslinger has revealed an amazing treasure trove of never before seen designs from the Apple archives this week in a book by the name of “Design Forward.” This book was launched this week at the opening event of an exhibition by the name of “German Design Standards – from Bauhaus to Globalization” and was delivered first to the folks at Design Boom where they’ve been allowed to display many of the images within. What we’re being shown here is a set of Apple products designed – at least in part – by Hartmut Esslinger himself during his time with what would become one of the most iconic hardware companies in history.

The man himself, Esslinger, worked with Sony in the mid 1970s with their trinitron and wega ranges, moving up to Apple in the early 1980s. If you’ll remember from earlier this year when many early Apple designs were revealed during their legendary court case with Samsung, the idea that they’d replicate Sony designs was spoken of more than once. As it appears here, Esslinger had a problem with these requests for a Sony look for desktop computers, too. Esslinger stayed with Apple until 1990, where soon after Steve Jobs was cut from Apple, he broke his own contract and followed Jobs to NeXT.

Above you’ll see an early “Apple Snow White 2 macbook” from 1982 – not that every single image in this post comes courtesy of Esslinger and is via Designboom. The first image in this post goes by the name “Apple Snow White 1 Lisa Workstation” and is from 1982 as well – not the converting angle of the display and the lovely integration of the Apple logo rainbow colors in the side of the machine. Below this paragraph you’ll see the Apple “Baby Mac” from 1985 – rather sleek, isn’t it?

Above you’ll see a rather drab (by today’s standards) looking machine tagged with the name “Apple Snow White 1 Sony Style” from 1982. Of this design Esslinger writes, “Concept 1 was defined by ‘what sony would do if it built computers’. I didn’t like this idea, as it could create conflicts with Sony, but Steve insisted. He felt that sony’s simple cool design language should be a good benchmark, and Sony was the current pacesetter in making high-tech consumer products smarter, smaller and more portable.”

Below you’ll find two early masterpieces – one of them a tablet, the other a phone. Imagine that, the earliest iPad and the earliest iPhone, together under one roof. The first goes by the name “Apple Snow White 1 Tablet Mac” and is from 1982, the second is the “Apple Snow White 3 Macphone” from 1984. This was the same year that Apple burst forth with Macintosh and changed their destiny forever – imagine if they’d simply released a phone with a massive display instead?

The book Design Forward is available for sale in physical form right this minute all the way over in certain parts of Europe right this minute for right around 30 Euros. We’re crossing our fingers for the digital edition to make its way to the USA sooner than later – can’t wait! Hit the gallery below to see the cover of the book as well as larger versions of the photos you’re seeing above – hot stuff!

Apple prototypes of the 80′s unveiled is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

A new patent application from Apple has turned up online that shows an interesting process for making curved glass – and potentially hints at new gadgets with such screens. The process starts with a flat piece of glass like you would find on top of a smartphone or other gadget from Apple. The heated glass is then slumped over a contoured form to create a curved piece of glass.

Presumably, this type of glass bending is easier and more efficient than other methods for creating curved glass. Notably, the patent application hints that we could possibly see tablets and smartphones from Apple in the future that have curved screens. However, the contour I see in the patent application looks more like a mouse to me.

Apple is rather famous for its seamless, modern designs so I could see this easily being a way to curve glass to make the touch sensitive surface of the top of a future mouse. Of course, Apple and other manufacturers attempt to patent all sorts of ideas that never get used, so who knows if this technology will ever turn up in an actual product.

[via Wired]