Zooka Bluetooth speaker

Portland, OR-based design studio New isn't, um, new to the portable audio game: their portfolio includes work for the likes of Logitech and UltimateEars, among other high-profile clients. However, the "Zooka" bluetooth speaker marks Patrick Triato & co.'s first foray into the exciting (and, at times, lucrative) world of Kickstarted product design. By Core77

miniMe and the future of integrated health care

After over 40 years of pioneering work in the Life Science industry, a multidisciplinary design team at Ergonomidesign put together their take on the future for the Health Care industry. Their challenge was to envision the future and develop possible solutions for the world to test, use and reflect on. By Core77

Designing for failure

Planning for setbacks leads to successful behavior change. By Continuum

Design makes social change

Harry West, designer and CEO of Continuum, an innovation consultancy company with offices around the world, explains why commerce is a very powerful leverage when we speak about social innovation. For a designer, to improve just a little a product, for example a diaper for the chinese market, that will be used by millions, and make it cheaper too, is a first great step for a real social change. Same thing for financial products that in Latin America will be able to improve life of women, really.

The future of healthcare design

Five takeaways from the Mayo Clinic Conference. By Continuum

A Fold-Up Helmet Designed For Easy Storage Doesn’t Store Easily

Engineer Philippe Arrouart and designer Patrick Jouffret, of the French agency 360, say that the main reason people don’t wear bike helmets is because they’re annoying to carry around. Really? By Co.Design

Architects Propose “Bibs” To Shield NYC From Global Warming’s Floods

Global warming will make New York spectacularly vulnerable to flooding. Some researchers even suggest that in 200 years, Manhattan could look like Venice. By Co.Design

Foursquare Solves A Basic UI Problem That Eludes Google Maps And Yelp

Google Maps and Yelp are great for searching for things that are close to where you are now. But what about searching other areas? By Co.Design

Will iPads Replace Textbooks? Not So Fast [Infographic]

Once you do the math, textbooks don't seem so crazily expensive after all. By Co.Design

Finally, A Key Ring That Won’t Kill Your Fingertips

Free Key is a cinch to crack open--and it won't break your nails. By Co.Design

Meet Jerry Manock, Apple’s Very First Designer

Before Jonathan Ive and even Hartmut Esslinger, there was Jerry Manock, the world’s first iDesigner. Manock, a 66-year-old product designer and lecturer at the University of Vermont, joined Apple Computer as a design consultant in 1977 and is credited with designing the case of the original Apple II, one of history’s first successful, mass-produced personal computers, among other products. By Co.Design

Why “Infographic Thinking” Is The Future, Not A Fad

Francesco Franchi: On Visual Storytelling and New Languages in Journalism from Gestalten on Vimeo.

Francesco Franchi, a master of information design, describes how "infographic thinking" goes beyond pretty pictures, and creates an entirely different sort of reading experience that encourages critical thought. By Co.Design

Rimino, A Radical Concept For The Future Of Mobile Computing. By Co.Design

4 Elements That Make A Good User Experience Into Something Great

Helen Walters reports from the inaugural Interaction Design Awards, and finds that the best interfaces leave tech behind and address larger systems of interaction. By Co.Design

Two halves of one mind

When Nokia and Microsoft designed the Nokia Lumia 800, there was no clash of cultures – more a shared vision based on purity and simplicity.

Why Burying Sign Up Buttons Helps Get More Sign Ups

If you remove the sign up button from the homepage on the following site, will signups increase or decrease? By Zurb

Vinod Khosla's 5 Second Memory Test

Khosla uses the 5 second rule on the initial pitches from entrepreneurs and on pitches their companies give to prospective customers after he invests in them. By Zurb

You're Not A Designer If...

