I have a friend who works for a major corporation, a Fortune 100 company that will remain nameless. A respectable place to work. But for months I've been following, on social media, her frustration with an unknown thief or thieves in her office who have stolen her phone charger, who surreptitiously drain her tissue box and who have repeatedly pilfered her almond butter out of the break room 'fridge.

She's not been able to solve the first two, but now she's put a stop to the latter with this:

It's not only a real product, but is stocked at major retailers. What surprised me most as I read through the product reviews is just how much of a market there is for this—not just in an office, but in people's homes. One disabled woman wrote that her boyfriend's live-in brother wouldn't stop stealing her food, so she picked one of these up and trumpets that "My peanut butter has [now] lasted almost a month." Another put a stop to roommates pilfering protein bars. And of course there are tales of milk going missing at work.

I am dying to interview a 'fridge-raiding bandit to understand what the mentality is. But since I doubt one would be willing to pipe up here, I'll ask some questions of the victims:

1. Have you ever had anything stolen out of your office 'fridge?
2. Did you subsequently consider laying any traps, surveillance or thief-deterring strategies?
3. Did you catch the thief?
4. Would you buy this product?

The Fridge Locker appears to be a successful product design, being sold everywhere from the Container Store to Walmart to Amazon. Congratulations to the designer, and shame on those who have necessitated its design in the first place.

Whether you self identify as a musician or not, the idea of banging on everything around you and calling it art is enticing. But now, rather than having a Freudian return to childhood with pots and pans, you can create your own instruments with an open toolkit even your snobby audiophile friends will be interested by. Dadamachines is a project started by Johannes Lohbihler, aiming to make tinkering with nontraditional instruments more accessible and even more fun. 

The currently Kickstarting Automat Toolkit blends digital signal—via music program, app or midi instrument—with physical controllers to make percussive sound. The toolkit offers the central Automat control box with USB and midi input and up to 12 outputs for DC motor driven hitters. These little hitters are also included, and come with adapters for placement on acoustically interesting surfaces and mic stands, making experimenting even easier. 

The Dadamachine ethos is pointedly experimental, so the kit is fittingly compatible with most common audio programs, and intentionally friendly to hacking and arduino adaptation.

The project started over three years ago, and has been tested and shared with musicians all over the world. The system has been integrated into stage plays and recording sessions, but it also offers simple hands-on fun for musical n00bs.

Nontraditional musicality may have ancient roots, but tools like this might help share the creative spark in an often hands-off digital era. Dadamachines might be just the thing for young and previously unmusical composers.

As of last year, mobile gaming revenue surpassed that of console and PC. Angry Birds or Pokémon Go may be great ways to kill time, but digital games need not be solitary pursuits confined to screens—on the contrary, distraction can aspire to reveal something more profound. Case in point, a series of interactive games developed by the Master students in the Media Design department of HEAD Genève, unveiled in Milan last week.

Easily a highlight of the Fuorisalone, Salone Ludico was tucked away on a side street of the Brera District, away from the bustling retail arteries where design-week revelers spill into the streets when the wine starts flowing. From April 4–9, the students transformed Mimmo Scognamiglio Artecontemporanea into a futuristic gaming den, a "salone ludico," the latter term meaning "play." The space may have resembled a white-walled gallery space at first glance, but the projects on view were less objets d'art than properly interactive artworks—proposals to show both for how gaming can be more than mere distraction, and  how design can mean more than just tables and chairs.

From a card game based on particle physics to a supine VR experience of the afterlife, all 12 of the projects—upwards of 18 months in the making—are thoughtfully conceived and rigorously executed. Standouts included Benoît Renaudin's speculative wunderkamer from 3017 (featuring Swiss-designed items enhanced by audio commentary), and Margaux Charvolin and Jessica Friedling's app-powered alchemical cocktail-making contraption.

"Murmures" by Benoît Renaudin

"Penultimo" by Margaux Charvolin and Jessica Friedling.

