XO-3 concept tablet for 2012

Still have a bit of faith left for the OLPC project? Good, you're gonna need it: designer Yves Behar has unveiled his latest concept design for the now-aiming-for-$75 vision, and it's all screen. Keeping with the newfound trend toward tablets, the XO-3 is an 8.5 x 11 touchscreen, coupled with a little folding ring in the corner for grip and a camera in the back. To keep things minimal the plan is to use Palm Pre-style induction charging, and less than a watt of power to keep an "8 gigaherz [sic]" (800MHz?) processor and a Pixel Qi screen powered. At half the thickness of an iPhone, this vision is obviously banking heavily on presumed technology advances by 2012 (the projected release date), but it's not too hard to see somebody making this form factor happen by then-ish. Nick Neg isn't all hubris, however: "Sure, if I were a commercial entity coming to you for investment, and I'd made the projections I had in the past, you wouldn't invest again, but we're not a commercial operation. If we only achieve half of what we're setting out to do, it could have very big consequences."

Update: According to our man Nicholas Negroponte, who took time out of his busy schedule to email us with the info, there are two other variations of the XO headed our way before we see the XO-3. Nick says we'll see the XO-1.5 appear in January for around $200 -- an update to the current version. As we'd heard before, the 1.5 iteration will swap a VIA CPU for the current AMD one, and will double the speed as well as quadruple both the DRAM and Flash memory of the current version. Furthermore, he says that in early 2011 the XO-1.75 (replacing that psychotically awesome 2.0 dual screen model) will make its appearance, and will sport rubber bumpers on the outer casing, an 8.9-inch touchscreen display inside, and will run atop a Marvell ARM processor which will enable two times the speed at a quarter of the power usage. That version will sell for somewhere in the $175 range. Then, no 2.0... straight on to the XO-3.0!

Nippon Revealed Pocket Sized Mini Projector

Nippon Signal has revealed its new entrant into the color projector size war, showing off a SVGA 800 x 600 resolution color projector that's roughly the size of a cigarette case at a recent micromachines exhibition. The prototype, which measures a tiny 90 x 55 x 20mm, uses a MEMS scanner to project images, rather than the more traditional LED.

The projector reaches its small size in part by using proprietary optical parts, including a prism lens exclusively made for it. Nippon Signal also swapped a diode pumping solid state (DPSS) laser for a much tinier semiconductor laser to display greens, reduced the dimensions of the MEMS scanner and optimized the layout to fit within its lilliputian confines. As you can see, the image quality is passable—not even close to movie theater quality, but colors are bright and the resolution is good enough for, say, an impromptu Power Point presentation.


















No word on when this will be available to the masses, but Nippon Signal says it plans on commercializing the prototype soon.

Fingernail Display Watch

A number of fancy watches have been displayed on the pages of Gadget Guruz. Usually they are binary type watches from Tokyo Flash, or ultra expensive watches. This latest watch is a concept idea that embeds on your fingernail. The TX54 is translucent and sits on the surface of your fingernail and displays the time in a range of 3 or 4 colours. The time is only displayed when the device is active and at all other times the watch blends right in to your fingernail so it appears to not even be there. At the edge of the nail can be found a thumb control allowing you to switch between modes on the watch. Although the features of this watch are basic in that it does time and date only, I think it would be cool to have an actual OLED type display there so you can flick through thumbnail’s of images literally on your thumbnail.

The TX54 was designed for a competition which Timex and Core77 are running. The competition commemorates 150 years of timex watches.

Folding Back Pack Bike

A new concept idea has recently been unveiled which shows a folding bike that can double up as a back pack. The flimsy looking bike weighs just 5.5 KG and is 60cm in length.

Not only does this bike/bag act as a back pack and bike, the whole thing can be used as a handcart too for carting around. Features on the bike are to include a headlight, back light and turning signals. For me, it just looks a tad too flimsy and I’d be worried about being knocked off in the wind.

The bike is just concept at the moment, so the 60cm in length and 5.5 kilos are more likely to be estimates of what they want to achieve with this. Would you take it out for a spin?

