If you're in New York City right now—or any other city experiencing extreme drops in temperature—you know how it goes: One day the winter chill is tolerable, then the next you're wearing three jackets, two beanies, and a scarf wrapped around your entire face except your eyes. And then the next day, you're sick as a dog. 

Yes, heated jackets are a solution to staying warm and ditching a few layers, but what about when you ride overly heated public transportation or when you get to the office and your coworkers are fighting over who gets to adjust the thermostat?

That's where Embr Wave comes in. A wearable that acts as a personal thermostat, Embr Wave lives on your wrist similar to an Apple Watch. When you're feeling a bit too hot or too cold, simply press a button and let Embr Wave's thermotechnology take its course. A light strip down the face of Embr glows blue when you're in cooling mode and red when you're in heat mode to ensure comfort and awareness. You can also operate the device through its accompanying app. Embr Wave's design is unassuming, but through a mixture of technology and mental stimulation, the device is able to alter your body temperature up to five full degrees in either direction. 

Are Embr Wave's temperature powers too good to be true? On the floor at CES 2019, (and with the help of Covestro), we met with Embr co-founder Sam Shames to learn more about the technology behind Ember Wave and what he aims to accomplish:

If you're ready to try Embr Wave out for yourself or as a gift for a loved one struggling with temperature regulation, you can learn more and preorder Ember Wave here.

View more CES 2019 coverage here. 

Nissan's creatives have been busy. In addition to their crazy snowgoing Altima from Canada, they've turned an NV300 into a workshop on wheels.

Conceived of as "a mobile workshop for creative woodworking professionals," Nissan produced the vehicle in collaboration with UK-based design/build firm Studio Hardie.

The vehicle is kitted out with portable worksurfaces and tool storage, as well as a killer feature: Roof-mounted solar panels hooked up to their Energy ROAM portable powerpacks, created from recycled Nissan Leaf batteries. With the ROAM system in place, power tools can be readily used and recharged, even in the middle of nowhere.

Here's a walkthrough featuring studio principal William Hardie:

Amazon has just announced the rollout of Scout, their autonomous, electric delivery robot thingy. Here's footage of it in "action," to give you an idea of its size and typical pace:

As of yesterday, "these devices will begin delivering packages to customers in a neighborhood in Snohomish County, Washington," Amazon writes.

"We're starting with six Amazon Scout devices, delivering packages Monday through Friday, during daylight hours. The devices will autonomously follow their delivery route but will initially be accompanied by an Amazon employee. We developed Amazon Scout at our research and development lab in Seattle, ensuring the devices can safely and efficiently navigate around pets, pedestrians and anything else in their path."

Why Snohomish County, and not someplace more populated? We have our theories.

We Assume Other Potential Pilot Cities Were Rejected for These Reasons:

San Francisco: It would get stuck on a hill.

New York: It would get tagged.

Boston: Someone would kick it over.

Detroit: Someone would set it on fire.

Philadelphia: Someone would tag it, kick it over and set it on fire.

Los Angeles: It would get hit by a car.

The last time we saw equestrian-inspired seating, it was chiropractor David James France's Workhorse Saddle Chair for posture improvement. Now we're seeing another horse-based seat design, the Sitzbock Pommel Horse, designed for a different reason: Intra-office communication. "Nowadays, a big challenge businesses face," writes German furniture manufacturer Willkahn, "is to find ways of nurturing a team spirit and animating staff to stop and chat, brainstorm and collaborate." They reckon the Sitzbock would take care of that:

Just like a real horse, people can sit astride or ride "side saddle" or use it to lean on. At just 4.8 kg in weight, they're easy to place in groups for spontaneous meet-ups, stack cross-wise or pick up and put on patios for a while. There's also an optional anthracite, light mottled, graphite or mango-coloured felt "saddle blanket". Grouped in small herds, the Sitzbock pommel horse seats conjure up an atmosphere that's just as playful as it is ergonomic and invites interaction.

I can't deny that when I worked in an office, there were times when someone said something interesting enough for me to want to linger for a few moments, but not sit; in a corporate environment, committing myself to a chair screams "let's drag this out" and changes the dynamic of informal conversation. If I had one of these to merely lean on, I might've stuck around for more conversations.

What say you? Am I crazy for thinking this unusual piece of seating might actually serve a very useful function?

