December 21, 2012

Steve Jobs’ yacht chained up in Amsterdam

Filed under: Design,IT by Orangemaster @ 7:09 pm

Venus, a yacht designed by the late Steve Jobs, former CEO of Apple, together with French product designer Philippe Starck and put to water in Aalsmeer, North Holland has been impounded in Amsterdam. Starck claims that Jobs only paid him € 6 million out of the € 9 million fee he was owed by the Jobs family.

“The entire cost of building the yacht was reportedly about $130 million. The yacht itself is between 230 and 260 feet (80 metres) long.”

According to DutchNews.nl, the boat is literally chained to the dock.

UPDATE: As of 24 December Jobs’ heirs reached an agreement and the yacht has been unchained.

(Link: mashable.com, Photo of Steve Jobs by acaben, some rights reserved)

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December 20, 2012

Elegant wooden bowls from recycled oak

Filed under: Design by Orangemaster @ 1:36 pm

Designers Van Eijk and Van der Lubbe of Usuals have created 39 wooden bowls from five reclaimed oak poles they found at a Dutch farmhouse.

The wooden bowls have had carefully measured volumes removed from the body of each oak log, with the smooth cut-outs successfully contrasting the rustic ‘lived-in’ characteristics of the wood. They are unique and hand made, with cracks and flaws in each one.

(Link: www.designboom.com, Photo: www.usuals.nl)

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December 17, 2012

DIY ‘Price Is Right’ game as gift box

Filed under: Design,Gadgets,Gaming,Technology by Branko Collin @ 2:20 pm

Richard Garsthagen made this ingenious gift box for his 15-year-old niece for Saint Nicholas’ Eve.

On Saint Nicholas’ Eve many grown ups and teenagers in the Netherlands give each other gifts. To keep things affordable a spending limit is determined and the name of each recipient is drawn from a hat. The gift is hidden somewhere in the house or wrapped in a difficult to unwrap package called the ‘surprise’, and the person giving it writes a poem on behalf of Saint Nicholas in which the good saint mockingly reviews the recipients’ past year.

Garsthagen’s niece did not seem to understand the concept of a spending limit and asked for gifts that were much more expensive than that, so he hid her gift in a The Price is Right game. In the video he explains how it works, and at Instructables he explains how you can create a game like this yourself.

(Photo: crop from a screenshot of the video by Richard Garsthagen)

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December 7, 2012

Biking in the snow safely, Dutch style

Filed under: Bicycles,Design by Orangemaster @ 10:35 am

When snow starts falling in the Netherlands, the Dutch often continue to use their bikes to commute even when there’s ice on the ground. It’s dangerous and there are accidents. It can be done more safely, although this blogger lives in a small town that cannot compare to an Utrecht or Amsterdam as far as bike traffic is concerned, but it’s definitely a good primer.

Cesar van Rongen may have found a quick, easy and cheap solution for stubborn Dutch cyclists.

With Cesar van Rongen’s Bike Spikes wintry slips and slides are a thing of the past, without having to change tyres. A rubber casing with iron spikes to cover the bicycle tyre gives you grip on icy stretches, and on ordinary asphalt they will still be comfortable. The special winter bike tyre can easily be fixed to any city bike with the little key that comes with it. And when it thaws, the Bike Spikes can be taken off in an instant and folded into a compact little package.

Bike Spikes By Cesar van Rongen from Design Academy Eindhoven on Vimeo.

(Links: www.cesarvanrongen.nl, www.blessthisstuff.com, Photo: Cesar van Rongen)

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November 30, 2012

Charge your gear on the go using your travel bag

Filed under: Design,Gadgets,Technology by Orangemaster @ 5:11 pm

Dutch prototype travel bag Phorce will not only help you carry your smartphones, tablets, laptops and many more devices, but it can also charge them up while you commute, travel or just leave them in your bag. The Phorce can charge an iPhone 5 more than eight times and provide a MacBook Air with seven more battery hours. And you can charge several devices at the same time, surely not all of them bought from Apple.

Marijn Berk and James Jeffrey are trying to get their project crowdfunded on Kickstarter, and with just 22 days to go, they’ve almost collected their USD 150,000 they need. It’s the first time that a Dutch project has collected so much money on Kickstarter, which apparently doesn’t accept Dutch bank accounts for the funds.

