Hasta La Gadget!

Anton Grimes’ rent-a-scooter design makes fantastically practical use of infrastructure, but would likely fail in real life. The electrical scooter stations are retrofitted to street lights for charging, and patrons of the scheme can make short hops from station to station at up to 16 Km/h (10 mph). And because the scooters fold flat, they take up almost no space when docked.

But Grimes’ scheme, concocted for the Australian Design Awards competition, fails in a few ways. First, it’s a scooter, and therefore has tiny wheels. Grimes’ has limited the speed and also added a mandatory requirement for a helmet to prevent damage when the rider takes a spill, but this means the user needs to carry a helmet — hardly conducive the the impulse travel that is the point of these rental systems.

Second, the biggest problem with point-to-point bike rental schemes is that the bikes either run out or the station is too crowded to return them. And this is for large stations holding up to 40 bikes at a time. To think that a four-bay station will be enough is rather optimistic.

Oddly, the thing which most concerns other people reporting this story is that the scooters might be stolen. I’m assuming they think that these scooters will be free to take, like the hippy White Bicycles of the 60s. They won’t, unless the organizers are morons. Most schemes require membership, which means the scooter company will have your name, address and credit card number. Good luck getting away with that. Not that the scheme will be in service for long anyway — The first time a dog relieves itself against one of these electrical lampposts and is fried to death, the whole network will be shut down.

Urban Scooter System [Student Design Awards via Tree Hugger via Slippery Brick via Coolest Gadgets]

See Also:

• Bicing: (Almost) Free Cycling in Barcelona, Spain
• Rent Bikes Via Cellphone in Germany
• Crazy Underground Storage Unit in Japan Retrieves Bikes in Seconds …

The full name of this car-seat tray contains, like a fractal or a strand of DNA, the entirety of the product itself. Behold, the Portable Car Auto Seat Mount Tray Laptop Table Cup Holder.

The flip-down tray is very similar to those found on the back of airline seats and presumably, although it isn’t listed, contains the best function of the in-flight table: If somebody especially annoying is sitting behind you, a quick, jerky reclining of your own seat will send scalding liquid into the passenger’s lap. It’s a method I find ideal for keeping errant children in line.

The tray, while hideous, actually looks pretty useful, especially in its laptop bearing ability. Oddly, though, it also clamps onto the steering wheel, a spectacularly bad idea, although the blurb warns us against doing this while driving.

On the other hand, perhaps the target demographic – "a salesman or insurance adjuster who needs to give estimate via his laptop right on the spot" – might consider using this whilst driving at high speed on a deserted, winding country lane. With their eyes closed. Just a suggestion. $15.

Product page [Sourcing Map via Core 77]

This is the world’s shortest escalator according to the Guinness Book of Records. Or at least it was back in 1989 — somebody could easily have built a smaller and even more useless automatic staircase in the intervening 20 years.

This escalator is pointless in so many ways. First, it’s just five steps (834mm) high, a mere leap to anyone with a healthy pair of legs. And lest you play the disability card on me in the comments, the escalator is followed immediately by a set of regular, manual stairs.

Also, these stairs go down, not up, pushing them even further into the realms of pointlessness. We’ll probably never find out why the folks at the Kawasaki More’s department store in Japan installed this diminutive staircase — perhaps they had some steps left over from a proper escalator. Still, for straight-up surreality, we love it.

World’s Shortest Escalator – certified by the Guinness Book of Records [YouTube via Buzz Newsroom]

Yes, yes, it’s nothing more than a 3D render, but it’s beautiful 3D render. The Motobecane Motivo is a concept electric scooter which looks like a cold-war era East German moto crossed with a 1950s Italian radiator.

Scooters should be electric. In Italy and Spain they are ubiquitous and used to both speed through the city streets and terrorize pedestrians (if you don’t believe me, try a stroll around Naples one afternoon). They are also used almost exclusively for short trips and parked in urban areas — a prime case for making them electrified.

Miguel Ángel Iranzo’s design keeps the battery packs in suitcases (walnut covered suitcases) which slot on to the frame. The juice then runs down to the wheels where it turns motors in the hubs. It fails in some ways — the lack of a fairing means nowhere to balance your shopping on the way home, and the silent running means that unlucky Neapolitans will have no warning of the entire family bearing down upon them, skittering across the cobbles at 60mph and fully loaded, dog and all, on a single two wheeled death machine.

Dandyism Rule: Ride Must Be Stylish [Yanko via NoQuedanBlogs]

This looks painful. While we shouldn’t laugh at the misfortune of others, there’s something about the Segway which brings out a joyous feeling when seeing them fail so spectacularly.

Segway Face-Plant [YouTube via BBG]

See Also:

• The Chinese Segway Division Seemed Unstoppable… Until Criminals …
• Video: Monster Eight Wheeled Segway