Brought to you by MAKO Design + Invent, North America's leading design firm for taking your product idea from a sketch on a napkin to store shelves. Download Mako's Invention Guide for free here.

Navigating the world of crowdfunding can be overwhelming, to put it lightly. Which projects are worth backing? Where's the filter to weed out the hundreds of useless smart devices? To make the process less frustrating, we scour the various online crowdfunding platforms to put together a weekly roundup of our favorite campaigns for your viewing (and spending!) pleasure. Go ahead, free your disposable income:

Manual is back on Kickstarter to reveal their 2019 Ceramics Collection, a sleek matte black set that features wooden lids and details. The collection is focused on everyday utility and includes vessels for storage, serving and even incense burning. Their Kickstarter campaign offers backers the option of pledging for a full set or individual pieces.

Zümi is an educational self-driving car kit to help teach kids and adults how to use and interact with AI, while also explaining how the hell autonomous vehicles actually work. After awhile, your Zümi will be able to recognize the faces of your loved ones (run) and navigate on its own (hide).

We love a good footwear startup, and Chicago-based CODDI seems to be delivering what the people want with their line of high-performance outdoor boots that don't make you look like you're about to go on a 10 mile hike. 

Anti Ordinary A1 is a beanie that claims to be as strong as a helmet for snowboarders and skiiers. If this is true, it's pretty awesome, but we'll let you decide for yourselves!

Ever wanted a comprehensive map of the Milky Way? Now you can have one.

Do you need help designing, developing, patenting, manufacturing, and/or selling YOUR product idea? MAKO Design + Invent is a one-stop-shop specifically for inventors / startups / small businesses. Click HERE for a free confidential product consultation.

If you have any kind of workshop, you undoubtedly have a collection of random nuts and bolts. It's incredibly satisfying when you can dip into the stash and locate the exact size you need to complete a project. The second most satisfying is when you bring a nut/bolt of unknown threading to the hardware store, screw them into that gauge they have hanging on the wall, and determine the precise threading so that you can acquire corresponding parts.

You can actually buy that yellow thread checker they've got bolted to the rack at home centers. Prime Tools sells them for about $60.

I've also seen this white variant at mom-and-pop hardware stores. It's made by S&W Manufacturing and, like Prime Tools' version, is sold in the $60 range.

Both of those are wall-mounted and meant to live in a fixed location. If you need something you can throw in a bag and bring to a jobsite, S&W and other manufacturers also offer this centipede-like variety. These are typically far cheaper, in the $15 to $40 range.

Typically far cheaper, but not always. Woodpeckers' Thread Detective features easy-to-read markings and a higher price point of $55 for a three-piece set (either metric or Imperial) or $100 for a six-piece set (both metric and imperial).

Of course, with a little patience you can always make your own thread checker. The wall-mounted variety is easiest. While the one linked above uses a simply label maker for the text, I bet you could make a variant with bad-ass integrated labeling if you had access to a laser cutter or CNC mill. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if one of you has already made such a thing. If you do, please post a pic and I'll integrate good ones into the entry itself.

Have you ever wanted to get into shape, while destroying the resale value of your home? In that case, Colin Furze has the perfect solution for you. While you can burn some calories going up and down your stairs, you can significantly increase your energy expenditure by replacing the stairs with an angled treadmill:

What are the odds Furze will install and actually live with this thing in place?

What's more interesting: To hear the statistics about a particular object, or to hear about how that object fits into someone's life? For engineers it's probably the former, for designers, the latter.

Kevin Costner is perhaps more design-minded. He's got a pretty bad-ass customized Toyota Tundra that he uses on his ranch, and when Toyota caught wind of it, they smelled an opportunity for a promotional video. "Toyota asked me if I'd be willing to talk about [the truck]," Costner says. "And I wasn't as inclined to talk about it, as more maybe to show how it works in my life." So that's what he did with this show-and-tell video:

Yes, I know, some of you gearhead nerds want to read about his WARN winches, Fox coilovers, Nitto Ridge Grappler tires et cetera. Toyota Cruisers & Trucks has an article will all of the build details here.

