Flat surfaces with carefully planned cuts—with a single motion their purpose is revealed.

I graduated from a unique joint program for Computer Science at The Hebrew University and Industrial Design at Bezalel Academy. My project is a result of my studies, combined scientific research with aesthetics and leaves an opening to variety of potential applications.

My fascination of using mathematics as a tool to enhance design led me to the development of a new design and production form based on auxetic structures. Auxetics are structures or materials that when stretched, become thicker perpendicular to the applied force. This structure serves as the basis for planning cuts that provide the flat sheet with its potential third dimension.

Stainless steel hanger

From 2D metal sheet to 3d hanger

Kinetic bamboo Bag

Reacts to hand movement inside

Credit: Oded Antman

Kinetic bamboo Bag

side view

Credit: Oded Antman

Kinetic bamboo Bag

Reacts to its varying content volumes

Credit: Oded Antman

Textile partition - detail

Under gravity laws the parametrically designed textile partitions receive a three dimensional transformation.

Credit: Oded Antman

Hanger - stretching manipulation

Stretching manipulation - from 2D metal sheet to 3D hander

Kinetic bamboo Bag

Kinetic bag, reacts to its varying content volumes

Hanger

Textile partition

Sphere mapping, 3D transformation detail

Credit: Oded Antman

[Spoilers.]

The episode starts with Jon Snow trying to give the Mormont family sword back to Ser Jorah.

"Your father gave me this sword. I think you should have it."

Ser Jorah sees through his ruse immediately.

"You just want me to carry it because it's heavy. Thanks but no thanks."

Ser Jorah knows how to travel in comfort. He's the only member of the group that's lined the straps of his backpack with animal fur, for ergonomic purposes.

"I've got a patent. Well, a patent pending. I'm going to call them JorahStraps. The market is potentially huge."

North of the Wall is supposed to be quite cold, and the ragtag group's cold-weather clothing is, well, ragtag.

"Oh thanks, you like it? I got it at a sample sale."

Not so Daenarys, who has a rather bad-ass cold-weather outfit.

"All I'm saying, my Queen, is that if you wear it on the dragon, you won't be able to return it!"

"This isn't off-the-rack, you jackass, I can't return it anyway."

As for accessories, Daenarys has either found really well-fitting gloves, or she may have contracted Greyscale.

"I shook Ser Jorah's hand and forgot to wash it afterwards. He's like, 100% cured, right?"

Things don't go so well for our heroes up north, of course. They are beset upon by a group of undead and must run for their lives.

"Ha! I'm carrying this heavy sword and I can still run faster than Ser Jorah."

Eventually they find themselves surrounded.

"I have to pee, but they're all, like, staring at me. I can't go when people are staring at me, even undead ones."

How bad-ass is Beric Dondarrion's flame-on sword? He'd be a handy guy to have around, not only in a fight, but for the barbecuing applications.

"It's not a stupid idea, Beric. If we pull a snake over your sword like a condom, then you turn it on, we've got instant barbecued snake."

Speaking of flame, when the group is overrun, Daenarys comes to the rescue. Looks like her dragons have unerring aim.

"I'm not saying I'm not grateful, but Jesus, do they have to shoot it RIGHT above our heads? I can smell my hair burning."

Unfortunately for Viserion the dragon, the Night King was apparently an Olympic javelin thrower in his past life. By the bye, it this shot you can see they're all holding their own javelins:

"I never medaled. It's always haunted me."

Yet someone in the Night King's crew hands him a javelin when it's time to throw it.

"Thank you, Charles. Mine was more expensive than yours and I don't want to lose it."

He takes careful aim…

"'Not good enough,' my dad always said. Well how you like me NOW."

…and it doesn't end well for Viserion, who actually explodes in mid-flight.

"Is that Viserion, Rhaegal or Drogon? I know they're my kids but I'll be damned if I can tell them apart. Oh wait a sec, I'm riding Drogon so that can't be Drogon--RHAEGAL! Are you okay?"

While most of the group has clambered aboard Drogon to make a hasty exit, the death of one of Daenarys' dragons has soured the moment.

"This is our first dragon ride and now it's like, totally ruined."

They take off and leave Jon Snow behind, as the zombie version of Marshawn Lynch tackles him and sends him into the water. But as he begins to emerge from the ice, people on the internet claimed, the little lion head on the pommel of his sword opened its freaking eyes. I had to freeze-frame it to check and it's true:

"Zzzz..."

