Students set world electric vehicle acceleration record
by: Gizmag Emerging Technology Magazine, 2013-10-03 19:10:07 UTC

Most students are happy to graduate college with a degree and a few work contacts, but students from The Netherlands' Delft University of Technology have a good shot at graduating with a world record. Just days after a group of Delft students grabbed the human powered speed record, another group set a world acceleration record for electric vehicles. .. Continue Reading Students set world electric vehicle acceleration record

Section: Automotive

Tags: Delft University of Technology, Electric Vehicles, World's Fastest

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A Site For Borrowing Power Drills, Kitchen Equipment, And Anything Else You Can Think Of
by: Co.Exist, 2013-10-04 12:30:00 UTC

Daan Weddepohl created Peerby.com––a site for borrowing stuff––after a series of traumatic experiences. First, his apartment burned down. Second, his girlfriend dumped him. Then, his mother became seriously ill.

He was forced to stay with friends and get by without all the things he had normally. "At first, having nothing was terrible thing, but after a while I started accepting it and realizing that it was okay. It helped me create very strong human connections. People were happy to help me out, and they felt really good when they shared."

Weddepohl, who has worked on startup companies before, had been thinking about creating a "location–based messaging service" for a while, and realized that helping people borrow things from their neighbors would be as good a reason as any to create one. Peerby lets users request items in their neighborhood––a power drill, a tent––then puts them in instant contact with people who have them. Through making the exchange, neighbors also get to know one another.

Today's sharing economy is mostly known for sites like Airbnb and RelayRides, which let neighbors share high–value and frequently needed items like hotel rooms and cars. But a growing number of companies like Peerby are expanding to encourage for items large and small. Many cite the environmental benefit of making it easy for people to buy (and throwaway) less. "It makes you realize that a lot of things that you have you don't really need. Why would you want to own a power drill if you only use it once?" he asks.

Weddepohl launched Peerby last October in Amsterdam, and it's since branched out to cities all over Holland and further afield. There are now growing communities in Berlin, Brooklyn, Barcelona, Madrid, and London. The most commonly exchanged items are household tools, kitchen equipment, and camping gear.

It's free at the moment, but Weddepohl hopes eventually to charge a little for using the site. As a first step, he's planning to add an insurance option. At the request of lenders, borrowers will pay a small daily amount––say $1––to cover damage and losses. Peerby would take a small cut.

Weddepohl emphasizes the importance of the request–based messaging system. The site is not a list of stuff people have to borrow, like many sharing platforms. When you sign up, you can start asking for things immediately. Peerby then sends out notifications to people in your area, gradually building up a picture of who owns what.

"You have to make it easy and match existing behavior," he says. "If you borrow a cup of sugar, you knock on your neighbor's door and ask for it. The neighbor doesn't come to you and say 'Hey, here's a bag of sugar, do you need some?'"

Crucial to success will be to get people used to borrowing and lending more frequently than they do now. "I hope to create trust in the fact that you don't have to own things. My vision is that we'll go to an economy where [borrowing] is more common. It won't really matter who owns what, as long as you can use it."

Bill Gates Invests In Twitter Founders' Vegan Meat Startup
by: Co.Exist, 2013-10-04 18:43:00 UTC

Bill Gates thinks the future of meat is ... fake meat. He's said it before. And today, we've learned that Gates is investing in vegan meat startup Beyond Meat.

Earlier this year, Bill Gates named Beyond Meat––a startup that's aiming for the mainstream, non–vegan market––as one of three companies that he thinks are shaping the future of food. Backed by Obvious Corporation (an incubator created by Twitter co–founders Evan Williams and Biz Stone and the company's former VP of Product, Jason Goldman), Beyond Meat makes a variety of fake chicken strips (my personal favorite is the "grilled" flavor) that taste surprisingly like real meat––enough so that you might not be able to tell the difference if someone stuck it in, say, a burrito. You can see some of the offerings in the slide show above. Looks just like chicken!

As Biz Stone told us in an interview, "For people who are actually repulsed by meat, they're not going to like this." No word yet on how much Gates is investing in the company, which sells its products at Whole Foods in many parts of the country. Beyond Meat Chicken–Free strips will be available nationwide in the fall.