Concept: Gesture-Based Remote Looks Cool

Jason Kline's gesture-based remote looks cool, but might not be practical for everyday usage. You adjust the volume with the left knob and the channel with the right, but there's no place to enter in buttons. It does allow you to keep going with the knob turning concept of old time TVs while still allowing you to be lazy on the couch. Not that we'd ever use it, but it might be a decent concept for octogenarians who still miss the old days.

Portable Blow Up Mouse

The Jelly Click takes mouse portability to the extreme. All the electronic circuity lives on a small flexible board. The body itself is just soft plastic. Whenever you need a mouse, blow up the Jelly Click, attach the USB cable and you’re good to go. As a bonus, it’s a floaty for you swimming challenged people.

Yamaha Home Theatre Lightning Speaker

Yamaha has teamed up with lighting experts Koizumi to create these home theater speakers with built-in lighting. Each unit has three 25W halogen lamps that are remote control-dimmable down to 20% brightness, designed to reduce the contrast between your TV picture and the wall behind to "ease the burden on your eyes." So, a kind of one-color, non-reactive ambilight then, but the effect they produce is pretty subtle and saves you from installing moodlighting.


The 47-inch high units have a 70Hz - 35kHz response, and will cost around $1,250, but there's no info on availability.

Yamaha Deus Ex Machina concept motorcycle

Art Center Pasadena student Jake Loniak has taken everything that is cool about exoskeletons and motorcycles and crammed it into this Yamaha-branded Deus Ex Machina concept motorcycle. The vehicle is powered by ultra-capacitors and doped nano-phoshpate batteries (similar to the ones currently used in hybrid cars) and it is controlled using 36 pneumatic muscles with two linear actuators set along a spine consisting of seven artificial vertebrae. Even the helmet is pneumatically attached.If constructed, the designer believes that it could achieve a top speed of 75mph (0-60mph in 3 seconds) with a recharge time of 15 minutes and cycle time of one hour. We may never know if that is true, but I say throw some sort of storage compartment on this thing and let's find out.

Folded Swiss Bike For Cycling & Commuting

A new bike has been created which can be folded up and carted around easily. It is named the Swissbike and has a full size 26″ wheel, is as durable as a regular mountain bike, but simply folds up to store away in your car.

The bike aims to be an in between for cycling and commuting. Due to the rising costs of fuel more people are looking for a cheaper way to travel to the office. However, the office isn’t always close enough to be able to cycle to. By having a fold up, full size bike it allows you to mix both together and drive part way while cycling the rest of the way.

The technology used was originally developed to allow military paratroopers to airdrop with this bike.

Overall I am impressed with the look of this bike, and from what I read it’s built strong too. More details of the Swissbike can be found at SwissBike.com

Action Fresh Blue Technology For Killing Bacteria From Fruits

This design concept from Ahmet Bektes, Koray Gelmez & Eda Kose uses "Action Fresh Blue" technology—apparently used in "many new refrigerators"— to keep your fruit fresh. It seems that this tech is essentially a blue light, which shines down from the bowl's handle, killing bacteria. Hmmm: I'm skeptical. But at least it's rechargeable, and has a nifty blue halo all around when it's in action so your kitchen looks all 21st Century. If it really works, it might be useful if you're like me: buying a lot a fruit when on a health-kick, and then just leaving it in the bowl to go moldy

DVice - Universal Remote

Universal remote controls are not a new invention as they have been around before. Even the iPhone can be configured to control everything in your home. This one is still worthy of a mention though as it uses a large touch screen on the front of the device which is used to control most aspects of your home. It is designed by David Chacon and is described by DVice as a “Nerve Centre right in your pocket”.

The Universal Remote control if made, would be able to control your lights, curtains, oven, TV, music etc… all from it’s graphical interface. If you do not like the design of the interface then the option is there to design your own front end.

