The members of Delft University of Technology's MAV-Lab ("MAV" stands for Micro Air Vehicle) have created a drone with a rather unusual form factor. The Delftacopter, as they're calling it, can take off and land vertically, hovering like a regular quadrotor, but can also switch to airplane-like forward flight. While we've seen designs that can do this before, Delft's creation is the first to opt for a bi-wing design:

I love that it's pure form-follows-function, yet has such an unexpected execution. And no, it's not a toy; it was designed to compete in Australia's Outback Medical Challenge, a competition seeking UAVs that can assist with medical and rescue applications:

Intriguingly, the Delftacopter features an Iridium satellite link. It can technically be flown, then, from any place on Earth.

Technology listening at all times to anticipate your behavior and needs is already creepy—giving it an animatronic face isn't helping. Or maybe it is? However you feel about Amazon Echo persistently eavesdropping on you around the house, asking Alexa a question gets a lot more intense when she answers through the mouth of a wiggling fish.

The unholy union was created by developer, Brian Kane, who posted this unsettling version of his Amazon Echo hacked into a Big Mouth Billy Bass. While she doesn't sing any '80s classics in the video, it's still pretty horrifying. But then again, Siri has already taken the edge off talking to a novelty robot, so who are we trying to fool. Though decidedly more expensive than in its As Seen On TV days, this is probably the future we deserve. 

Needed: Visionary Industrial Designer to help us create world-class customer experiences for our consumer products division. At Bose, we’ve spent 50 years finding new ways to bring quality audio products to people—in their homes, in automobiles, in airplanes, and just about anywhere else that there is a possibility to

If there's one thing we Americans love, it's spewing hyperbole. It's our own personally-generated clickbait. And with every Presidential election, a segment of the population swears they'll move out of the country if the other candidate wins.

They never do move, of course. But that hasn't stopped Swedish creative agency Round & Round from courting would-be U.S. refugees dissatisfied with what people are calling the Season Finale of America. "The US election is a big topic even for us," writes R&R copywriter Erik Strom, "and there hasn't been a day for the last couple of weeks when we haven't been discussing Trump and Hillary in our office. So we decided to use our interest in the subject in some way, and this is what we decided to do - The Great Trump Escape. (You are looking for a new country. We are looking for new talent.)"

Yes, they're turning it into a recruitment drive.

Studies have shown that 1 in 4 Americans would consider leaving the US if Donald Trump is elected president. That's why wecreated The Great Trump Escape– a recruitment campaign giving American advertising creatives a chance to leave the country… but only if Donald Trump is elected president.

The idea is that if you are a creative in our industry, who doesn't feel comfortable staying in the US during the years Donald Trump is President, you have the chance to come and work with us until you feel like moving back to America again. You simply submit your portfolio at the campaign website, thegreattrumpescape.com, and the agency will receive it in the event of Trump winning.

For the sake of balance, we ought list an organization offering a similar deal if Hillary wins, but we couldn't find one. Perhaps one of you know of one and will list it in the comments below. We're sure that whatever debate might erupt down there will be civilized and reasonable.

While we all know it looks nice, an open floor plan office can destroy productivity and creativity. But once you've invested in that mega modern wall-free loft office, you have to make the best of it. The AK2 Workspace Divider Lamp was designed by Uli Budde and Ivan Kasner for Dutch furniture company, De Vorm. More than a statement fixture, it's intended to help take the edge off the visual and auditory distractions in shared work spaces. 

The body of the lamp is PET felt made from recycled bottles, and on the inside it packs acoustic foam to dampen noise. Meant for use in common areas, the light shines on both sides of the divider, doubling the quiet and privacy of work tables, desks and reading areas. 

The wide shape makes a good bulwark against visual clutter, and the soft appearance of the material adds a calm tone to a space, while literally softening the bustle around it. 

