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Category: Art+Design

Ori Umbrella – that never existed?

Ori Umbrella – that never existed?

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Ori had this interesting idea for an umbrella that folds up like the Miura fold in origami to fit inside a tiny wand. As someone that tried this style of folding pattern (Miura fold), I personally wondered what material they could be using to consistently get a conical version of this to work. The folding pattern is pretty amazing, but is a little fiddly and prone to crumpling if you don’t apply the collapsing force equally at the edges.

I dug deeper and there was never any video or even picture of the real product – only CG rendered versions. The store page also now appears to be down.

I guess they couldn’t figure out how to do it either.

Wild on-stage ship scene

Wild on-stage ship scene

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Puy du Fou is an “insane historical theme park with no rides”. They re-create lots of historical spectacles for visitors to enjoy. And they aren’t joking. Chariot races in a Roman circus, viking adventures in real boats, and plays.

This clip is from “Le Dernier Panache”(“The Last Stand”), a spectacular show featuring groundbreaking stage technology. It was created in 2016 at Puy du Fou located outside Nantes France. This play follows the destiny of a French naval officer, a hero of the American Revolutionary War, whose life takes a dramatic turn in 1793 in a final battle for freedom.

LED floor

LED floor

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People have done a lot with projection mapping onto floors, but what if you made a giant LED display as your floor? BMW paired with ASB GlassFloor to create a full-LED video sports floor. It was installed in Munich at BMW Park at the home venue of FC Bayern Basketball.

This does offer advantages over pure projection mapping since there are no issues with occlusion shadows (though that’s a problem largely solved already by using multiple projectors in multiple locations).

Personally, it seems terribly distracting if you’re trying to actually play on it or watch live play – but seems to have has possibilities for live entertainment/concert events or possibly new kinds of games. One could imagine games in which the floor changes configuration/boundaries. Color could be used to mark out 2 and 3 point regions. Perhaps colors could indicate different bonus scoring is in effect, or to pulse to count down the last 10 seconds of gameplay, or perhaps indicate a penalty is in effect (though this would be best only indicated as changes to the perimeter colors).

Vuevo translation device

Vuevo translation device

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Pixie Dust Technologies in Japan created the Vuevo display – a cool little automatic translation device. It listens to you talking, and then translates between two languages live while putting up what the other person said on a transparent display. While auto-translation is not new, having it in such a clean, professional form factor means they have been popping up in Japan at better quality restaurants and hotels where foreign travelers are common.

Meta’s new Ray Ban glasses also have a translation feature as well, but it’s still rough (works best as listening to a lecture vs interactive real-life conversations:)

Of course, one has to wonder how it will do with accents…

New UI trends?

New UI trends?

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UI trends are called ‘morphisms’. We’ve gone through glass-morphism, squircle-morphism, and lots of other morphisms. Morphism changes by UI designers chasing the latest cool-looking thing is why the web site that was working just fine for you gets re-designed every 6 months.

Malewicz talks about some of these trends and the design languages used to describe and classify them.

Claude Design to replace the UI marketplace?

Claude Design to replace the UI marketplace?

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Claude Design has hit the scene – and Figma stock dropped 7.7% the same day.

A small team with access to a frontier model can reach “good enough” on a design tool in a matter of weeks. The question being priced in isn’t “will Figma die?” It’s “what is Figma’s moat, actually?”

Learn more about Claude Design here or read a step-by-step walkthrough in this Medium article.

Next Gen cyberpunk clothes

Next Gen cyberpunk clothes

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A robotics and animatronic cosplay enthusiast known as Zibartas has made a real-life NUSA Infiltrator jacket.

This is a cosplay recreation of the NUS Infiltrator bomber jacket from Cyberpunk 2077 that has a tall collar that houses a display. That feature collar alone packs in $1,200 worth of 4 flexible OLED displays driven by a pair of Raspberry Pi 4 SBCs.

I think this is a great example of new technological fashion that is becoming possible for designers. We’re already starting to see 3D printed clothes, spray on shoes and spray-on dresses, and the re-booted Tron franchise a few years ago introduced Oryon Technologies Elastolite EL Panels (tape) into real-world costumes.

I think we’re just scratching the surface of what will soon be very quickly possible in wearables.

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