Friday, May 25, 2007

Touchless Cellphone Concept From A Parallel Universe

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This is the latest scifi-slash-absurd design concept from branko Lukic. The Tarati is a phone with no keys, you pass your fingers through the keyholes to dial. Lukic describes it best:

Tarati enables the user to connect with others by passing fingers, in order, through key holes. This action of dialing alone is a more magical experience and, hence, more indicative of what's really happening beyond the visible realm. ... Tarati beckons the user to "touch" someone without physically touching a single key. Its design reflects human connectivity in a less material/mechanical, more sensual, way.
Reach out and touch someone, eh? Sounds like a good commercial jingle for a rotary phone company.

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NVIDIA's CUDA turns GPUs into high-powered CPUs

Posted May 25th 2007 5:57AM by Nilay Patel

NVIDIA's been dancing around the general-purpose processor market for a while now -- we've heard reports that the company is developing an x86 chip, and it bought PortalPlayer last year for $357 million. Well, at this year's Microprocessor Forum the company took another small step by announcing that the final release of CUDA, its framework for utilizing high-end NVIDIA GPUs as CPUs, which will be available to developers in the second half of the year. While the idea of using a GPU as a secondary high-performance processor isn't a new one -- Folding@Home already runs on NVIDIA and ATI chips, and the Peakstream system already leverages GPUs -- CUDA should make it easier for developers to tap into high-performance graphics devices whenever they're available, without having to specifically tailor their apps to do so. CUDA, which stands for "compute unifed device architecture," currently only supports the GeForce 8800 and 8600 and Quadro FX 4600 and 5600, so it's of limited appeal right now, but here's hoping the next gen of NVIDIA chips supports CUDA from the get-go -- the Engadget Folding@Home team is looking for a few new recruits.

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Art Inspired Speakers

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We need not say Artcoustics have turned true to its brand name. All the products jubilantly share this Artcoustics vision for combining stunning audio performance with beautiful aesthetics, not sacrificing one for the other. The Art inspired speakers is one of their recent creations. The High-quality speakers are draped in excellent piece of art work thereby taking your home décor to celestial heights. The speaker covers are ink jet with stock art or your own custom images. You home theatres would love clinging next to these speakers.

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EcoSmart fire from EcoGreen is Ventless

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Fireplaces that offer elegance, low maintenance, eco-friendly and state of the art are hard to come by. If all of the above and more are there on your checklist then EcoSmart fire from EcoGreen Fire is what you are looking for. The modular design allows you to place the open flame nigh on any surface. The new Ventless fire is ideal for apartments that require a cozy fireplace. It offers a selection of grates and surrounds that complement your home environment. It requires no utility connection as it burns with Denatured Ethanol. Practically maintenance free, because the renewable fuel source burns till it is empty, thereafter it needs to be refilled.

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Sony CineAlta 4K SRX-R220 projector for great cinema experience

sony.jpg Lucky rich dudes and successful cinema houses are soon going to have one thing in common, they are all going to upgrade to the Sony CineAlta 4K SRX-R220 projector. The profound size of this new projector can give a vertically challenged person a huge complex. This mammoth projector can display 8.850.000 pixels of super high definition recordings in movie theaters and elite homes alike. It is the latest edition to Sony's SXRD (Silicon X-tal Reflective Display) line. Similar to the SRX-R1xx series it still can't reach 10 megapixels, but it features LMT-100 media processor, LMS-100 screen management system, RAID storage and built-in nonstop power supply. The projector boasts of 4096 x 2160 pixels resolution with a 2000:1 contrast and 14 foot Lambert brightness (apparently 47,964 cd/m2, as per Sony's site). the SRX-R220 can comfortably cover a 20 meter screen (65.6 feet) with its 4.2W xenon lamp. The R110 goes up to 17 meters with a 3.0W and 14 meters with a 2.0W lamp. The LMT-100 Media Block displays the pixels onscreen, peps the lowers resolution originals, decrypts the contents, process the multi-channel audio and place subtitles using XML or PNG files. The BNC connector lets you connect your various video gears to it, but you can hook up the computer, PlayStation 3 or AppleTV using a DVI port.

