I don’t think this design is too practical, but it’s cool nevertheless. The concept here is a durable water bottle that can be refilled at specific source water fountains. These fountains would contain a system to track how much water you use; vendors would then credit your account via a redeemable points system. On the surface it seems pretty cool; although, I’m not sure why this design is even necessary considering the fact that we already have public water fountains. One could argue that this design would eliminate the waste generated through the consumption of bottled water in vending machines. I still think it would be easier to carry your own bottle and refill at public water fountains for free. Vendors would have to make a large initial investment and hope that people actually latch on so that their overhead cost actually makes sense. Another problem I have with this design is the bottle size. I consume massive amounts of water each day and the bottles seen in the pictures do not appear to be much bigger than 12 ounces of water. Depending on the pricing scheme, this could be very expensive. All in all, I still think the concept behind it is pretty dope.
Source: Yanko Design
Design: Water On The Go
Design: "Optimal Vision" by Jin-young Yoon & Jun-kyo Lee & Young-ho Lee
When I initially saw these, this was the first thing that came to mind. The concept behind this design is a set of contacts that allows the user to optimize their vision during the daylight hours. Essentially they are contact sunglasses. This sounds pretty dope; although, I wonder how much they will cost?
Source: YD
Design: Sound Blind
Source: YD
Design: Audi Exo by Andrea Mocellin
Dope design. One question though - where at the wheels? Via, YD,
" 'Taking advantage of the exoskeleton and nanotechnology evolution, we can create a potential energy source and produce a new generation of human powered vehicles: faster and stronger.' Inspired by sports equipment, footwear design and human instinct, this design uses the owners own kinetic energy to power your way down the street. Though it is not quite clear if Andrea is talking about pedal power or full body motion, this design not only re-imagines power train options but also makes us look deeper into the obvious inefficiency of modern human conveyance systems"
Brought to you by: Yanko Design
Design: Altec Lansing OMNI
These are some DOPE speakers. I hope they eclipse the design stage and make it to production. These speakers are an audiophile's dream. Just make sure you don't share any walls with neighbors. Via TechFresh,
Designed by Nuno Teixeira, the Altec Lansing OMNI speakers look like tall vases. These speakers boast heavy construction to ensure lesser vibrations and superior sound quality. Each of these speakers comes with a woofer, a mid-range speaker and a tweeter.
Safe Way to Fly?
JetLev is a jetpack that propels you based on its interaction with water, and just in case you fall, it won't be as painful as, say, a crash into the ground. Peep the video below. Apparently, the JetLev is going on the market really soon, too.
Source: BBG
Touch-Screen Faucet
As if it wasn't enough to have touch screen for your phone, here you can use this screen to set the temperature of your water. Not only that, you can check your email and calendar?!?!
From Born Rich (wow!):
Combining sophisticated design with high-end technology, the SmartFaucet by iHouse brings the utmost convenience. Using a facial screening application, the iHouse Smart Faucet recognizes the user and automatically turns on the water to the preferred temperature and flow. The touchscreen on the top of the faucet can be used to access email, check your calendar, check the outside temperature, among other things. With the help of face recognition technology, the SmartFaucet triggers the heater, which heats the water quickly to the desired temperature and flow. Different people can trigger the tap in different configurations, without having to reconfigure it. You just don’t have to worry time and again for mixing cold and hot water to reach the ideal temperature and pressure. The integrated LEDs in the tap illuminate to show the variation of temperature, with transition from blue to red for higher temperatures. This superb intersection of form and functionality is bound to attract admiring comments.
Sorry: no translation!!
Design: WUI Sound Chair by Gerry²
My initial impression upon seeing this chair was that it is a modern day recreation of the stone-age chairs seen in the popular cartoon show The Flintstones. This chair doesn't look comfortable in the least, but for what it lacks in comfort (although I have never actually sat in it, so I may be very comfortable; although I highly doubt it), it easily makes up for in function. This aesthetically pleasing chair, which resembles obsidian glass, is actually a sound chair. Via Born Rich:
"The surfaces are connected with small devices that can turn nearly any flat surface into a soundboard. This chair allows listening to media devices without the need of traditional speakers. The chair translates electric signals into mechanical energy and causes the flat surfaces to vibrate and broadcast the sound. Each surface gives the music a different tone. The WUI sound chair also offers wireless connection to any Bluetooth-enabled music playing device. The best thing I liked about the WUI is its design and it looks a way different and inviting than most of the music playing chairs we have seen till date" 
Source: Born Rich
Design: Sound Eggs by Ilshat Garipov
Who says you can't listen to music in style? Check out these ill speakers conceived by Russian designer Ilshat Garipov. The off center weight that sits at the bottom keeps the speakers at a constant tilt allowing you to point them in any direction you choose. Given the tilting design, these speakers are said to shake when you start playing music. I am assuming that if you play bass heavy tracks, these bad boys will look like they are have a mini-seizure. If all this wasn't cool enough, they connect to your computer/mp3/phone/etc. via bluetooth meaning that you don't have to deal the hassle of cords and cables. I will be waiting in line for these if they are ever produced!