The AK2 comes in multiple colors of felt, but I'm inclined to say the gray wool look is versatile enough to fit nearly anywhere. Pair it with the AK 93 Workplace Divider, and we're almost back to the good old cubicle days. 

Sexier than the call center in Hotline Bling

In this digitally assisted, rapid prototyping-happy moment, it's easy to forget how difficult modeling and manufacturing a final product used to be. Examples that stand out include Frank Gehry's building designs that were technically impossible to build before the advent of CAD software, also how the customization abilities of 3D printing are beginning to revolutionize the medical field. Simply put, there are many groundbreaking innovations taking place in this age that would have otherwise been next to impossible several years prior. One of those challenges worth mentioning and practically neglected by designers is a truly supportive bra for women—something a new brand called Trusst is hoping to change.

@trusstlingerie

Trusst Lingerie, a company started by industrial designers Sophia Berman and Laura West, wants to improve the ergonomics of lingerie—particularly for fuller-busted women who are more at risk of health issues due to unsupportive undergarments. As many passion projects go, Trusst's venture began with their own personal troubles with bras. "[West and I] started the company initially because she is fuller-busted and had a lot of pain points coming from current bras on the market. Underwires dig into the side of your bust. It hurts against your rib cage and digs into your shoulder…this hurts your back having this imbalance of the weight on your chest," says Berman. The team knew from an early point that in order to comfortably provide support, designers need to reimagine how lingerie is typically engineered.

A classic demonstration of a cantilever

Trusst's name is a play off of the word truss, a term stemming from thetangential field of architecture. The company's innovative three-dimensional support technology initially takes inspiration from cantilevers, a structural element commonly applied in bridge design. The Pittsburgh-based design team did research around many bridges in the city to design the final form of the supportive cup within their bras. Trusst sees this approach as a genuinely innovative one in the field of lingerie design: "I don't want to speak to every single bra company out there, but I know that the majority of them have fashion designers designing their bras. We're industrial designers and engineers, so we're coming from a different perspective that allowed us to see things differently," Berman mentions.

Prior to their acceptance into a local accelerator program, the team did a large amount of research to assess real women's qualms with bras for sale on the market. Surveying a couple thousand women in total, the founders gained a thorough understanding of what people thought were really missing in the products available today. They began modeling using a 3d printer after initial research, "because we realized the rate at which we wanted to create prototypes had to be very quick," adds Berman. Although 3d printing was not used in the final manufacturing process, it did allow them to find a more streamlined form within a relatively quick timeframe. When it came to the internal structure's complex, bridge-like cantilever system that makes it easier to conform to the body, digital softwares and fabrication methods turned out to be highly invaluable tools. 

The team worked hard to innovate not only in the realm of structural engineering but also materials because, as Berman reminds us, "any woman knows that boob sweat happens." To further alleviate this common conundrum, Trusst worked with the material engineering company Garmatex to line their bras with their patented anti-microbial, wicking Kottinu fabric. Typically a fabric applied to high-intensive athletic equipment, Trusst found a way to cleverly use a promising fabric within a new, functional context to keep women more comfortable day-to-day. 

Co-founder Laura West in development mode

Throughout their design and manufacturing process, Berman and West experimented with a variety of different ideas for manufacturing to assure that their product was effectively catering to their customers. They even thought about playing with a customizable manufacturing model so bras could fit each person's unique shape, but Berman says the team ultimately found this to be a superfluous application of the digital technology and "from a scalability perspective, just not very practical." Instead, they decided to focus on innovating how they manufactured the internal structure of the bra. The team says their manufacturing goal presented the factories with a daunting challenge: "What we designed in general had never been done before... the factory wasn't used to it. It required a whole new set of molds to shape the shapes." With Trusst being the duo's first big to-market product, their biggest obstacle lie in how to bring their vision to a practical, economically feasible reality while maintaining the innovative integrity:

"Really figuring out the form of the product and actually what materials to use was a real challenge. We were taught in design school how to create really cool forms and systems that might work well, but actually taking that next step to bring it to a manufactured product, something that can be mass-manufactured vs. just made at small-scale—that was the challenge that we faced. What materials were cost-effective, what processes weren't going to cost a lot of time and labor on the factory's part so it could then be cost-effective to sell."

