There is a fun and efficient NewCar hitting the British city streets very soon. It’s called “MyCar” and it can be YourCar for a mere $18,000 USD. Nice… that’s the name of the car company putting out this hip little all-electric city run about. Designed by legendary designers Giugiaro of Italdesign and made in Hong Kong. With an estimated 40 mile range (that’s 64 kilometers to everyone else) the MyCar by NICE will sport standard equipment that includes electric windows and mirrors, Radio/MP3 player, 14” Alloy wheels, remote central locking, Hi/lo and boost button and LCD multifunction display. It also has storage space under the hood, trunk and in the glove compartment. Options include a glass roof or removable fiberglass version, 15” Alloy wheels, leather interior, cooled and heated seats and a trunk rack. Buyers can opt for the work ‘n’ play and drive ‘n’ play options. The first incorporates a forward-folding passenger seat complete with laptop dock, the latter includes bluetooth, sat-nav and upgraded audio. Looks like SMART could take a lesson on being NICE.

[ Via: Carscoop ]

Designed by Henrik Björkman the Thunderbolt is a statement to the gas guzzling world. Meant to be in-your-face with a vacuous hole where an engine should be the Thunderbolt is a mobile reminder that other modes of energy exist…and are in fact better. Running on an electro-magnetic drive system located in the rear wheel the Thunderbolt is minimalist and chic. With a reported capability of about 45 miles range on a three hour charge (average speed not reported) this bike would be a hip round the town vehicle with extra storage space in the “gas tank” compartment. The Thunderbolts value lies in its unique outside the box design. Designers have a tendency to play both on our intellect and practicality making us progress in our ideology and concept of what is possible. Henrik Björkman’s Thunderbolt is an innovative variation on a theme…that would be fun to ride! Check out the pics after the jump…

Toby Pomeroy was raised in the foothills of the Himalayas and has been fueled since by the artists he knew there to create “nature-infused” jewelry that is beautiful, diverse, and sustainable. Typical metal mining relies on extremely harsh and damaging methods to recover miniscule amounts of precious product from huge swaths of land (usually less than 10g per ton of earth for gold). Holes are blasted to remove and pulverize the dirt/rock, water is added to create a slurry with gold dust in suspension, then solvents are added (mainly cyanide) to chemically isolate the gold. The run off from this process is disastrous and the resultant trauma to the landscape is also a great concern. Toby has become “one of the first industry artisans to exclusively use reclaimed metals” for his 100% reused gold and silver jewelry. To accomplish this he contacted gold suppliers and refiners to supply his cause with reclaimed material. Toby offers a plentiful selection, many hand pounded, and shaped into rings, earrings, pendants, and bracelets all with a natural aura.

Although many mining company make efforts to contain the toxic solvents in specially lined tanks where the cyanide is subsequently recycled for further use the process is energy intense and still damages the land. There is studies that are focused on alternative methods to purify precious metals, such as using microorganisms, however enjoying reclaimed gold is by far preferable. Or, we can kick it old school and bring our pots and pans down to the river!

SocioPatterns.org aims to shed light on patterns in social dynamics and coordinated human activity. A case in point is the study of contact patterns, which deals with such patterns in contacts among people. To date, little is known about these patterns. Although models can help in learning more, measuring real-world dynamics is indispensable for obtaining a complete picture. Fortunately, emerging technologies such as active RFID devices offer previously unfeasible means for collecting this much needed data.

The following images are part of a video that gives an impression of a first contact patterns experiment and visualization being developed by researchers at SocioPatterns.org. The authors did a medium-sized test deployment of this experiment during the workshop "Sociophysics: status and perspectives" in Villa Gualino, in Turin, Italy, in May 2008. They asked volunteers to wear small tags with integrated active RFID technology, henceforth called the beacons. These beacons continuously broadcast small data packets while the participants lingered in the Bar during breaks, had lunch in the Cafeteria or attended presentations at the main workshop room. These packets were received by a number of stations and relayed through a local network to a server for further processing.