"Goddammit! I was having the best dream."

Jon is eventually rescued and makes it onto a ship to recuperate.

"I can't figure out..."

"...what this ring-thing mounted to the bedpost is."

He and Daenarys share a moment, and I have to say, for a guy who's supposedly pretty outdoorsy, his hands look super-soft.

"I'm NOT being defensive, Daenarys. I'm just saying my hands feel soft to YOU because you're always grabbing onto scaly dragon spikes."

Back up north, a bit of bad news. The White Walkers have somehow managed to procure chains, and they're using them to pull the dead dragon out of the water.

"I AM TOO pulling, Jarvis, so shut up. I bet I'm pulling more than you are."

White Walker management staff simply observes.

"I'd help them, but I've got that thing with my knee. It's been acting up ever since the softball game."

By the way, have you ever paid attention to the White Walkers' undead horses? They're pretty gnarly looking.

"Whoa, girl. Or boy. I can't remember which one you are. Whatever, it's not important."

Only one episode left!

As someone who learned to use CAD before Illustrator, I've always hated the pen tool. My first CAD jockey jobs required perfect tangency and precision, not these touchy-feely "handles" that provided weird parabolic arcs.

Maybe I'd have learned to use the tool better if "The Bezier Game" had existed back then. You can click on the link to try it out yourself, or watch the introductory video below to see what it consists of:

Admittedly it's less of a "game" and more of a tutorial, but until they can figure out how to work these exercises into "Call of Duty," I guess this will have to do.

Light plays an important role in the design of many hardware products. Often, they are both decorative and functional. Indicator lights are the most minimal user interface: They tell you whether the device is turned on, low on battery, or "thinking" really hard.

On modern electronics, the light's source is almost always an LED. However, you rarely see exposed LED components on the exterior of a device. What you do see is the exit surface of a light pipe (also known as a light guide).

Light pipes can focus, diffuse, or redirect light; most light pipes do some combination of these.

Design considerations include:

- Minimizing loss during transmission
- Minimizing the number of LEDs needed (they are power-hungry components that destroy battery life)
- Maximizing color mixing for RGB LEDs

In our teardowns, we've seen many light pipes—they're one of our favorite types of components because each one is so unique. Today, we want to dig deeper into some unique light pipe applications and explain the principles behind each design.

Application 1: Extending Light's Reach

As I mentioned, LEDs are power-hungry components. So for portable electronics, you should only use the light when the user is actively interacting with the device, and you'll want to minimize the number of LEDs needed. Light pipes can be used to extend the reach of LEDs so you can use fewer to achieve the same illumination effect. Here are two examples of how light pipes illuminate logos and thumb pads.

Example 1: Illuminated Logo of Under Armour Heart Rate Monitor

The UA heart rate monitor's front cover features a sizeable logo. The engineers behind this product managed to light up this logo evenly, with just one tiny top-firing LED at the center of the main PCBA. This LED doesn't have much reach by itself.

Under Armour LED

Enter the light pipe: It's made of a milky plastic that could be polycarbonate resin (normally transparent) with added titanium dioxide. The more titanium dioxide that's added, the more milky the plastic, which improves diffusion.

The cone-shaped cavity feature at the center of the light pipe is designed to match the LED; the angular wall of the cone helps to direct the emitted light into the light pipe.

The cone is the entry point of the light pipe, and the entry point should always be placed as close to the light source as possible, to minimize loss.

Light pipe diffuser

Let's see the actual effect of the light pipe:

1. Without the light pipe, there is a strong hot spot in the center of the logo and not much light elsewhere.

2. With the light pipe, the light emitted by the LED is spread out more evenly and the extreme hot spot is gone.

Under Armour LED without light pipe

Under Armour LED with light pipe

Example 2: Illuminated Thumb Pad of Logitech G600 MMO Mouse

The Logitech G600 MMO mouse has a twelve-button thumb pad. Each key is backlit, and the user can customize the light's color. How many LEDs do you think are used to light up all these keys?

The answer is TWO! Isn't that surprising? What wizardry!

The secret is side-firing LEDs that emit light directly into a flat plate of a light pipe. Notice how close the entry point of the light pipe is to the LEDs. You can't afford losses when the lights have a long way to go to their exit points.

Notice how the opposing elastomer thumb pad part has black paint spots on some keys, but not others? These black spots are close to the LED, likely to mask hot spots.