Over a year after their initial idea, Trusst just launched their online store in October and have plans to present more designs, color ways and even types of bras in the near future. 

It's a line of products that frankly would be difficult to imagine without two key elements: digital technologies and engrossed female designers. A product that has somehow ceased to inspire real innovation for decades, Trusst's efforts are a thoughtful answer to the growing call for more female designers to improve on women-centric products where innovations have fallen by the wayside. By mixing old development techniques (surveying) with the new (rendering software and 3d printers), the team makes room for something special—a product that manages to feel both technically considered and compassionate toward its consumer. 

banner image: Philadelphia Post-Gazette

Locknesters are a new kind of Designer Toy. They are the result of a fascination with unconventional geometries and a desire to make toys that encourage interaction. They could be thought of as three-dimensional jigsaw puzzles—each model can be taken apart and assembled, used as a challenge to friends or a distraction from work.

Is there one belief you hold, one mannerism you were raised with, that 99% of people don't seem to share? For me it is the old Emily Post notion, instilled in me during childhood, that it is impolite to discuss politics or religion outside of your home. As someone who has friends on both sides of the political fence, out in public my instinct is to steer conversation towards what we have in common, keeping well clear of the edge of the road.

These days, it seems that all people talk about is politics and religion. Many are eager to trumpet their opinions on various topics. A tongue-in-cheek art installation called "Vote With Your Feet" capitalizes on this urge:

"Vote With Your Feet" is a public installation that asks questions for citizens, and get answers from citizens. Two doorways stand in the middle of the sidewalk, with a question displayed on a sign above them. Each door stands for an answer. Walk through the door, and your vote will be counted, viewable both at the door and on our website.

If you'd like to make one of these for yourself, here's an Instructable on how to do it.

If you need any proof that women are tough as hell and wickedly creative, here's a daring beauty trend you may have missed: lethal insects attached to your hands! 

The "Scorpion Manicure" reportedly got its start last year in Durango, Mexico, where visual artist Lupita Garcia works the bodies of dead scorpions into her sculpture and paintings. After trying in vain to find a use for the smaller and less artistically valuable baby scorpions, Garcia approached Rocío Vidales, the owner at Miss Uñas beauty parlor, about an edgy new design. 

Though smaller scorpions might seem less threatening, the local Centruroides Suffusus species can kill an adult human in under 20 minutes while measuring a non-whopping 4cm long. Over 1000 people were killed by them in Durango in 2015. 

This in mind, the trend is intriguing. The animals thrive locally, and are featured in many souvenirs and on adventurous menus, but this is a new adaptation of the toxic creatures. They remain poisonous after death, but are rendered more harmless after being shellacked with enough nail acrylic. 

Rocío Vidales. Photo: Tania Miranda for the Daily Mail

The manicure has drawn customers from states away and sparked similar trends throughout Mexico... as well as some outrage online. Perhaps it's the powerful metaphoric value, perhaps it's a grosser yet less disappointing version of the cronut. Regardless, let it not be said that beauty is only a search for aesthetic pleasure. Sometimes it seeks to entomb the bodies of our deadliest enemies. 

More background and details in this (Spanish language) video.

This morning at 6am, I cast my vote for President of the United States. Our non-American readers may wonder what the actual UX of our voting process is like. I'll tell you—it's surprisingly primitive.

Here in my district in downtown Manhattan, the nearest polling place is at an elementary school down the block. The kids have school off today. At 6am, there was little indication that a key function of our democratic process is being enacted within; just a few photocopied signs taped to the closed door that say "VOTE HERE" in English, Spanish and Chinese (representative of this neighborhood's dominant ethnicities).