Source: YD
Design: Phillips Tapster
Check out these stereo bluetooth ear buds designed by Phillips. These joints are beyond fresh and believe it or not, they feature a touch screen interface. Here are some of the specifics via A2DP:
"Calls and volume control is commited through tapping, thanks to the ultra sensitive touch interface. Soft touches of your fingers pick up calls, and stronger taps correct the volume. I wonder if it is going to be easy for most people, many of us are not so gentle to find a button somewhere they don't see and stroke it with the necessary pressure.
The Tapster features Bluetooth 2.1+EDR A2DP for you to listen to the music, as well as Ever Clear technology to filter out noise, AVRCP, HSP, and HFP. FullSound chip decompresses your music files enhancing the sound, it restores the music’s original dynamics, stereo effects, bass and treble to reveal previously unheard detail without distortion. FullSound is enabled out of the box, and can be turned off and on.
As you disconnect the headset, the calls start to be transferred directly to your cellphone."
Source: A2DP.info
Design: Vauni Globe
Check out this dope stand-alone fireplace designed by the good people of Vauni. This design is great because it allows you to enjoy the "fireplace experience" without the limitations of most conventional fireplaces. Via momoy, the Vauni Globe is "a free standing fireplace that can be turned 360 degrees for optimal viewing angle. The Globe fireplace is made of fire resistant materials which are carefully selected to harmonize with the value of fire and express aesthetics, quality and warmth, powered by advanced ethanol burner and has integrated regulation of heating effect and flame size".
Spotted at: momoy
Dope Phone Concept...
Check out this this phone concept designed by Hideo Kambara for KDDI au (a Japanese telecommunications operator formed in October 2000). Apparently the phone was inspired by sandwiched plywood. Via Yanko Design,"Each section is tabbed to core functions like a dialpad, keyboard, gamepad, touchscreen, pico project, and printer". Keep in mind that this is only a concept, and it will be interesting to see if this vision becomes a reality. Score another point for Japan in my book!
Swiped from: YD
A new simple very usable piece of technology
Watch Richard Archuleta, CEO Plastic Logic demonstrate the world's first
electronic reader aimed specifically for business users
Plastic Logic Previews Electronic-Reading Device
with Revolutionary Plastic Electronics Display at DEMO 2008
LCD Slide Puzzle?!?!?
Dope design by Andreas Myhrvold Braendhaugen for a picture and video display system incorporating square LCD screens. The video explains it all.
Via Yanko Design:
Being wireless and space-aware, the screens allow for intimate viewing of pictures and video, flexible sharing, and new gaming concepts. The concept points to a future where screens are no longer specific to certain devices and types of data, but can receive data from any source and change according to the viewer’s environment, body position, and resolution need.Watch the video here
How About a Bonsai Tree to Charge Your Ipod?
Flashing (Flashing) Liiiiights
I love this building...I'd probably crash if I was driving by it
The Ultimate Relaxation Experience...
Check out this new concept by designers Sandra de Miguel, Xavier Arbones, Alvaro Bermudez, and Marta Fernandez. The Nautilus water bed/bath takes relaxation to the next level allowing you to float comfortably above the water without getting wet. When you finally decide that you want to be submerged, the simple flip of a switch allows tap water to flow on top of the mat material while simultaneously exhausting the water below. Definitely dope!
Sources: Born Rich/Baller House
A Robot for Your Musical Needs
Here is the AMP (“Automated Musical Personality”) Bot, specifically designed to follow you and play your favorite tunes. Much like the movement of a segway, the Bot's movement tends to move by way of a 2-wheel base that doesn't tip over, and when set to tracking mode, this robot will keep tracking your movement so as to face the speakers toward you. Even installed is an obstacle avoidance system so that it doesn't bump into anything. Even more interesting, it'll dance for you and have a light display when syncing to your music.
Check out this video:
For more information, go here.