Detail view of Penultimo

But the best part was that the projects weren't merely on view—to be admired and photographed for social media—but that they worked more or less flawlessly: Visitors could actually navigate "Bloodbank," a side-scrolling video game, with a lit match; experience a "concert" at home via "KBPS"; and, of course, actually taste the cocktail that they just whipped up.

Doesn't that sound better than star ratings or experience points?

"Ximoan" by Patrick Donaldson, Yoann Douillet, Raphaël Henocq and Laurent Monnet

"Oniri Islands" by Marion Bareil and Tourmaline Studio

"DarkLight" by Sarah Bourquin, Jessica Friedling, Valérie Pierrehumbert and Eun-Sun Lee

"Democrapcy" by Yoann Douillet, Mélissa Pisler, Israel Viadest, Marion Bareil and Léa Schönfelder

"Gravity" by Sébastien Beureux, Jessica Friedling, Charles-Henri Hayoz and Vincent de Vevey, adapted from PadPad by Jérémie Lasnier

More information about the exhibition and all of the projects is available at SaloneLudico.ch.

In partnership with Autodesk, the fifth edition of the Cradle to Cradle Product Design Challenge is currently accepting applications. The bi-annual challenge encourages designers to focus on sustainability through a design process that includes Cradle to Cradle certified materials and the use of Autodesk Fusion 360. 

Past Best Use of Aluminum winner, AtoB Seat by Michiel Meurs

The challenges's reoccurring categories of entry are Best Professional Project, Best Student Project, Best use of Autodesk Fusion 360 and Best Use of Aluminum. This year, a fifth category has been added entitled Best use of Cradle to Cradle Certified Materials to further encourage outstanding application of Cradle to Cradle's extensive list of approved sustainable materials.

Past Best Professional Product winner, Banana Stem Fiber Packaging by Brayan Stiven Pabón Gómez and Rafael Ricardo Moreno Boada

Before jumping into the traditional design process, Cradle to Cradle requires applicants to complete an online course that covers the principles and strategies for designing products for a circular, regenerative future. Then, applicants are able to virtually shop Cradle to Cradle's list of certified materials, which includes hundreds of sustainable material options—from eco-friendly woods to BioFoam to Moisturizing oil. 

Applications for Cradle to Cradle must be submitted by May 14, 2017. Get started here!

To browse past winning projects, visit last year's Cradle to Cradle coverage here and here or visit Cradle to Cradle's Design Challenge IV Winners list.

Connect is our newest product team at Ableton and is responsible for making Link, our technology that allows Live, iOS apps and other music software to seamlessly play in time. Link is just the beginning of their mission to better connect instruments and musicians. As part of

Global shipping company Shentong Express (a/k/a STO) is China's answer to UPS. To increase efficiency—and cut human staff—they've designed this rather amazing facility consisting of a huge open floor punctuated by a grid of square holes that open onto chutes. Human beings pull parcels off of a conveyor belt and place them on the robots, which then do most of the work. Check out the traffic:

China's People's Daily states that "The company estimates its robotic sorting system is saving around 70-percent of the costs a human-based sorting line would require," while the South China Morning Post reports that "An STO Express spokesman [says] that the robots had helped the company save half the costs it typically required to use human workers."

The savings is massive no matter which figure is correct, and this will certainly lead to less human employment for STO. "We use these robots in two of our centres in Hangzhou right now," said the STO spokesman. "We want to start using these across the country, especially in our bigger centres."

This is incredible! A company called SPI has developed a camera so absurdly sensitive that the thing can shoot on a moonless night and make the resulting footage look like it was shot under the sun. And the X27, as it's called, does this in real time, in full color. Take a look at this:

It's hard to believe that was shot at night, until the camera pans up to the stars.

Look at how the X27—which is capable of an insane 5,000,000 ISO—stacks up against conventional night vision in this side-by-side shot:

Here's a longer video of the X27 versus competing technologies with more side-by-side comparisons:

The difference is, quite literally, night and day. And while Hollywood could save a bundle on lighting costs here, it is of course the military that's going to get first crack at this.