Also note that the light pipe plate is super glossy, and the surfaces encapsulating the light pipe's top and bottom sides are both white. Both of these features help maximize the total internal reflection and improve color mixing.

Application 2 - Bending Light

LEDs cannot always be located right behind the intended exit point of the lights, so light pipes are often used to transport light emitted by a board-mounted LED to an exit window some distance away. They can even "bend" light, as long as it's within the limitations of physics.

Here are a few examples:

Example 1: Neato Light "Arc"

This light pipe cradles the Neato's power button. It has two entry points for LEDs to illuminate the entire path evenly. The second LED is needed because light does not like to bend past 90 degrees. If only one LED were used, significant loss would happen where the second entry point is, and the end of the arc would be dark.

The entry points of the light pipe match the shape of the LEDs well.

Neato light pipe

Note that the top surface of the light pipe is textured, whereas all the other surfaces are glossy. Textured surfaces encourage light to exit, and glossy surfaces encourage internal reflection.

Also note that aluminum foil covers the underside of the light pipe. This has two purposes:

1. To maximize total internal reflection

2. To prevent users from seeing internal components underneath the light pipe

Example 2: TiVo Bolt Status Lights

The TiVo Bolt has five status indicator lights. For all of these, the light source had to be "bent" through light pipes to exit the enclosure.

One of these is a very classic "light pipe," a clear polycarbonate tube that's slightly bent to transport light from the source to the exit point at the logo. The entry point is a flat surface—this is a light pipe that has not been matched to the LED, incurring brightness loss. However, this simplifies the injection mold tooling of the light pipe.

TiVo light pipe

The other four indicator lights appear in a row.

TiVo indicator lights

This set-up uses a multi-unit light pipe—think of this as a multi-lane roadway! Each "roadway" has its own entry and exit points. The light sources are four surface-mounted LEDs in a row.

The light pipe is covered by a two-piece black shroud, which eliminates light leakage. Since the TiVo Bolt enclosure is white (not light-proof), without the shroud, we wouldn't be able to see each light distinctly.

Light pipe shroud

Main Takeaways

We hope you enjoyed this "anthology" of light pipe examples. Put your own spin on these established designs, and add some shiny to your next project! Now that you have form factor inspiration, check out our guide to prototyping light pipes with 3D printing.

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This post is provided by Fictiv, the most efficient manufacturing platform for fabricating parts. Powered by a distributed network of highly vetted vendors, the online interface makes it easy for customers to get instant quotes, review manufacturing feedback, and manage orders—all through a single service.

Job Description Home Team Sports (HTS) is looking for a Creative Designer to join its team in New York. The Creative Designer will execute the creative direction and implementation of large-scale creative projects, as set by the VP and Manager of the Creative Partnerships team. He/She will

The internet is awash in self-shot eclipse footage, most of it pretty sucky. If you missed the live event itself, leave it up to the pros--NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) and NASA--to give you the best views. First off, here's what the eclipse looked like from space, time-lapsed into four seconds:

And here's a clip shot in Beatrice, Nebraska, which shows you what it looked like from the ground, with that crazy false sunset. And be sure to wait for the zoom-in:

If you're still kicking yourself that you missed it in person, or if you did witness it and want to repeat the experience, the Washington Post lets you punch in your age and shows you how many total eclipses you might live to see, and where they'll be. Click here.

Compâs makes composting at home easy! Composting in big cities (with few gardens or big spaces for it) is not very popular, making the garbage disposal cycle in Argentina overloaded and inefficient. This compost bin is designed for urban households. It is a vermicompost (worms are included!) where no direct contact with ground earth is required.

With a variety of colors, this composting kit blends in aesthetically with its surroundings (balconies, kitchens or patios). By making a compost bin that fits in a balcony or patio, people can start composting their organic waste at home. Our product encourages composting for those who need that extra push to start!

At Design Miami, we had the opportunity to sit down with Alessi's President Alessio Alessi and his son Giovanni Alessi Anghini, an industrial designer. Traveling with their family, they were on the last stop of a U.S. trip to celebrate the opening of a new retail space for Alessi in the Miami Design District. Giovanni is one of four children and the first of the fourth generation to start working for the family business.

Yeah, so this is nuts: Valencia-based designer Fernando Abellanas wanted to "seek refuge from the city within the city itself," and picked the underside of a bridge—far above the ground—as a site for a studio. By welding up a steel frame with rollers resting on the bridge's crossbeams, he can even move the darn thing around.

