Category Archives: Space

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Reimagined Watches from Tokyo Flash

February 10th, 2014 | Robot, Space

The watches from Tokyo Flash are not the most practical tools, but that’s not really the point. These devices are meant to stand out from the crowd, make people say: “What the hell is that thing on your wrist!?”

All of the designs below represent a creative new way to represent time.

The Kisai Denshoku Watch

tokyo flash Kisai Denshoku

How to Use:

“Twelve light bars present the time in a simple, easy to read format. Press the button and the LEDs behind the acrylic diffuse and illuminate the bars three times. First hours are presented, then groups of ten minutes, then single minutes. The speed of movement can be accelerated by pressing the button again. To find out more about how to read the time, take a look at the interactive manual above.”

Side fact: Denshoku means illumination in Japanese.

Pimp Pimpin aint Easy PU LED Watch

Pimp Pimpin aint Easy PU LED Watch

How To Use:

“Reading the time is easy, hours 1-12 are displayed in the left column, from the bottom to the top, minutes from the bottom right, each lit LED representing a single minute. The time can be read more quickly if you look at the numbers on the right, each row of lit LEDs is equal to five minutes. The date can be read in a similar way.”

Side fact: The light-up feature also animates every 2 minutes between 6 pm and 1 am – pimp time.

The Binary LED Watch

Binary LED Watch

 How to Use:

“How to read the time: Hours addition : 3rd LED +4th LED (from Left) = 2 + 1 = 3 Minutes addition : 1st LED+ 3rd LED ( from Left) = 32 + 8 = 40 => 03:40 e.g. 2: Hours addition : 1st LED +3rd LED ( from Left) = 8 + 2 = 10 Minutes addition : 1st LED+ 3rd LED + 5th LED ( from Left) = 16 + 8 + 2 = 26 => 10:26”

The Equalizer

Equalizer High Freq.2 LED Watch

How to Use:

“The display pushes up the top row of lights and they float back down in a real equalizer effect, finally all the lights fall down off the face of the watch to leave only two lights to indicate the time for 5 seconds, then the two lights also trail off. ”

Tokyoflash 1000100101 LED Watch

Tokyoflash 1000100101 LED Watch

How to Use:

“Straight off the wrist of a Moon Base Commander from a 1960’s Sci-Fi classic, this watch features all the things that you’d expect. Flat metal panel, cryptic flashing lights, carbon fibre style strap and display that looks like it’s gauging your oxygen level.

By looking at the 4 rows of lights, the Green & Red LED’s at the top indicate the hour simply by counting them. 7 red = 7 o’clock.

The Bottom rows of green & yellow LED’s indicate the minutes. 3 Green + 5 yellow = 35 minutes past.”

Tokyoflash Infection LED Watch

Tokyoflash Infection LED Watch

How to Use:

“Twenty-seven multi-colored LEDs pulsate and move like cells across the curved face to present the time from beneath the attractive mirrored mineral crystal lens.

Twelve red LEDs indicate hours, eleven yellow LEDs represent the progression of time in groups of five minutes and four green LEDs show single minutes.

A single touch of the upper button animates the LEDs, a single touch of the lower button shows the time immediately.”

You can find more watches from Tokyo Flash EBAY.

-RSB

Abandoned Yugoslavian (Alien?) Monuments

January 23rd, 2014 | Robot, Space

Abandoned Soviet Monuments 1 This monument, authored by sculptor Miodrag Živković, commemorates the Battle of Sutjeska, one of the bloodiest battles of World War II in the former Yugoslavia.

Antwerp-based photographer Jan Kempenaers traveled throughout former-Yugoslavia to capture thousands of old monuments commemorating the the Second World War. The structures are called “Spomeniks” and were commissioned by former dictator Josep Tito in the 1960s and 1970s.

“Tito couldn’t erect figures or busts in honour of generals because he didn’t want to be seen to be favouring any ethnic group, for example a Bosnian general or a Serb war hero, so instead they made these things that didn’t refer to people,” Kempenaers told The Guardian.

Abandoned Soviet Monuments 2

Ostra

Abandoned Soviet Monuments 7

Kruševo – “The Kruševo Makedonium monument in Macedonia was dedicated to the Ilinden Uprising of 1903, when the Macedonian population revolted against the Ottoman Empire.”