What actually goes into the field of User Experience Design: graphic design, psychology, communication design, user research, sociology, usability...? By Zurb

Why Design Methods Matter

Getting stuck thinking about process is an easy trap for designers to fall into. Sure you'll solve problems, but without effective methods, those results will be … well, uninspiring. By Zurb

Steve Jobs: People With Passion Change the World

What Jobs is talking about here is being truly passionate about your work, for your craft. Investing yourself in your ideas when no one else will, when there might not be any financial rewards. By Zurb

An iPhone app for on-screen prototyping

Nicholas Zambetti has updated LiveView to support the iPad. If you’re a developer looking to create pixel-perfect iPad creations this is a no-brainer must-have. Look for landscape support coming soon! By IDEO

Samsung Hike lets you capture 3D video via hand gestures alone

In the modern world, cellphones have become an integral part of our personalities and whether a person is a complete couch potato or avid camper/rock climber/backpacker, having a cellphone close at hand is a basic need. By Design Buzz

Super smart earphones

Way back when earphones were first introduced, the general public was made to believe that their lives were going to be simplified forever and listening to music would be as simple as plugging the phones into the Walkman and pressing the play button. By Design Buzz

Mindhalo headset

 

The Hong Kong Polytechnic and California based company NeuroSky have come up with a new brainwave reading technology. By Design Buzz

Flex your chatter with flexible display cellphone concepts

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Flexible displays for cellphones are something that most of us have read about. However, we do not completely understand what they are. But who cares? By Design Buzz

Airbnb Turns Boring Facts Into Masterful Marketing

The company has experienced meteoric growth over the last year, fueled by global expansion. And they're good at telling the story. By Co.Design

No Joke: With Lumia, Nokia Crushes The iPhone

In both physical and UI design, the struggling Finnish manufacturer delivers a solid rival to the reigning smartphone. By Co.Design

Could A Rebranding Help Give Teachers The Prestige They Deserve?

The Brooklyn-based design studio Hyperakt schools teachers on honing their image through branding. By Co.Design

Nike Invents A “Shoe” For Athletes With Prosthetic Limbs

The company's innovation lab worked with marathoner Sarah Reinertsen to fill a market that's ordinarily too small to attract serious R&D. By Co.Design

The Best Of The Best

The winners solve a number of problems in new ways, from Ford's smart dashboards to Sifteo's novel games to a system to help make cell phones easier for the elderly. By Co.Design

Creative Uses for QR Codes

Using creative and remarkable QR codes you can grow your sales and attract more fans. Just put yourselves in shoes of your target audience and you’ll by far understand what you want to get. By Speckyboy

Tablet Phone or Phone Tablet – You Decide

Mobikoma is a concept phone based on modules that fasten on to each other via micro locks. Each module has its own power supply and computing processor making it a powerful individual. By Yanko Design

Shopping Assistant for the Blind

The See assistive technology concept aims to alleviate some of the difficulties in the process of product consumption that affect so many people with visual impairments. By Yanko Design

Wheelchair for Air Travel

For those confined to a wheelchair, getting around on board an aircraft can be quite challenging & usually requires assistance from one of the flight crew. By Yanko Design

Connections are Everything

The conceptual Opportune smartphone app tracks a user’s interests based on keywords from their Facebook updates, web searches, and frequented sites and gives them real-time geolocated “connections” that might be able to help them with something they’ve been searching for. By Yanko Design

Moto-inspired Beemer

Simone Madella’s BMW Tandem is the latest in a trend of concept autos that take inspiration from motorcycles, mixing some of the advantages of both to create a futuristic, adrenaline pumping, and unique vehicle. By Yanko Design

Riot Slower Downer

With widespread protesting and rioting on the rise, it’s no wonder that concepts like this have become a more popular design subject. By Yanko Design

Equestrian Inspired EV

The Fayton, inspired by the natural (horse) and human (carriage) components of the phaeton horse-drawn buggy of the 19th century, is a project aimed at providing comfortable transportation with a minimal carbon footprint. By Yanko Design

Sublime Form of Ovum

The boxy classic form of washing machines has rarely seen any refreshing innovations. Yes, the tech aspects have seen performance shoot up; we get cleaner whites, brighter colors and drier washes. By Yanko Design

Steve Jobs and PowerPoint

 

One thing we need to constantly remind ourselves is that slides and other forms of projected visualization—no matter how "cool" they may be—are not appropriate for every context. By Presentation Zen

Silicon Valley’s New Secret Weapon: Designers Who Found Startups

If you want to ship great products, writes the Designer Fund's Enrique Allen, consider having a designer in your founding group. By Co.Design

An HR Lesson From Steve Jobs: If You Want Change Agents, Hire Pirates

Why? Because pirates can operate when rules and safety nets break down. By Co.Design

Twist, A Flat And Balloon Whisk In One

Joseph Joseph creates a dual-purpose kitchen tool that also solves an age-old storage problem. By Co.Design

Safety Maps Help You Plan For Catastrophe

Paper can still save your life, in a networked world. By Co.Design

Could Twitter Help Us Create Smarter Transit Routes?