I will never tire of looking inside artists' studios. Check out visual artist Tenka Gammelgaard's Copenhagen digs:

In addition to the beauty of Gammelgaard's space and work, how killer is that lamp? Designed by Ron Gilad for Dutch brand moooi in 2003, it's called the Dear Ingo. (That's a tip of the hat to famed lighting designer Ingo Maurer, and you can read a conversation between Gilad and Maurer here.)

Sixteen lamps bristle from the powder-coated steel hub.

Looks pretty sweet in white, too.

"Care is required," reads the product copy, "when arranging the task lamp composition." I assume the steel hub is heavy, but there's still probably a bit of balancing required to keep the thing steady.

By the bye, here's some training for the spotting of unauthorized knock-offs. Can you tell why the one in the photos below--which is being sold on AliExpress and even has Gilad's name shamelessly slapped on it--is not the real deal?

FAKE:

Any industrial designer among you should have been able to spot the differences right away. If not, shame on you.

Back in 2003 incandescent bulbs were still the thing, and with 16 60-watt bulbs in this lamp you'd have a maximum wattage of 960. Nowadays we can deliver the same amount of lumens with a fraction of the wattage just by swapping in LED bulbs. AND I'd love to see Gilad update the Dear Ingo's function by adding some Arduino, small servos and an app; how cool would it be if you could remotely position each lamp, dim the lighting and changing the bulbs' colors independently?

This sounds like something a competent maker could DIY together. I'm not saying they should, of course, due to copyrights and such. But if someone were to do it, preferably Gilad himself, it ought to be called the Dear Ron.

Hundreds of thousands of tons end fabric waste up in landfill in the U.S. alone every year. Lintite is a new material made of dryer lint and concrete that aims to reduce some of this waste. This past week, Daniel Lev Coleman debuted his new collection of lintite furniture at Milan Design Week.

If you aren't an ardent consumer of car design, you might have missed Consumer, Josh Ruiter's newest and most aggressive mechanical concept. The designer and artist has previously directed his extreme gaze to bikes, mopeds, snowmobiles, and dune buggies, and more, so the odd minimalism of the Consumer Car should come as no surprise.

Except it does, because it's bonkers. This "commuter" car is a car in only the loose motor-plus-four-wheels sense. It's an open topped block, wrapped with trapezoidal darkness and enough flat black paint to hide it from spy drones. It looks like what you might get if you handed an alien a blank for a pinewood derby car. It's a Tron vehicle from the darkest possible timeline. 

Beyond the blockfullness, the most notable feature is the enormous two-way mirror grill That covers the three enormously bright (54,000 lumens??) LED panels. It's tipped to avoid blinding other cars, and wrapped around by the air intake. The whole car is low, boxy, ominous and just sort of… impossible looking.

No door to get your seat belt stuck in. Nice.

Talking with Motor1, Ruiter noted that the Consumer's design, "consumes everything, light darkness, air and space." And where most car design starts with the four wheels and moves around, he aimed to obliterate even those steadying visual cues. So the project, aimed at stripping auto commuting down to its core, is more than a refutation of contemporary car culture. It's a pointed divergence from most of the visual and mechanical assumptions made about the essential traits of cars.

I'll admit I didn't cover the Consumer when it first dropped last December, probably because I was feeling a bit unenthusiastic about totalitarian futurism at the time. But I've had some time to consider the dark side of technological advancement and decided that it's better to look Darth Maul design straight in the face. This thing challenges almost all assumptions about car design without straying into the literally impossible, and if that isn't sneakily optimistic I don't know what is.

With today's rapidly dissolving boundaries in design, it's appropriate that more and more design programs are exploring the possibilities in between disciplines. At last year's Core77 conference, the theme of co-creation explored this idea, and at the 2017 Milan Design Week, Lexus highlighted their own brand commitment to finding innovation in the in-between spaces. Now in it's fifth year, the Lexus Design Award engages emerging designers to consider design as a tool to build a better tomorrow and this year's theme focused on the theme of "Yet." 

