Join 
Bathroom fixtures aren’t what they used to be, thanks to the advent of technology. With the advancement of function comes a refinement in form, and this is exactly what designer Kai Tan wanted to achieve with her Tapware faucet fixture. The Tapware design is an inverted cone that folds up nearly flat to the wall when not in use. Tapping it will unfold a cone in a 135º angle, where the inverted shape acts as the spot. A knob is also unveiled, letting you adjust the temperature according to your preference. Too bad a concept remains vaporware until a manufacturer decides to take action.
Email to a friend
Leave a comment (2)
Share
European scientists have come together for a common cause - to develop clothing which they claim will be capable of monitoring a person’s health. Dubbed the “intelligent textile” (no, it isn’t smart enough to do your homework for you - yet), the finished product will be used to look up different groups such as recovering hospital patients, folks who have been afflicted with chronic illnesses, and injured athletes. Funded partly by the European Union, the Biotex program as it is known will pool together the knowledge and expertise of researchers from eight different institutions. To date, a prototype multi-sensor test patch is already being finalized and will be ready soon, while the next step involves getting a group of volunteers to try out this experimental fabric. According to project co-coordinator Jean Luprano from Swiss-based CSEM, these sensors have been built and tested in the lab, with the integration into textile patches going underway.
Take a look behind your computer or home entertainment system - what is it that you see? Cables - lots and lots of cables. Of course, while those cables are a necessary evil at this point in time today, hopefully they won’t be in the near future. Researchers in the U.S. have successfully tested an experimental system that manages to deliver power to devices sans wires. In fact, this theory was tested to great success when a 60W light bulb managed to glow from a distance of 7 feet. Dubbed WiTricity, this apparent ‘miracle’ takes advantage of simple physics laws and could potentially be modified to accomodate different devices such as MP3 players, notebooks, and computers.
The power of thought is truly one of the Holy Grails of the 21st century as scientists and researchers all over the world work to come up with a computer interface that responds to thought, making it possible for virtually everyone and anyone to make use of a computer. Imagine the bed-ridden and homebound updating their blogs and websites without the need to even lift a finger. While that premise is truly interesting and would be beneficial to most people, a seamless working model have yet to be introduced. This does not mean we are further from the goal though - on the contrary, big steps have been taken in this rapidly evolving field, with the Neural Impulse Actuator being the latest prototype in line that responds to the power of thought. While it remains a gaming peripheral at the moment, translating it into a working environment would be pretty simple in principle. The Neural Impulse Actuator is currently being showcased at Computex Taipei 2007.
