design

Summer is here and already it is easy to see how fast it will go. The warm weather beckons us outside for fun in the sun, where good times and food will go hand in hand for the upcoming months. With all this time flying about, before we know it the fun will be over (or at least have to be moved inside). And that's when we trade the burgers and the grill for the stew and the slow cooker.

Even though summer has just begun, the Crock-Pot SCCPRP500-LTD Slow Cooker (in a "Limited Edition Crocktober Pattern") … Read more

The commercialization of space travel is well on its way. That means you can't just pop over to NASA and borrow a space suit for your private space flight, which leaves room for some upstarts to get in on the space-clothing action.

Final Frontier Design is working on a lightweight, relatively inexpensive space suit and is looking for $20,000 on Kickstarter to boost the project. The company has already built two generations of suits but is looking to improve the design with a retractable helmet, better gloves, a carbon fiber waist ring, and higher operating pressure.… Read more

Take a look at this eccentric array of action figure lamps by U.K. firm Evil Robot Designs. They feature painted pint-size superstars from geeky films, video games, and comic books.

Each of the six lamps in the collection has an ear-catching name like Alien Nation and Forbidden Planet. It would take paragraphs to list all the characters integrated into the 2-foot fixtures, but some notables (not mentioned in the photo captions) include Mysterio; Green Goblin; evil xenomorphs from the "Alien" movie series; He-Man; Bunnygirl "Suzumiya Haruhi"; and many more. … Read more

Volvo long staked its reputation on safety, so you would not expect a hot hatchback to come from the Swedish automaker. But fit the little C30 with Volvo's R-Design trim and give it the new Polestar engine software, and the car becomes a delight to shoot down a twisty road.

The car did not make any more noise than a standard C30, the only things announcing the extra power being a blue badge on its butt and ample response to the gas pedal. The side-grip shifter for the six-speed manual slipped through the gate with European precision, but the … Read more

Canvas 14 from ACD Systems is an enterprise-class technical illustration program. With it, you can create, refine, and publish sophisticated illustrations, animations, and documents.

It combines the drawing and illustrating features of a premium graphics app, the 3D modeling and drafting capabilities of CAD, and the collaborative capabilities of a productivity suite in one surprisingly intuitive package. A quick-start guide, copious documentation, and a helpful sidebar called the Canvas Assistant made getting to know this capable but complex software easier than we expected.

To try Canvas 14 for free, you must select that option during installation and complete the process … Read more

What were the prettiest, or otherwise design-centric apps made on Apple's platforms this year?

The results are in.… Read more

How do you design a water bottle for the end of the world?

That's the question that was put to the team at Japanese design-engineering firm Takram, which has worked with, among others, Toshiba, NTT Docomo, and Toyota. Their novel response? Forget about the bottle and create artificial organs that could be implanted in humans to make their bodies more efficiently use what water is available should resources become scarce.… Read more

"If the Internet goes off, you may need this reference book."

So says artist and designer Ben West on his Web site. West, along with colleague Felix Heyes, has created an impressive, 1,240-page tome made up of the first result produced by a Google Images search on each of the 21,000 or so words found in an everyday dictionary.… Read more

In the quest for knowledge, Microsoft's Bing announced a partnership with Encyclopedia Britannica today. Now, alongside all other results -- like Wikipedia and Web pages -- users will see a box of information with an image linking to results from Britannica's online encyclopedia.

"A core focus for us here at Bing has been about delivering relevant information in a more organized way to help you find what you need more quickly and get stuff done," Bing's principal development lead Franco Salvetti wrote in a blog post. "We're very excited to collaborate with Encyclopedia … Read more