Inside, I queued up in a hallway behind six people. A clearly posted sign and icon said "NO PHOTOS," but that didn't stop the Millennial girl in front of me from whipping out her smartphone and taking a photo of the crowded room beyond. I'll describe that room in a moment.

The bottleneck at the end of the hallway is for sorting voters according to their district. Weeks or months before the election, the U.S. government mails voter cards to each registered voter. These cards have your district printed on them.

The voter sorting process is a little more prosaic than it is at Hogwarts. No singing hat, just a towering, stern-faced woman asking if you know your district. Half of those in the queue had their voter cards, and were swiftly sent to one of the many folding plastic desks around the room that had white signs posted on them with district numbers. If you forgot your card at home, as I did, you had to wait in a second queue at a desk near the front of the room.

While waiting in this queue, you have a chance to observe the room, which—at least in New York City—is filled with a wonderful example of American diversity. Just about every race you can think of is represented. The voters were both young and old, while the volunteer staff was predominantly elderly. In terms of gender, males and females were present in roughly equal numbers, and the aforementioned stern-faced woman handling the sorting was, I am 90% sure, transgender.

At this second sorting line, three volunteers look up your address in a series of binders. Surprisingly, I did not have to show my ID, only state my address. They match your address to a district number, then send you to the appropriate district desk. There is an opportunity for confusion here because these desks have two numbers, one for "Election District" and one for "Assembly District." I overheard a couple of people being told they had mixed the numbers up and were at the wrong desk.

At this district desk, a second group of volunteers look up your name in a binder. I felt bad for the elderly woman doing the looking up at this desk, as she appeared on the verge of senility; though the binder's pages clearly featured alphabetical tabs along the margins, she had a lot of trouble finding people's names. The woman in front of me had a last name that began with a "T," yet the looker-upper began scanning the "V" page, could not find the name, and announced that Mrs. T must be at the wrong desk. She instructed her to go to the front of the room and start over.

Mrs. T patiently flipped through the binder to locate her own name and was finally given a ballot.

Then it was my turn. My last name begins with "N," and the woman tried to look me up on the "P" page. I politely pointed out the error, and she looked confused and flipped to "L." Eventually she worked her way through the book and found my name.

Next to each name is a blank signature box, which they ask you to sign. After you sign it, they hand you the ballot, a large white sheet of paper—it feels like it's two feet long—and a manila folder to enclose it within (presumably for privacy). Then you're sent to the back of the room, where the voting "booths" are.

I put "booths" in quotes because at this location, the "booth" is just a lectern with a white cardboard privacy shield around it on three sides. They looked like this: 

Image source: NBC New York

There were about twenty of these in the back of the room, mostly occupied. In the available "booth" that I took, the long red cord that is supposed to be attached to a pen was missing the pen, the ring having being pried open. Unbelievably, I suppose someone had stolen the pen.

I borrowed a pen from one of the district desks and went back to the "booth." On the inside of the privacy shield are instructions on how to fill the ballots out: Color in the oval next to your candidates' names, don't enter multiple votes, how to do a write-in vote, et cetera. 

Image source: Patch.com

I was surprised at how poor the graphic design of the ballots are, and really regret not sneaking a photo to show you; but as an example, look at this ballot from a past election:

As you can see, it would be easy for someone unfamiliar with the process—like the woman doing the looking-up at the district desk, for instance—to become confused. Let's say in the ballot above you are voting for Cuomo. You might mistakenly think you are meant to color in each oval next to Cuomo's name in each row, which would count as multiple votes and your ballot would then be discounted (likely without your knowledge). On the ballot I had this morning, both Presidential candidates were listed multiple times under multiple parties. In my sleepy state, I had to stop myself from coloring in more than one oval per section because the layout was confusing.