"By harmonizing contradictory elements, 'Yet' opens up visionary frontiers of progressive design and technology to deliver amazing new experiences to the world," the press materials explain. From over a thousand entries from 62 countries, 12 finalists were chosen to present their ideas at the Triennale Design Museum in Milan during the Salone del Mobile. Of the finalists, four were selected to prototype their designs with mentorship from design heavyweights including Neri & Hu, Max Lamb, Elena Manferdini and Snarkitecture. 

PIXEL by Hiroto Yoshizoe

The winner chosen amongst the four prototyped projects was Hiroto Yoshizoe's PIXEL, mentored by Snarkitecture, an architectural structure that creates an experience of "light YET shadow." Employing a screen of repeating visors, PIXEL combines the digital and physical experience in a unique and poetic way by repeated, internal reflection of colored LED lights. Daniel Arsham of Snarkitecture shares that the project, "references architectural traditions and precedent like the idea of an architectural screen but does this in a simple way. It also has a strong relationship between digital technology and in contrast, in a sort of analog way, directs the tactile experience." By pixelizing imagery and translating it onto the screen, Yoshizoe's project becomes both a screen and a device for diving space and connecting users at the same time.

FINALIST PROJECTS

Player's Pflute by Jia Wu // Mentored by Max Lamb

Inspired by her friend, a music teacher's struggle to find ways to engage her young students, Wu designed a set of tools to transform fruits and vegetables into musical instruments. A "vegetable YET a musical instrument," the Player's Pflute encourages children to create music through a highly improvisational and exploratory instrument-making process. Not only can children assemble their own musical instrument, but it also lowers the financial barrier of buying a musical instrument to give all children access to music education and play.

Having Nothing, and Yet Possessing Everything by Ahran Won // Mentored by Neri & Hu

This modular capsule of individual crates contains everything one would need for everyday living while allowing for optimal mobility. Stackable and multifunctional, each crate can be allocated to a specific task—cooking, washing, sleeping—and reappropriated as one's needs shift in a nomadic lifestyle.

Structural Color by Jessica Fugler // Mentored by Elena Manferdini

Structural Color is a tile-based architectural system that allows users to change the pattern and color by simply rotating the tiles within the object. Based on a natural phenomenon by the same name, Fugler was inspired by the ways that colors are perceived differently depending on the angle of each cell and the light—think butterfly wings or bird feathers. "Static YET changing," the individual tiles have different colors for each side and by a short rotation, large-scale structures or facades can be altered with little manual intervention.

Your average County Fair amusement park ride is controlled by some ex-con pushing a joystick and looking forward to his next cigarette break. But what if riders could control the machine themselves, in a hands-free way?

Artist/designer Daniel de Bruin has actually developed such a machine. The Neurotransmitter 3000, which de Bruin straps himself into below, is controlled by "biometric data he obtains by sensors on his body. Heart rate, body temperature, orientation / gravity and muscle tension are measured and translated to variations in motion."

"Thus, not only responds De Bruins body on the movements of the Neurotransmitter, the Neurotransmitter also responds to his body:"

De Bruin collaborated with designers Bas Bakx and Pim Keunen to bring the Neurotransmitter 3000 to life.

Who We Are: REA is a brand and marketing agency that turns breakthrough ideas into transformative experiences. We create with impact in mind, delivering creative solutions that give real estate brands and businesses a competitive edge. With this fierce passion to challenge and change the real estate

Who makes the best IKEA hacks? After last week's IKEA Festival during Milan's Design Week, the clear winner is IKEA. For their first official foray into presenting during the festivities of Salone del Mobile (2015's kitchen-focused presentation in Tortona was also meant to address the throngs of visitors for Expo Milan), IKEA did it big, taking over a huge warehouse in Ventura Lambrate with multiple vignettes curated by influencers like designer Faye Toogood, the editors of OpenHouse, and interior stylists Anna & Pella, as well as daily programming, live art, product debuts and of course, meatballs. 

Faye Toogood had a great showing in Milan and her installation for IKEA was a platform to showcase her signature affinity for white paint and theatrical approach—collapsing scale, dimension and surface in whimsical and unexpected arrangements of interior objects. 

"Enfant Terrible" repurposed beloved IKEA classics into a wonderland of mismatched furniture replete with an adult-friendly slide, and an oversized couch plucked from Pee-Wee's to populate Faye's Playhouse.