With Winter Storm Jayden currently bearing down on parts of the U.S., plenty of motorists will soon need to sweep the snow cover off of their cars. An easy task if you've got a small hatchback, not so easy if you've got a tall SUV. While most of us have got some kind of snow brush, the State Line Auto Auction in Waverly, New York has a clearly superior method:

Some troll of course left a comment suggesting this must damage the cars. "No," explains SLAA employee Paul Barber, who posted the video. "The cars are in our care, custody and control so it would not be beneficial if it damaged them. We have blown one mirror off in 4 years."

Barber also explains that with 7,000 cars to manage, this is by far the best way to un-snow them. The machine is so effective that they're currently cobbling a second one together.

Shortly after moving to the country, I saw one of these in a neighbor's basement, and thought it was a workholding device for woodworking.

"No, it's a boot jack," he said, doing an excellent job of hiding his surprise that I didn't know what it was. (City boy, here.)

Out in these rural parts, boots are more common than Nikes, so it makes sense that everyone has a boot jack. What doesn't make sense to me is their design. You use them like this:

Getting the first boot off, no problem. The part that doesn't make sense to me is that you then step on the jack with your freshly-exposed sock. More often than not, when I take my boots off, they're muddy. I assume you'd get fresh mud on the jack when taking the first boot off, then transfer that mud to the bottom of your sock when bracing the jack to remove the other boot. I looked around and every boot jack I saw, despite minor differences in detail, appears to have this same flaw:

I actually think this would make an interesting assignment for an ID student: How would you design a similarly minimal object that gets the boots off, but keeps your socks clean in the process?

Position Overview: We’re looking for a Senior Experience Designer (UX) with demonstrated experience owning the UX design process on complex projects–from concept to execution. The Senior Experience Designer must be self-directed and able to function as an independent contributor, but also thrive working collaboratively with cross-functional teams

You can flat-pack most furniture, but you can't flat-pack the cushions. Unless you're French furniture brand Mojow, who uses inflatable materials for the soft bits:

Intriguingly, there's a vale on one of the models that's large enough that you can fill the cushions with solid matter as a means of personalization:

It would be interesting to have one of these that you filled daily with your own garbage--empty potato chip bags, receipts, shredded bank statements, crumpled coffee cups--as a way of confronting your own waste.

As a Creative Director, you will be responsible for the end to end user experience for Amazon Key. This involves the full Amazon Key App, and touchpoints in service and delivery design, Amazon.com landing pages, shopping

Old warehouses glancing towards the East River have shifted into artist lofts, cafes and installation studios. Outside these warehouses, surprisingly clean and empty streets vibrate for blocks with the invisible creativity happening behind closed doors. One of these spaces, A/D/O by MINI, recently unveiled the six-month culmination of Studio Swine's residency, an exhibition that investigates the unseen: Wave. Particle. Duplex.

Studio Swine (Super Wide Interdisciplinary New Explorers) is made up of two statuesque faces, Azusa Murakami and Alexander Groves. However, the subjects of their work aren't as tangible.

In 2017, they housed an old cinema in Milan with fragile, mist-filled blossoms; in 2018, they praised cyanobacteria–the 3 billion year old friends we have to thank for oxygenic photosynthesis (we breath because they exist). Here, they've given us an installation with two new mediums of work they've named Dawn Particles and Fog Paintings. Heavy research and experimentation with materials have led them repeatedly to form relationships with ephemeral, intangible, invisible or infinitesimal things. Wave. Particle. Duplex. marks Studio Swine's first exploration with plasma.

All New York creatives know the pains it takes to reach the inaccessible G train that leads to Greenpoint. Despite this, A/D/O's co-working space (starting at $375/month) is consistently packed with people willing to make the trek to work there every day. It could be the water, or the café attached to the building, or the access to equipment, or maybe its proximity to installations like this. Maybe a frequency of focus, spawned by magnetized plasma, is giving these kids energies we can't see. Or do they all just live in quiet, clean Greenpoint?

Inside A/D/O, Studio Swine's Fog Paintings swirl grey atmospheres inside backlit vitrines. They diffuse colored light and incase silhouettes that float about in response to the colors. They look like glass windows to a spirit world. Studio Swine says they're homages to the Sublime.

Dawn Particles lack their excitement in photos. On video, red panels light up with mesmerizing movements. But in person–striking hand-blown glass–the magnetized plasmas backed by a series of shifting currents seem to shriek a few sharply-sung odes at the viewer about the nature of unseen particles: "We're loud. We're here. We're always shifting. We affect you. How do you ignore us?"

