Gear Patrol

According to a report from the Natural Resources Defense Council, Americans throw out approximately 25% of the food they purchase each year due to spoilage. Though we’ve never conducted our own study, the moldy strawberries and wilted spinach in the bottom of our waste bins suggest that number is fairly accurate. To combat this problem,…

Want a cycling game-changer? You’ve got it. The Cannondale CERV by Priority Designs is a concept bike that adapts to a constantly changing riding environment. Typically, the rider’s body has to compensate for such changes, but the CERV has a “dynamically adjustable headset” that moves both vertically and horizontally during riding. For example, in a…

Improving on Edison’s original incandescent light bulb design has been a mixed bag — the soft-serve CFLs save energy but cast a bluish cadaver pallor and require a HazMat response to clean up mercury released if they break. A different, albeit expensive, approach to energy efficiency comes in the Switch LED light bulb. Continues after…

Most landlocked divers recall with a shudder the pool sessions that were required to learn skills for open water certification. Often conducted in an over-chlorinated high school pool, they’re more a rite of passage than an inspiration. Well, for divers in Brussels, Belgium, pool sessions have a whole different meaning thanks to John Beernaerts’ NEMO33,…

Vintage is everywhere, but in the world of furniture, it’s not easy to find great modern design that both echoes the past and makes use of truly classic materials. Designer Stephen Kenn scoured an old Los Angeles warehouse of military surplus gear and commandeered WWII fabrics and materials for his Inheritance Collection Furniture Line. The…

Helmets save lives at the “expense” of what some misguided cyclists think of as “looking cool”. They’re also bulky, and a pain to schlep once the ride is over. Two female Swedish design students spent seven years researching crash data and over $10 million developing a new form of head protection that avoids both of…

If you’re a man who likes to cook outside the box (and the home) then the Critter moveable field kitchen just might be your perfect mobile culinary lab. Designed by Elia Mangia, the Critter was designed for serious gourmands who need extensive equipment with a view. Whether you don’t have access to a full kitchen…

Can you believe the classic matchbook hasn’t been updated in over 100 years? That’s changed with the Strike match holder, a pocketable stainless steel match dispenser from product think tank Quirky that holds almost 50 matches. The modern fire-maker’s biggest trick is a strike-coated barrel that lights matches in one motion as they’re removed from…

“We have always held to the hope, the belief, the conviction that there is a better life, a better world, beyond the horizon.” These were the hopeful words of Franklin D. Roosevelt, a man born on the tail end of the industrial revolution, where we as a species first grasped the true, constructive, and destructive…

Everybody knows Nike. How could you not? The global sportswear company is ubiquitous, thanks to decades of developing gear and sponsoring athletes competing in every sport imaginable (seriously, they even sponsor Curling). But while marketing savvy has unquestionably assured the brand limitless time in the spotlight — there’s an equally innovative half to Nike’s success…

Sledge hammer, hoe, crow bar, hook, wire cutter, nail puller. They sound like the members of a punkrock metal band, but sorry, this isn’t an album review. Those tools make up the individual components of a prototype tool that could save your life. A strictly utilitarian tool of survival, it has the makings of a…

It’s hard to believe the 2012 summer Olympics are already upon us. While this year’s events will feel familiar, the athletes and venues have unquestionably evolved. The same holds true for the technology used to capture, record and share their feats with the globe. Long gone are the games of stark naked athletes, replaced by…

Depending on where your trivia strengths reside, there’s a good chance you might have read the title of this article in your RSS or Twitter feed as either the former name of JFK Airport, a Prohibition-era movie starring Big Boi, or an Allman Brothers album. But you, good sir, would be incorrect because today’s Design…

Now that global sporting competition is reaching a fever pitch, our patriotism is running high. While plenty of companies will be supporting teams across the pond, Jeep brand has partnered with acclaimed designer Jeff Staple, to rally some of our country’s most up-and-coming companies around one cause — the USA Basketball Men’s National team. The…

We’re all for clean energy, but sometimes the execution of the pursuit can just get plain annoying. Wind turbines, for example. Ubiquitous and essentially looking like an overgrown P-51 Mustang’s propeller on a stick, they just don’t seem to make any landscape more attractive. This is where the Enessere Hercules Wind Turbine aims to bring…

