Yesterday I came across this terrifying ‘fooz’ball table from AirWorks Inflatables:

Terrifying for me because I have enough trouble playing on a standard table but also because I can imagine the havoc created were we to actually get one in our office! Fortunately there is only one of these giant tables in existence at the moment; built for beer promotion during the recent European Champions League finals.in
It also reminds me of another beer advert which suggested ‘You do the football, we’ll do the beer’ - I’ll buy the beer if I need to but please do not make any more of these tables - the guys in my office all went misty eyed at the mere idea of a bigger foozball table, the office would never be the same if they actually got hold of one!

And another thing our office would never be the same with is the jDome - a new invention by John Nilsson, a Swedish gamer who, fed up with waiting for technology to improve his gaming immersion, took his inspiration from an OmnImax cinema. The jDome will give gamers a massive 180-degree field of vision instead of the usual 15 to 20 degrees they get from their monitors and Nilsson believes it will be possible to sell them for around $125-200, keeping prices low by only having the high quality focus right where gamers need it - straight ahead - and a lower quality visibility more like motion detection for peripheral views.

~Paracelsus

I’ve just been emailed a link to this wonderfully ingenious clock by Dutch designer Christiaan Postma. He explains “The starting point with this project was a personal study about form & time. I put together more than 150 individual clockworks and made them work together to become one clock. I show the progress of time by letting the numbers be written in words by the clockworks.”

The clock was on show as part of the annual Design Academy Eindhoven student show at Spazio Rossana Orlandi. It’s a very engaging clock, one I could happily watch for quite sometime, which I suppose is the point - this clock makes you think about time and it’s passing, rather than just remember you’re running late for that meeting.

Speaking of which…

The past few weeks have been a real test of my willpower - first, Di at Designers’ Block introduced me to Michael Michaud’s amazing nature inspired jewelry.

Water Lilies brooch, inspired by the painting of the same name by Claude Monet.

Then Register Hardware brought the Mobile Watch - complete with camera, Wi-Fi, 512MB memory card and GPS satnav - to my attention too:

As a result I had to spend a few minutes quietly repeating to myself ‘there is a big difference between wanting and affording’ before I could be trusted near the computer (or my purse!)
I think the major problem was that with these items combined my latest desires would have allowed me to feel like a bond girl and the agent himself simultaneously - a very tempting combination!

Fortunately Susie over at Style Bubble has bought a more affordable temptation to me - the East End Thrift Shop - and Dezeen have given me another affordable distraction by bringing the Rolf Sachs ‘ Take2′ exhibition to my attention and, thanks to the clever Mr Clayton, I have The Cans Festival to check out too!

So much to see but not to buy…

Over at TechDigest comes this nice laptop pillow, to not only stop your laptop digging into your legs but help keeping it cooler and not burning your legs. TechDigest raves about the log one (pictured below) which I like a lot for its colour and playfulness. However it’s not the only one - check out the whole range - the variety is what I like, something for those who prefer the functional as well as design lovers.

Laptop pillows are nothing new - PCWorld blogs about a nice design for those laden with accessories - you can pop your mouse or external drives & cables into the pocket beneath. Of course you don’t have to splash the cash - you can go with a DIY approach instead - the comments section on this Lifehacker post is a great selection of homebrew laptop rest solutions. So whatever you want, if you’re suffering from a hot or heavy laptop on your knees, there’s no reason to put up with it at all.

The UK is getting some new money. Rather than a different design on each, they are (except the pound) all fragments of a greater design, like some shiny jigsaw. Very postmodern. What do you think - innovative emblems of 21st century Britain or tinkering with something that should not be changed?

LG are one of the supporters of London Fashion Week and a few days ago we held an exclusive show down at the Natural History Museum to show off our latest LCD and Plasma televisions for 2008. With some of the top fashion, style and tech press there, George (one of our TV experts) talked them through what we have for 2008.

Following on from the success of the Design Art televisions of 2007, our new TVs are all about style and design excellence. Our LG50 series of LCD television combines an invisible speakers with no visible grille to detract from your viewing. They’re full HD, at 1080p, and feature cool stuff like the Intelligent Sensor (which adjust the brightness according to the ambient light levels) and a USB connection which allows the TV to play JPEG or MP3 content from external devices.

The LG60 series (which you can see George demonstrating above) is ultra-slim - we’ve moved the electronics and other gubbins from behind the screen to underneath it to make it thinner. It also has a red coloured back to add warmth to the television’s surroundings, and our 120MHz TruMotion technology with its improved response time and smoother motion display, as well as four HDMI ports for all you technology addicts. It also has a unique circular aperture at the base, which is used to turn the screen on and off by touch alone, with no moving parts.