Inspired by New York City's shifting element–Studio Swine's installation will be on display at A/D/O in Greenpoint, Brooklyn until February 10, 2019. Their Fog Paintings and Dawn Particles may or may not remind you of the Sublime landscapes you've seen or felt or heard in your life, but at the very least, viewers are invited to acknowledge those unseen, often-forgotten energies that are responsible for everything we experience.

Park employees at Yellowstone have an interesting system for clearing massive amounts of snow--in this case, seven feet's worth--from the roof of their structures. Here's what visitor Kerry Countryman observed taking place on the roof of the Canyon Village General Store:

What's not shown, nor explained, is how they managed to get those perfect vertical cuts in the first place. We had to know, so we poked around and found another video of Yellowstone's workers clearing a roof in 2015:

By scrubbing through the footage and freeze-framing, we can see that the workers are using an enormous slicing tool:

This explains the staircase pattern of the blocks. To create each block, the worker needs to be able to make two slices at 90 degrees (90 degrees in plan view, that is) to each other. Then the other worker can slide the block out. I call this clever.

Any idea what the heck that tool is?

Learning new things requires both a broad overview of the subject-to-be-studied, and intensive drilling-down in specific areas. Educator and designer Matt Baker found a deficiency in the first area, where more visual aids would be helpful.

"I'm what you'd call a visual learner," Baker writes. "I have found that in early grades, visual materials tend to be incorporated often. However, once a person reaches the higher grades, learning becomes almost exclusively based on reading texts and listening to lectures. There is often very little visually-based material available on more advanced subjects, particularly in the humanities."

With this in mind, Baker began filling that void, designing helpful charts on topics that interest him. Interest in Baker's charts grew; they've been published by the BBC and NASA, among others, and Baker now sells them on UsefulCharts.com. As an example, here's a cool chart he did on the Evolution of the Alphabet:

And another on the Writing Systems of the World:

I think both of these would make perfect gifts for graphic designers. (For industrial designers, that Raymond Loewy chart is tough to beat.)

"Obviously, one cannot learn everything they need to know about a subject simply by looking at a chart," Baker acknowledges. "However, I find that charts often work well as both a starting point and an overall framework that can be continually returned to as one incorporates new material."

Check out more of his stuff here.

The following essay and photos (edited for length and clarity) come to us from Netherlands-based industrial designer Laurens de Rijke. Enjoy!

______________

The past five years I have spent developing my first take on a so called 'driver watch'. This first series of watches is called the Amalfi Series, named after the beautiful Amalfi Coast in Italy. It is a watch that is focused on the gentleman driver that loves to take out his car in the weekend. Maybe my story is a nice article on your website, otherwise just admire my pictures and let me know what you think (scroll down for pictures of the watch).

I grew up tinkering on old mopeds. And like many adolescents, I had an urge for speed and driving like a lunatic, and I was lucky enough to survive some stupid incidents. Tinkering and wrenching became the safer hobby, and a serious one.

When I was 17 years old, things changed: I stopped lusting for fast, modern mopeds and bought a classic Vespa. This opened up an entire new world, of classic cars and motorcycles. I loved cruising on the Vespa, did so as much as possible, and challenged the little machine to carry me on my first 'adventure,' riding to Paris from the Netherlands.

At 19 I attended the Technical University of Delft with the ambition to become a car designer. I soon found out that car design is an incredibly niche market, and that I was not eager enough to become a car designer. I lost my passion for design. I got through my course-work and just focused on finishing my Masters degree.

To find inspiration and fuel my dreams, I decided to find a new adventure. My part-time job was working at a classic Vespa restoration company. This gave me the possibility to do a real adventure with a classic Vespa motorscooter, a Grand Sport 160 with a converted 200cc engine. The goal of this journey was to follow the ancient Silk Road as much as possible, which took me through Germany, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, Turkey, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kirgizstan and Kazakhstan.

It was an amazing journey on a wonderful vehicle. During a day off in Tbilisi, Georgia, I stumbled upon a flea market and I found a nice relic, a classic Vostok watch. The watch still worked fine and I decided to use it on my Vespa for the rest of the trip.

