The people behind the upcoming Interaction14 conference invite you to attend a panel discussion in Milan on the "Long View of Interaction Design."

On Monday 8 April at 6 p.m. (on the eve of the Salone del Mobile), Claudio Moderini, Fabio Sergio, Jan-Christoph Zoels and Todd S. Harple will debate with Alok Nandi on how to design for those interaction design challenges that go beyond the immediate consumer product/service launch cycle.

What if your interaction design has to be integrated in a hospital or a building or a city? How do you design if your creation has to last 10, 20 or even more years into the future? What tools can you use as an interaction designer? How do you make it adaptive and resilient? How to avoid obsolescence?

Speakers

• Claudio Moderini (@claudiomoderini), Director of the Master Programme in Interaction Design at Domus Academy, Milan (IT)


• Fabio Sergio (@freegorifero), Executive Creative Director, frog design, Milan (IT)


• Jan-Christoph Zoels, Founding Partner and Creative Director, Experientia, Turin (IT)


• Todd S. Harple (@tharple), Research Scientist / Anthropologist / Ethnographer, Intel Corporation, Hillsboro (USA)


• Alok Nandi (@aloknandi), Chair of Interaction14, Amsterdam (NL) and moderator of the discussion

Attendance: Free and open to the public

Location: Domus Academy, via Carlo Darwin 20, Milan (Navigli area)

Sponsor in kind: Domus Academy (thank you!)

Disclosure: I am the behind the scenes organizer of it all.

Image via Pens 'n Paper

If there's one thing I hate throwing away, it's a Sharpie. I've been using the things since childhood, and I use the ones I own today so much that I'll often wear the text off of the body; but the ink only lasts so long, and eventually they end up in the recycling bin.

Because I bought a Sharpie bulk pack years ago and tend not to linger in Staples, I didn't realize that they now make a refillable version!

Image via Pens 'n Paper

The Stainless Steel Sharpie takes cartridges, has the fine point so you can write on envelopes, and has the logo laser-etched into the barrel. (I'd rather have my own name etched in the barrel, so my light-fingered coworkers in the studio won't think about nicking it.)

Image via Office Supply Geek

In any case, as soon as my last Sharpie gives up the ghost, I'll be replacing it with the Stainless version. Maybe I can Dremel my name into the thing.

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What better way to celebrate the coming of spring than with a series of events that examine the impact of design on business and society? The 2013 IDSA District Design Conferences kick off this weekend in Raleigh, North Carolina, and continue over the next two weekends in four additional cities across the States. Whether you happen to live in Cleveland, Long Beach, Indianapolis or Hartford or the unique opportunity for professional development happens to be the next state over, make a point of making the trip.

Make sure you register for the conference you want to attend the most as spots will fill up fast, and each conference offers a different focus. This year's themes range from color theory to entrepreneurship, and designers from each and every region can look forward to valuable insights and in-depth design discussion over the course of each two-day conference. Find more details on the schedule and each of the conferences here.

Speaking of Sharpies, what do they have in common with these products?

All of those brands—Sharpie, Irwin Tools, Dymo, Calphalon, Rubbermaid, Rubbermaid Commercial Products and Graco, not to mention Goody, Waterman, Lenox, Paper-Mate, Parker, Aprica and more—are all owned by Newell Rubbermaid, which owns 40 brands in total. And having that much product diversity may be good news to those of you ID students set to graduate in 2014, and willing to move to Michigan: Newell Rubbermaid has announced they're consolidating 15 industrial design teams into one massive one, to be located at their first global design center.

The Newell Rubbermaid Design Center, located in Western Michigan University's Business Technology and Research Park, will employ 100 industrial and graphic designers under a single roof, with salaries reportedly in the $70,000 to $90,000 range. The $4 million, 40,000-square-foot facility is slated to open in early 2014, and while a number of those jobs will go to relocated designers currently employed by the sub-brand, there's surely going to be job vacancies from those who didn't want to move. And if things go well, the facility has space to expand by a factor of four. Here's some more info from the press release:

"Great design and creativity is the difference between a standard product and one that is beautiful in every way—and drives consumer preference," said Chuck Jones, Newell Rubbermaid's Chief Design and Research & Development Officer. "Our new Design Center will be a best-in-class facility that enables us to attract the best international design talent to work on a wonderful portfolio of leading brands. Our brand studios and immersion labs will foster growth ideas as designers collaborate with marketing and R&D on great innovation...