Of course, if you want to switch on and control your oven, you will need a compatible oven… but if you want that lazy boy type life then no doubt you have remote controls for everything already and now you just need a Universal Remote to mix them all in to 1 device. It looks great though and something I could see my self using

Beijing Solar Powered Gigantic LED Wall

Say what you will about the fiascoes leading up to the Beijing Olympics, but the event has brought along with it some amazing new architecture. Greeting visitors attending the Xicui entertainment complex near the site of the games is a 20,000 square foot wall of computer-controlled LEDs, the largest of its kind ever built. Better yet, the wall manages to power itself completely using only the sun.

The GreenPix Zero Energy Media Wall, designed by Simon Giostra & Partners and Arup, uses thousands of solar capture cells attached to each of its glass panels to charge up during the day and then release dazzling light shows at night. It's the first time perforated photovoltaics laminated in glass have ever been used in a building in China, but if all goes off without a hitch, it most certainly won't be the last.

The wall is a combination of three textured panels in low-, medium-, and high-transparency glass, employed together to create a "continuous carpet" of flowing design that's actually roughly 7 feet deep. The wall will showcase low-resolution LED imagery, to help conserve energy and paint an artsy gauze on whatever does get shown.










The project will be completed in June and will feature performance works by artists from all over the world.

Tooth brush Holder

“It seems quite apt placing your toothbrush in a tooth, so here it is the Tooth Toothbrush holder. A kitsch bathroom accessory that will stand out from all other toothbrush holders. Made from white ceramic this toothbrush holder looks the part and a far better option than putting your toothbrush in a mug or your average boring pot.”

10 Futuristic Concept Phones Designs

1 . Nokia 888 Communicator

Nokia definitely has the most interesting concept phones. Nokia 888 Communicator is a striking futuristic concept phone. The phone, which uses liquid batteries, speech recognition, flexible touchscreen and touch-sensitive body cover,is designed by Tamer Nakisci and won the Nokia Design Award

2 . Nokia Aeon

Nokia Aeon was presented by Nokia on their website in the Research & Development section. What is so great about this phone is that it looks like it will actually go into production next February. Of course, its just a rumor, but still, makes us hope to actually see it someday in the GSM shop. All we know about it for now is that its a touchscreen phone and it looks fantastic.

3 . Sky "Sleak n Slim"

"Sleek & Slim" from SKY is another concept based on touchscreen technology. The phone has a discretely glowing touchpad, hideaway keys and generally utterly-fashionable minimalist design.

4 . Benq-Siemes "Snaked"

Benq designers thought of women too and presented Snaked. This is a "reptile" looking phone, creepy somehow, but still is very cool. The Snaked is a fashion phone for sport loving women, because it also has body monitoring sensors to help the ladies keep those fine shapes.

5 . What You See is What You Get Concept
One thing is for sure about this concept phone…they could've named it shorter. Designed by Pei-Hua Hang, the phone's name comes from the fact that this concept no longer uses an LCD as viewfinder for the digital camera, instead it uses a transparent frame. And of course, interaction is made through a touchscreen

6 . Retroxis By Dark Label

If most phones presented here will never be sold in store for sure, the Retroxis concept phone from Dark Label looks kinda human, and makes us hope we'll be able to get one of these one day. Designed by Lim Sze Tat the phone is encased in high polished polycarbonate renowned for its lightweight and toughness and has an invisible OLED display that silently hides away when inactive.

7 . Benq-Siemens "The Blackbox"

lack Box designed by Benq-Siemens uses a touch screen as its keypad and, depending on the functions you are using, the touch screen changes the control layout immediately.

































8 . NEC Tag

Somehow similar to the Snaked concept, the NEC Tag is a flexible phone concept that can be , for example, hung from a belt or wrapped around the user's arm. Interesting is that the phone has shape-memorizing material and sensors that allows the phone to change its shape according to the mode.

9 . TripleWatch

Though the idea of a cellphone watch is not so new, the TripleWatch designed by Manon Maneenawa has an interesting triple flip technique that allows the user to transform the watch into a normal cellphone. When used as a wrist watch, the phone has a speaker button that allows the user to answer the phone and hang up while driving.

