There’s a reason that Topeak’s MiniRocket iGlow bike bump won a 2013 Red Dot Design Award: the transparent barrel encases a internal optical fiber that turns a small red LED into a brilliantly-visible glowing safety strip. And at just 67 grams, it adds minimal weight to your bike’s frame, so it’s easy to always keep on hand. A pair of watch-sized batteries powers it continuously for up to 50 hours on its brightest setting, and 100 hours when dimmed.
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Lamps can be pretty, but there are few quite as versatile as Konstantin’s Grcic’s OK Lamp. Both a ceiling fixture, but also kind of a floor lamp, its rotating LED panel can cover almost any possible angle. And it’s form is the marriage of new tech with decades-old design. More »
When you first see it, it looks like a perfect rainbow conforming to the contours of the river, trapped inside a waterfall. But then your brain realizes that that’s not possible. How are there colors in the water? How is there a rainbow at night? It’s the trick of long exposure photography. And I can’t stop looking at it. More »
It’s not like they were going anywhere, but it’s kind of surprising to see the same kind of gesture and swipe controls you use on your smartphone now being integrated into something as simple as an LED flashlight. More »
Mobile developer Jim Rutherford’s son Owen loves to play Minecraft. To enhance his Owen’s gaming experience – or perhaps to gently remind him how long he’s been playing – Jim made it so that lamp on Owen’s desk changed color and intensity to match the game’s day and night cycle.
The hack is made possible largely because of the new Philips Hue LED bulb, which can produce light in a variety of colors and intensities and can be controlled over the Internet. The other half of the project is an iPad app that Jim himself wrote. The app not only controls the LED bulb, it also allows Owen to match the time on the app with his game. Skip to around 3:35 to see the hack in action:
Jim has posted the source code for the app on Github. He also said that he’s going to submit the app to the Apple App Store. If it’s passed, he won’t charge a cent for the app. Which is nice, considering the Philips Hue is freakin’ expensive.
[via Jim Rutherford via TechCrunch]
This lamp looks like it’s come straight outta the offices of Google. But in fact it was created by the famous Italian designer Alessandro Mendini—and we think it’s beautiful. More »
Driving in the middle of the night can already pose enough of a challenge to navigate through as a number of people aren’t even supposed to be driving due to the limited visibility. Driving while a car as large as a yacht behind you with its high beams on can make it even more challenging, but a new car feature will be introduced at next week’s Geneva Motor Show that could make the use of high beams less of a distraction for drivers in front of your vehicle.
Volvo will be introducing its Active High Beam Control which installs a mechanical system in a vehicle’s headlamps that has the ability to block your light from distracting oncoming traffic or cars in front of you.
The way the Active High Beam Control works is through a camera which is already installed in Volvo’s rear-view mirror for its detection and auto-braking system. The camera can detect other vehicles and calculate the area that should be shaded within a 1.5-degree margin. Once the system tags a vehicle that should be shaded, tiny metallic cylinders cover the light to shade the appropriate area.
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Urbee 2 To Cross Country On Just 10 Gallons Of Ethanol, iPad Works With Self-Driving Car,
This beautiful lamp, designed by Elia Mangia for Foundry, is subtly inspired by a jackknife’s folding blade—but don’t let that put you off, because its simplicity is too alluring to resist. More »
There are plenty of different kinds of lights to illuminate your home or office with, but I’ve never seen anything quite as interesting as these lights. They almost look like neon tubes, but the designers say that they can be used to light up ceilings, walls, floors, and just about anything else.
The Atomic Clear Tubing system was developed by Polish design group Em and Es, and allows people to experiment with the modular design. They can be positioned horizontally and vertically, and are available in modules of 18″, 26″, and 35″, which can work as single units or be joined together. The fittings can be coated in a number of different colors.
The system also promises to eliminate problems with cables and wires, building the power circuitry into each section.
[via designboom]
Getting lost in a forest of trees sounds like a lot of fun but then you realize things like bugs and wildlife and poison ivy exist. Not so fun anymore! What’s guaranteed to be fun is to trap yourself in a cube of floating lights. 8,064 LEDs to be exact. More »
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