The [facility] has been carefully planned to foster creativity and maximize the sharing of ideas and technologies among the company's brands. A large, open studio space will provide the ideal environment for designers to collaborate using advanced software tools. Immersion labs for the company's priority business segments will enable design and marketing teams to evaluate product prototypes and imagine the possibilities of future product roadmaps. The company is investing in new talent with specialist design skills to work alongside the existing industrial and graphic design teams.

Could games like Papa Sangre pave the way for other mobile audio experiences?

The tech lovers at last week's MEX Mobile User Experience conference in London were treated to all manner of fantastical visions of our further mobile empowered futures; big data, connected cars, smart homes, Internet of Things, gestural interfaces, personal mini-drones—the lot.

Few presentation this year will be complete without at least passing reference to the game changing nature or dystopian social implications of soon-to-be-unleashed Google Glass. Surprisingly, however, a couple of jaw-dropping demonstrations were enough to leave many of those attending wondering whether we might be missing a slightly quieter revolution taking hold. Could immersive audio be about to come of age in mobile user experience?

Having played second fiddle to the visual interface for decades, being so often the reserve of experimental art installations or niche concepts for the blind, audio has yet to find mass interaction application outside of alarms, alerts, ringtones and the occasional novelty bottle opener. All of this, however, could be set to change, if the two fields of binaural sound and dynamic music can find their way into the repertoire of interaction designers.

Binaural Audio Spatializes Interaction

Hardly a new phenomenon (though not always well known), Papa Sangre is regarded as the 'best video game with no video ever made.' Since it's release back in 2011, the audio app game for iOS has been a hit with both the visually impaired and fully sighted. The game plunges players into a dark, monster-infested fantasy with only their ears to navigate the three dimensional underworld and rescue the damsel in distress. The incredible 3D sound effects are achieved with headphones and binaural audio—an effect that replicates the experience of hearing a sound-wave originating from a certain direction, hitting one ear before the other. Use of the screen is disconcertingly limited to only a rudimentary compass-like dial (determining the player's virtual direction of movement) and two feet buttons, pressed to take steps into the darkness. Never has a computer game monster been so terrifying than when you can't actually see it.

In the dark: screenshot of immersive audio game PapaSangre

The creators, London-based SomethinElse, developed the game by first mapping out the experiences of sound from hundreds of directions using a binaural microphone—a stereo mic the exact shape and density of a human head with pick-ups for ear drums. The algorithmic engine this produced could then be put to work transforming any ordinary mono audio into a spacialised, stereo output for listeners wearing headphones (with a fair dose of clever coding, of course).

Binaural microphone with exact dimension and density as human head

Which of these two photos above has been Photoshopped?

Here's your answer.

Last week, North Korea got a black eye for Photoshopping their amphibious hovercraft military force, so this has got to sting: Here we Westerners are with so many resources that we're creating hovercrafts not just to transport troops... but to make it easier to get around the golf course. Yesterday golfer Bubba Watson and sponsor Oakley released this video of a hovercraft golf cart. (You'd think this was an April Fool's Day joke, but if it is, it's a day late.)

Sure, this thing deserves the hashtag #firstworldproblems, but one thing I did find interesting was the "33 times less than a human foot" pressure statistic. You hear that, Kim Jong Un? We won't even mess up our perfectly manicured recreational lawns. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Many a young design student has searched for a way to manufacture the feeling sentimentality in object design—it's a great moment when you buy a product and build a special type of inherent knowledge of its quirks and inter workings. In the Color Wheel Timepiece, ID Student Scott Albertson of Carnegie Mellon has attempted to shake up the traditional use of a watch and challenge the user to build their own understanding via color rather than a traditional analog face.

Alberstein says of the timepiece:

The type of watch one wears can tell a great deal about someone. In order to build a personal relationship with this watch I decided to represent the passage of time through color. If used regularly, the user will develop associations between time and color patterns. Eventually, the user could tell the time based on what colors are shown.

