Arts & Design

SmartUSA has just announced that two Mercedes produced “smart fortwo” models will be available in the US for under $12k. That, combined with its minuscule 8.8-ft length and 5.1-ft height, make it one of the smallest, cheapest cars around. The base model doesn’t have much in the way of features (not even air conditioning), but there is a wide range ...

A team of scientists from the University Of Bolton and the Hong Kong Productivity Council (and hopefully Victoria’s Secret) have developed a Smart Bra that could act as an early warning system for breast cancer for women at high-risk. Built into the bra’s inner structure (image not related) is a microwave antennae device which with the help of micro computer ...

Yamaha and media artist Toshio Iwai team up to create the Tenori-On, a new musical instrument for the 21st century. The new instrument creates an intuitive visual music interface using a 16 x 16 matrix grid of LEDs. Using a mixture of input and LED interaction, anyone can create a visual musical piece as they play around with Tenori-On’s sound ...

Amusingly enough, artist Argentinian C�sar S�ez is in the midst of developing a Geostationary Banana that will float over the state of Texas for approximately one month — and it’s all in the name of art. S�ez’s website justifies the banana thusly: “a banana in the sky is an odd celebration to spectacle, to the advertisement industries; and to the ...

If you live in a town that has water restrictions during the summer, or you just like the idea of being eco-friendly, you will be glad that you have this Butt Butt rainwater collection container to help keep your plants looking great. Features include: three different skin tones, a flat front, which will allow you to place it against a ...

Sure, art of this caliber produced entirely out of recycled aluminum cans is impressive. But think of all the time it takes. What kind of social life can artist Jack Kirby have when he takes three years and 5,000 empty cans of Budweiser to make a life size model of a 1965 Ford Mustang? Plus, that’s almost five beers a ...

One look at this botanically inspired PowerSEED art installation, and you can understand why it has garnered so much attention. Developed by UeBERSEE for the city of Pasadena, PowerSEED utilizes 30 solar powered lights arranged in bunches around an electric power plant. Each light sits atop a 24 meter (78.7 foot) tall flexible pole that sways gently in the breeze, ...

We usually get excited with leaked gadgets, but the new Motorola music phone is giving us nightmares. 8GB of memory, 3.5mm earphone jack and a tiny screen, all wrapped up in a fashion sense that we are so clueless about. Take a deep breath and check out the rest of the shots after the jump.

Remember when rocking chairs were for old people? This Rocking Wheel Chair concept from Mathias Koehler may just make gently rocking on a porch and complaining about youngsters the cool thing to do. � Sean Fallon Link [via]

If there was ever a perfect blend of design, science, and technology to be found in a single device, Richard Mille’s Planetarium-Tellurium would be it. Ten years in the making, the Planetarium-Tellurium is, at its core, a small model that illustrates the movement of the planets (and other astronomic occurrences) in our solar system with a ridiculous degree of accuracy. ...