Abandoned Soviet Monuments 8Kosmaj – “The Kosmaj monument in Serbia is dedicated to soldiers of the Kosmaj Partisan detachment from World War II.”
Abandoned Soviet Monuments 6

Podgarić Abandoned Soviet Monuments 5

Niš – “Built in 1963, this monument in Niš, Serbia commemorates the 10,000 people from the area that were killed during World War II. The three clenched fists are the work of sculptor Ivan Sabolić.”
Abandoned Soviet Monuments 4

Knin – “This monument is dedicated to the soldiers who freed the city of Knin, Croatia from the fascists during World War II.”
Abandoned Soviet Monuments 3

Kadinjača – “The Kadinjača Memorial Complex commemorates those who died during the Battle of Kadinjača.”

Abandoned Soviet Monuments

Tjentište

The monuments were built using reinforced concrete, steel, and granite, and they feature strong, angular geometry, which gives them an otherworldly look. I wonder if these will be featured in some sort of History Channel Ancient Aliens show in the future…

If you liked these, there’s a book by the photographer on Amazon where you can find a lot more images, here.

-RSB

[via Business Insider]

Bioluminescent Beaches

January 21st, 2014 | Space

bioluminescent beaches 1 bioluminescent beaches 2 bioluminescent beaches 3 bioluminescent beaches 4 bioluminescent beaches 5

I’ve only seen bioluminescent plankton once before during a night swim in Halong Bay, Vietnam. It was unforgettable. Every movement through the water created a surreal glowing trail in its wake. The magical images above were captured by Taiwanese photographer, Will Ho, during a recent trip to the Maldives. The phytoplankton do not glow all the time, but instead are activated by disturbances in their environment such as the crashing waves.

You can read all about the science of bioluminescence here, and you can find more photographs from Ho on his Flickr page.

RSB

[via My Modern Met]

Colored Spheres Respond to Human Touch

January 10th, 2014 | Space

Colored Spheres Respond to Human Touch 1

Colored Spheres Respond to Human Touch 2

Colored Spheres Respond to Human Touch 3

Colored Spheres Respond to Human Touch 4

Colored Spheres Respond to Human Touch 5 Colored Spheres Respond to Human Touch 7 Colored Spheres Respond to Human Touch 8

From now until January 14th, 2014, you can experience a luminous new art installation at the Hong Kong Arts Centre. The design collective known simply as teamLab created this glowing field of orbs that actually responds to human touch. From the artists:

“Individual balls floating in the air communicate to each other via a wireless connection.
The balls change color when touched by people, when they bump into things, or receive a shock, and sounds are produced in relation to the colors. Those balls send this color information to other balls, which in turn send the information to balls close by, and the information spreads out so that all the balls become the same color.”

The artists hope to equate the interaction of the orbs to the growing connectivity of people across the internet. “The internet has spread through out the world. Individuals are connected to closely related people and information spreads back and forth freely between them. People act as the intermediary for the information and in an instant the information spreads and the world unifies”

So, I suppose at this very moment, I am playing a small role in the internet communication world in which we all live…

-RSB

[via Design Boom]

A New Sleek Spacesuit for Mars

January 8th, 2014 | Space

Mars Space Suit

Mars Space Suit 2

Dava Newman, an Aeronautics researcher at MIT, has been working on a revolutionary new spacesuit for more than decade, and she recently showed off her progress at the TEDWomen session last month. The crux of the design is a new way to deliver pressure that the human body desperately needs to survive the vacuum of space. A traditional astronaut spacesuit creates a rigid pressurized vessel which is bulky and cumbersome. In contrast, Newman’s BioSuit employs semi-rigid ribs traced across the body to provide mechanical counter-pressure while letting the wearer retain a full range of movement. It sounds a bit like a suit that give you a light hug all around your body.

Dava Newman

If we plan to go to Mars and beyond, a new, more maneuverable spacesuit will likely be essential. If you’ve ever seen a recorded spacewalk, you can get a sense of just how difficult it is to do the simplest tasks in space. This new design has the potential to completely change the game.

Unfortunately, Newman hasn’t received NASA funding for the project since 2005. She recently told Boston Magazine that “without funding, we are sort of working on this one student at a time. We have a pretty extensive plan to get to a flight system for the BioSuit, and, if that were in place and funded, in two years of full-on work, we could be ready.”

Hopefully, someone can give her some $$$ to move this project along.

-RSB
[via Business Insider]

“Somewhere” – An Animated Short from Nicolas Ménard

January 7th, 2014 | Space

Somewhere Nicolas Ménard

“Somewhere” is a beautiful new animation from Nicolas Ménard, made as a first year film at the Royal College of Art in London. In the video, the protagonist crash lands his spaceship on an abandoned planet, leaving his severed arm to comfort a lost soul mate.

I really love the teal blue and red color palette of the video. It has a wonderful aesthetic. For more from Nicolas, check out his Vimeo page.

-RSB

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