Don't get me wrong; the color wheel clock is a poetic idea. In use, you realize analog clocks might be slipping into object nostalgia territory, replaced by ever-present digital displays. If 20-somethings do use analog displays- they tend to be by way of screens. While the IPhone seems a pretty good stand in for watch, timer, alarm... the list goes on, it's good to see someone tackle the wrist watch - one of designer's greatest fetish items. We've seen a few variations on color watch faces (The Ziiiro Gravity and Proton lines come to mind), and Alberstein's Color Wheel Timepiece is a nicely resolved challenge to the archetype.

Over the past few days, we've seen the majority of the winners for the International Bicycle Design Competition (IBDC) 2013: the first 12, who won an invitation to a design workshop in Taiwan, and five more who won a bit of cash in addition to the invite. Without further ado, here are the judges' selections for the top five prizes: Each of the designs seen here were deemed worthy of a very respectable 100,000 TWD prize (about $3,350).

ubqo sixty60 | Mountainbike Frame
Marco Giarrana - University of Design and Art, Basle, Switzerland

The ubqo sixty60 is a frame with strong, clean, independent lines that covers a wide range of uses. It eliminates the only real weak points of virtual pivot designs: it replaces two small linkages, which are exposed to extremely high loads, with large excenters, which can resist the loads much better and exhibit durability and stability. With its round-edged carbon profiles, the ubqo sixty60 is ready to tackle any terrain.

What the judges had to say: "It is a different frame design that is just like a universal adjustment for bikes of the newest generation."

- I'm not sure exactly what's going on with the points of articulation for the rear suspension, but it looks vaguely hubless to me.

The Glow Rider | Light System
Kuang-Chung Hao, Yi-Ching Lin & Yen-Liang Chen - National Taipei University of Technology, Taipei, Taiwan

Bicycling in the dark can be extremely dangerous. The Glow Rider is a flashing light, a taillight and a projection light all in one. The Glow Rider is mounted on the rear fender; it acts as a high-powered taillight. At a flick of the switch, the Glow Rider projects a bright beam of light onto the rider's back. This creates a larger lit surface area, which makes the rider significantly more visible in the rain or dark.

What the judges had to say: "The idea is applicable to potentially any bike. Though we think about the future, bikes are also about encouraging sustainability. The idea is self-sustainability and it's a good marketing point."

- We've seen lights that project images on the road, but this fender-mounted 'bat signal' is an interesting twist. Combine with retroreflectivity for maximum effect (i.e. Nike Vapor Flash).

Our friends at KiBiSi recently sent us the 'scoop' on their latest project, a chair for their fellow Danes at Globe Zero 4. Taking its name from the construction vehicle, the Scoop features an "innovative gyroscope-like suspension system conveys a feeling of being carried—a free suspended feel. The Y-shaped beam creates a visual and functional overlap between seat and base."

KiBiSi partner and Head of Design (and 2011 Core77 Design Awards jury captain) Lars Larsen notes that, "Scoop is the logic output of a clear idea: The character of the series lies in the straight forward appearance—a kind of ideogram of how it works." His colleague, co-founder and Creative Director Jens Martin Skibsted also notes that "We wanted to stay clear of a home decorative cutesy product and contract business polish. We needed to establish a new middle ground that would bridge private and public spaces. Yet this wasn't an exercise in style. We had to come up with an entirely new suspension system to build the gravity of the product inside out."

Thus, the new design is intended to strike a balance betwen craft and technology: "The innovative technical edge increases comfort, yet maintains a clear and simple Scandinavian appearance. The chair has a tailor upholstered cast foam seat and an injection molded aluminum frame. The scoop family comprises of a conference chair, a lounge chair, a table and a bar stool in the making."

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This spring, Poltrona Frau is pleased to partner with Parsons The New School for Design on a Product Design Studio with a focus on responsible design. With the guidance of instructor Andrea Ruggiero, students will design and develop new objects using leather scraps at Poltrona Frau's factory in Tolentino, Italy. For the first time, the brief is to design everyday leather goods for the home and office, elevating waste material into a premium product.

Reporting by Jenny Hsu

Two weeks ago, a group of 15 Product Design Juniors from Parsons The New School for Design could be found examining two boxes of beautiful scrap leather in the Soho showroom of Poltrona Frau, the leading Italian leather home furnishing company, seeking inspiration for their next project. With instructor Andrea Ruggiero, designer and Parsons alumnus, the group had officially begun the school's third collaboration with Poltrona Frau, but it was nothing like years past.

