Indie Indo

Designer Tommaso Gecchelin isn’t oblivious to all the rumors surrounding a netbook or tablet-like PC made by our favorite fruit manufacturer. We try not to indulge in rumors here at YD but sometimes they do provide fuel for inspiration, such is the case with this MacBook Touch. Gecchelin reasons if Apple were to go small, flexibility may be more important than hard rigidness – a trend current Apple laptops buck because they’re in favor of unibody construction. Flexible OLED technology may be the key because it can provide the rich color and resolution density needed for a smaller screen without being a power hog and resists damage by its malleable nature. The thinnest screens now are barely 8mm thick and can fold like a piece of paper. The core of this concept is a technology he calls iSpine. Like the spine of a book, the tech avoid excessive compression on the screen, yet allows the laptop to sit in multiple viewing positions. Go from a normal laptop with screen and touchscreen board – to a large widescreen canvas for drawing, presentation or movie watching. To keep everything minimal, ports like power, the mini display, and additional USB are externalized on a “Magic Dock” to keep most of the laptop slim and clean of an array of holes and plugs.

Designer: Tommaso Gecchelin

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There’s been a trend to separate ovens and cooktop surfaces but Ciprian Frunzeanu thinks that’s the wrong way to go. For maximum space and energy efficiency, he presents the Oven Re-Constructed. The cooktop surface is made of a series of plates. You cook on them like any other induction surface but they can also be arranged into a cube to form an oven. Snazzy.

Designer: Ciprian Frunzean

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The beauty of the Electrolux Fireplace is that it stands out as this opaque ceramic column that slowly turns translucent to transparent, as the flames flare up. Upon cooling down the column goes back to being the white shaft it was. Kinda like now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t. Maybe the impending winter has something to do with it, but I think this design is awesome! The video is cool too.

Designer: Camillo Vanacore

Creative Music Interaction

Touchtable is a PMP that is interactive and intuitive. It features a large controller wheel that surrounds the screen and performs just like a turntable. It’s even sensitive to touch and pressure and when you use it in combo with the surrounding function buttons, it facilitates absolute user control over a track, through precise position, timing and pitch manipulation.

Features:

One function button controls the simultaneous switching to a secondary track, allowing the user to mix records on the fly, or to scratch samples over a track.

Through the cue output, each track is directed to either the left or right headphone, the beat and pitch can then be matched, a cue point created, and the combined tracks mixed out the main phono output.

Two devices can also be combined wirelessly at the click of a button, to act similarly to the traditional DJ set up, just at around 1:8 the scale.

This function also allows for multiple users to mix and scratch tracks together, combining their own Touchtable devices through one output.

The device not only adds interaction to the personal listening experience, but can be used for performance.

The Touchtable can be plugged into a computer, where it acts as a midi device, working with built in software, allowing complete creativity and control over customization and music creation.

Touchtable allows for complex interactions, comparable to a complete DJ set up, however the device itself is very simplistic: designed for ease of assembly/disassembly, interchangeability and miniaturization through technology. It is not only ultra portable, but cost effective, easy and enjoyable to use.

Designer: Thomas Mascall

See image below

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