The main visualization represents the beacons, the stations, and their relations of proximity as measured by the system. The beacons are shown as simple discs, which are optionally labeled. Two beacons are connected by a link if the system detected that they are close to each other. The length, thickness and transparency of a link are a function of the strength of the link: short, thick and more opaque links represent strong proximity; thin, transparent links indicate weak proximity. The size of the discs representing the beacons depends on the number and proximity of other beacons, and specifically is a function of the sum of link weights to other beacons. The stations are shown as labeled shapes and laid out in a circle that spans the main view. The size of these shapes varies according to the number of beacons that are close to them.

The visualization client is an Adobe Air application developed in Flex. The visualization and physics system use (a mildly modified version of) the flare visualization toolkit.

It seems like those words just don’t belong together. When can anything that holds trash be elegant? Well, when Li Jianye designs one it can. Let me introduce you to my new friend Flexibin. This little Flexibin was designed for someone like me, who has a pile of plastic grocery store bags piled up in a box in the Laundry room. Now, those pesky little plastic bags can be put to good use with Flexibin. With its flexible wire frame, the bin can hold any size plastic bag, thus transforming itself into and elegant and very functional waste bin. Ok Li Jianye, let me know when they are available - I need one for each room in my house.

Designer: Li Jianye

Who here remembers Harry? That lovable toy consisting of a cartoon picture of a bald man that you would move magnetic shaving around and create your own hair style and beards? Well that is the basic principal behind this pocket watch concept by Li Jianye. “Time Sand” takes a magnetized minute and hour hands and attracts the help of metal shavings (powdered iron) to display the time. Just shake up the watch and find out what time it is.

Designer: Li Jianye

I've been using Mozilla Firefox for years and have nothing but good things to say about the most recently released Firefox 3. Whenever I borrow someone else's computer, and all he has is Internet Explorer, I feel wrong and dirty.

When I think Internet Explorer, I think vulnerability, crashing, spyware, adware, sluggishness, and more crashing. I imagine running AdAware on my mom's laptop over and over again.

This calendar graphic on the Mozilla front page captures that idea nicely. While a bar graph, pie chart, or just the numbers alone would have shown the data just fine, the calendars put the numbers into perspective. The calendars give readers a way to relate to the data, which makes the story all that much more clear.

[via Cool Infographics]

This is one for the boys and the girls. Stylishly recycled beer can aluminum riveted over sterling silver to produce quirky alcohol imbued jewelry for the party-goer in all of us. The creators of D-Licious Metal Jewelry ensure they personally enjoyed the contents these bracelets and rings previously housed during their lives as containers to Pabst, Miller, Guinness, and even soda bottles. The silver backing offers protection and structure while the colorful can gives the life and flavor to the jewelry. They warn us however, that if you love your ring or bracelet too much that wear and tear could scratch off the fun logos before the life of the silver runs its course. At any rate this is another nice upcycle to some visually stimulating packaging. Check out the rings and women’s bracelets…

WASTE is a company based out of Barcelona Spain that uses the waste upholstery from automobiles as the main ingredient for their line of beanbag furniture. “Ideally, no waste would be produced, but as it is, we are committed to transforming the reality of waste into something positive.” Each bean bag is unique (depending on what textiles are currently available), filled with polystyrene beans (for that bean bag feel), and durable as hell due to the nature of automobile upholstery. WASTE strives to be a sustainable and conscientious business by 100% hand sewing their products. They also have formed a partnership with a tailoring organization that works towards women’s social reintegration.

Hello, my name is Long Tran and I’m addicted to vacuum sealing. Yes ever since I saw the Ron Popeil kitchen sealer, I’ve been a vacuum sealing nut. That’s why I’m enthralled with Jongho Nho’s Vacuum Sealer. The whole system comes with varying size plastic containers each with a port to dock the handy sealer to. Push the button and listen to the sound of freshness as all air is sucked out.

Designer: Jongho Nho

A little over a week ago, I was in Bremen for the Data Viz VI conference. Read that Data Viz 6 - not Data Viz V.I., as I thought through the first three days.

I asked, "Is this the first one of these?"