Good design has always blurred the lines between form and function, but in the case of writing utensils, it’s the latter that we default to. Now, add the new Solid Titanium Pen + Stylus (the latest Kickstarter hero project) to the mix and the line is blurred yet again. Made from TA4 titanium the entire…

Classy as it may be, sniffing a milk carton to see if its contents have spoiled isn’t terribly precise. That pensive moment right before the sniff (or worse, taste) is downright Neanderthal. In an attempt to get us beyond this is the Milkmaid, winner of a Quirky and GE sponsored innovation contest. Basically, the Milkmaid…

Made from a cotton/Bionic recycled PET polyester blend, the new Mountain Khakis Fairway Polo ($70) gets our green blood pumping. No, this shirt isn’t comprised of unobtanium nanotechnology, but it does find good use for up-to 14 recycled plastic bottles. But unlike a crunchy empty Coke container, the Fairway polo is as soft and supple…

Sometimes, we get so used to a certain product that no true changes are ever really made for years, decades even. Toilet paper comes to mind. Another is the pneumatic tire. Sure, the modern tire is a wealth of technology and high grade materials such as synthetic rubber, sulfur, carbon, steel, etc. Heck, recent years…

Pico projectors have teased geeks like us for years with the potential of carrying a theater-size screen in our pocket. Tony Stark’s candy land o’ holograms may still be a pipe dream, but European research group Fraunhofer has given us a titillating preview of where display technology is headed with the release of their smartphone…

A culmination of the company’s non-comformist sense of self, yet still embracing their storied history, the Pentax K-01 is unlike any other camera in the mirrorless camera world. Indeed, it embraces its lineup of beautiful K-Mount lenses (both modern and from the film days) allowing users to fasten them with a satisfying click, but what…

We can all agree that the morning commute is broken for many. With no fix in sight, mechanical engineer Chris Hoffman of Ryno Motors has proposed a solution that turns more heads than it does wheels. Meet the Ryno Single Wheeled Electric Scooter. Looking like Segway’s one-legged cousin, this self-balancing electric scooter offers riders even…

Had Mr. Anderson been working in an office setup like the Modernus Curved Frameless Glass Office System, he might never have left the Matrix. And we can’t blame him. Based in California, Modernus is best known for its line of Italian-made, high-end contemporary doors. To that success, they have ventured into the often-staid field of…

There’s a healthy rivalry taking place over the future of the computer educational market, and the only clear winner so far are the students. Intel has put long-term competitor One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) on notice with their recent announcement of the Studybook, a new low-cost tablet loaded with educational software perfect for schools in…

Not since the creation of the extreme Lamborghini LM002 in the 1980s, has the Italian automaker ventured into SUV territory. After years of R&D, Lamborghini has finally created its second coming, the Lamborghini Urus concept. Sounding more like an unmentionable body part than a hyper-exotic SUV, the Urus echoes many of the same lines as…

We think the latest cars from Mercedes have been well-designed, bordering on beautiful (the CLS, especially). This statement can easily be made for the soon-to-be-revealed Mercedes-Benz Concept Style Coupe, or CSC, which will bow at the end of the month in Beijing. The rakish and sleek “four door coupe” that follows in the CLS’s footsteps…

Audi’s Q5 has been a huge success both on our shores and internationally, so it makes perfect sense for the German automaker to capitalize on the SUV/Crossover segment with the introduction of the Audi RS Q3 concept at the upcoming Beijing Motor Show. The question remains as to whether we’ll be lucky enough to get…

German industrial designer Florian Saul’s furniture concepts are consistent in their merging of simplicity, aesthetic elegance, and functionality. The Servus / r75 rack is a modern take on the suit valet and our favorite of the lot. The minimalistic piece consists of a single strip of polished wood that bends slightly forward at the top…

Fresh on the heels of not-so-great news about reliability issues of the Fisker Karma comes some really good news from New York via the all-new Fisker Atlantic. Like a Karma that’s been tossed in a huge dryer set on high, the Atlantic is an electric plug in for the rest of us (mostly) that also…

The roof of the London 2012 Olympic Velodrome was designed to reflect the very events it would house. Its curved and contoured shape is a three-dimensional representation of the geometry of cycling. While Ron Webb remains the go-to designer for Olympic cycling pavilions, the skilled architects at Hopkins were able to deliver 230,000 square feet…