We were all anticipating being asked to design a new furniture concept for Poltrona Frau, but instead we were surprised with a fresh challenge—to design and develop new product concepts for the home and office that complement the Atelier Poltrona Frau collection. And there is another catch: we must create these products out of scrap leather from Frau's upholstery production—the material that traditionally ends up in the factory's waste stream.

The competition kicked off on Friday, March 22, with a quick brainstorming exercise. There were some cliché, mainstream ideas, such as an iPad case, wallet, or keychain, but also some that were new and unusual. As these concepts developed, a new terrain of potential ideas emerged, such as a neck cushion, elbow rest, or even a one-hundred-dollar leather bandage. Perhaps these ideas are too absurd and unrealistic, but the best ideas always originate from the unlikeliest of sources.

For a superheroine, packing must be easy; their outfits are so skimpy there's barely enough fabric to fit into a purse. You could argue that male superheroes also wear costumes that leave little to the imagination, at least in terms of tightness, but it is female superheroes in particular that are depicted in practically stripper-esque outfits.

Fans have noticed, of course. On comic book forums you'll find comments like the following:

For one month I think DC should switch the male/female costume designs in all their titles. Wonder Woman would put on battle armor or something that shows no skin below the neck and Superman will put on knee high boots and skin tight biker shorts.

Others find the skimpy costumes irritating for practical reasons, in true comic book geek style:

...Huntress's "sexy" uniform makes me nuts. She doesn't have superpowers and there are important organs in your abdomen. Somebody cuts or shoots her abdominal aorta and it's all over.

In any case, artist Michael Lee Lunsford has started populating a Tumblr with his illustrations of, well, reasonably-dressed superheroines. Some of them are even wearing proper pants.

This year Germany's Kaweco (Koch, Weber & Co.) brand celebrates its 130th year of producing fine writing implements. Since their beginnings in Heidelberg in 1883, the brand has survived two World Wars, bankruptcy, a factory fire and a 14 year closure.

1912 saw the origins of Kaweco's Sport fountain pen, first advertised as a "safety pen for ladies, officers and sports guys." The following year, the short pocket pen was officially released as the Sport Series with the claim of having the "safest closure in every situation."

In 1929, Kaweco was purchased by Aurumia, a fountain pen manufacturer with factories based in Baden. Five years later, Aurumia developed the Sport and it took on an appearance very similar to the one we sell today. Due to their convenient size, they became a bestseller, although they faded in popularity in the mid-70s.

Kaweco closed in 1980, and thus the Sport pen disappeared from the marketplace. In 1994 Kaweco was revived by H & M Gutberlet who specialize in both writing instruments and cosmetic products, particularly eye and lip liners.

Gutberlet released a slightly updated take on the Kaweco Sport—the same style we sell today, nearly 20 years later. We carry them in both CNC machined solid aluminum and injection molded plastic bodies.

Here's our handy pocket guide to the Kaweco Sport:

Click to enlarge; detailed instructions after the jump...

While I've always suspected that this is what happens when you flush the toilet on a plane...

...but apparently it's a little more complicated than that. Zodiac Aerospace (remember their "recline forward" airplane seats?) has their own Water and Waste Systems subsidiary in L.A. that helps keep them on top of the airplane bathroom market, designing systems that keep 60,000 toilets flying and flushing every day, as the WSJ reports. The toilets flush—and generate that whooshing noise--by playing on the differential in air pressure between the cabin and the tanks, hurtling your poop down the tubes at nearly 120 miles per hour. (Maybe it's a guy thing, but after reading that I wanted to re-tell it to the guy sitting nearest me so we could high-five.)

In this video, reporter Susan Carey gets a look at a full-scale airplane flushing system in Carson, California:

Well, as the saying goes, the large cat has transformed into a young sheep: As of last week, it seems that spring has finally arrived here in New York City after what has been a long and by all accounts brutal winter, and what better way to enjoy the mild weather than to go for a leisurely bicycle ride? In fact, I've already noticed more cyclists during my morning and afternoon commutes, and the forthcoming bikeshare will surely spur increased ridership over the next few months (so too has the long and imperious arm of the law seen fit to capitalize on the uptick... but that's a story for another time).

