The standard wristwatch hasn’t changed much in the past few centuries. Design student Nicolas Lehotzky was tired of the vanilla-looking watches of the 21st century. Instead, he has designed three prototype wristwatches to reflect the brand and product values of Caterpillar, Brembo and SRAM.

Most notably is his Caterpillar model which is directly inspired by a bulldozer track and extends it into a faceless watch with a fabric belt. The numbers on it slowly rotate around the entire wrist, with the current hour presented on an elevated platform.  We’ve dubbed it, the “Indian-burn” watch. Guaranteed to leave your wrist sore and blistering.

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BMW’s new concept car ‘GINA Light Visionary Model’ is remarkably innovative. It’s a shape-shifting car covered with seamless fabric stretched over a movable metal frame that allowing the driver to change the car’s form at will. The fabric is water resistant and durable. However, setting fire to it is a different story.

There are no plans for the fabric-enveloped car to hit production lines:

“It is in the nature of such visions that they do not necessarily claim to be suitable for series production,” company officials said in unveiling the car Tuesday. “Rather, they are intended to steer creativity and research into new directions.”

Perhaps this concept will inspire more alternative eco-friendly automobiles to hit production lines in the next few years. We’re all hoping that in the event of a crash, automobiles like Gina won’t leave you in a mangled heap of charred flesh and fragmented bones.
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With a design reminiscent of the Nintendo Power Pad, this DIY fabric keyboard seems to keep the basic idea down pat. Off come your shoes and in Tom Hanks fashion, you walk over to the letter you want to type and give it a tap.

It uses the popular Arduino processor to control the letters, which are made out of conductive fabric and perforated foam. The keyboard was found on Flickr user Maurin’s page and he certainly seems to be the crafty builder.

If only Fred Astaire could give this a try.

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The Nihon Uni company, a uniform producer in Chuo Ward, Osaka, has developed a meshy t-shirt that is said to be knife-proof, and could save many from suffering being stabbed or shanked. The strength of the ultrahigh molecular weight polyethylene fiber material used to create this shirt can be compared to the material used in aramid fiber body armor. It certainly beats wearing armor made of CDs.

Conveniently machine-washable, Momma won’t have any trouble cleaning out the blood stains from this shirt, not saying there would be any, because it’s knife proof and everything. Just to point something out, the model wearing the T-shirt must have some seriously diamond grade bio-engineered nips, because those things look just about ready to slice through the fabric, unless it’s an optical illusion or some severe wishful thinking. — Andrew Dobrow

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