This is me along the Pamir Highway, Tajikistan, together with my Vespa GS160 from 1962.

One year later it was time for me to graduate, and the Vostok had inspired me to develop my own take on a (driver) watch. For my graduation I had the possibility to work on this dream. I was soon introduced to Professor Bruno Ninaber van Eyben, a renowned Dutch designer (well known for his watch designs and designs for the Dutch euro coin), who has been a tremendous help in fulfilling this dream.

At Studio Ninaber I learned to use a CNC lathe and mill and I learned many tricks of the watch designing/developing trade, mainly focused on case making and development. At the studio I made important steps in the development of my first series of watches, producing my first working prototype.

After a year I decided that it was time to stand on my own two feet. This meant building my own little workshop with my own CNC mill and professional lathe. The past three years have been all about developing and building up the workshop at the same time, until the moment where we are now, launching my first series of watches.

At work behind a lathe at Studio Ninaber.

My journey fueled me with inspiration to develop a so-called "driver's watch." Being a design engineer I hold on to the philosophy of form follows function (which I try to execute in an elegant way in the Amalfi Series). What I want to achieve with my watch brand is to develop the ultimate driver's watch in terms of functionality. This means that I also draw my inspiration from function and not from driving-inspired themes (like a rotor that is shaped like a car wheel).

For the Amalfi Series No.1S, I focused on the gentleman driver. I tried to find the balance between the watch being both a jewel and a functional tool. One might call this a dress watch, whereas in my future product portfolio I also want to develop a driver's watch that is focused much more on function, something more like a tool-watch.

The Amalfi Series No.1S with special strap and solid lugs.

One more of the Amalfi Series No.1S with case rotated under 45 degrees.

The functions that I focused on: I wanted a rotatable watch, a highly readable dial and an easy strap change. The watch rotated under an angle makes it more legible while driving. A highly readable dial results in a big dial with relatively long watch hands (and future opportunity for filling with luminescents). Being able to easily change straps is useful for swapping in a NATO strap, for instance, and wearing it on top of your shirt or racing gear.

I am now finalizing the details for the first batch of watches. Watches are currently made to order and delivery time is around two months. The Amalfi Series No.1S is limited to 99 pieces, each piece numbered in the side recess of our special case construction. Clients can inquire for their number and custom engravings are possible.

The No.1S with highly legible dial and special straps to easily change for a longer strap.

The special case construction allows for an engraving in the side recess of the case, with the watch not rotated the 'Amalfi Series' logo is visible and the serial number is hidden.

The specially-shaped sapphire glass has a (single) blue ultraviolet antireflective coating. The case is made of 316L stainless steel and made in-house. The watch is 38mm in diameter and it is 9.5mm thick.

The watch uses a high end Soprod M100 movement that is visible through the sapphire crystal of the caseback. The hand height of the movement is adjusted in-house to meet our design specifications (the dial high up in the case).

The black lacquered dial is painted in-house and pad printing is done by a specialized printing company in the Netherlands, the applied indices are silver plated and filled with paint by hand. The hands are laser cut by a highly specialized German company and finished by hand in-house.

The strap is unique and made by hand by an artisanal Belgium company.

Thank you for reading my story.

Laurens de Rijke

Owner/Founder

0031 6 82 00 54 02

www.derijkeandco.com

Zümi is a toy that teaches real-world AI programming skills.

"People think that AI will take care of everything," says Hansol Hong. There are plenty who think it's just as likely to destroy everything, but the cofounder and CEO of Robolink is a proud optimist. "There's a huge pushback against accepting AI. But whether we want it or not, it's coming. We have to learn to guide AI in the right direction."

His latest Kickstarter project, Zümi, is designed to help us engage with the same technology that powers real-world autonomous vehicles and robots, so that we can at least understand how the robot overlords work. His team's prototypes of small programmable toy cars take some of the mystery out of machine vision, routing algorithms, and Python programming. When the full fleet is shipped out to backers, Zümi will help teach kids—and playful adults—that they can have a hand in shaping the future of AI.

AI is the job skill of the future

"I want to make sure that we use technology for good, and show that AI is not so hard or scary," says Hong. "I think that AI will be an essential skill set, like how programming became a vocational skill set today. AI will be like electricity or the internet. Everyone will be using it." We'll be better off if we're conversant in the technology, he says.