Artist Spotlight: Dre-Ski
Rarely do you come across an artist whose passion for music and flowing surpasses the desire and need to be known, whose drive and determination to become great allows him (or her) to take all kinds of criticism, and whose personality creates an immediate impression on you. Even more rare is the artist who patiently studies the game and its artists to find those hidden gems in certain lyrics, as did the young Mos Def and Pharrell when traveling the country to follow A Tribe Called Quest. This is, in my opinion, what’s missing in the game – this unbridled love for the art to perfect one’s craft, by any means necessary.
Hailing from the Virginia Beach area (the home of such musical talents as Teddy Riley, Missy Elliot, Timbaland, and the Neptunes/N*E*R*D), Dre-Ski is no stranger to music – and not only because of the area he grew up in. We here at iLLVibes have been humbled by this artist’s drive and passion and have been lucky to see his skills develop and reach an incredible stage of maturation at such an early age, and we no doubt cannot wait to see how he continues to improve. And don’t get it twisted, not only does he write carefully and endlessly in his notepad as if a modern day Wordsworth, but he’s an incredible freestylist, with an uncanny ability to spit off the top of the dome on any topic à la throwback Eminem. If you doubt him, ask him why he's been recently crowned the Freestyle King at Virginia Tech, having won a recent battle at his college.
With several mixtapes released already, Dre-Ski intends to drop another one this upcoming summer, and based on his past songs, this soon-to-be-dropped mixtape should bring more heat. His first mixtape - “Follow Me” – with beats from your favorite artists, in addition to several original tracks, outlined his journey through several stages in his life, whether it’s about his experience back at home, his brother’s incarceration, or his opinions about college women. His swagger is quite pronounced on such songs as "Spit My Game" (“I treat a track like a sack of weed, I’m always sparking it”), in which he spits effortlessly over Big’s “Spit Yo Game” and emphasizes the cadence of the melody; "Ride Wit a G" (“I know you feel my presence when I breathe on a track”); and "Step My Game Up" (“Kenan and Kel flow, you can say I’m All That”) [my favorite line, by the way].
In "Cannon Flow" Dre-Ski builds upon a message for all his haters until finally he exclaims, “I get full from your beef like it’s lunchtime,” resulting in an exposition as to why he’s the new artist to recognize. He unleashes into an exposé of college women on "Get Far (College Edition)," as if this were Ludacris’s version of “Area Codes” for universities/colleges across the country (“Wouldn’t get far messing with frat dudes / I wrote this song for you”). Indeed, throughout this mixtape, it’s not uncommon for Dre-Ski to delve into an inimitable array of witticism and wordplay often lacking in the hip hop game: “I’m just writing my lifestyle / ‘cause everybody know how I feel and understand that life’s wow / God-made, I guess I’m just life’s child / ‘cause if he didn’t want me on this Earth, he would’ve came in a LifeStyle.” He further exposes himself in the same song, "Dear Life", when he elaborates on the harsh realities of life and on human nature: : “This life got so many hardships / Nobody warned me about the girls and the hard shit”. All of this results in a vast composition of varied elements, a storybook of sorts detailing the life and times of Mondre Barnes – an arrangement so diverse that it’s guaranteed to appeal to all, no matter the background and experience.
As of right now, Dre-Ski, while also preparing his next mixtape, is also in label talks and hopefully will make his official debut anytime soon. But even without this legal wrangling and years of waiting, Dre-Ski is an artist to support whose movement will hit you eventually! For more information, check out his myspace and hit him up! He promises to update his page very soon. Check out his songs below, and let us know what you think! (Just to let you know, we've added a surprise: his version of CRS' "Us Placers.")
If we had to choose a particular favorite, Dre-Ski’s version of “Us Placers” is definitely at the top of the list. In this song, he entangles the listener in an existential excursion, with Verse 1 detailing his perfect girl (“She not dumb and she not afraid to know more / Put her in a coupe, take trips, I’m a chauffer”); Verse 2, my personal favorite, juxtaposing two conflicting elements – that of failure and success – and describing how the former pushes Dre-Ski to the latter (“The more I try is when I try to take heed / And when I’m down is when I succeed”); and Verse 3 outlining his fashion sense and the necessities of life to reach those desires (“To make end’s meet I gotta bust more … Locked in a ward, no Montgomery / I’m locked in a glass, it’s the world I see”). All in all, the wordplay and flow are incredible, especially more so since he did this song all in one take!
Download: Dre-Ski - Us Placers (Updated Link 06/09)
