modern on technabob...

If there’s one thing us geeks know how to do is turn the everyday into something fantastically dorky. Our latest invention? LED flowers, trees and shrubs.

This high-tech plantlife does away with such petty annoyances as dirt, water and sunlight, replacing them with an ongoing thirst for electricity. Each kit comes complete with bendy branches,…

As we look for more ways to generate energy-efficient light, we’ve seen a gradual move away from the warm glow of incandescent light, to the ugly pinkish hues of CFL, to the strange blueish-white point-source light produced by LEDs. And frankly, none of those are nearly as cool as what awaits us in our futures…

Everyone has surely heard of bookshelf speakers. But have you ever heard of coffee table speakers? Well now you can say you have.

The innovative Table of Sound (ToS) coffee table was created by designers Wout Fierens and Miquell van Meelen of Wondering Boys for a recent competition over on designboom. The ToS provides a…

If you’re in the market for a new digital watch and want something a little out of the ordinary, you might want to check out the latest timepiece from Nooka – the ZAZ. Now, I’m not a big fan of the name, which sounds like some sort of tacky accessory store from the 1980s, but…

This offbeat watch design is merely a concept at this point, but I actually kind of like the idea. The Alessi Laser Shot watch is supposed to project the current time on your wrist using (frickin’) laser beams.

Designer Andy Kurovets envisioned this über-modern watch concept that uses a modulated laser scanner to projects the…

Well it’s been a while since I’ve come across any modern lighting that I would actually call “super cool”, but these unique adjustable fixtures definitely deserve their name. So I guess it’s a good thing that they’re named these lamps Supercool.

Designed by Germany’s hansandfranz for Macrolux, the Supercool lamp features a dynamic, adjustable structure…

These cool new watches from Japan are the first LED timepieces I’ve seen that feature a touch-sensitive display.

Created by Japan’s SeaHope, the Dual Touch LED watch has a display that can react to your touch. In finger trace mode, the LEDs under your digits follow your exact movements.

The other cool thing about the…

It’s been a while since we featured a cool digital watch here on technabob. That’s not for lack of trying – I just haven’t seen anything particularly different in a while. So I was happy when I stumbled onto these funky new digital timepieces from Alessi.

Designed by renowned architect Will Alsop + Federico Grazzini,…

I’ve seen some really unusual watches in my time, but I can tell you without a doubt that this is the first time that I’ve ever seen a watch that’s shaped like a perfectly spherical planet. Ever.

Named after the recently discovered dwarf planet, the Pierre Junod Eris watch tells time using a pair of…

I know, I know, what the hell does a salt shaker have to do with technabob? Nothing, really. I normally wouldn’t write about such a dull, utilitarian thing, but this one deserves a mention for its sheer design and wit.

Fred & Friend’s wonderful Saltside Out salt shaker does the seemingly impossible by placing the…

These modern digital watches don’t use LED or LCD screens. Instead, they use E-Ink screens to tell the time.

Phosphor’s E-Ink watches have a bold modern design, and feature highly readable electrostatic displays.

The Phosphor DH01, DH02 and DH03 all feature a display that combines a dramatic modern numeric display for minutes, along with a…

The neo-modern design of this BrionVega desktop radio harkens back to a sixties’ Italian design aesthetic. Maybe that’s because it’s actually based on a radio the company actually made back in 1965 in Italy.

BrionVega’s RR227 is a modern-day update of Marco Zanuso and Richard Sapper’s classic RR127 radio, which they created over 44 years…