Beijing Design Week 2013: Wuhao Presents New Work by Mian Wu & Climatology by the Fabrick Lab (a.k.a. Elaine Ng Yanling)
by: Core77, 2013-10-03 02:00:00 UTC

Isabelle Pascal has supported Beijing Design Week since its inaugural year through her curated design shop Wuhao, which she founded one year prior, in 2010, after relocating from her native France. Located on a quiet alley off the heavily-touristed strip of Nanluoguxiang, the traditional courtyard house is arranged thematically based on the seasons and elements, featuring collections of furniture, jewelry, fashion and other design objects by a mix of local and imported designers.

An art and media manager by trade, Pascal has an excellent eye for young and emerging designers, and her savvy is especially useful in a country with an as-yet-inchoate design scene. We were impressed by the work of CAFA grad Mian Wu, whose debut collection we saw at Wuhao during last Beijing Design Week, and Pascal was pleased to present several new pieces from the young designer. Wu expands upon the theme of jewelry meta-production with rings bedecked with clusters of 'defective' rings, which have been cast and painted bone white yet retain their original details.

Of course, Pascal's main focus for this year's Beijing Design Week is one of her new finds: the Fabrick Lab, a.k.a. Elaine Ng Yanling, a Chinese-British designer who splits her time between Beijing, London and Hong Kong and whose past experience includes stints at Nokia and Nissan. And although she's been dubbed the "Techno Fairy" by Elle Decor, her pithy nickname belies the rigor and research behind her craft: she was recently a TED Fellow for smart materials, which take the form of biomimetic textiles.

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Sustainable Packaging: Unilever Refillable Containers, Tetra Pak Enviro Survey
by: Environmental Leader, 2013-10-02 13:38:37 UTC
Consumer demand for environmental products and packaging is on the rise, especially in developing countries, according to research from packaging firm Tetra Pak. On average, developing countries outscored their developed counterparts in five of six categories in Tetra Pak’s biennial environment survey. An average of 78 percent of consumers from developing-world countries frequently, sometimes or [...]

LDF13: Designersblock
by: design milk, 2013-10-02 15:00:55 UTC

Designersblock was back at the Southbank Centre for the second year and this time with a much larger presence extending right across the venue.

Designersblock favorite, The New English was in the Clore Ballroom, with a typically quirky display – this time mugs on heads and plates on mannequins – of course!

Young Welsh designer Miriam Jones has created a beautiful range of wooden products adorned with electric wire, adding color and texture in an innovative way. There seemed to be a trend at LDF for making things from unusual source materials and this is a really nice example.

This piece is named The Considerate Thief and his Brother and was made by Jessica Found It from 1934 Reilly Kestrel head lamps, reclaimed pressure gauges, plumbing fittings and found finials. Jessica says: “I don’t need to start from scratch, I don’t need to manufacture materials, I don’t need plastic. I can create something interesting from old, undervalued objects. Upcycling allows for all the weird and wonderful objects to be seen as beautiful. It is seeing aesthetic potential and allowing the phoenix to rise up out of the rubbish.”

I first spotted Xiaoqi Zhang’s work at the Central Saint Martin’s graduate show earlier this year. Collective Memory Ceramics are inspired by the shared memories of younger consumers in China.

Made of copper, brass, silver, and concrete, the lids of these gorgeous containers by Rosanne Bannister are decorated with the designs from manhole covers.

Israeli jewelry designer Noy Alon has created these incredible rings from gold plated brass and epoxy putty. I’m not sure how practical they are, but they are stunning!

Jane Crisp was showing The Trug, Fruit and Egg baskets and A Family of Milking Stools as part of a project called Three Years in the Making. I’d say it was worth the wait!

And finally I loved Camilla Barnard’s live making studio, where she boldly declared her intentions with a sign saying: “I’ve got wood. What do you want me to do with it?” and true to her word had been making everything from juice cartons to pieces of A4 paper when I passed by. Designersblock is always a bit of an adventure and installations like this are the epitome of why we love it!

Our trip to the London Design Festival was supported by Airbnb.com.