Hasta La Gadget!

There are a lot of emergency situations that call for the use of rope. Unfortunately, rope pulley systems aren’t the safest way to go sometimes due to external conditions. Like, say, when there are floods or overflowing rivers and people are trapped on one end. No doubt you’ve seen similar scenarios in movies where the hero clings to the rope and pulls himself to safety on the other side. But regular folks might lose their grip and be swept away by the current.

As an alternative to this, the Air Rope came to be.

It’s essentially an inflatable tunnel that functions as a rope in the sense that it will help you get across certain obstacles without relying so much on your arms. Emergency response people could set up and inflate the tunnel within minutes and have people cross the river by crawling through it instead of using the rope system.

Air Rope is a rescue system that takes the form of an inflated tunnel. It can be used as a thoroughfare across a river when secured to the ground and a tree at each end. A motor and propeller create a powerful flow of air. The air nozzle has a screw-in profile to prevent air leakage. Aluminium alloy, which is light and strong, is used for the metal components.

Air Rope was designed by Lee Jee Won, Lee Juan, and Lee Yong Ho and is a 2013 Red Dot Design Concept Award winner.

Aerospace manufacturing, stiletto heels, modern architecture, and more: The design inspiration for Bang & Olufsen’s three new wireless speakers—which were unveiled at an event in New York today—runs far and wide.

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Motorola has announced that it’s new research and development team, called Project Ara, is developing an "open hardware platform for creating highly modular smartphones". In other words, it wants your phone to come in bits.

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Noise cancelling headphones are nothing new, but wouldn’t it be neat if there was a device that could provide an entire room with silence? You could soundproof your room, but that would be time-consuming and expensive. Rudolf Stefanich’s Sono concept device would be a godsend. You’d simply attach it to a window and it would block outside noise.

Aside from cutting down on background noise, Stefanich dreamt up Sono to also be able to let certain sounds pass through, perhaps depending on their noise level. He also imagines that the device will get its power from nearby Wi-Fi signals.

You can find out more about Rudolf’s unique concept on his website. I don’t know if it’s possible to make the Sono a real thing, but dammit if folks are already printing pizza and controlling drones with their minds maybe a reverse cone of silence isn’t too much to ask for.

[via Gajitz]

Spitballs are annoying, but they’re a part of life, especially in grade school. If you have a kid who’s being tormented by these nasty balls of paper and spit or know someone with a kid who’s in a spitty predicament, then you might want to look into Wads.

Wads is basically a pen with a spitball launcher on the other end. Spitball battles aside, this thing could actually result in hours of fun for kids and introduce them early on to speed, acceleration, and trajectories. (Ahem: a spitball is launched at an angle of 45° to the horizontal and it falls 3 meters away at the same level…)

Wads was created by Ash Gilpin, who has been obsessed with the idea of creating a spitwad launched ever since he was a wee little kid.

Ash explains: “We think kids will love it. Although, schools will probably ban it. But hey, we’d take the PR.” I kind of agree.

Ash has plans to expand the Wads empire to include an interactive game (aptly called Wadboard) down the line. If you like what he’s doing and want one Wads pen of your own, then make a pledge of at least $10(USD) on their Kickstarter page.

[via C|NET]