"What do you mean? This is the sixth one. That's why it's called Data Viz SIX."

"Ah, ok, I did not get that."

Anyways, Adalbert and company put together an excellent conference, and I'm glad I was lucky enough to attend. It was the absolute best statistical conference I've ever been to. That's saying a lot, because it's the only statistical conference I've ever been to. But seriously, it was a good conference.

Looking Backward, Looking Forward

Michael Friendly opened up with the almost obligatory talk on the history of statistical graphics and where the field is headed. Anyone who's opened up a Tufte book will have seen a lot of the examples he's used (e.g. Napoleon's march and John Snow's map), but the history behind some of the graphics was interesting. Sometimes statistical graphics tend to lose that back story and becomes all about the values, so it's always nice to hear the human part of datasets.

Visual Analytics Tools for Analysis of Movement Data

My ears perked up when I saw "analysis of movement of data" in Gennady Andrienko's talk. I work with a lot of GPS data. I was reminded of the many ways to split up spatio-temporal data - by geographic section, by chunks of time, etc. It's easy to get caught up in the literal GPS traces on the map, so the talk was a good reminder. I do, however, wish Andrienko used more dynamic examples and branched out from Google Maps as the primary mapping tool. This was probably because his work is more computation-heavy than focused on interaction. Because of that, I was left wanting more than I got.

GGobi for Exploratory Data Analysis

I had the chance to chat a bit with the group behind GGobi, an exploratory tool that lets you "tour" multidimensional data via different projections. (That is one nice group of people, let me tell you.) Off the top of my head, there were four separate talks from the group, showing the various applications GGobi can be applied to. It's kind of hard to explain in brief, so I'd encourage you to check out the free software from the GGobi site. If anything, it's fun to see your data move ala John Tukey.

Parallel Coordinates - Good or Bad?

Al Inselberg promoted parallel coordinate plots (PCP) as the ultimate of statistical graphics. I got the sense that not everyone feels the same way. I remember during my second quarter as a graduate student, I proposed PCPs for a project. I was quickly rebuffed with a no way, those are horrible, and I simply moved on. After getting a personal demo from Inselberg though, I might have to take another look. Although, PCPs are certainly no panacea.

Collaboration Wanted

Still, my main take away from Data Viz VI was the need for collaboration between design, computer science, and statistics. As we've seen on FlowingData, there's a lot of great visualization coming from all three camps, but I wish there were more collaboration between all. As Di pointed out, this can sometimes be difficult because statisticians need certain tools (i.e. R) to be tightly coupled with whatever visualization they're developing. But outside the pure analytical tool, I see a sweet spot at the epicenter of statistics, design, and computer science, which is certainly something to get excited about.

Hey, Let me just say I give props to anyone out there thinking green and trying to make the world a better place through design. That being said, mad props to designer Shiu Yuk Yuen. She is out there fighting the good fight, and her latest design inspiration may be a bit of a mis-fire(in my opinion), but still deserves to be dissected, praised or criticized with the best of them. Her “Eco-Brolly” umbrella design might be more aptly named an UNbrella. This “UNbrella” design has you running to find some um… protection, when you need it the most. The idea was to reuse discarded newspapers as the canopy for your umbrella skeleton, therefore making this design “green.” My only issue with this is that if you can’t find a discarded newspaper, you are left just wet, not green. Issue two for me, I am always using my umbrella to break my fall when jumping off of building or falling from the sky, or on my way to work babysitting British children…this just won’t do the trick. Cheerio!

Designer: Shiu Yuk Yuen

Texts from the designer:

This umbrella can re-use and adapt objects such as newspaper, card, and plastic bag and turn it into an umbrella. It can re-use whatever the consumer thinks of reusing. It is a supporting devise when it rains, all the user has to do is unscrew the top lid, poke the lid onto the middle of the newspaper, quick screw to secure it & open it out like an umbrella!

It is used for short distances, but it can be used longer, by clipping the clips at each end of the umbrella onto the newspaper to stabilise it. It is pocket size, lightweight aluminium, suitable for Britain, where the weather is unpredictable, especially for Central Londoners, where free newspaper is available.

