DESIGN

We've seen the beer bottle phone and other novel ideas, here is the latest cute phone from the same supplier SourcingMap.com – the Violin Phone. It is for you music lovers out there, particularly violin enthusiasts. It's not cordless, but I'm sure it’ll come up sooner or later.

Via TheGadgetGuide

Hi-Can is an “High Fidelity Canopy” designed by Italian designer Edoardo Carlino at Deta Design.

The Hi-Can features beautifully designed equipment that allows you to surf the web, watch movies, play games, and listen to music all from the comfort of your bed. There is even a slick looking control panel on the headboard that allows you to control other gadgets in the room.

At this point, the Hi-Can looks as though it is only a concept that is "coming soon."

We have ever seen the Cute Fan with 4 Port USB Hub, and it was posted at engadget.com by editor Darren Murph. Here’s another cute USB Fan to keep you cool and breathe fresh air this summer, but this time it comes with Air Purifier, not hub. It can improve the air quality around your home or office desk by ionizer. There is one button to push on and you can control the wind volume by it. This device is powered via USB or 4 AA batteries.

You can get it here for only $10.

In the spirit of the back-to-school season, this week we highlight a few products to help keep you organized and productive as you resume your routine.

With a national obesity epidemic and failing economy, now is the time to go healthier and cheaper by bringing your own lunch to school or work. Avoid brown bag blues by upgrading to containers with better design and more style. The following are a few lunch boxes and accessories to help keep your food and drink hot, cold, protected, separated and fresh.

Plastica Bento Box

In the spirit of the back-to-school season, this week we highlight a few products to help keep you organized and productive as you resume your routine.
It's no secret that LED technology is paving the way for a brighter, more energy efficient future for lighting. Within the past several years, designs for LED lamps have come a long way and prices (for the most part) have come down significantly. Below is our selection of the best task lamps currently on the market, each of which will make office overtime a little easier on the eyes.

Balmuda Highwire

Sony has a great new ad campaign for their digital audio players, created by Saatchi & Saatchi Sydney, helmed by art director Eron Broughton. The agency took Sony's earphones and literally mapped out the subway systems of London, New York and Sydney, mimicking a traditional subway map. It's a simple idea but powerful in its execution, giving Sony a much-need dose of coolness. Now all Sony needs to do is apply that principle to its actual products.

This week Cool Hunting brings you a feature per day to focus on the back to school season. Each day we will highlight a different aspect of getting back to work to uncover some products that could help to keep keep you organized and productive.

Everyone needs a good bag to tote their belongings. In fact, we're a bit obsessive of which bags we use here at the office so we only saw it fitting to kick off the back to school season with our selection of bags to transport all those books, clothes, pens, pencils, laptop and whatever else you carry around with you.

Patagonia Lightwire 25

In conjunction with Creative Time, Playing the Building is a project by David Byrne in which he turns a 9,000 sq. ft abandoned room in the Battery Maritime Building into an instrument. Through the use of an antique pump organ, controlled devices create sounds with only what is afforded by the building's infrastructure, including heating pipes, metal beams and pillars.

Trying to romance your lady? Forget about roses and wine. She already knows you’re a geek so use some gadgets while you romance her.

It’s a tough call as to whether or not she will find these wine shaped usb speakers romantic or not. Who knows how a woman thinks. But just imagine a candle light dinner with this pair of wine glass speakers on the table and some soft music. They feature 2.1 channel subwoofers and who knows you might get lucky. Just be careful that you don’t pour wine in them. $21.99.

SourcingMap via Slipperybrick

By Ezra Natalia

By using the mass production techniques of industrial chemistry on a much smaller scale Sarah McLellan and Kristina Ortega are able to create one of a kind pieces of jewelry for their new line named Mctega. Inspired by their pre-med educations and organic chemistry more specifically, the duo use materials known for their ubiquity to handcraft necklaces that are both creative and surreal. From animals gilded in gold, to chunks of crystal and amorphous glass-like plates with colourful hexagons, prices range from $92 to $325.

We recently caught up with the duo to ask them a few questions about their line and how they got started.

What are you listening to right now?
We are watching the Olympics! That is all we have been doing for the past week and a half. No music... Were obsessed!

