Hasta La Gadget!

How many times did your mom have to scold you to quit messing around and rocking in your chairs at the dinner table when it was time to eat? I don’t know about you, but my mom would always say she felt like a broken record whenever she’d remind me and my siblings to stop whatever it was we were doing while we were seated there.

But when you’ve got the Swing Table, it’s time to forget all those rules and start having fun because the table itself requires you to. That’s because instead of the usual seats, you get swings instead. The table itself doesn’t have any legs of its own because it’s attached to the frames of the table.

The Swing Table was designed by Duffy London and it’s for sale, too. But while we love the table, we don’t really love the price – since it actually retails for £6,895 (~$11,190 USD). Guess we’ll have to resort to tipping our dining chairs back for now.

[via Yanko Design]

I’ll admit that from time to time, I do want to carry around a pocket watch, but the obsessiveness of always being on time and knowing the exact time, right down to the second takes precedence in my timely, regimented world. However, even if it’s not necessarily the most accurate way of telling time, I do like this modern reinterpretation of the classic pocket watch.

French designer Mathieu Lehanneur created the Take Time pocket watch for Lexon. The watch is a quartz analog timepiece that has a silicone rubber band. The band can be looped around belts, bikes, and other items. However, you can still strap it around your wrist if that’s where you prefer to have your watch.

The Take Time watch retails for about £29.95 (~$49 USD) and is available in a variety of different colors over at Gifts with Style.

[via designboom]

If constructed in Manhattan’s Chinatown neighborhood, the Zhongshan Center would stand 2173 feet tall, provide 15,000,000 square feet, house 130 elevators, 3,000 cars, a revolving restaurant, a shopping mall, and a “super-galactic hotel.” But considering the proposal for this mammoth building—one that would occupy five square blocks—comes from a retired New York resident, it’ll probably never happen. More »

In celebration of the 100th anniversary of American designer Ray Eames’s birth, Herman Miller has announced a limited edition Eames Wire Base Low Table (Eames LTR), which will be made available on Herman Miller’s website in mid-October.

More »

HP CEO Meg Whitman has taken on a lot since stepping into the position last September, and one thing she’s focused on has been making HP’s line of PCs and laptops more aesthetically pleasing. Whitman tells The Wall Street Journal that the laptop she was given when she started at the company was “a brick,” and that now one of her goals is turning that around. Where she’s pulling inspiration from may surprise you, too.

The WSJ write-up pegs Whitman with a desire to have the design of HP’s machines rival that of Apple‘s. “I don’t think we kept up with the innovation,” she said. “The whole market has moved to something that is more beautiful.” That part is definitely true – lately we’ve seen the market leaning toward some incredibly sleek-looking Ultrabooks, which go for excellent design and speed over raw power.

When Whitman took over in September 2011, HP’s laptops were all designed by different teams, meaning that there wasn’t any one common theme that immediately told consumers “this is an HP machine.” In the time since, HP has doubled the size of its PC team, and appointed HP PC executive Stacy Wolff to devise a look and feel that all HP machines could share. We’ve seen the fruits of that labor with HP’s latest line up of machines, which includes the Envy X2, the Spectre XT, and the Envy One. All of them are sleek looking products, and it’s easy to see that HP was taking some design cues from Apple when it sat down at the drawing board.

“Apple taught us that design really matters,” Whitman said, continuing by claiming that the company has “made a lot of progress” with its latest machines. Though HP has undeniably come up with a common look for its new products, it will undoubtedly have some stiff competition from the other Windows 8 manufacturers out there, who are all touting some impressive laptops and all-in-one PCs of their own. Have a look at our story timeline below for more on HP’s recent exploits.

HP CEO sings the praises of Apple design is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
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