On the Plasma front, George showed off the PG60 and PG70 series, which are totally flat all the way across with no raised bezel (so the television mimics a single sheet of glass), which looks gorgeous and sleek. Like their LCD counterpart the speakers are invisible

Everyone I saw who gave the TVs a look-over was appreciative if not impressed with the features and clarity of the screens, and you’ll be able to judge for yourself when they hit the shops later this year. If you want to find out more, then check out the official press releases for the LCD and Plasma lines on the LG website.

I have a nice, eco-friendly end to the week - according to the BBC, building work has started in Abu Dhabi on Masdar (”the source” in Arabic and meant here as a reference to the sun/solar energy), the world’s first zero-carbon, and zero-waste, car-free city.

Designed by Norman Foster of London architects Foster & Partners, Masdar City will cost $22bn, take eight years to build and be home to around 50,000 people.

Sounding reminiscent of something from Blade Runner, it will be powered predominantly by solar energy and residents will travel in pods set on magnetic tracks. According to Evelyn Lee at inhabitat the city will be entirely car free. “Carefully planned public transportation will ensure that none of the city’s inhabitants will have to walk more than 200 meters before meeting some part of the transportation link.”

There are suggestions Masdar City may be just a token gesture, or distraction from the oil-rich Gulf emirates and Business Week were tickled by the “delicious irony that the Middle East, awash in oil and dollars” were investing “oil billions into a zero-emissions metropolis in the desert”

But this project is just part of the Masdar plan for “energy security, climate change and truly sustainable human development” and Masdar City is supported by global conservation charity the WWF.

This could be the dawning of a brave new world, but if it is I hope it’s a little less grey than the picture above!

It’s London Fashion Week and the beautiful and the stylish are flocking to London to fight for that impossible to get Moss/Westwood ‘comeback’ ticket. What could be a more fitting time to welcome the new ‘Dark Silver’ Viewty?

Yes, LG are now offering up the sleek silver edition LG Viewty in addition to the original black. LG researched colour preferences across Europe, and silver was selected as the number one colour choice of consumers looking for a stylish, polished, premium phone that reflects their own style.

But it’s not just a revamp don’t worry, the silver Viewty has all the functions and capabilities which made the original so popular, but with an improvement as well as a new look.

“The new ‘Dark Silver’ Viewty has all the quality of the black version but in addition to the stylish stand-out colour, we have re-designed the jog wheel to make scrolling the menus easier following consumer feedback. Viewty gives consumers the opportunity to own a phone that makes a statement, with a new high-tech finish that sleek, smart and complements its overall design,” said Dr. Skott Ahn, President and CEO of LG Electronics Mobile Communications Company. “We knew we had something special when we created Viewty, and it turns out that over half a million customers agree with us.”

There will be even more colour choices for the LG Viewty, with it’s 5.0 megapixel camera and a 3.0-inch touchscreen, available later this year.

Amazing how much influence design has in our expectations of what’s behind the packaging. It’s only when someone challenges those expectations that we realise how important design is.

Michael Young has designed a genre breaking whisky bottle for Japanese brand Nikka. It’s a far cry from what we would instinctively expect a whisky bottle to look like. The design of whisky bottles almost without fail emphasises the heritage of whisky making and you can always see the liquid in the bottle.

Young’s design by contrast has left no traditional element untouched, it’s black, contemporary and self-consciously different. It’s simplicity is most striking and at least initially you have no idea what’s in the bottle – you could even be forgiven for thinking it was vodka. So a bit risky perhaps but the cool factor is massive with this design and you can see it appealing to a new generation of whisky drinker.

The same is true for much of technological design – coming up with a simple but radical change in design can make all the difference.

I noticed that Time magazine has awarded its invention of year 2007 prize to the iPhone. It’s not my place to say whether it should or shouldn’t have been given that award by Time, as mentioned in previous posts we respect the iPhone tremendously.

No, what is perplexing is the reasons the Time journalist gives for the iPhone winning. He mentions as one of the reasons that the iPhone is ‘pretty’ and that ‘high tech-tech companies don’t take design seriously.’ As Gizmodo suggests, this is a comment that would annoy plenty of other mobile phone companies and indeed LG has always had one eye firmly on design with its products.

The Design Art TV is one such device and looks the way it does because of a dedicated team of designers in Milan, whilst also incorporates innovative technology such as Intelligent Eye. LG has a tradition of a good design with it’s products – after all the Prada was designed in conjunction with the fashion house and was one of first non PDA mobiles to incorporate a touch screen.

HP’s Blackbird gaming PC is an excellent example of innovation coming from ground breaking design and perfectly suits the target audience. The Phillips Aurea LCD is a TV that derives its good looks from the AmbiLight technology and clearly shows that technology companies hardly think of design as an after thought. There are many more.

I’m pretty sure most people could think of lots of examples where good design and technology go hand in hand