10 . Asus Aura

World's Slimmest Samsung 8MP mobile phone

Good news for those who rely on their cellphones for their photo- taking needs; Samsung has just unveiled the world's slimmest 8MP CMOS, which measures a diminutive, 28mm × 15.3mm × 8.5mm. The semiconductor was designed specifically for cellphones, and it will push handsets beyond their current 5MP restraints. However, that's not the only good news. The new module, which is 10% more compact than current solutions, will have an ISO 1600 sensitivity, anti-shake capability, face detection technology, 1-cm macro and an automated shoot mode that is activated by silly, smiling faces. We're guessing the technology for the smile shutter is what we have seen previously in some of the Cybershot range. All in all, it's great news for high end photography on your cellphone and as the advanced CMOS sensors will go into mass production in Q3/4 this year, we won't have to wait too long either.

Phillips Pronto TSU 9600: wi-fi enabled remote control

The Phillips Pronto TSU 9600 touchscreen control panel is a wi-fi enabled remote control that lets you direct everything from one central location–your home theater system, music libraries, cable TV, even your lighting if you have an automation system installed. This is a must-own for anybody who ever considered (or actually purchased) theater-style seating for a home screening room; the cinephile’s lust for movie theater-like control of the environment is definitley fufilled with the Pronto.

world's 1st positive energy Structure: Masdar HQ in Abu Dhabi

The Masdar HQ in Abu Dhabi has big ambitions; the site is planned to be the world's first positive energy building, meaning it will create more energy than it consumes.

The project is expected to cost $300 million, and it will form an impressive center piece to Masdar City, which will be a $22 billion development stretching out beyond Abu Dhabi. The Masdar HQ is the very vision of a greener future. In fact, a roof pier will be the first part of the building to be hoisted into place, which will be covered in solar panels that will generate energy for its own construction. The complete structure will encompass some 1.3 million square feet, and we think the term "intelligent design" should now be redefined to accommodate the Masdar HQ's structural plans.

Roboswift: The Spy Bird

The RoboSwift, built by researchers at the Delft University of Technology, is among the first flying machines with a "morphing" wing sweep. As you'll see in the video below, its wings reduce in surface area when pulled back to limit drag, the way the wings of actual fast-flying swifts do. Unlike the real birds, however, the RoboSwift is designed to spy on you.

Inside its small body (20" wingspan), there's a low-resolution wireless camera. The idea, already thought to be a good one by Dutch police, is that RoboSwift can be used to surreptitiously hover over crime scenes or football riots. People below, if they did look up, would only to see a soaring, swooping bird of no consequence.

The dudes from Delft are so proud of their little 3-oz. beast, they reckon they can even use it to observe other birds without being noticed—they just have to find a way to fold up that propeller once RoboSwift is aloft. Stashing that long-ass antenna on the end of the tail might help too.

Concept Phone: Nokia Reseach Center & Cambridge Univ. Develops "Morph"

Nokia Research Center (NRC) and the University of Cambridge (UK) has announced the development of Morph, a concept mobile phone. What is innovative about the phone is that it is flexible and bendable.

Nokia says that the new phone is an example of how future mobile devices might be stretchable and flexible, allowing the user to transform their mobile device into radically different shapes. Further, Morph features flexible materials, transparent electronics and self-cleaning surfaces.

Dr. Bob Iannucci, Chief Technology Officer, Nokia, stated, “Nokia Research Center is looking at ways to reinvent the form and function of mobile devices; the Morph concept shows what might be possible”.

“We hope that this combination of art and science will showcase the potential of nanoscience to a wider audience. The research we are carrying out is fundamental to this as we seek a safe and controlled way to develop and use new materials,”commented Dr. Tapani Ryhanen, Head of the NRC Cambridge UK laboratory, Nokia

Morph is a good example of usage of nanotechnology which might lead to offer high-end mobile phones integrate few elements of the concept phone. Also Nokia hopes that the development of Morph will lead to low-cost devices with more functionality and smaller sizes.

Morph will be exhibited at The Museum of Modern Art in New York City from February 24 to May 12, as part of the “Design and the Elastic Mind” exhibition.