With the advent of the new season, I've treated myself to a new set of wheels—I'll spare you the details,¹ but it so happens that my search led me to yet another slick manufacturer vid from alloy rim purveyors H Plus Son:

The industrial-footage-set-to-industrial-music approach is certainly in keeping with the brand's appeal, but they're also not ashamed to admit that they're manufactured in China. And who's to argue otherwise? The pricepoint is competitive and the product hasn't failed me yet (which is why I'm looking to get a second set). That said, there's no denying that the video is more style than substance. Thankfully, Science/Discovery Channel's "How It's Made" has it covered.²

If it seems that the folks at H Plus Son have omitted a few steps that are seen in the "How It's Made" segment, such as a detail shots of the CNC finishing and anodization, it's worth mentioning that I can see the joins on my Campy Eurus and Mavic Open Pros but they're nowhere to be found on my H Plus Son deep V rims.³ The 'edutainment' short nicely summarizes the process and precision that go into a set of strong yet lightweight, perfectly trued wheels, though there is much debate as to whether pre-built wheels are inferior to hand-builts.

Brazil-based industrial designer Ricardo Freisleben Lacerda either lives in a small space or likes thinking about how to reduce the size of furniture when it's not in use. Check out his Gaming Table, done as his graduation project from the Universidade do Estado de Minas Gerais in Barbacena:

Assuming the cantilevered tops are strong enough to support even my heaviest friends, I'd say that's a cool design for saving some space. It'd be a welcome addition to my space-tight Manhattan digs for having friends over, though we might be chugging rather than checkmating.

Another project Lacerda has worked on, this one in conjunction with fellow designer Andre Pedrini under their Oboio brand name, is their Nomad Closet.

Speaking of gaming tables and things that fold into boxes, here's a video of a wicked design by David Roentgen, a cabinetmaking mechanical genius from 18th-Century Germany. This deceptively simple-looking table has so many amazing features I don't want to describe and spoil them for you—just fullscreen it and watch:

Are you freaking kidding me? Just making the moving hardware alone, pre-Industrial-Revolution, must've been ridiculously complicated; that and the fact that Roentgen pulled this off without CAD or any power tools boggles the mind.

Roentgen and his father Abraham, by the way, were designers and makers on the order of Jean-Francois Oeben, except they were based in Germany. After Abraham died, David took over the family business and was eventually appointed the ebeniste-mecanicien—"Cabinetmaker Mechanic"—to one Marie Antoinette.

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At a press event yesterday, I was given press materials on the rubber USB bracelet that's becoming de rigueur. Apple's supposedly coming out with an iWatch. And a Hong-Kong-based company called Aeglo has designed a stylus that turns into a slap bracelet (see below). The wrist, it seems, is becoming the Manhattan real estate of tech devices.

It's easy to see why: The wrist is easily accessible and has long been the prime body location to wear technology, as pioneered by the wristwatch in the 1920s. In more recent decades headphones, earbuds and bluetooth earpieces have moved tech onto our domes, and if Google Glass goes mainstream, wearable tech will make the leap to our faces. If throat mics catch on, necks will be covered too.

While we've seen concepts for technology-embedded clothing, we're not confident that catch-all solution is going to catch on, outside of a few niche markets like iPod-controlling snowboard jackets. No, we suspect the wearable technology market will rise in fragments: An iWatch on your wrist, Google Glasses on your face, a Bluetooth bud in your ear, a throat mic on your neck. (While there are arm-mounted bands to hold iPod Nanos for runners, we can't see that one going mainstream either, as the bands are meant to be worn on bare arms or skintight athletic gear.)

At one point in time, humans had to grind their own coffee beans, boil water, combine the ingredients and filter out the grounds in order to get a cup of joe. Our limited imaginations of the time assumed that one day a robot, like The Jetsons' Rosie the Robot, would do all of that stuff for us in the future. Instead manufacturers developed a bunch of discrete objects: Coffee grinding machines, coffeemakers, packages of disposable paper filters we'd buy by the hundred. In this analogy we think the idea of computer-embedded clothing is the Rosie the Robot fantasy, and that things like the iWatch and bluetooth headsets are the separate objects that we'll still buy piecemeal and coordinate with each other.

Our question to you guys is, where else on the body do you see wearable technology migrating to, in a mainstream way? And which body part, if any, do you think various manufacturers will most compete for space on?