YPPERLIG Chairs designed by HAY for IKEA.

But perhaps the most understated but most anticipated of the festival's goings-on was the debut of two highly anticipated designer collaborations—the YPPERLIG collection by Hay and the DELAKTIG by Tom Dixon. YPPERLIG was teased last year with an abstract film jointly released by the companies that contained no reference to actual pieces of furniture but alluded to a mood that might guide the collection. Chairs from the yet-to-released collection were some of the most enviable products on display.

DELAKTIG by Tom Dixon for IKEA.

Similarly, the DELAKTIG was designed to address the increasing expectations from the modern city-dweller of the products that populate their life. Designed for "hacking," the DELAKTIG is a daybed of sorts, what IKEA calls, "an open platform for social living," that can work as a primary couch, a guest bed, in the corner of a room or as a centerpiece with infinite possibilities for add-ons on its steel frame. As Dixon told The New York Times in an interview about the collaboration, "It's very much something that can mutate according to your changing conditions. You could put on a lamp, a phone charger, a side table. You could raise or lower it, or put it on wheels. It can easily go from being a student bed to a really posh couch, and then back again when you have kids."

More scenes from 2017's IKEA Festival at Milan Design Week

Painting Robot plotting to take over the world.

Painting robot in action.

Soft seating IKEA Hack

Soft Spot main stage for programming encouraged a lot of lounging.

SPACE10, IKEA's living lab in Copenhagen, prototyped an open-source garden pavilion.

New rug collection.

Small vignettes curated by Anna & Pella featured artisans working in the space. 

Tailor working in an Anna & Pella vignette.

Painter working in an Anna & Pella vignette.

UK-based Derek Jones is a full-time woodworker, writer and editor at Furniture & Cabinetmaking magazine. He's come up with this clever, innovative trick for modifying a pencil for use in a marking gauge:

See more from Jones' Instagram here. 

For those of you unfamiliar with marking gauges, Joel Moskowitz wrote about them earlier:

- Tools & Craft #25: The Easy Way to Use a Marking Gauge

- Tools & Craft #12: How to Quickly Find the Center of a Board's Edge

This article originally appeared on Coroflot, Core77's Design Job site. Visit their blog for more insight on working, and recruiting, in the creative professions.

Y'all ready for this? The time has come—we are now accepting entries for our first ever Sketch Jam event, which is taking place during Design Week Portland. On Wednesday, April 26th, we will be welcoming some of the finest creative talent for what promises to be the most high-concept, highflying, and downright fun sketching competition you've ever seen. The competition will be judged by five of Portland's most talented sketch-perts from companies like Adidas, Nike, Under Armour, and more. The judges will oversee a series of themed bracket competitions featuring members of Coroflot and Portland's vibrant design community. There will be live play-by-play commentary from ComedySportz. Stay tuned to the Coroflot blog and social media pages for specific details on each round of the competition.

Sketch Jam is open to all levels, from students to pros. Potential competitors will be personally reviewed by the Coroflot team to see if they have the mad skills to face off on the sketch court. The emphasis for this competition will be on product design, ranging from footwear to household objects, all of which will be sketched in a variety of fun and challenging rounds.

Competitors will be competing not only for a chance to prove their sketching prowess, but also for a chance to win a glorious Wacom Cintiq 27, which the company has generously donated. In addition to the main event, Wacom will have a hands-on table at the Sketch Jam event where you can try out their newest products, talk shop, and enter a raffle to WIN a new Wacom Intuos Pro Paper pen tablet. Sweet!

Rules for Entry

To be considered for competition, you must create a Coroflot talent profile.

Once your talent profile is complete, you will only be allowed to apply to compete in the event one time.

Please make sure that you must be available in-person from 5:00PM - 10:00PM PST on the date and location of the event.

The deadline for entries is Wednesday, April 20th at 11:59PM PST. All contestants will be notified of their entry status by Friday, April 22nd.

ENTER NOW!