I’ve been into skateboarding for about a decade and mustaches, well...not quite as long. The latest project by artist Lawrence Melilli makes a great combo of the two.

Although you might have seen this around a bit, we love Melilli's current series of hand painted skateboards which all feature a distinct and classic ‘stache. Available as a one-off, each mustache is retired once it's been painted. They make for a humorous decorative piece but shaped from Canadian Maple wood the deck offers a pretty good ride too.

Finalizing our coverage of Nike Sportswear's launch activities we bring you a walk-thru of their new store in NYC, 21 Mercer. Richard Clarke, Global Creative Director for Nike Sportswear, talks to us about the brand as expressed thru this space, the product collection and the their ongoing artist collaborations.

Organic and sustainable foods have firmly positioned themselves in kitchens across the globe. When it comes to green cooking equipment, however, there's plenty of room for improvement. One step in the right direction is the Eco Chef Frying Pan. It's made from 99% recycled aluminum which conducts heat faster than conventional pans, decreasing heating time by 20%. It also features a non-stick surface that doesn't employ any harmful chemicals (most notably the harmful carcinogen PTFE that's found in Teflon-based cookery), and features a bamboo handle.

When the world's most desirable confection meets some of the finest spirits, it's bound to be a successful combination. Case in point, Les Shooters from Montreal's first chocolate lounge and boutique, Suite 88. The shooters, which appear to be average, conical truffles are actually chocolate containers filled with an assortment of 12 different liquors.

To take the shooter, first bite the tip off before drinking it like a tiny flask. The remaining chocolate serves as a sweet chaser that both contrasts and compliments the strategically paired liquor.

By Juliet Kinsman

We assume that many of the athletes and some spectators will be doing a bit of travel outside of Beijing after the Olympics. A three hour drive southwest of Shanghai on the outskirts of Hangzhou, we recommend staying at Fuchun Resort if you're in the area. Pronounced 'Foo-choo-win,' it's the ultimate antidote to bright lights and big cities.

From the makers of one of the original energy drinks comes Red Bull Simply Cola, a new cola with a twist. It's the first major brand extension for the company and they're setting it apart from other similar soft drinks and from Red Bull itself by taking pride in being "strong and natural." We were pleasantly surprised by just how different from its cousin it is.

Without taurine or any other secret formula, Simply Cola is more about taste than it is about partying all night long. Using all-natural ingredients (the caffeine is even extracted from coffee beans) and plant extracts — including kola nut, cacao, ginger, vanilla, cardamom, cinnamon, lemon, lime and coca leaf to name a few — it has a complex spiced flavor with that classic cola taste.

There's two different camps in cycling. The first seeks out every new, high-tech toy they can attach to their carbon fiber frame, while the other takes the opposite approach, stripping off anything that's not vital to its performance. These fixed-gear purists shun derailleurs, brakes and anything else that obscures the clean geometry of the bicycle frame.

You've seen the Speedo LZR-Racer and its effect on Olympic swim times, but the Lunocet Monofin promises to have an even greater effect on swimming speeds. Although it will most likely never be allowed in competition, it represents another product design that is sure to change the swimming experience.

Here’s a cute gadget to keep you cool this summer, the USB desktop fan with hub. It features 4 USB ports built into the feet of the fan and comes in green color. It also comes with 4 pieces of anti-dust covers that keep all USB ports away from dust and other damages when they are not in use.

You may would like to visit this great source for more Hot Gadgets.

For a chair prototype called the Conolounge, Chilean designers
Onceneto tapped La Tercera newspaper for leftover paper printer rolls. A steel support provides structure and adds a fetching bright green accent. It's a clever example of creative reuse that reminds us of a less conceptual and more practical version of Julian Lwin's Biotube Bench.
via Treehugger

by Allison Sparkuhl

The countdown to winter has already begun and to kick things off, here's something powdery fresh, Monument Snowboards (or MNMNT as it's known) launched their new site, bringing together an avalanche of brilliant artist-designed decks. The boards for the '08-'09 collection by Todd Tourso, Owleyes, Krink, Thom Lessner and Kime Buzzelli feature everything from delicately watercolored bikini-clad girls to severe graphic prints and trip-tastic collages. Read more...