With the ballot filled out, you carry it across the room to the scanning machines. This is an LCD screen with a slot on the bottom. It looked like this:

Image source: silive

There are no instructions as to how to orient your ballot when inserting it. A woman standing next to the machine saw my confusion and said it didn't matter how you put it in.

I slid the ballot into the slot, which sucked it in, and expected to see some feedback on the screen repeating my choices. Instead it just said "YOUR VOTE HAS BEEN COUNTED. THANK YOU" and that was it. The woman next to the machine took my manila folder, I suppose they recirculate them.

All told, it took about twelve minutes start to finish. There's no coffee or donuts, like I've seen on some places in the news, this is New York so people are just in and out with no socializing or fuss.

I was surprised that no one ever asked to see my ID; if you are a registered voter and are in the correct book, that's all you need to be given a ballot. I'm not smart enough to know how this system could or couldn't be gamed, but I expected something a little more airport-security-like.

If you are an American voter in a different part of the country, I'm very curious to hear what the voting process is like in your neck of the woods. If you live in a different country, I'm twice as curious to know what voting is like over there. Please let us know in the comments below.

As we reported back in June, adidas and Parley for the Oceans did a neat job turning difficult recycled materials into an actually desirable concept shoe. The sustainable kicks were made from the equivalent of 11 plastic bottles and significant amounts of plastic reclaimed from abandoned netting ocean waste in the Maldives. After over a year of trying material development, nearly 95% of the shoe—from heel to lining to laces—was made from reused material. 

However, despite high level acclaim (they even presented at the UN) the adidas x Parley shoe was a hyper limited beta edition, with just 50 pairs raffled off in an online contest.

Fast forward to today, and it looks like green-leaning hypebeasts might be in luck after all. The company has announced plans to make ~7,000 pairs of their Ultraboost with Parley Plastic available both in adidas stores and on the adidas website come mid-November. 

The shoes will retail at around $220 (€200) and are just the first in an upcoming line of Parley collab performance gear, all incorporating reclaimed materials. The line will mentionably include official jerseys and kit for Madrid CF and FC Bayern Munich... a couple of the biggest teams out there. 

Past limited editions and clothing for footy players, the footwear company has committed to using Parley Ocean Plastic in one million pairs of shoes, and has established the goal of eliminating virgin plastic from their supply chain overall.

This speaks volumes about the work and dedication of the material developers and plastics activists behind the scenes. Their reframing of difficult, polluting materials may help steer a major international brand into cleaner waters.

The School of Design and Institute of Design Innovation at The Glasgow School of Art seek an experienced, dynamic and highly organized academic to act as Program Leader for the Design Innovation Postgraduate Taught portfolio of degree awards. This post is central to the formulation, co-ordination and delivery of the curriculum and ensuring a high quality teaching and learning environment for all students.

If you want to fix a busted femur the new fashioned way, it might start off a little squishy. 'Hyperelastic Bone' is a newly proposed method for healing bone, and it has some particularly modern elements. First off it's 3D printed, and second it's a lot softer than the bones you've got. The flexible biomaterial can be printed into patient-specific structures, and produced at a reported rate of 275 square centimeters per hour. It's made from an elastic polymer, plus calcium mineral found in human bones and teeth.

3D printed bone scaffold for vertibrae

Once in the body, it acts as a soft, porous and nonreactive scaffold that shores up the bone while allowing for blood flow. In the lab, the material's composition helped promote bone and tissue regrowth in mice and rats, with few indications of rejection. Though forgiving, the material can withstand loads up to 150 pounds. And thanks to the material's flexibility, surgeons can install it without glue or more invasive attachments. 

I find this weirdly charming

These features could make surgeries on damaged, broken and deformed bones simpler and more likely to promote long-term healing. 

The innovative material was spearheaded by a team at Northwestern University in Chicago, and outlined in Science Translational Medicine. If things go right, being rubber legged after surgery might be a great road to recovery. 

