Hasta La Gadget!

Is it possible to distill the character of a city into a single, striking logo? In some ways it seems crass to (re)brand a place, reducing the complexity of a locale into to what is, essentially, a marketing campaign. Done well, however, the efforts can unite locals and lure leisure travelers, who bring with them a major financial boon (check out the World Bank’s map of international tourist dollars from the past four years—there’s a lot of cash involved). But have we reached peak branding?

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A circle is pretty much the only thing the EOTS watch from Germany’s Yesign has in common with a traditional analog watch. Where you’d normally find a circular face ringed with numbers, the EOTS features a round hole ringed with LEDs that light up to tick off the minutes and hours.

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If you’ve ever struggled to keep your drinks in their receptacle at the beach, this concept will have your pretty excited: Screw Cup is a mug that can be driven into the ground to help it stay upright.

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With few exceptions, 3D printers can’t be used to print edible things, but wouldn’t it be extremely cool if we could one day print whatever food we can imagine using 3D printers?

That’s the idea behind the Atomium. The concept device would be equipped with a 3D-imaging camera and software that could turn 2D drawings or photos into 3D objects. When powered on, users could turn their doodles of burgers into the real thing. Cakes, cookies, pasta, pastries – the sky’s the limit.

The idea is that the device could develop foods based on the individual users tastes and desired shape of food. It would even take into account their individual medical profile. Of course, you can’t make food out of nothing. Ingredients would have to be placed inside individual bins on the Atomium’s base. These are then used to “print” edibles, which can be removed from the device’s head.

The goal is to make the Atomium as simple as possible so that even kids can use it. This is definitely one of those concepts that seem pretty far out as of the moment. But that’s how many current technologies started out, so maybe this will become a reality one day.

[via Dvice]

Nowadays, we often hear about unmanned aerial vehicles aka UAVs or drones in the news as next generation weapons of war. The researchers at MIT’s SENSEable City Lab want to dispel that notion and show people that this new technology can be used in more positive ways. For example, as tour guides.

The SkyCall project uses a Wi-Fi network, a mobile app and quadcopters equipped with GPS, a camera and other onboard sensors to create smart tour guides. A prototype of SkyCall is already being tested at the labyrinthine grounds of MIT. To summon a drone, the user uses the call feature on the SkyCall app. When your friendly guide arrives, the user enters the alphanumeric code for his destination (I don’t know how he gets the code in the first place though). The guide will then start moving at a leisurely pace.

The drone will even talk about landmarks along the way and can be stopped by the user through the app. The drone also uses GPS to detect if the user has fallen behind a certain distance and will wait and then alert him through the app.

The SkyCall: why ask people for directions when you can build a sophisticated network of satellites and robots to guide you through life? As someone who is socially inept, I’m only being half sarcastic. I’d love to have a drone buddy to guide me around and perhaps even protect me.

[MIT SENSEable City Lab via Dezeen]