There is a very interesting contest going on at the Core77 Forums. The basic idea is to have a 1hr design challenge. Give the most you can and present a design proposal in just 60 minutes!

The theme for this 1st edition is “Water saving designs for the bathroom”, which is a very interesting topic.

This was my entry:

My guess is that no matter what we do, it depends on people to save resources. We need to work trough design to create a change in the minds and the attitudes.

The idea: Use a simple design intervention on a standard product to generate an attitude change in the people.

The Slogan: People often see the problems far away and don’t take any action. The (laser etched) phrase intends to makes the user feel like a fundamental actor in shaping the future by bringing it to the present.

The Image: Demo image taken from gettyimages.com, edited in a standard photo editing software. Total time: 40 min aprox. It communicates that taking care of water is related to the creation of life.

This could be part of a wider marketing campaign in which different phrases with stats could be engraved on water related products.

View the rest of the entries.

This is indeed an interesting project. The Interaction Design Institute Ivrea, developed an email client based on the classic Lettera 22 typewriter.With a different point of view, old mechanical technology was used to make new technology more accessible. Modern technologies are sometimes challenging for some people, and this new interface will allow a large segment of “boomers” to adopt email in a more natural way.

The email is typed in a special form, and when the letter is finished and you take the paper out of the carriage, the email is sent via telephone.

As stated in the product page: “This project directly responds to the monopoly of electronic interfaces for email access. While the sudden proliferation of the Internet enables dynamic, remote and instant electronic communication for a technocratic society, it ignores or even dismisses the needs and sentiments of a generation of people caught in the rift between redundant technologies and ungraspable modern interfaces. For them emailing means reaching across all that is familiar, into a befuddling way of engaging with the originally simple, intuitive task of writing or receiving a letter. Its interface, the computer then becomes a discriminating device, which creates new social cleavages, between the ‘have’ and ‘have-nots’ of the digital realm.”

It would be also nice to incorporate in a seamless way, the possibility to embed hand writing, pictures or drawings (maybe gluing the picture on the form), voice and video recording. I know there are other products for similar use, but I bet your grandma will not be able to send you the traditional cake recipe with her own instructions with audio or video via fax or telephone. Off course you could receive that info via snail mail, but it would take longer and probably she will not be able to include multimedia. A camera phone could be also used, but they are still expensive and complicated for grandma, not to mention that she will need a more expensive service plan.

I still see the need of a new product that combines the natural interaction of a personal conversation and hand writing with the benefits of modern technology. It love the idea of changing the keyboard for a more intuitive input device, like a block of paper. And change the computer for a cheap and small device maybe connected to the TV, and that way be able to receive multimedia letters (emails) from your children or grandchildren.

Product page.

Roberto Fontanarrosa, the genius writer and humorist, passed away today. I was a fan of his work and will always remember him with love.

- And does this TV have a channel selector?

- Of course… and it’s so selective that sometimes it doesn’t pick any channel at all.

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Last 3rd of July The Institute For The Future hosted a talk by Colin Bulthaup, CEO of Potenco, a spinoff of Squid Labs, based in Alameda, California. Colin characterized SL as a Do Tank, not a think tank.

Fourteen months ago they had been working on smart rope, a rope that knows when it is about to break, but with a grant from the OLPC team they developed a pull-cord generator (PCG) that can be used to charge mp3 players, mobile phones, LED lights, portable batteries, GPS devices, and the XO laptop.

Their base line human is an eight year old pulling on the yo-yo device. They even tested the amount of CO2 produced as a kid uses it, as well as calories expended (very few). One minute of pulling generates enough energy for 20 minutes of talk time on a mobile phone and four hours play time on an iPod Shuffle. Colin explained that they had done research on the best kind of string, using some new synthetic material, and as backup, there are two extra sets coiled inside the housing of the device. They have designed it so that it can be hacked. For instance, by removing the cover (top picture) it could be attached to a bicycle hub and generate more than 20 watts of power. Here is a short YouTube video where Colin demonstrate the PCG.

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A team of Korean researchers, has developed a new solar cell technology without increasing the costs. The team lead by Lee Kwang-hee of the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, has reported a diminutive solar cell that has an efciciency of 6.5%. While that number pales in comparison with other alternatives, it is the price that matters here. Existing silicon semiconductor cells costs around $2.30 to generate 1 Watt of electricity, wich is 3 to 10 times higher than the production cost of thermal or hydro power.

“The efficiency of converting solar power to electricity should be at least seven percent for commercialization. Many foreign researchers even failed to develop solar cells with more than five percent efficiency,” Prof. Lee said.

While this new alternative costs just 10 cents per Watt; the plans are to increase efficiency up to 15% and release to market by 2012.

Source: Engadget

I was reading the newspaper today, and I found an article about Afghanistan. I will reproduce some interesting facts here.

The taliban are hitting the education system, because they think that hitting education is hitting the government. Since last August, more than 400 attacks have been committed. Remember that during the 6 years of Taliban rule, women were not allowed to receive education. Today, 1/3 of students are women.

Last June 12th, six female students attacked outside the school. Two of them died and the school suspended all the activities until last week, when only 1/4 of the 1600 students dared to return.

After 30 years of war, it is difficult to find schools in decent conditions. More than 1/2 of the schools don’t have a building and classes take place in tents, under the trees or under the sun. Only 20% of teachers are well instructed and text books are mostly dated.

Today, only 6.2 million children go to school being just 1/2 of the children in school age. Under these circumstances, parents are being forced to decide between having illiterate children or running the risk of an attack.

In this chaotic scenario, only 5% of the budget that the US assigns to development in Afghanistan is destined to Education. (30% is spent in roads and 14% in energy production).

What does this have to do with design? Well, I see that similar conditions seem to be a common pattern in the developing world, and it will take a lot of hard work and creativity to find viable solutions. My guess is that if the international community wants to see some real changes and find a sustainable situation, education should be a top priority.

The base of the pyramid (BOP) has many opportunities to develop new products and services. It is by the use of design thinking that we will be able to sort out all the constrains to find affordable and effective solutions.

I can imagine this as a perfect scenario to take advantage of the OLPC (or similar), trying to give these children a good education and thus a better future.

Source: Lanacion.com

I wanted to share this good and funny campaign for the Neunkirchen Zoo in Germany. It is a very simple and powerful idea based on the subject: “Come to the zoo before the zoo comes to you”. It obtained an increase in attendance of about 15%. Communication’s theory says that if you repeat the campaign, you could get another 50% of the previous round.

Hats off to the to the Scholz & Friends agency from Berlin for this well executed idea.

I just noticed that a camera we designed with the Kodak team has been awarded a Red Dot Award for Product Design.

Congratulations to all the people involved in the project!