The Vivio 500 fabric steamer was our first project for the Reliable Corporation, a family run company based in Toronto. Reliable has a highly regarded reputation in the garment care category, however, the garment steamers they offered were out dated in their form and not up to par with the company’s other product offerings. Reliable didn’t set out to “remake” the product but to rather improve upon what already exists.

When it comes to maintaining a portfolio in the midst of professional life as a designer, what you can and cannot include can sometimes get murky—when your designs gets tied up in the brand identity of specific companies and their inner workings, it's hard to know sometimes what is acceptable to share. This difficulty in discerning what to do about this generated a recent question from a Core77 discussion board member: 

"I've been working in a corporate ID role for about 5 years now. My current organization doesn't have more room for growth, and I will be interviewing at a few places in the coming weeks for a more senior position. Over the course of 5 years, I've had more of the projects that I work on get cancelled than not. Leaving me with a portfolio of finished projects that doesn't look like 5 years of work. There are also a few projects that I am currently working on, and I've always gone with the mantra that it's OK to show work that has been released, etc etc. As you know corporate design tends to drag its feet and my current projects have been underway for more than a year.

My main question is: Is it acceptable to show this work (the cancelled projects)? I haven't included it in my portfolio that got me in the door, but I'd like to be able to show more to the hiring managers. As a hiring manager what would you recommend? What would you do in this situation?"

Core77 readers had this to say in response:

Explore Your Options

"I think you have a few options here:

1. get permission from your boss. Has its obvious draw backs of you boss knowing you are looking.
2. if the project is truly dead and you don't think you will be infringing on any IP then you can make that call
3. beef up your portfolio with some side projects that communicate what you have learned" — yo

Know Your Audience

"Public portfolio: never. Private: Sometimes. 

As others have said, know your audience. If you are at Ford and you get an interview at Dodge, assume that everyone at both companies is going to find out about the interview and what you did or didn't show. If you are interviewing at Bouty Chairs (different industry, different region), assume that no one will ever find out.
Second is how you use it. Don't lead with, "This is a super top secret never to be disclosed prototype I worked on.". Keep it incomplete, vague and punch up the skill it is showing. ie show a render, prototype detail, sketch but not a 60 page technical package.

Third, modify it. If you want to show your mechanical abilities, show an exploded view with no recognizable features or logos. That way, you show your ability and keep the confidentiality of whatever the design was...

Lastly, you can always ask your boss, just practice the conversation in your head before hand. "Hey, next time I update my portfolio, could I toss in that derailleur gear concept we canned?" Lots of coulds-woulds-ifs makes it seem like you have no immediate plan. Just plan for follow up questions in case the boss is paranoid." — Mr-914

Understand the Risk

"I know people who have gotten fired for sharing client concept work - it's a very small industry and you never know if your new interviewing manager is your current managers former college roommate. If any part of you feels that you shouldn't show it, then you probably shouldn't. 

As mentioned, if your portfolio is too weak without these projects, consider looking at your weakest skills and doing a project that specifically demonstrates your skills in that area. Does your portfolio not show your awesome CAD skills because your company makes garage door openers? Spend a few weekends modeling a sports car."— Cyberdemon

Another comment from SophieHortonJones reflects the idea that audience certainly should be considered, stating it may just be more safe to avoid legal grey areas altogether: 

"I definitely agree with the 'if it hasn't been released, don't show it' view. Even if it's not in the same sector of design, it's a small world, and a small world of designers who talk to each other! I once interviewed a candidate who stated talking about unreleased product, they even started the line with "I probably shouldn't talk about this, but....", it made it worse that they knew they shouldn't be talking about it, it didn't give me much confidence that they wouldn't do the same with any of our work!!

I think most employers will understand that you've worked on products that have been dropped or shelved, it's all part of the design process. I'd agree with Yo, beef up your portfolio with alternative examples of work, or even demonstrate how you work as well as what you've worked on."

