Hasta La Gadget!

Yuri Suzuki and Åbäke have gotten together to put on SUZUKI ÅFFICE, a “secret” bar hiding on the other side of a tiny cabinet.

Having gone through the looking glass, you find yourself in a a tiny bar that is (somehow) smaller than even the smallest nonbeiyokocho watering hole.

We had to make a visit ourselves since hearing about it from Suzuki a few weeks ago, and were pleasantly surprised to find ourselves with some new Suzuki-branded glasses to hold some tasty Coedo lager with its custom “Suzuki” label.

If you want to stop by to check it out, the space is only open again this Thursday~Sunday at the Clear Edition Gallery not too far from Shibuya Station.

We’ve been gathering resources and case studies on eco trends in Japan for years now. As part of our recent eco report we compiled a lot of them into categories in order to analyze their influence and global potential. Here’s a quick run-down of some of the coolest innovations we came across.

1. Eco-vending machines

Japan has 2.4 million beverage vending machines and this understandably consumes a vast amount of power. How can we support our mobile lifestyles while being kind to the planet? Well, there are prototypes being developed, including Fuji Electric’s E3 vending machines, which gets energy from a solar panel and insulates in the winter by growing moss on its side.

2. Solar powered electronics

Products such as those from Sanyo’s eneloop range prove that it is possible to be consumerist, mobile and eco at the same time. From their batteries that can be recharged 1,000 times to this portable solar panel, if you want to be green without setting up in a shack in the woods — then eneloop might be the solution. The panel serves as an auxiliary power source for your music player or iPhone, and can be put into your bag or held in your hand.

What’s more, though the totally solar-powered mobile phone might have some time to go, the main Japanese carriers are still pioneering handsets that at least offer some extra energy help from the sun. Softbank’s Solar Hybrid phone is waterproof and part-solar powered, with 10 minutes of solar charging equaling 1 minute of conversation.

3. Art visions

What would Tokyo look like if the pavement were suddenly replaced with grass? Well, the Green Island Project have turned this eco-warrior’s fantasy into art: a series of photographs that cleverly turn Tokyo streets into fields of green. The project is a collaborative effort between creative director Tag (Ryo Taguchi), photo retoucher IMKW (Imakawa), and contemporary artist-cum-coder Immr (Yuichiro Imamura).

[Image courtesy of Green Island Project.]

4. Recycled design goods

Recycling and re-using materials is a major part of eco (that and cutting down energy consumption in the first place). Trust the Japanese to turn a good deed into a design dream. Just some of the great products made from old materials that we have particularly liked included (recently blogged) Seal brand’s bags and shoes (made from parts of old tires), Index’s eco chopsticks (from rice-based biomass plastic), and the Filt Waste Oil candles (below) (uses locally collected cooking oil waste and thrown-out glass jars).

5. Re-thinking packaging

Coca-Cola Japan’s l LOHAS is a bottled water product that makes an environmental stand (at least marketing-wise): its bottle design twists up neatly into a 12 gram piece of plastic, said to be 40% less than other PET bottles.

Here’s a blast from the past: In the early 1980s, an industrial design firm helped create some early prototypes of tablets for a young Steve Jobs.

The tablet was called “Bashful,” in reference to the dwarf in the fairy tale Snow White. Bashful was created alongside the Apple IIe as an extension of the Snow White industrial-design language that Apple used from 1984 to 1990.

Now Frog Design, the firm that created those mock-ups, has unearthed some photos from its archives that show what the tablet might have looked like more than 25 years ago. With Apple expected to unveil its long-awaited tablet device on Wednesday, it seems like a good time to bring these photos out of the archives, Frog Design’s people thought.

There are none of the sleek contours that characterize Apple’s products today. But you can still see the emphasis on ease-of-use and a slim profile (relatively speaking, anyway). And it shows how long Jobs has been mulling the idea of bringing a tablet to market.

Variations of the Bashful tablet included one with an attached keyboard and one with a floppy-disk drive and a handle for portability. Some of the tablet prototypes included a stylus. And one concept even had an attached phone.

Frog Design also helped create the Apple IIc, the fourth in the wildly popular Apple II line of personal computers.

The Bashfuls never made it to market, and the prototypes are probably still in the hidden, underground storage vaults of Apple or Frog Design.

Take a look at more photos of the prototype tablets below.

Photos: Frog Design

See Also:

• Will the Apple Tablet Be Called iPad?
• OLED Could Be Apple Tablet’s Secret Solution for E-Reading
• Rumor: Apple Event to Highlight iPhone OS 4.0
• Why 2010 Will Be the Year of the Tablet

Take a deep breath and exhale. Feeling a little tight around the middle? Your corset could be sending you a message about air pollution.

Designer Kristin O’Friel has created a garment that reacts to the carbon dioxide levels in the environment and offers physical feedback by tightening the bodice in relation to air quality.

“I wanted to create an experience that changed our perception of environmental data,” says O’Friel, “by making a wearable device that engaged with this information in a direct and tangible way.”

The CO2RSET has a carbon dioxide sensor sewn into the garment. It responds to CO2 readings by tightening or loosening itself when the levels of the gas in the atmosphere increase or decrease, respectively. O’Friel designed it as a student in the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University’s Tisch School of Arts.

O’Friel says she chose a corset because it cinches the waist and forces wearers to breathe shallowly. “It’s contextually appropriate as the wearable interface to air quality,” she says.

The corset uses a TGS4161 sensor from a company called Figaro and mini gear motors from Solarbotics for the actuation.

The garment may not be very practical, but its a fun way to introduce the idea of wearable computing and open it up to possibilities.

Take a closer look at the corset:

More at Kristin O’Friel’s Flickr stream

See Also:

• A Mona Lisa Created from Motherboard Bits
• Dance Dance Revolution Game Pad Morphs Into a Purse

[via UberGizmo]

Photos: Kristin O’Friel

Look, Physical Computing can be a drain. Particularly when your Summa Cum Laude status is hinging on you acing the final. We’re guessing that one Ryan Raffa managed to pull off a pretty decent grade, as his final project is nothing short of delectable. In a (presumably successful) attempt to wow onlookers and professors alike, Ryan cooked up an audio controller that utilized an ADXL 335 accelerometer (for motion sensing) and an Arduino board that communicates serially with Max MSP. The controller itself boasts inputs for five tracks and the sixth button applies a delay to all of the tracks; he was even kind enough to host up the Max MSP and Arduino code (it’s there in the source link), and if you’re interested in hearing what all the fuss is about, be sure to hop past the break and mash play.

Continue reading Arduino and accelerometer harmoniously come together in DIY music controller

Arduino and accelerometer harmoniously come together in DIY music controller originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 20 Jan 2010 03:56:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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