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Futuristic Luxury Hotels; some just a concept others, a reality

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There are many categories of hotels present in the world today. From the Business hotels to the Budget ones, each of them try to offer their clients something that will want them to come back again. Featured here are hotels that are being made with only one main base- their unique location and design. Some of them are just concepts but others are shaping out to become truly futuristic. Water and space are two elements that have taken the fancy of the developers, as you will notice, most of the hotels are either situated below the sea or above the earth!

8 The Apeiron island hotel
This seven star hotel is still in its conceptual stage. It is $500million project that is being designed by Sybarite. This island hotel will have a total floor area of 200,000m². With over 350 luxury apartment suites, the hotel will be accessible by water (yacht) and air (helicopter) only. 'Apeiron' hotel gets its name from Anaximander's 6th century BC cosmological theory. He believed the beginning of time to be an endless, unlimited mass, subject to neither old age nor decay; perpetually yielding fresh materials from which everything we can perceive are derived. Private lagoon, beaches, restaurants, art gallery, retail shopping, cinemas, spas and conference facilities will be there for you to enjoy.


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Spotlight Live New York - Feel famous for a night

I am spellbound…I don’t know how to go further with this article, but I’m not good with keeping news to myself either. If this is anything to go by then I’m floored by the very concept of this place. There aren’t likely to be many eating or drinking establishments that can offer the star power of Spotlight Live, located right at New York’s Times Square. This jumbo karaoke emporium on something much stronger than steroids is a 23,000 square-foot, four-story potential nightmare for anyone but those with a craving for the limelight. With fake paparazzi waiting at the door (your mug will show up everywhere), and your record contract waiting to be signed inside, you are in for a real expose. Once you’ve selected your song, you are whisked to the VIP green room (with white leather couches of course) where you and your performance are polished and perfected (if possible) with the help of choreographers and make-up artists. Off you go on to the massive stage where a professional band and back-up singers are ready to make you sound like a star (again, if possible) as your stellar performance is streamed live to the web and onto a 25-by-40-foot Jumbotron in Times Square. With the five recording booths, seemingly hundreds of flat screens and constant instant messaging between tables, you may forget that there is food, too.

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Counterfeiters on the prowl… Audemars Piguet comes to the rescue

pirates.jpg You copy it you pay for it and I don’t mean monitory pay–back. That’s the new mantra in the watch world at least. Swiss watch making has been expanding enormously in the last few years. But there is always another side to the coin; this growth has unfortunately meant a parallel increase in the various scourges that affect well-known watch brands. These include counterfeiting and more recently the copying phenomenon. For over a year now, plastic imitations of successful models have appeared on various markets, in addition to mainstream counterfeits. Audemars Piguet has decided to combat these two problems, and has set up an anti- counterfeit observatory composed of lawyers and investigators. Since it began work, this observatory has intervened in a number of ways; During Baselworld 2006, a stand distributing Macteam Offshore products (Altanus SpA) was closed down and VIP (Eurotrade SrL) products were withdrawn; Fifteen legal and criminal proceedings have been taken before Swiss, Italian and French courts against wholesalers and retailers of copies sold under various brands (e.g. Ike), and have all had a positive outcome or are pending, 400 watched were seized from wholesalers and retailers in Italy; Three stands were closed during the Hong-Kong Fair in March 2007. They were distributing copies bearing the K&Bros and Ice Time label (Belton China Limited and Aaron Shum Jewelry Limited).

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Shinebox Print Business Cards

Everybody's got a business card these days, even soccer mom's have them! It's just the easiest way for everybody, not just business types, to keep in touch and communicate sometimes. So why not design your own, and have something unique and stylish instead of the standard boring layout everybody has? Business cards from Shinebox Print are not only cute in their little box with perforated edges, but you can personalize them however you want by including your own pictures, graphics, layout and everything on the front and back. Of course you can get personalized cards from lots of places, but these are so much more artistic, and a little different. And if you like the idea but don't necessarily want business cards, Shinebox can make calling cards, coupons, or any number of other projects. Prices start at $150. Via LuxuryLaunches

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XJet Private Club Set To Open


A couple of years ago I wrote about the plans for the XJet Club, a new private jet club opening at the Centennial Airport in Colorado. Now it seems that the club is finally set to open next month (it was originally set to open last year). The club has a a 100,000-square- foot facility and promises a luxury setting, and, more importantly fuel at cost. The club has a clubhouse, a restaurant and concierge services. The Denver Post reports that members pay $60,000 or more to join and have access to a fleet of private jets. The fleet may also someday include Aviation Technology Group's coveted Javelin jets. So far there are around 20 members and the business plans to also set up a smaller facility at the Gerald R. Ford International Airport in Grand Rapids, Mich. and they hope to have eight locations within five years across the country.