Check this out:

Via ArchDaily

Earlier today, HAY design launched their exclusive Kitchen Market at the MoMA Design Store SoHo. We were overwhelmed and excited by the 250—yes, 250—piece collection designed by Mette Hay with items selected by Danish chef and restaurateur, Frederik Bille Brahe. The collection merges classic kitchen necessities with modern design, throwing in a few lovable oddities along the way. Whether purchased as a gift for friends, family or yourself, here are a few items we recommend. However, small home and apartment dwellers heed warning: form over organization potential is a major theme here.

Silicon treasures in the collection include the heat-resistant Rhom Trivet and a generously portioned ice cube tray.

Tow of the more decorative sub-collections are the cutting board family and the coffee family. We're envisioning these color-coded boards stacked nicely on a shelf or hung on a wall for easy grabbing, and the coffee line is aesthetically pleasing enough to leave out on display.

Simple, clean cutlery at a price point of around $29 for a set of five. 

Cups and accompanying plates in the collection feature materials ranging from paper-thin porcelain to elegant glass. We especially enjoy the playfulness of the porcelain family—those are some "paper" plates you wouldn't want to drop.

Three varieties of bottle openers add a nice functional touch. The latter image shows the German Bottle Opener, a more classic design that helps ground the collection.

I'm vehemently against single use kitchen products (garlic peelers, salad spinners, etc.), however if you're going to get one in this collection, let it be the Italian Hamburger Press. Go big or go home.

These salt and pepper grinders are straightforward and are subtle displayed on a table.

And finally, a system designed for bringing food on picnics. However, I see it being used as a space-saving way to transport food during car journeys (as long as the sides are secure enough when the containers are full). 

I admittedly had to leave the event before making some poor monetary and spatial decisions. If you're ready to expose yourself to some tough decision making, head on over to the MoMa Design Store in SoHo.

If you're making something for yourself and casting it in resin, you can probably live with the inevitable air bubbles that appear in the object. But if you're an industrial designer prototyping something a client's going to see, bubbles are a no-no. That's why professional prototypers like Eric Strebel use pressure casting. That's when you do the casting inside a pressure tank, hooking it up to a compressor and setting the interior at 60 p.s.i. or so, which'll squeeze those bubbles out of the resin.

Some pain points for Strebel are the lousy wingnut-handled screws on his pressure tank's clamps. So here he shows you how he whips up some more ergonomic knobs using 3D printing, urethane resin and the original clamp screws:

When you think of spacesuits, you probably picture the Michelin-man-style bulky numbers that astronauts wear on spacewalks. But both Boeing and now SpaceX have designed slimmer spacesuits meant to be worn inside of spacecraft. These don't have the ballistic protection (required for meteorite particles) that spacewalk-capable suits possess, but they are pressurized and will protect the wearer in case the vessel depressurizes.

Early this morning/late last night, Elon Musk Instagrammed this image of SpaceX's newly-designed suit:

Here's Boeing's suit, meant to be worn by astronauts in their CST-100 Starliner:

The SpaceX suit is more stylish, but the Boeing suit's helmet clearly offers better peripheral vision.

I also have to laud Boeing's designers for having the supreme self-restraint to not place the pressurization ports directly where the wearer's nipples are. I wouldn't have been able to help myself.

McDonald's is in the early stages of major, digitally-lead initiatives and the Design and Innovation team is at the center of these aggressive changes for the business. The team actively designs, develops, and supports the implementation of important and highly visible initiatives that deliver customer-centric benefits and business growth. This role will enable better customer experiences at McDonald’s restaurants worldwide through the design of customer service interactions.

Not all wire is created equal.

The Mesh Chair is an exercise in efficiency: The wire mesh is dense in areas that support the body and open where it doesn't. In this way, comfort is maximized without increasing weight.

Most of the luggage redesigns you'll see these days are hi-tech: Tracking devices, built-in scales, charging stations. But few seem to be focused on the low-tech ways the user interacts with luggage when loading and unloading it. This RueBel concept, designed by a man who travels frequently—Spencer Selhl is a pilot—aims to ease that process:

I like the novel way that the bag unfurls:

The design seems a good bet for business travelers who constantly stay at hotels, where bathroom/closet fixtures are consistent:

It's not clear if the RueBel's going to make it into production, however. At press time there was $9,622 in pledges towards a $19,857 goal. There are, however, still 14 days left.