Robotics fans are already clamoring for it

Hong himself is fairly new to the subject matter. After studying economics and industrial engineering at UC San Diego, he and his roommate started a small business teaching kids to program simple robots. They've now taught 10,000 students and worked with more than 1,000 schools. Hong's robotics meetup for adults has more than 1,500 people on the mailing list. Robolink has raised more than $250,000 for two other educational robotics kits on Kickstarter.

The team had to keep pace with the emergence of AI. "After a while, our supporters were looking for something more advanced," says Hong. "Robotics and AI resources are very hard to find, and they're hard to understand if you're not actually in that field." His community had come to rely on Robolink's easy-to-use instructions and tutorials, but the team had to teach themselves the basics of AI in order to expand their educational offerings.

Simpler hardware, but more algorithmic magic

One of the first things Hong noticed testing early Zümi prototypes with kids was that more hardware features created more opportunities for AI algorithms to go awry. He responded by simplifying the hardware and letting the magic happen in the software. "We wanted to make sure that we narrowed down the variables, so there's not as much that can go wrong. And there are so many possibilities for what you can do with AI software."

Zümi looks like a simple car, but it can learn to navigate routes, identify objects that can or cannot be run over, and use facial recognition to scoot towards you when you're smiling. It can even recognize hand gestures and remember the faces of your family and friends. (With privacy in mind, they're working on ways to keep the images Zümi records secure.)

An ongoing journey

Hong knows he hasn't reached his final destination. Though Zümi just won a Best of Innovation Award at CES 2019, "there are still a lot of things that we are testing today," he says. 

Zümi won a CES Innovation Award in the Robotics and Drones category. 

"Redefining perceptions of traditional programming to include AI is very difficult. In typical programming, you enter an input, then the output is somewhat expected. There's going to be a somewhat straight answer—here's what you did and here's what you did wrong. Everything is like an equation, where you know what to expect. For AI, even if you do the right things, sometimes the outcome is very unexpected." 

Sometimes that's frustrating to students, but it's also instructive; it's where our technology is headed. With Zümi, Hong hopes to help the future drivers of autonomous tech embrace that uncertainty.

Zümi is live on Kickstarter through March 9, 2019.

— Katheryn Thayer

Tandem currently have openings for industrial design interns to join our design team in Los Angeles working on an exciting range of smart devices and consumer electronics. We are looking for someone with passion for design with strong 3D focus, strong problem solving skills and a team

Earlier we looked at the design flaw of boot jacks, which is that you must step on a muddied object with a bare sock. 

Many of the comments made incorrect assumptions and were unhelpful; the most ridiculous suggestion was that doormats--which we of course own and use--will remove 100% of mud from the bottom of a boot. (Surprise: They don't.)

Another unhelpful suggestion: Rinse the boots off each and every time. My wife and I live on a farm where it freezes overnight, yet gets warmer during the day. This recipe provides both mud and frozen hoses/pipes. Keeping an outdoor source of running water on hand is not an option.

Reader Tim Hines responded like a true designer, taking the problem at face value and proposing an actual solution:

Hines' intelligent approach widens the part of the jack that you brace with the other foot. Assuming you always take the boots off in a consistent order (i.e. left first or right first), this would provide one muddy corner and one clean corner, obviating the dirty sock problem. Smart.

Reader Joshua Cooper also had a neat idea: "I would suggest putting the fulcrum/leg on the top as well as the bottom. That way you could remove one boot, flip the jack over and remove the other boot."

Hines gamely illustrated Cooper's idea:

"Neat and compact," Hines added, "although you do have to bend down to turn it."

Reader Ross Oliver used his own experience to offer another idea (unillustrated):

"The heel-to-toe stance makes balance much more difficult. I sometimes remove my shoes by standing the toe of one on the heel of the other, and I almost always need to lean on something for balance. I would mount the jack to a base 3x as wide, and stand feet side-by-side to use. Solves the sock soiling problem too."

During the traditional design process, these three ideas would receive additional refinement, going through multiple iterations; they are not perfect as is. But they both demonstrate solid design thinking and are a great start. They were also fun to read, as they remind me of the brainstorming process at actual ID firms. Thanks to Hines, Cooper and Oliver for taking the time to sound off!