This transcendent little light recently caught my eye over on Coroflot, where it's adding some shine to Quentin de Coster's design portfolio. The Halo is a blown glass table lamp, created around the fluorescent ring bulb at the center. The light stands 40cm high and 33cm wide, with a distinctive open top. 

The profile isn't exactly shocking, particularly with the continued popularity around mid-century "mushroom" style lamps. But in this case, the open-air top gives the lamp a vase-like feeling, while still casting gently colored and refracted light. With the direct view of the bulb, it's a gentle inversion of a familiar table lamp's body and shade. 

The Halo lamps were hand blown and finished and produced in a limited run of 18 by L'Atelier du Val. 

Lighting design can be difficult to judge objectively, since ambiance and style are both highly personal and space specific. Innovating in that space is similarly difficult—we've been making light sources since we figured out fire—and subtle material tweaks like these go a long way.

You can check out more of de Coster's playful and attractive work here.

Design, like nearly every aspect of life today, is often as much about how the projects are represented in media as they are about their function or user experience. For anyone who is vicariously following along with design events and exhibitions via screen-based media such as Facebook, Instagram, and the internet in general (including this very website), the image is paramount.

Of course, design has long started with two-dimensional representations — dessiner, of course, means "to draw" in French — but between the prevalence of social media and the development of new production methods, designers are exploring new connections between the second and the third dimension. Fresh from Milan design week, here are a selection of recent projects that either push the boundaries of 2D into 3D or vice versa, flattening matter into image.

Paravents by Muller van Severen

The Antwerp-based design duo Muller van Severen achieve their signature aesthetic by transforming two-dimensional materials into 3D forms with minimal modification. During design week, the exhibition Fireworks marked the debut of the five new pieces, made from folded sheets of enameled steel. The venue itself was also noteworthy, as Massimo De Carlo presented the pieces in a panoramic seventh-floor space in a quiet residential neighborhood near the Politecnico di Milano.

via Instagram

Still Motion by Primeira Pedra

For the second installment of the ongoing research program Primeira Pedra ("First Stone"), curator Guta Moura Guedes of Lisbon-based experimentadesign commissioned a series of original works from five graphic design studios. Specifically, the designers explored the potential of Portuguese stone as a kind of surface or texture, translating marble and limestone into both abstract and representational works of art. Following its debut at the Triennale di Milano, Still Motion will also scheduled to travel to London Design Festival in September.

Ian Anderson (GB) - "Atoms Vectors Pixels Ghosts (Stone)™"

Sagmeister & Walsh (US) - "Don't Look Back"

Jorge Silva (PT) - "Pictorama"

Pedro Falcão (PT) - "El Lissitzky"

Jonathan Barnbrook (GB) - "The Age of Reason" (detail view)

Jonathan Barnbrook (GB) - "The Age of Reason" (diptych view)

Finsa by Envisions

The photogenic Envisions exhibition traveled to NYCxDesign following its debut in Milan last year, with a subsequent edition during Dutch Design Week 2016. This time around, the Dutch collective has partnered with Spanish wood manufacturer Finsa, presenting the results at Atelier Clerici. In keeping with their process-centric premise, the 12 members experimented with chipboard, MDF, laminates, and veneers, creating a polychromatic panoply of abstract pieces in various scales.

"Drawn to Production" by Sigve Knutson

Another young talent made a strong debut in Milan this year, showing with Beirut-based Carwan Gallery in two central locations — the newly minted Foyer Gorani and the Hotel Senato — as well as the Dutch Invertuals group exhibition in the Isola district. Norwegian designer Sigve Knutson offers yet another approach to transmuting two dimensions into three, starting with impressionistic drawings of textured forms and subsequently determining how to materialize them into pseudo-functional sculptures.

"Open Rugs" by Studio Plott

Last but not least, Studio Plott showcased their latest experiments with 3D printing textiles. Printed from thermoplastic and textile fiber, the graphically appealing open-mesh structures are intended to function as "fabrics." Besides their presentation in Ventura Lambrate, the project was also on view in the Einundzwanzig group exhibition across town in the Tortona neighborhood.