The traditional way of learning to carve was via an apprenticeship. Some kid who thought, or whose parents thought, that he had some talent for sculpture would be apprenticed at age 14 to a master carver. Ideally, seven years later the kid would be able to carve well enough and fast enough to make a living. Very talented youngsters, such as the young Grinling Gibbons, even had sponsors pay for their training. Amateur carving became a popular hobby in the 19th century, when shorter working hours made hobbies possible and the Arts & Crafts movement made craft hobbies attractive.

When I was a young woodworker, you could study carving in three ways: 

In person at a class:

When I studied at the Craft Students League, carving was always a popular course. In-person craft classes provide the opportunity to for a teacher (and your classmates) to observe you carving and suggest ideas and techniques to improve. It's certainly the best means of instruction. But nowadays many carving programs (like the Craft Students League) have closed, and realistic carving and decorative architectural woodwork have decidedly gone out of fashion. Longer work hours may make evening classes difficult, even if you are lucky enough to live near a class. One-time workshops and seminars can be treats, but they don't have the regular weekly practice that a local class can have.

From books and magazines:

This is a fine way of learning and still has tremendous value. Carving magazines are a great source of ideas and designs, overviews on tools, and written instruction. They fall short, however, because a picture or drawing, even a before-during-and after picture, cannot always illuminate the particular misunderstanding a student has on a specific area. I had that issue myself with lettering. I went back and forth over one paragraph and I still did not get how to do serifs without breaking off a bit. Obviously the writer (Chris Pye - who is and awesome writer of instructions) missed the particular situation that this particular thickheaded student encountered.

From videos:

VHS and television shows back in the day, and in the modern world, DVDs: DVDs are the best of the video presentations. You can see the project being made, and things that are hard to understand on the written page can be easily demonstrated. Professionally shot and edited videos, traditionally 45 minutes or longer, are expensive to make (and so their cost must be recouped) and generally designed for linear watching on a computer (or old school DVD player). Increasingly this is not how people consume "content" - viewers expect to be able to find short videos focusing on particular issues that can be watched on a phone or tablet.

But here comes an entirely new method.

A couple of years ago, Chris Pye set up a subs

cription website to teach carving. The site now offers several hundred videos, all short. You can watch them in a curated sequence, or individually to answer a question, or randomly to see what's up. This is how I sorted my serif problem. I just watched the snippet I needed on serifs and I was done. I didn't have to wait for a DVD to arrive in the mail, and I could watch it at my bench until I got it.

I realize the obvious rejoinder to the idea of subscribing to a service is, "Why would I pay for video when I can get it all for free on YouTube?" This is a valid point. There are three main advantages to subscribing rather than viewing on YouTube.

The first reason is coherence. If perchance you were to wake up one morning and have a burning desire to make a nameplate, you might type "how to carve letters into wood" into YouTube. You would immediately get a list of credible videos. Some might be good, but most topics get a mix of good, off-topic and waste of time. You could probably muddle through and learn a bit.

But this isn't what really learning carving is about. It's a question of coherence. A good teacher will want you to understand sharp tools, which tools, lettering fonts, basic technique, and then more complicated approaches. The whole point of a website devoted to teaching carving as taught by one person is to get the benefit of your instructor's worldview and best practices. You get the sequence of lessons you need to really master the breath of a skill, and—because all the lessons are taught by the same person or school—the approach is consistent. YouTube, for all it's many wonders, gives a platform for every approach and method on the planet, and consequently it lacks consistency and depth. I am learning to carve the Pye way. It's not the only way to learn, there are several excellent sites on learning to carve via subscription. But as I know from previous experiences, Pye's approach really speaks to me, and with each video and my practice, I am slowly building forward. I am not learning every possible way to do something, but one way, that works and can expand.

The second service that you get with a subscription is that you can ask questions. If you have a problem you can email Chris and get answers.

Third reason is one of support and belonging. By supporting a teacher's subscription service, you enable more videos to be produced. The money goes straight to the teacher and goes a lot further. Because there is a revenue stream, production values are professional, and the topics covered can have both breadth and depth. And at the same time you are belonging to something. The school of carving that Chris has established, even though it's virtual, has a style and a method, and you now have studied and learned in the same way as all his other students. If you get together for a reunion, you can sing the old school songs and understand and support each other's carving in a way that schoolmates can. And as a matter of fact, that's why I periodically write about his site. I am learning to carve; I really like his approach; and like a good alumnus, I want to give something back so I work the old school tie into all the conversations I can.