I just saw the Pixar movie “Wall*E” the other evening and I will state for the record that it was amazing. In the film, our near future world has becomes unlivable due to mass consumption and no place to put our mountains of garbage. The hero of the film (Wall*E) is programmed to help clean up Earth and has labored for hundreds of years compacting trash and stacking into giant towers. It was a very sad look into our possible future but a possibility never the less. Rubber tire disposal is a real problem for landfills all over the world. These mountains of tires are not only massive but also very dangerous. Fires that break out on these dumps are almost impossible to put out and have been raging for decades, releasing dangerous toxins into the atmosphere. This “Re-Tyre” concept by Carl Menary is a step in the right direction to help find new ways to repurpose these disposed tires. Carl has ingeniously remolded tires into seating that is perfect for outdoor areas like parks, patios and other public spaces.

Designer: Carl Menary [ Via: DesignZen ]

a series of 4 different physical "sound sculptures": 3D artworks based on audio analysis & custom software that extract meaningful data from sound signals, to create unique mappings between the audio & other media. the sculptures are based on audioworks by Freiband (Nl, Frans de Waard), & Alexander Rishaug (No), & were created using digital fabrication technology such as rapid prototyping, CNC & laser cutting, which allow for the direct translation of a digital model into physical form.

[link: flickr.com & 5daysoff.nl]

see also sound chair audio sculpture.

Over 5.5 million people in China have been left homeless by the earthquake back in May.  Over 400,000 people were left homeless by the flooding in Sri Lanka.  Massive amounts of people are being displaced by natural disasters or regional conflicts every year so the demand for temporary shelters is huge.  The challenge is to come up with something that is more sturdy and inviting than a tent but still practical considering the limited resource available in most situations.  Another consideration that is not usually at the forefront of emergency shelter design is the impact on the environment.  The Pallet house design by Azin Valy and Suzan Wines of I-Beam Design is an innovative approach that satisfies all of these considerations.

The idea of reusing shipping pallets as a building material was originally developed by I-Beam for a Transitional Housing contest aimed at housing refugees in Kosovo. 

The competition guidelines defined transitional housing as that which bridges the gap between temporary tent shelter and permanent home. They stipulated that the house last about five years, the time it takes a Kosovar family to rebuild a typical stone house.

Pallets are great material for this application because they are sturdy, inexpensive and readily available.  In most cases in a disaster relief effort many of the pallets will arrive as part of the transpiration of food and materials requiring no additional logistics to procure them.  If more are needed I-Beam states that they can be built by hand at a rate of 500-600 pallets per day.  One transitional shelter measuring 10′ x 20′ would take 80 pallets to build and cost approximately $500. 

As a basic structure the pallet houses can be easily assembled and disassembled, but these pallet house not only serve as temporary houses, but can also be the framework for more permanent housing.  A huge benefit that these have over other transitional housing is that they can be individually configured to a families needs.  Then by adding installation, vapor barriers, plaster, plywood…  these can be turned into permanent houses allowing for a more organic re-growth of these villages and communities.  The picture below is a picture of an unrelated project where a shed was build from pallets but it can give you an idea of how nicely they can be finished off.

By utilizing materials that are already in abundance this design idea limits the amount of resources needed for the relief effort.  The US Forest Service and the National Wood Pallet & Container Association estimate that 1,900,000,000 timber pallets are in use in the US at a given time; 10%, or 1,900,000 timber pallets, end up in landfills; another 10% are ground up for mulch.  In the ideal situation these temporary houses would be transitioned into permanent structures, however if disassembled the scrap can easily be recycled into other building materials, fuel or mulch. 

I-Beam Design has built a number of prototypes for display, but the most interesting example so far is the workshop they did at Ball State University in Muncie, India.  At the workshop 35 students and 4 professors built were split into 6 teams and designed and built 6 houses in 4 days. 

Sources:

1. I-Beam Design
2. Ball State University
3. Dezeen |  Design Magazine
4. Summerville Nova Scotia via Materialicious