Not practical... but with a sense of humour that we all need when going through the gates...
via: perpetual kid and eyebeam reblog!
2007-05-05
zweiI can't wait to come across that zwei tote! Flexible and elegant. No need to have hundreds of bags (I admit, this is going to be difficult), when one can be that versatile...
Screenshot from website.
Togetherness... is so wonderful. Particularly when both partners share the same passion: mobility. Because life is happening all around, in so many different places. And there is so much to discover. Whether shopping, attending an important meeting or out cycling, "zwei" grows with your personal needs, offering continuity in the face of constant change.
I do like the idea of a piece of clothing that 'links' you to places, augments the feeling you have of spaces, reacts to it. InsideOutside is a project that is participative as everyone can enter the coordinate of places that make him/her feel uncomfortable. The designer is Annina Rüst (Check by the same occasion her eRiceCooker project!). I find it rather amusing that the wearer poses in front of an MIT modernist building... that I do happen to feel comfortable with... maybe because of my design background. Would be cool if we could sense/locate the public places where people feel particularly comfortable with/in... just out of curiosity...
InsideOutside is a piece of (under-)clothing that heats up or cools down uncomfortably when the wearer gets near spaces where others feel discomfort. These areas can include but are not limited to video-surveilled areas, shopping malls, riot-proof architecture, uncomfortable street furniture etc...
An interesting article in The New York Times: Log In Your measurements, and your clothes may fit, by BOB Tedeschi | Published: March 12, 2007. I read:
So why not have a Web site where users can provide their basic body dimensions and style preferences, then see all the available clothing that would fit well and suit their taste? It is an idea so obvious that one wonders why it isn’t an established part of online shopping already: merchandise returns would drop, customers might well be happier and the Web site would earn a commission for every sale.
The article elaborates on the initiative of myShape (the image above is a screen shot taken from their website), and the need for body scanners "saving them [people] the trouble of measuring themselves." This is what Intellifit does.
Mr. Charpentier, [the founder of Intellifit], who led the design team for the original Commodore 64 computer in the early 1980s, said Intellifit would install a scanner at Newark Liberty Airport and at Baltimore/Washington airport in the next three months.
Even after getting the measurements of consumers, apparel-matching services like Intellifit and myShape face challenges. Clothing manufacturers can be reluctant to take the precise measurements of their clothes and send them along.
I observe how these technologies affect spaces. I asked many times : “How would you design a library taking into account that every book will be digitized in few years time?” This above is another example of technology that has an impact onto space, as the need for road infrastructure, and storage spaces multiplies with online shopping (Steve Woolgar, ed., Virtual Society? Technology, Cyberbole, Reality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002); pp. 1-22). Is architecture disappearing or just transforming our cities in an coagulation of storage spaces?
The article raises other questions: today's mobilities are paradoxical: we are immobile shopping online while increasing the mobility of "PIGs", People, Information and Goods as François Ascher, author of La Société Hypermoderne, says. Intellifit locate machines at airports, obviously linking technology to mobility... or maybe to surveillance...
Via
eyebeam reblog... As described in the original website:
A jacket for sleeping on public transportation is the concept for this project. During research I learned that people can sleep when their bodies are held in a rigid state as opposed to only a soft and yielding state - similar to most beds. I applied this concept to the Excubo jacket - a jacket that transforms into a firm and protective shell around the user.
Image from Matthew Gale's website:
Why? Gear for the traveler... Would be nice to integrate a sleeping mask to it, or have it detachable so to adapt it to other jackets... or?
Because Puma thought about
Train Away, I swang by their store (just before a meeting to prepare an interactive event at
Mobile Monday Boston)... To find out about their 'cook' your shoe 'kitchen' counter: you can feel the material, choose and scan it; an interface shows the progress, i.e. how is your shoe looking like. Once the shoe is 'cooked,' you can send an e-mail of the final product to yourself or buy it then! Try the
Puma Mongolian Shoe BBQ...
seen p. 141 of WIRED 14. 09 (September 2006 issue):
NEXTFEST: Tomorrow's Tech Today [a "preview"]... The item above has an air of déjà vu as the leather (?) bag resembles other conventional looking leather totes... but it is not! It also recalls other products like
BYOB and the
Voltaic™ Solar Bags Speaking of “integration,” the solar item is sawn on the side. I’d like to see more of designs like those of Issey Miyake and
Minagawa Makiko whose use of technology in the design and production process is exemplary. But it is still the work of an undergrad (the youth think tech!) and of great use for neo-nomads! + +
image from Philips' website
