Camper Bike by Kevin Cyr

Since I'm on a bicycle kick at the moment, here's one more amazing design that needs to hit an assembly line in the near future. "Camper Bike" is a tricycle/motor-home hybrid designed by New York artist Kevin Cyr.

 (I imagine he must be in pretty good shape now)

The Holstee Manifesto: Lifecycle Video

 

Bikamper Travel Tent

Introducing the Bikamper tent by Topeak. This personal travel tent utilizes the front wheel of your bike in place of tent poles, and folds up into a small, space-saving bag which can then be strapped to the handlebars/bike rack. The main body is constructed of water-resistant ripstop nylon and features three mesh panels for ventilation/stargazing, with a fly for extra water protection.

Stats: 3 seasons, 10" x 5,5", 1.6 m2 floor area, 3 windows/1 door, 2.98 lbs

Get yours: http://www.topeak.com/products/Bike-Tent/Bikamper

Drying Rack/Flower Pots

An interesting design utilizing runoff water from drying dishes to grow plants:

Duolingo: learning/translation exchange

This is such a worthwhile project it needed posting. Duolingo is a non-profit, interactive language learning program that has the double benefit of providing language translation services for the world wide web. Users of all levels can gradually build their knowledge base in their chosen language, and in return actively participate in the translation of our international online information bank. Although there is a bit of a learning curve, the active format is a great way to start applying language skills right away, while contributing to a worthy cause. Highly recommended. (...did I mention it's free?)

Check out their home page to register: Duolingo.com

We live in exponential times

Some fascinating mass-comm factoids worth watching... like how China is the world's biggest English-speaking nation? Or that India has more people with IQ's over 120 than the total population of the USA? Or that a home computer in 2049 will have more computing power than the total human species of 2008?
 Both inspiring and daunting; might leave you feeling a bit small and overwhelmed.

Solar-Powered Bionic Eye?!

It seems we're materializing all our sci-fi movie fantasies these days (I'm still waiting for my hover-board, btw...) - could this technology allow the blind the gift of sight again? Stanford University seems to think so. Although yet to be tested on humans, researchers at Stanford have invented goggles that can send information to chips – which behave like solar cells – implanted into eye retinas. These new retinal implants would require far less invasive surgeries than the limited options that are currently available.

The goggles have a miniature camera embedded in the nose-piece, from which images are sent to a tiny portable computer. In turn, the computer generates the video images that are transmitted into the eyes via infrared lasers inside the goggles’ lenses. The lasers then are reflected onto tiny photovoltaic chips embedded under the retinas, effectively allowing the patient to see hazy images. The device implanted behind the retina is essentially an array of mini solar devices, which use energy from the sun to provide power to the chip as well as to transmit data through the eye to the brain.

This new system is capable of producing vision of 20/200, which is beyond what is considered legally blind, but the researchers reasonable expect to achieve 20/100, which would produce a picture clear enough that a person could recognize faces and read large print.