My first job out of college was designing power tools for Black & Decker in the '80s. Not the consumer-grade stuff; I worked in the Industrial Construction division—I'm talking aluminum housings, no plastic, real bearings, expensive tools. We produced the best power tools made in the USA at that time with real innovation. Our competitors were other industrial tool makers like Milwaukee, Metabo, and Festo (which later became Festool).

During that time the B&D consumer division was making three grades of not-so-great tools which were what you would buy in Sears and normal stores. This was before Makita and Hitachi had any real impact in the market. (Ten years later all of this was gone. None of the professional grade tool companies in the US are left - they are brands only.)

I was no power-tool-designing genius but I learned a tremendous amount in the year and a half I worked there. I learned from my colleagues, I learned by watching. I still quote from my experiences there to the folks here at Tools for Working Wood. It was an amazing time for me.

At lunchtime we'd walk the length of the factory to the company cafeteria and back, passing the company store. We used to pop by the store at least once or twice a week where we could buy various seconds of tools, the odd souvenir and things like this very limited edition train car in the picture. In my time there I assembled a fairly good collection of circa-1980 power tools from the company store and at the time they were the best tools you could get - I will probably write about them in the future.

But while I have great nostalgia for my time there, power tool technology has gotten a lot better over the years. And while I feel that, especially when it comes to traditional tools, the older designs if done well can't be beat, seeing how modern technology can push the design of a fret saw or a coping saw is really interesting and keeps me from constantly looking backwards.

This is a really exciting time to be an ironmonger. In the past ten or fifteen years we have seen a revolution in the design and availability of well-made and well-working hand and power tools. The hand tools in both traditional and new designs work better than ever, and power tools are easier to use, more functional and safer than ever before.

This is happening just as the need for these tools is, I fear, peaking. The end product, furniture, has been left behind. Furniture itself as a possession is less important than it was. For all the advances in tools, building a Newport highboy, or a Ruhlman bureau is still really hard to do and takes skill and practice more than just fancy tools.

Skill is skill and that won't change.

___________________

This "Tools & Craft" section is provided courtesy of Joel Moskowitz, founder of Tools for Working Wood, the Brooklyn-based catalog retailer of everything from hand tools to Festool; check out their online shop here. Joel also founded Gramercy Tools, the award-winning boutique manufacturer of hand tools made the old-fashioned way: Built to work and built to last.

Here's the situation in Japan: The population is graying; the birth rate is declining; and car sales are shrinking domestically as Japanese youth, like American youth, are less keen on purchasing cars than they once were. Toyota is tackling this problem in an interesting way, and that's by viewing themselves not as a car company, but as a mobility company.

Elderly people may not be buying cars, but they can still use help getting around—particularly those that have suffered strokes or other debilitating age-related conditions. Toyota figures they can help those folks perambulate with intelligently-designed robotics.

"If there's a way that we can enable more elderly people to stay mobile after they can no longer drive, we have to look beyond just cars and evolve into a maker of robots," Toshiyuki Isobe, chief officer of Toyota's Frontier Research Center, told Reuters. (The Frontier Research Center is the arm of Toyota responsible for planning long-term strategy.) To that end they've been working on the Welwalk WW-1000, a rehabilitative system some ten years in the making.

Officially referred to as an "active extension, flexion and rotation movement device," the core of the system is a robotic leg meant to be worn by the patient. This is used in concert with a treadmill, monitor, physical support system and an array of sensors. The target patient is one who has suffered a stroke resulting in lower limb paralysis, and the Welwalk is meant to aid in recovery of function through repeated use.

Over the past three years Toyota has installed the Welwalk "in 23 medical facilities throughout Japan for clinical research," and now it appears the WW-1000 is ready for prime time. Having achieved the requisite approval and certification, Toyota is aiming to rent 100 of the units to medical facilities around the country by fall of this year.

This doesn't mean Toyota is getting out of automobiles, of course; they're still the world's second largest car manufacturer and are, like all of their competitors, working on autonomous cars, with $1 billion invested in research. But it will be interesting to see what the name Toyota is most known for one hundred years from now. About a hundred years ago, Toyota was known for making looms.