____________________________

Knowing whether a cancelled project is OK to include in your portfolio isn't the only subtlety worth mentioning when it comes to managing an archive of your work—what are some other tips you've learned about maintaining a professional portfolio you have personally found to be helpful? 

Contribute your thoughts in the comment feed below or add your voice to the original discussion board post!

For those of you that do FDM 3D printing: Wouldn't it be awesome if you could recycle your mis-prints, old prints and discarded designs into new filament? Well, now you can. Dutch company 3devo Technology has developed not one, but two industrial-grade filament extruders in a nifty desktop size.

At roughly 20" square by 8.5" wide, the machines aren't much bigger than a PC tower. Both models allow you to start with raw pellets of ABS, PLA, PET, PVA and other types of plastics and turn them into filament yourself. You can also use the machines to help save the environment by recycling existing plastic, provided you have a way to grind it—drop the ground material into the hopper, and the machine does the rest.

The machines can create 0.7kg (about 1.5 pounds) of filament per hour. The company reckons using one will "lower the cost of 3D printing by a factor of 7 by using regrind or virgin pellets to make filament."

As mentioned, they come in two flavors. The Next 1.0 is aimed at "makers, 3D printing shops and universities" and runs €3,100.00 (roughly USD $3,400). The Advanced model is for high-temperature engineering plastics, making it suitable for "compounders, extrusion companies, researchers, [and] plastics companies" and costs a bit more at €3,950 (roughly USD $4,350). You can learn more here.

Remember Australian industrial designer Duncan Hellmers' Blub nixie tube clocks from 2014? To refresh your memory, they looked like this:

Hellmers had massive success with them on Kickstarter, seeking just $5,000 but grossing $61,783. Now he's back with the Blub Keo, a more refined, minimalist design, and has launched another campaign to fund them:

It's kind of tough to tell how large it is in the video, so here it is next to a soda can for scale:

I'm kind of torn: I like the four-digit, instant readability of the original Blub but don't like the chunky base, and I like the stripped-down design of the Keo but am too impatient to read the time one digit at a time. If there was a happy medium between the two designs, I'd be fully on-board.

Then again, Hellmers doesn't need my help; he's already at $15,500 on a $6,870 goal. If you're down to pledge, the Keos start at $304 and you've got 14 days left.

I figured that if Elon Musk's Hyperloop system ever became reality, it would essentially be a super-fast train system. Meaning we'd enter at a Hyperloop station in L.A. and exit at a Hyperloop station in San Francisco. But the forthcoming Hyperloop One system in Dubai, designed by Bjarke Ingels Group, will actually get riders from door to door.

To explain: Hyperloop One, which signed a deal with the Dubai Roads and Transport Authority, has BIG providing the design muscle. The collaboration has yielded the idea that self-driving Hyperpods could pick passengers up anywhere in the city, like an Uber. These six-person-capacity Hyperpods would then drive to the Hyperportal and load itself onto a Transport Capsule, the actual thing that shoots through the Hyperloop tube. At the other end, the 'pod exits the Transport Capsule and drives the passengers to their destination.

In essence, this means there is no hanging around at the station waiting for your train to arrive; the Transport Capsules leave on demand. For this reason they're not even calling them "stations," but "Hyperportals." As Ingels explains:

"With Hyperloop One we have given form to a mobility ecosystem of pods and portals, where the waiting hall has vanished along with waiting itself. Hyperloop One combines collective commuting with individual freedom at near supersonic speed. We are heading for a future where our mental map of the city is completely reconfigured, as our habitual understanding of distance and proximity – time and space – is warped by this virgin form of travel."

Josh Giegel, Hyperloop One's President of Engineering, puts it more bluntly: "We don't sell cars, boats, trains, or planes. We sell time."

Etihad Towers Hyperportal, View from East, Abu Dhabi

"The ring shaped portal spans over its busy intersection at three locations. Three massive cores offer access from the Corniche Road level and allow the structure to suspend column-free from one side of the street to the other, allowing for the free flow of traffic beneath."

