n honor of the Frankfurt Motor Show, record oil prices and the end of Burning Man - we’re doing a non car list as a green alternative.<p /><p />Here are the strangest bikes we could find, propelled sideways, backwards, in reverse or by climbing up a ladder. Vote on your faves.
A new Oobject chart almost every day, below are the most recent
Really complicated, and really expensive swiss watches are called grand complications based upon strict criteria.<p /><p />These are often based upon the gravity compensating tourbillon mechanism that isn’t strictly needed for a wristwatch but is insanely complicated so people build them to show off their skills as watchmakers.<p /><p />This is the kind of gadget that gazillionaires with enough taste to avoid diamond encrusted ones buy when they fly into Geneva. They look very James Bond - except that they cost ten times as much as his humble Rolex or Omega, often costing more than $100,000 each.
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery then Apple is getting it in spades.<p /><p />For those that worry about Apple blazing a trail for others to copy less expensively, its not that simple. A product like the iPhone is heavily tooled rather than fabricated. The hole for the headphones is actually drilled. To do this, Apple have hogged the world’s supply of the type of high tech, multi-dimensional machine tool needed.<p /><p />While companies like Nokia may copy, they may not be able to get the same build quality, even if they want to. Vote on the most blatant copy and post tips in the comments.<p />
Quite often a company will release a limited edition item to mark a product’s anniversary that is actually worse than the original. We trawled the web to find examples of well designed anniversary gadgets, including our favorite, the 300lb limited edition espresso machine that was used by the Pope. Vote on your favorite.
One of Silicon Valleys most famous landmarks, and possibly its only truly monumental one is under threat of demolition. The giant airship Hangar One at NASAs Moffett Field, is one of Americas architectural treasures.<p /><p />Airship hangars were collectively the largest spaces ever built, larger than cathedrals and just as awe inspiring. Vote for your favorite.
Since the Psion III showed the way forward for a super small keyboard device, somewhere between a cellphone and a Laptop. Its a type of device that offers something that the iPhone or Blackberry will never<p /><p />These days this form factor is dominated by devices used to play videos and some of the designs are very good.
The focus here is on a stand that doesn’t mess up slick Apple designed laptops, when they are parked on your desk.<p /><p />Closest to the Apple design in terms of looks, is the Mstand. Although the wire hole seems to serve no purpose other than decoration and so misses the Apple spirit of ergonomic simplicity.
LEDs have made ordinary flashlights much more interesting and diverse. From military grade ‘tactical illuminance’ that will strip paint off a wall at 600 yards, to teeny keychain brite-lights.<p /><p />We will constantly update this category with interesting or unusual finds.
Resqtec make instruments that prise open cars after a crash or find people in the rubble of buildings after an earthquake. What’s amazing about this equipment, however, is quite how beautifully designed it is.
After having spent most of the last month or so playing with our iPhones, we’ve reached saturation point, hankering after the good old days when a man was a man and a phone was a phone. So we’ve trawled ebay for the coolest examples of retro phones we can find.<p />
The Segway took the idea of the two wheeled vehicle and made it require thousands of dollars of electronics to remain as stable as an ordinary two wheeled bicycle. The Apple Newton was a personal organizer that required a personal assistant to carry it around for you.<p /><p />The common thread in the choices here is people mistaking sophisticated engineering for sophisticated design. Many were and still are technical triumphs.<p /><p />The Space Shuttle, for example, still bathes in the reflected glory of the Apollo missions, yet its design was largely a mistake based upon the PR potential of a plane-like craft, rather than practicality. Its replacement will look much more like a Saturn 5 rocket and it forms part of the hardware for what Nasa refer to internally as the ‘crude missions’.<p /><p />Below is our chart of the biggest all time tech. failures. Vote for the biggest loser or suggest some alternatives in the comments.<p />
Tokyo flash became famous for selling amazingly abstract watches which told the time in any way imaginable from Morse Code to a video game display.<p /><p />Here are some of their classics along with any other amazing Japanese watches that we find.<p />
Nothing limits the design of interfaces like the QUERTY keyboard, however, that doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t try.<p /><p />Our personal favorite here is the Ergodex panel which can be configured to mimic the cockpit controls of many aircraft, including an F16.
iPods, Nikons, vibrators, Hummers someone has released a really crass gold plated gadget for the arms dealer market. Gizmodo suggested the gold plated shuffle “signaled the downfall of civilization”, vote according to which item you think is the most revolting.
