Just an hour ago on stage at TED Global, Jawbone announced the grand project they've been quietly working on for years: A wearable band called Up, which is infused with sensors and smartphone connected, allowing you to track your eating, sleeping, and activity patterns.
"The interest grew when people realized how large this market is."
It's tough to find a product that at once appeals to science nerds and design snobs, but we think we've hit on just the thing: Hyphae, a new series of algorithmically generated lights by Nervous System, a Massachusetts design studio known for 3-D printed jewelry. Each lamp is "grown" in a process modeled on how leaf veins form, and just as no two leaves have the same vein structure, every lamp is unique.
![Here’s Why Leica Lenses Are So Damn Expensive [Video]](/multisite_files/codesign/imagecache/642x368/article_feature/Leica-M9-Detail-B.jpeg "Here’s Why Leica Lenses Are So Damn Expensive [Video]")
In the age of digital photography, how does Leica, a German camera company founded in 1849, still attract legions of devotees? The answer, as this video shows, is in their lenses -- which go through 60 quality control checks by (human) technicians before making it into a user's snap-happy hands.
Enjoy watching the lens travel through each step in the meticulous manufacturing process, down to the hand-lacquered engraving. But be warned: You may decide that nothing short of a $5,000 Leica will do.
God bless the Japanese, who have succeeded in making nearly everything on the planet more adorable. And now they've really done it. They've managed to make a mouse -- yes, that little white utilitarian computer mouse you're clutching right now -- cute.
At Co.Design, we devote a fair amount of space to technological breakthroughs. With innovation seemingly outpacing our ability to write about it, it's easy to forget where we stood just a few years ago, with our film cameras and cassette players. The elaborately constructed paper replicas of outmoded gadgets, by the French duo Zim & Zou, bring it all back in vibrant colors.
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![Murray Moss And Ralph Pucci On The Business Of Taste-Making [Video]](/multisite_files/codesign/imagecache/642x368/article_feature/Robber-Baron-Lead.jpg "Murray Moss And Ralph Pucci On The Business Of Taste-Making [Video]")
Murray Moss and Ralph Pucci are among the design world's leading arbiters of taste. Visit Moss's immaculate museum-like gallery space in SoHo and you'll find an amazing assortment of objects that reflect his eclectic interests, ranging from Maarten Baas? contemporary burnt furniture to 18th Century Commedia dell? Arte figurines produced by Porzellan Manufaktur Nymphenburg.
You may not know what a "Sankey diagram" is, but you've almost certainly seen them before. They're a specific way of visualizing how things flow from one state to another, and in what quantities. The classic infographic of Napoleon's disastrous march to Moscow is a Sankey diagram: It starts out with a big thick band that narrows and splits off to illustrate how many soldiers died and deserted along the route.
Written by: Erica Eden
[This is the second post in a series by Smart Design. Click here to read the introduction and here to read the first post. -- Ed.]
The blogs have been buzzing about California artist Chris Burden's toy-car megalopolis project, Metropolis II, for ages. The latest news: A collector bought the installation for "millions" of dollars, but was gracious enough to donate it to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art for display over the next 10 years. (Whew!) But what does it take to design something like Metropolis II, and what does it all mean, anyway?
It took Burden and his chief engineer four years to make Metropolis II.
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