N.B. The videos in this blog are from several sample lessons Chris has put on YouTube.

Lately I've been paying more attention to how people use public space here in New York City, particularly in unsanctioned ways. I will experiment here with documenting and posting the things I see in this arena.

Unused space is a rare commodity in Manhattan, and individuals will always capitalize on it. On one particular stretch of Baxter Street, there is a gap in the buildings where a parking lot extends between them. Because the parking lot's entrance and exit are on the other side, this area is fenced, and the sidewalk is unmonitored. I.e. there is no store owner to complain if you loiter on the sidewalk in front of this particular spot.

Thus someone has turned this into their outdoor lounge. I pass it each morning while walking my dogs.

I'm rarely in this area after morning, but one afternoon I was and saw two elderly Chinese gentleman sitting here and chatting. One was taking tea and the other was smoking. I am not sure if they are the ones who set the "lounge" up or were just availing themselves.

In New York, anything with perceived value that's not nailed down tends to get stolen. While the chairs are of course ratty cast-offs and have been sacrificed to outdoor use, the weather gradually taking its toll...

…someone will still want to steal them. To prevent this, the lounge's founder has affixed them to the fence with steel wire.

Obviously this isn't very secure, but the idea is to make them enough of a hassle to steal that most people won't bother.

The black stool and blue milk crate are also attached to the fence. In an effort to improve the UX, the milk crate has been topped with a discarded piece of countertop made from painted plywood. This cannot be tied to the fence but is worthless enough that no one has stolen it yet.

I first noticed the lounge around three months ago, and the fresh supply of cigarette butts each morning (of differing brands, judging by the filter colors) suggests it gets daily use.

We'll see how long it lasts for.

Tired of working in a boring dead-end job? Like to work with your hands and see ideas come to life? Come work at Prototype Solutions Group, an industry leader in the prototyping and manufacturing industry. At PSG we strive to provide a comfortable and inviting place for our employees to work hard and develop their skills, while maintaining an excellent work-life balance. We are currently seeking a hard-working, responsible individual that will share in our hard-work ethic and core values.

Laying down infrastructure for transportation is both expensive and time-consuming. But French startup SeaBubbles has devised a way for cities to introduce a new transportation system without having to dig tunnels, pave roads or lay track. Their Bubble vehicle is a flying water taxi that takes advantage of the unused space that many major world cities possess: Waterways. Because cities often started as trading posts and rivers were once the dominant transportation path, lots of cities have them.

Their solution is pretty clever. First off the Bubble features hydrofoils that lift it out of the water as soon as it hits 7.5 miles per hour. The resultant low hydrodynamic resistance allows the craft to reach "car speeds," the company says, and will cost no more than a regular taxi.

Even better is that the battery-powered Bubble is not only zero-noise, but zero-emission—and part of a system that can actually feed power back into the grid. That's due to the design of their docks, which harness power from three free sources: "While the solar tiles are capturing the sun energy, our underwater generators are catching the endless strength of the water and our wind turbines are catching the energy of the wind," the company writes. "Those energies are kept into the existing batteries on the docks so they can easily be used to recharge the Bubbles when plugged and waiting for passengers."

The plan is for riders to use their Citibike-like app to find the nearest available dock and Bubble, then zip off to their destination.

The four-passenger prototype Bubble, unveiled on French waters this month, is an open-air design; that's fine for the St. Tropez location where the debut took place, but cities like New York, London, Portland, et cetera will obviously need to be enclosed.

SeaBubbles' goal is to be in 50 cities around the world within the next seven years. Sadly, one city where that may not happen is Paris. While the company hails from France, famously plodding French bureaucracy has made progress difficult in the City of Lights. "[Company founder Alain Thebault] said it took two months for SeaBubbles to arrange a contract to lease two cars and a month for lawyers to register the company," Reuters reports, "a job he said could have been done in a few hours in some other countries." Additionally, Parisian authorities have refused to raise the speed limit on the Seine, which is currently so low that the Bubble cannot get enough speed to raise out of the water.

Hopefully authorities in other cities will be more enthusiastic. I for one would love to see this in New York, and with the impending shutdown of the East-River-spanning L-train, I bet thousands of other New Yorkers would too. And one huge plus of the Bubbles is that there is zero chance they will hit a pedestrian or cyclist. In New York City, according to 2016 statistics, 16 cyclists or pedestrians are hit by cars every day.