Etihad Towers Hyperportal, Aerial View, Abu Dhabi

"The Etihad Towers Portal is, in essence, a gigantic pedestrian bridge wrapping over and around the busy intersection between Abu Dhabi's landmark and the Emirates Palace hotel. Its loop-like shape is a literal extension of the transport tube that emerges from a tunnel beneath the city."

Burj Khalifa Hyperportal, View from Main Entrance, Dubai. 

"Upon entering the portal, travelers can see all of the departing pods at once, a reminder that people are at the center of the network. The circular departure terraces form a visually inspiring arena with a green oasis at the center of the building."

Hyperpod Interior, Group Option

"The 'Group' configuration allows small teams to interact and even work during the Hyperloop trip. The herringbone bench angles the passengers slightly in the direction of travel during acceleration phases, but allows them to turn around and socially engage when required."

Hyperpod Interior, Lounge Option

"The 'Lounge' pod provides a comfortable environment for people traveling alone. The angle of the seats creates privacy without compartmentalizing the space. Black leather and bent wood create a simple and elegant feel for the interior."

The plan is for the Hyperloop to whisk passengers from Dubai to Abu Dhabi—ordinarily a two-hour drive—in just twelve minutes. 

You can learn more about the project here.

We’re looking for an experienced and creative mechanical engineer to design, optimize and execute hardware development. The work will require highly integrated and innovative design with the likelihood of generating IP along the way. You must have experience in consumer electronics (handheld an advantage) and a solid knowledge of the iterative product development cycle. Expertise in plastic part manufacturing, injection molding and tooling design essential.

Taking photos with a device on your wrist sounds like something straight out of Star Trek. Now, with Glide's CMRA Apple Watch strap, it's not such an outrageous concept. Designed by IDEO for Glide, the dual camera equipped strap gives the Apple Watch full photo and video capabilities, making up for what the smart watch is currently lacking. 

Among CMRA's many features is its most notable attribute—its clever dual camera placement: 

An 8MP outward-facing camera is situated on the outside of the strap, and a 2MP self-facing camera rests on top of a small shelf above the watch's face. A light next to the self-facing camera let's you know when the cameras are activated or in use.

The placement of the cameras appears to make the action of taking photos with your wrist as natural as it could possibly be. At first, holding your wrist out at things may feel a bit silly (as demonstrated in the above video), but hey—it's probably easier than whipping your phone out every five seconds, especially since the days of swiping up to use your iPhone camera while it's locked are over. 

The two cameras allow photo and video chatting through the watch's interface, without using an iPhone as the middleman. In fact, CMRA doesn't need an iPhone to function at all—the dual HD cameras are controlled through the strap's companion Apple Watch app. Users can also share photos and videos to social media channels directly through the app, instead of switching back and forth between watch and phone. If you do want to look at the photos you take on your phone, any photos you take with the strap automatically transfer to your phone's camera roll anyways.

The strap's storage isn't too shabby either—CMRA's 8GB embedded memory lets it act as an external storage unit, and a single charge allows you to capture hundreds of photos or 30 minutes of video. When the strap gets tired, its dual charging station charges both the Apple Watch and CMRA, so the device doesn't take up any extra counter space.

IDEO's design process from sketch to prototype.

"Life's spontaneous moments happen fast and are easy to miss. Having a camera instantly accessible on the wrist makes capturing and sharing incredibly simple and convenient. As smart watches become independent of the phone, wrist cameras will become commonplace for capturing memories and communicating visually. We are thrilled to be the first to deliver on this long-awaited vision—something science fiction has imagined for over half a century."

CMRA is now available for a discounted $149 pre-order price—get 'em while they're hot.

I'm curious to hear your thoughts: Will cell phones become arbitrary if we can do everything with a wrist watch?