The Pileus internet umbrella
From the what will they think of next box comes [drum roll please] Pileus — an umbrella connected to the Internet, ‘to make walking in rainy days fun’. Pileus has a large screen on the top, a built-in camera, a motion sensor, GPS, and a digital compass. And it provides two main functions: social photo-sharing and a 3D map navigation. Yes, indeed, rainy days will never quite seem the same again.
Tagged: Japanese inventions
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The first publication of the book 101 Unuseless Japenese Inventions, at the end of the 90s, was centered around Chindogu art. Created by author Kenji Kawakami, this art of unusual and useless inventions, displayed different ways of solving the everyday problems. One of the Chindogus is the Baby Mop, a pair of trousers and a sweatshirt for babies with strips that clean the floor while the baby crawls. Read more
From the depths of functional creativity comes this invention out of Japan: the back scratching t shirt, the fastest and most illogical solution to fight an itch.
Japanese-made NoPoPo batteries
The new Japanese battery — NoPoPo — ensures that you will never run out of energy, even in those unexpected moments. This promise is made possible because you can charge them by inserting either water, urine, blood, apple juice, beer and saliva into their base with a teat pipette which is included in the package. So now you know it! Is this a way of turning drunks into real plants that generate energy? Their operation is possible thanks to the reaction produced by the magnesium and the carbon of the urine. According to the online magazine The Register, these batteries are only being sold in Japanese stores and the date of the arrival to the Western markets is unknown. Unfortunately they can only be charged between two and five times — an ambiguous number — and the price is not cheap at U$15. Read more
Also by JULIA HENNOCK
The tightly-wound compact fluorescent light bulbs we’ve welcomed into our homes have a little sister. Plumen is low-energy, yet she’s trendy, twisted and a designer’s dream. Not yet in production, you can see Plumen hanging alone in MOMA.
Fancy a fern in the face? The Sky Planter will fulfill your greenest fantasies. It is designed to conserve water, save floor space and puzzle visitors. An internal reservoir system to feeds water directly to the roots, so no water evaporates or drips. And somehow the soil is ‘locked in’. Woo!
A brick of any other kind would look as sweet, believes artist Jan Vormann. She began filling crumbling walls with multi-coloured Lego bricks in Bocchignano, a little village close to Rome, and was then invited to continue her rainbow reparations in Tel Aviv and Yaffo. Beautiful appropriation or ugly sacrilege?
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Glenn Brown utilizes the tactile and visceral nature of paint to create neo-classical and surreal works that reference the great renaissance masters as well as more recent artists such as Dali and Duchamp. Read more
The graduate exhibition of third year graphic design students at Sydney’s Design Centre is called 342 Seconds and relates to the estimated time required to view the show. The exhibition takes place on December 3 and looks to be well worth checking out, if these works by Jenny Lee [above] and Sean Batchelor [below] are anything to go by. You can check into their blog and stay up to date with events leading up to the opening. Read more
Clara Kraetsch and Doreen Schulz are the designers behind the hot Berlin design label C-Neeon, which hit hard onto the fashion radar after winning the Young Designers competition at the Hyeres Festival. Read more
If you like what we do at Lost At E Minor — and the talented, creative people that we give props to — then we’d love to hear how you can help us get the word out to more people about the site. Read more
A Paper Tiger is a new venture that launched in January of this year selling exclusive prints by some of my favorite artists such as Jack Long [shown above]. Read more
B-Reel is real smooth. And when I say real, I mean really. They created the latest ad for kicks brand Onitsuka Tiger. Read more
The indie, electronic pop duo Plastic Operator paired up whilst studying audio production at London’s Westminster University. In 2004, they released their first three track EP. Their music reminds me of bands like The Fashion, Crystal Castles and Cut Copy.
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Yum, yum, cupcakes are fun. These creations are so clever, so arty, so damn bizarre that it would almost be a shame to eat them. Almost! Read more
Good thing Kris Kuksi channelled the trauma of growing up with an alcoholic stepfather, his disdain for ‘the typical American life and pop culture’, and his fascination with the macabre into obsessive, baroque assemblages, paintings, and drawings. Read more
Wheeeeee! This game is so freaking fun! You move your cursor over each dot to make them split into four smaller dots ad infinitum.
Italian-born, New York City-based photographer Paolo Ventura creates fairy-tale like pictures out of amazingly constructed, miniature dioramas that almost trick the eye into thinking he’s a tilt-shift photographer. Read more
Forget battery powered vehicles. Cars made from ice are the future of transportation: no pollution, no honking horns, no painful rap music blasting out of souped up stereos. And if they melt, they melt. You just swim the rest of the way down the slipstream.
Thanks to Sony Australia, four Lost At E Minor readers will win personal audio prizes, including the new 8GB Walkman S series video MP3 player and the MDRXB500 Extra Bass headphones. Read more
New York-based designer Ryan Sullivan’s shirts are printed in his studio in low runs. His latest batch works with geometric space on silky cotton poly blend shirts. Read more
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