Eric Fischer used geotagged tweets to create maps of the most highly trafficked thoroughfares in major cities. By Co.Design

Ideo Offers 4 Strategies For Reinventing The Retail Experience

Retail environments are often the most stable part of the businesses they support. Shouldn't they instead be proving grounds for reinvention? By Co.Design

Pharmacy’s New Branding Cures The Design Blahs

Stockholm Design Lab gives the brand ID of a pharmacy chain in Sweden a big old happy pill. By Co.Design

5 Ways That Android Is Trying To Break The Mobile UI Paradigm

Android's design chief asks why we're still designing smartphone applications as if they were desktop software. By Co.Design

The Revolution Will Be Mobile

By 2012, 61 percent of the world's population—roughly 4.3 billion people—will rely on some kind of mobile device as an access point for exchanging information and communication. By Frog

A World of Tweets

Frog created A World of Tweets, a web-based visualization using HTML5 that shows a real-time global map of Twitter hot spots. Toggle between map and satellite views or watch in 3D! By Frog

CES: Intel Interactive Lifeform Generator

 

On interesting interactive installations at CES, Intel had an interactive lifeform generator called the Connect to Life Experience, which was a 168-foot-wide interactive 3D virtual life simulation designed by Stimulant and Foghorn Creative. By NOTCOT

Ultra Long Distance Wheelchair is the Grand Tourer of racing wheelchairs

Unlike racing bicycles, touring bicycles aren’t as stripped back and thus allow cyclists to sustain performance over a period of time. By DesignBuzz

Superior e-bike to attract gen-next towards biking

In what could be considered as happy marriage between the academic and the practical, a diploma thesis for the Department of Industrial Design at the University of Technology in Brno (Czech Republic) and the manufacturing excellence of the Czech bicycle company, Superior, has resulted in the working prototype for an e-bike. By DesignBuzz

Five best flying motorbike concepts

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The ever increasing number of vehicles has choked the roads very badly and it seems nearly impossible to escape the traffic congestion. By DesignBuzz

Related articles

• How Sweden cut traffic congestion (theneteconomy.wordpress.com)

Seven sustainable tents to enjoy the Nature

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Want to get out of your daily, boring routine? Go for camping. It is not only fun and adventurous but also allows us to get closer to nature and shows us new facets and aspects. By DesignBuzz

Self-sufficient underwater structures to sustain life in the future

 

The progress made by man is no doubt tremendous. Man has been able to reach the moon and do things that would be considered miraculous in the past - all with the aid of science and technology. Some things, however, still elude his control. By DesignBuzz

Another Lesson From Steve Jobs: A Driving Vision Has 4 Key Elements

Steve Jobs often saw further than his competitors. His vision had four defining features that we can all learn from. By Co.Design

A $50 Cell Phone That Runs On One AA Battery

No fumbling for chargers with this burner. By Co.Design

With Fuelband, Nike Aims To Crush Jawbone Up And Overhaul Nike+

The Nike Fuelband cracks the problem of tracking your fitness, and is the beginning of a brand-new paradigm for the Nike+ franchise. By Co.Design

Not a Pamphlet, It’s a Smartphone

Garipov put pen to paper and came up with the Smartphone Booklet – a disposable phone as thin as a cardboard made possible by switching from traditional silicon to nanoparticles. By Yanko Design

Time for a 3 D Phone

The Floating Phone gives us an idea of how 3 D cellphones will look and feel like. By Yanko Design

Watch A 5-Minute Primer On The Fundamentals Of Product Design

A stylish mini-documentary by PBS illuminates the fundamentals of product design. By John Pavlus

How John Lasseter's Characters And Steve Jobs's Cash Saved Pixar From Death

Two iconic short films transformed a no-name tech company into a blockbuster machine. By John Pavlus