There have been bamboo themed products in the past, but 2008 has seen the release of several products made using bamboo, a trend that is growing more popular for the eco-friendly conscious designers and consumers. The latest into production seems to be a bamboo notebook by ASUS.  The benefits of using bamboo, other than being biodegradable are that it looks elegant and has a high tensile strength, making it a useful replacement for conventional materials.

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LKK Design’s founder, Jia Wei, gives an interesting take on the current status of the Chinese design industry in an interview with http://en.visionunion.com/ entitled “Taking the Pulse of Chinese Design”. Noticeable points he mentioned were; china needs its own style; more professionalism needed from the large number of Chinese designers; understanding of symbiotic design. He further explains that he believes China’s design style should be based on Chinese culture.

by Christine Huang in Arts & Culture, Design, Global Community, Youth

This prototype by designer Bas Groenendaal
is an easy-to-use camera for kids that encourages them to interact
directly with their surroundings from a fun, new perspective. Inspired
by James Nachtwey’s TED Prize wish,
The Scope is shaped like a car steering-wheel and has a windowless
viewfinder, helping bring the photographer closer to the action and
his/her subject. The picture is captured with a simple squeezing of the
sides of the wheel. Groenendaal designed the camera “to be used as a
therapeutic instrument for underprivileged children, e.g. children
living in (former) warzones. Children can take photographs and
self-portraits in order to rediscover their environment and identity,
and share their point of view with others.” TED Blog explains more:

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Touch Sight: A Camera For the Blind

Urban Electric bike for US market. (Sonja knows the designer and the model!)
A clever name, a clever design and a solid premise — now, if only we didn’t see a set of front and rear pegs along with Dave Mirra grinding down a stairwell each time we looked at it, we could actually take this thing seriously. Unfortunately for our childish hopes, Ultra Motors’ A2B electric bike actually won’t be used in the next X-Games, but it may just get you to and from your downtown apartment. This comparatively small electric bike features a full suspension setup, an oversized seat and a battery arrangement that provides 20 miles of travel without a touch of the pedal. Also of note, riders can reach speeds of up to 20mph (or 50mph if traveling downhill, so we hear), and an optional secondary battery can double the aforesaid distance capability. Look for this one to hit authorized dealers next month for a presumably lofty amount of scratch.

Ask a child what their favorite subject is at school, and chances are they’ll say recess. It’s the one time during the day when they are almost absolutely free to make decisions for themselves – from who to play with, what to play, and where to play. And as children grow, the social dynamics of who can play where shifts and an age-based pecking order ensues.

The Netherlands-based design team at Carve integrate architectural expression into their playground design thereby generating unique play experiences for children of all ages. Don’t let the kids know, however that the Carve team strives to encourage a cognitive process – even during free time. This new equipment and play structures stimulate decision-making, group and continuous play (use of the same equipment in varying way) encouraging children to climb, hang, swing, skate, slide, run, jump, vault, hide.

One of Crave’s creation in particular, the wall-holla, has received special notoriety as it was nominated for the Dutch Design Awards in 2006.  Thirty children at once can climb, crawl, roll and maneuver through the large fence-like structure. Older children are able to scale the climbing wall or just relax and look out over the domain they’ve waited countless years to control. By Andrew J Weiner.

Kids indoor spaces

Playground in Berlin

China’s internet access has been plagued with rumors of restricted browsing, missing articles and even bloggers who can’t publish to their personal sites.

The Freedom Stick gets around this problem. This €20 ($30) USB dongle is pre-loaded with software which will secure the communications of any computer it is slotted into. Made available by Germany’s Chaos Computer Club, the stick uses the TOR (The Onion Router) network to cloak your connections, routing traffic around the world through anonymous computers, thus avoiding detection.

The name is a little antagonistic but that’s the point, you can actually achieve the same hack with a software solution. Still how bad can getting detained by Chinese customs over issues of censorship really be.

An interesting development of the touch-sensitive table  technology.

-”I will sketch for one hour after work every day until the end of the month.”
-”I will design four album covers for a band that I like by the end of the summer.”
-”I will learn enough animation to make a one minute movie about my last project by September 1.”

The beauty of goals like this is that they lift the heavy burden of performance from your labors; a burden which, paradoxically, can prevent you from doing your best work. Bill Buxton’s recent book recounts the story of a friend teaching a ceramics class, who chose to divide the students into those whose grade would be based on the quality of their best piece, and those graded purely on volume of output. Across the board, the best work came from the latter group: freed of the pressure to perform perfectly, they instead created prolifically, learning and experimenting in the process, with little fear of failure.

Setting a “volumetric” goal like this for yourself can achieve similar results, and has the added benefit of coaxing you into a more flexible mindset regarding skill-building in general.