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'Matte' the HAMANN Ferrari F430 Black Miracle

Matte finish paint seems to be all the rage these days in higher-end vehicles and concept cars (BMW M-series, anyone?), and HAMANN has no problem jumping on the bandwagon, down to the bright orange 20-inch rims. The company's new modified F430, dubbed the "Black Miracle," features orange and black matte finish, showing off ground effect details, brake calipers, wheels, side-view mirrors and bold racing stripes down the middle in bright orange, with the rest of the body beautified in black. The secret is in the foil treatment, which, if the owner would like to see glossy finish again, can be reversed.

HAMANN decks out the interior as well with the color scheme, and even adds lambo doors for show. Even with the paint job, however, no Ferrari modified this heavily visually could earn the street cred it's due without some performance modifications as well: the ECU and exhaust is modified for 50 extra horses, and special HAMANN suspension completes the low-slung feel.

[Check out Autoblog for a gallery of the vehicle and the HAMANN press release]

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$100,000+ For An Audi?

Sure, if it feels like it should cost $200,000. The always-funny Ezra Dyer got to take a spin through Beverly Hills in the 2008 Audi R8 for the New York Times, where he bemoans the car's sideblades (or "sideburns," as Dyer calls them) but not much else.

Despite the price tag of $110,000 and up, the DNA shared between the street-bound R8 and Audi's lauded race car R8 -- midengine layout with most of the torque going to the rear wheels, dry-sump lubrication, etc. -- makes the 2008 Audi R8 one of the few cars allowed on municipal pavement that truly feels like a race car. In effect, the R8 is more like its Lamborghini cousins (also owned by VW) than like its other Audi siblings.

Unlike most Audis, which Dyer says are criticized for lacking any soul, the R8 offers up plenty of meat to get us grunting like cave men -- yes, even the women -- from an exhaust note that gets your blood rushing to optional LED lights that appropriately light up the engine under its transparent cover when the parking lights are on (should you be showing things off under the hood after dusk).

Click through for the full review, and watch this space in the coming months for more news about the R8, including rumors that it will soon be packing an optional V10 courtesy of Lamborghini.

[Source: The New York Times]

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Versace Designs An A319 Jet

Versace and TAG to are teaming up to design a luxury interior for private Airbus 319 jet. If you've seen the many Versace designs for helicopters, jets and homes, the picture above is no surprise. The Versace look of black and white with high-end furnishings and the Greek key motif is so well-established you'd think anyone could just copy it. But then it wouldn't be a Versace. The A319 is being designed for a European client and will go into service in the fourth quarter of 2008. The plane will have four compartments with 16 luxury seats, a salon, galley, business office and a state room with an ensuite bathroom.

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Thursday, May 24, 2007

Pandora's Chandelier

Crystal is beautiful by its very nature, so I don't know that anybody could argue that Pandora's Chandelier isn't gorgeous, but there's more here than first meets the eye. Designed by Fredrikson Stallard, the Pandora's Chandelier consists of thousands of Swarovski crystals individually threaded on motorized wires. What starts out as a very standard and traditional silhouette is soon morphed into something smeared and messy looking, before it quietly returns to repeat the cycle all over again. A little abstract art blended with shimmering hanging Swarovski.

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Dining is an Adventure with 'Dinner In The Sky'

Now here's a concept that takes the idea of "a unique dining experience" to a whole new level, literally. Created from an idea by Belgian chef Quentin Jadoul, Dinner in the Sky is one of those things that is exactly what it sounds like: it's a large dining table that seats about 20 people and gets hoisted high up into the sky on a crane -- there's even room in the middle for the waiters to come along! And surprisingly, even though it's based in Belgium the table is mobile and travels around Europe for different events and occasions, and the menu can be adjusted to accommodate tastes for pretty much anything. For somewhere around $20,000 you can have your own "Dinner in the Sky" party, just pray for good weather and hold onto your napkin!

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