Collectively, Nathan Allan Glass Studios Inc. is an artist, and glass is their canvas. The Canada-based company produces glass in dozens of unique textures, and the company's focus on R&D aims to retain an innovative and competitive edge by coming up with surfaces that others cannot.

"Here’s a cool way to add a little extra splash of color to your room without breaking the bank. These compact LED mood lights let you choose from 256 different colors using a clever touch-sensitive color chart on the side."

"Local Motors, a revolutionary crowd-sourced car company, is holding a concept design competition for a transcontinental race vehicle with a support ship."

"The first category is best termed Design as an Exploration of Production. This category is the largest in terms of the number of .MGX products it contains, and is made up of products whose central interest is an exploration of what rapid manufacturing technologies can produce, which conventional technologies cannot. It is typified by complex detailing on both the interior and exterior of the product, geometries which would be impossible to achieve were any form of tooling required."

lovely

"The climate of the city is altered, in other words, literally from the ground up; using the functional equivalent of terrestrially powered ovens, otherwise botanically impossible species can healthily take root.

This domestication of geothermal energy, and the use of it for purposes other than electricity-generation, raises the fascinating possibility that heat itself, if carefully and specifically redirected, can utterly transform urban space. "

dodecahedral LED cap

"Extensive research has been done to analyze the phenomenon of open source software development from various perspectives. By contrast little is known about open source development of tangible objects, so–called open design, so far. Until recently, limitations to the availability of successful empirical examples of this ‘new innovation model’ outside software may have been a key reason for this gap.

This paper contributes to the literature on the open source mode of product development by providing a quantitative study (N = 85) of open design projects. Our goal is to explore the landscape of open source development in the world of atoms, to analyze project characteristics, structures, and success, and to investigate similarities and dissimilarities to open source software development."

"What I worry about, however, is that pockets of the open source community continue to largely be defined and driven by complexity, exclusivity, technocracy, and machismo. While I do support independence and freedom of choice in technology — and therefore open source — I prefer to do so inclusively, with an understanding that there are many more people who are not yet well served by technology because appropriate technology has not been made more usable for them. The beautiful, usable technology in the marketplace need not be the exclusive domain of the proprietary — but so far I’ve see little indication that open source developers take seriously the need for simpler, easier, and more intuitive future-forward interfaces. Perhaps I’m wrong or just uninformed, but so long as products like the OpenOfficeMouse continue to characterize the norm in open source design, I’m not likely going to be able to soon recommend open source solutions to anyone but the most advanced and privileged users.

"Ryan Harc says that his Pocket Light concept will let us share “the blissful moments with your beloved. Draw out a little light which can be the best conveyor of your feeling.” Wink wink. I wish this was a real product; it’s just so nice to look at. And practical. And so nice to look at. So nice."

"Tough times call for tough cases and that's where the recession case comes in! The recession case lets you keep cash in your pocket without sacrificing on unique design for your beloved iPhone! But just in case one isn't enough we have the BAILOUT BUNDLE - 10 cases for $7.99 or the STIMULUS PACKAGE - 30 cases for $14.99!"

"Rather like a huge block of Post-Its, the Paper Chair's sheets can be scribbled on and removed during phone-call doodling; another cool features is that, since the block is not laminated together, magazines or newspapers can be stuffed between the sheets of paper like a bookmark. Just don't stuff a document in there, or good luck finding it again."

"Starting from the long-popular design ethos of looking to nature for the best solutions, the Morphogenesis tool set works by proposing optimized 3D structures to the CAD user, based on a defined external envelope and a set of loads and constraints. By hacking away at the envelope until only the minimum of needed material is left, the tool produces some thoroughly odd, organic shapes, often reminiscent of bones or sponges. The shapes can be saved as STL or other 3D data and used as an underlay for exploring alternate designs."

"Corridors make science-fiction believable, because they're so utilitarian by nature - really they're just a conduit to get from one (often overblown) set to another. So if any thought or love is put into one, if the production designer is smart enough to realise that corridors are the foundation on which larger sets are 'sold' to viewers, movie magic is close at hand."

"As the speed of technological progress continues to accelerate, innovation threatens to outpace architects’ and designers’ working knowledge of materials thereby limiting their applicability. In order to stay at the cutting edge of design, a knowledge of the uses, properties, and sources of new materials is essential. A companion to the Transmaterial books written by Blaine Brownell and published by Princeton Architectural Press, Transmaterial online is intended to be a clear, concise, accessible, and carefully edited resource that provides information about the latest and most intriguing materials commercially available."

"It took me a second to figure out what was going on when I first got a look at this table full of analog clocks. But once I stood back from my screen, I realized that none of the clocks have the correct time and the whole thing is a macro timepiece that tells the time using 24 individual clocks."

Probably the piece that most impressed me at the Cranbrook MFA 2009 show this year.

"Entries should be functional designs that reveal the beauty of the wood.

Eligible entries are limited to one sheet of plywood.

Entries must be flat-pack designs, either using no hardware, or with the use of up to 20 pieces of EcoSystems: Alpha hardware. For PDF instructions and 3D files of the Alpha hardware, please visit Design Green Now.

EcoSystems will provide CNC (computer numerically controlled) routing manufacturing of the winning entry. The wood used is 1” Appleply, a 17 ply panel that has a rotary-cut White Maple face. In addition to being FSC wood, the panels are NAUF (No Added Urea Formaldehyde) and come with a no VOC (Volatile Organic Compounds) clear finish."

unattainable, but frackin' cool

"It reminds you of something you've never seen before." Film showing at Michigan Theater 18 & 19 March 2008