The cost of a Phorce will start at USD 199 dollar (152 euro). If you drop them some cash, you can even vote on the fourth colour they will bring the bag out in besides red, black and dark green. Phorce can be used as a messenger bag, backpack and briefcase. As a consumer, to me this the 2.0 level of a Timbuk2 or Crumpler bag.

(Play spot the filming locations: Waterlooplein metro stop, EYE Film Institute and Brug 34 Utrechtsestraat)

(Link: www.bright.nl, www.getphorce.com, Screenshot Kickstarter)

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November 21, 2012

An easy to build and use anti-personnel mine detonator

Filed under: Design,Technology by Orangemaster @ 2:14 pm
Afghanistan

Afghan-born Dutch student Massoud Hassani has designed artificial tumbleweed made to detonate leftover mines. It was his graduation design project at the Design Academy Eindhoven. It continuously broadcasts its location, captured by GPS, plotting out safe, mine-free paths through fields.

It was based on some wind-power toys he made as a boy from discarded paper, plastic and the likes, as you can see in the video. His ‘Mine Kafon’ costs a mere 40 euro in lightweight materials and when it detonates a bomb, it loses a minimal amount of ‘legs’ and just keeps on rolling like tumbleweed.

Mine Kafon | Callum Cooper from Focus Forward Films on Vimeo.

(Link: boingboing.net, Photo of Uruzgan province, Afghanistan by Remko Tanis, some rights reserved)

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November 9, 2012

Tsunami barrier wins first prize in the US

Filed under: Design,Nature,Technology by Orangemaster @ 1:30 pm

Dutch engineering firm Van den Noort Innovations invented a passive tsunami breaker that won the American Wall Street Journal Technical Innovation Award in the Environment category.

Although all kinds of barriers are being used around the world today, many of them don’t work or interfere with shipping and marine life. This barrier automatically deploys when destructive waves approach, using the mass of the tsunami itself to break the waves. Since it only works when there’s a tsunami, it stays flat in the water when it’s not in use.

The “Twin-wing Tsunami Barrier” lays flat on the sea bed and is activated when waters recede from the shore in advance of destructive waves. The receding “negative tsunami” causes one wing of the barrier to swing up and trap a pool of water. As the “positive tsunami” wave approaches, a second, larger wing is deployed to block and reflect the wave back out to sea—all without human intervention.

Watch this English video:

(Links: www.kennislink.nl, online.wsj.com, photo: Van den Noort Innovations)

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October 30, 2012

Steve Jobs’ yacht floats first in the Netherlands

Filed under: Design,IT by Orangemaster @ 2:02 pm

On 28 October, one year after the death of Apple’s mastermind Steve Jobs, a yacht he designed together with French product designer Philippe Starck has been put to water in Aalsmeer at the docks of royal shipbuilder De Vries. It apparently took six years to design.

The yacht is called Venus, it’s almost 80 metres long, the outside is made of lightweight aluminium with three-metre-high windows and is powered by seven iMacs. Other features include a Jacuzzi, a huge sun deck and a bridge full of mac screens.

The Jobs family had planned to sail around the world with it, but now the yacht will be shipped to the United States.

(Link: www.automatiseringgids.nl, Photo of Steve Jobs by acaben, some rights reserved)

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October 29, 2012

Bicycle bags transform into picnic set

Filed under: Bicycles,Design,Food & Drink by Branko Collin @ 11:23 am

The Springtime picnic set has three life stages, as a pair of bicycle ‘bags’ (pupa), as a basket (larva) and as a table and two chairs (imago).

The set was design by Jeriël Bobbe. It is made of wood and contains pockets for tableware. It is currently not for sale, according to Bright.

(Photos: Bloon Design)

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October 25, 2012

Large wind-up bug toy

Filed under: Art,Design by Branko Collin @ 1:01 pm

Wouter Sieuwerts came up with this life size toy for his graduation from the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague.

It can be wound up, after which it can be made to move. There is a video that shows how this works at Vimeo. Sieuwerts writes: “It won’t go far and it won’t go fast, but it is very dynamic and exciting. I tried to make it look like a cross between an animal and a machine.”

The toy is called Erik, perhaps because of its bug like features? (Eric in the Land of the Insects is a classic Dutch novel by author Godfried Bomans.)

(Photo: Wouter Sieuwerts. Link: Bright.)

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