A nostalgic look at the prime or earliest examples of truly revolutionary gadgets. Keep sending us tips, and vote for the ones that impacted you most.
The earliest wrist watches were made for soldiers, where fumbling around for a pocket watch was dangerous. The very earliest examples were from the Boer War, however the idea caught on in the first World War.<p /><p />Some of these watches were actually designed to be worn around the leg (for airmen), and many have the distinctive protective grille that gives them a medieval look.
Some of these are very high end audiophile speakers and others are those that we think are well designed from a product point of view. Extremely well designed or extremely well engineered.<p /><p />The Kef Muon’s are an unbelievable $140,000 while others are as low as $100. Our favorites are the 1960s Quad Electrostatics which are unlike anything ever made since and go nicely with a classic Quad 33 and 303 Pre and Power Amp.<p /><p />Its somewhat unfair to vote on something that is to be listened to and not looked at, so vote with your gut.
Tube testers are machines to test the notoriously unreliable predecessor of the transistor - the vacuum tube, or valve. If you are a hi-fi nut with a tube amp you might actually even need one of these.<p /><p />What makes them special as vintage gadgets is that they have that particular density of retro buttons and switches that spells complicated and releases Serotonin in male humans.<p /><p />The link to the Catalog for the ‘Supreme’ brand on Steven Johnson’s site is particularly fine. Tube testers can be picked up on Ebay, fairly often, for reasonable prices.
The iPhoney award.<p /><p />There were enough iPhone and iPod rip offs, that we found when searching for general copies of Apple design, to warrant their own chart. To celebrate the announcement of the merging of the iPod and iPhone line up, here are the iPhoneys. Vote for the most blatant.
When I was a nipper… boy’s pockets were filled with bits of old string a couple of bits of candy and perhaps a penknife.<p /><p />Now, apparently you could find anything from a DVR to a miniature helicopter in there. As part of a series about everything small, here is our pocket sized chart. Vote for your faves.<p />
Guiness’ law states that there is almost always more than one person who claims to have created the biggest, smallest fastest etc.<p /><p />Some of these items are disputable, but they are all cool. Our fave is the tiny combustion engine made at Berkeley.<p />
These are the absolute best that money can buy, when it comes to headphones. The ATH-W5000s are nearly $2000 and the Ultimate Ears UE 11’s are custom made to fit the ears of many rock stars.<p /><p />If money were no object these are the headphones you might want. Cans for Cannes.<p />
A collection of ‘personal helicopters’ and flying machines.<p /><p />As the T-shirt says - “the is is the future, where is my Jetpack”. It seems that Jetpacks are basically dangerous, and since the appearance at the Los Angeles Olympics, nothing much has happened. Still, there are two manufacturers that will actually build one for you, for $250,000, and you can buy a glorified fan that will propel you on an ice rink at the same speed as a puck.<p /><p />If you want rotor blades rather than rockets, the current options are a bit cheaper and more practical, but are still less cool than the Soviet Fold-up helicopter, from the Cold War era.
Time Machines come from two places: Ebay and movies. They also come in two varieties: hat with wires and vehicle, depending on whether the trip is physical or metaphysical.<p /><p />A notable exception is in the machine used in the TV show The Time Tunnel where the black and white spiral induces the effect of an acid trip to the extent that it doesn’t matter that it is neither a hat or a car.
