Fiat Lux Lamp with floating on/off orb wins lamp design of the decade.

Of all the lighting fixture/lamp concepts and designs I’ve seen, the Fiat Lux Lamp designed by Constance Guisset and Grégory Cid easily takes the crown for coolest, most innovative lamp design of the decade — the next decade. Some may see this admission as coming a wee bit early seeing as how the next decade doesn’t start for a couple more days. Even still, though I already know how fast technology does in fact progress and evolve, I’m left wondering how anyone can top the Fiat Lux design for at least another 15-20 years. (Hint: that’s a challenge please).

Before I get too much more excited and stumble over my words, perhaps you’d like to know how it works hmm?

The design is simple yet ingenious and straight out of a sci-fi movie. Instead of the tried and true on/off switch that usually adorns some solid surface, the Fiat Lux uses a levitating orb that when placed underneath the lamp instantly illuminates the lamp above. The basic idea involves magnetism and the whole emerging filed of wireless electricity of which magnetism has a very important role.

Who’s intrigued and wishing we were counting down the hours until 2030?

Make > Notcot

“Racist” HP webcam gets the Consumer Reports test treatment.

A couple of days ago the online world went up in a tizzy because of two Walmart employees who pointed out an inherent and embarrassing flaw in HP’s webcam software. The problem if you don’t recall was that Desi, the black employee, was getting tracked by the auto-adjusting webcam while “White Wonda” was.

I never implied that HP was deliberately being racist. Hell, come on folks. The algorithm is based off of contrast. What is bad however is that HP somehow didn’t take the time to double and triple check this approach. Naturally, any dark image needs more foreground light to see details.

Anywho, Consumer Reports went ahead and tested the troubled webcam for themselves and came away with basically the same conclusion as the “webcam video heard ’round the world” — HP needs to go back to the drawing board with their algorithms or they need to include an LED or two to help compensate. Blinding assuming everyone has a bright, lightly colored shinning face just won’t cut it anymore.

Light emitting wallpaper is green in more ways than one

Imagine a world where we didn’t have to have lights in every room with accompanying fixtures and stands taking up valuable space in our living quarters. Imagine a world where light could be placed anywhere we wanted, invisible to the naked eye until we needed it. Jonas Samson has envisioned and created what is quite possibly the coolest interior design product ever: Light Emitting Wallpaper. The paper is actually constructed of several layers; one for electricity, one where the LED’s reside, and finally a traditional wallpaper layer on top. Using the LED’s will greatly reduce the size and energy footprint (green #1) of the household which in return saves money on your wallet for electric bills. One caveat however is the cost. Marketed as a higher end premium product, those green bills you will save from reduced electrical costs will go in to the rather pricey entrance fee to join the cool kids club. With a price of roughly 6000 Euros/$8,500 USD (per yard?….green #2), only the truly wealthy will enjoy this new wallpaper for the immediate future. If you’re itching to get your own, you may want to put the horse back in the stable for a bit as it hasn’t been released to the public yet. Prohibitive costs aside, this wallpaper is insanely cool. Would you deck out your house in it?

Source: Walyou, Jonas Samson