modern on technabob...

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 salt OUTSIDE of the shaker.…

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 simulated analog dial for the…

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 ago. The updated model comes…

Who says light bulbs need to be round? Despite what Copernicus might have taught us, flat is the new round.

Korean designer Joonhuyn Kim has reinvented the classic incandescent light bulb by putting it into a flat glass enclosure.

Kim claims the new bulbs take up just 1/3rd of the space of a conventional bulb, making them easier to pack…

Here’s a new LED watch that’s sure to draw attention whenever you go to check the time.

The STORM Faze watch features a unique dot-matrix LED display, concealed behind a plastic lens that sort of reminds me of the compound eye of an insect. Or maybe one of those dotty color-blindness tests. Either way, it’s bumpy and cool.

The Faze…

This new watch from Germany’s Botta Design can’t be bothered with two full rotations of the hour hand over the course of a 24 hour day.

The Botta UNO 24 uses a single pointy hand that rotates at 1/2 the speed of a normal watch, letting you view all 24 hours of the day without a 2nd time around the…

Created by Swedish designer David Ericsson, VOID Watches are the embodiment of clean modern design.

Each watch in the new V.01 collection features a bold face design with an off-center grey-on-black LCD screen. According to Ericsson, the V.01’s half-glass / half-stainless face “could represent the duality of life; like the yin and yang, the past and future, love and hate,…

Being such a tech geek, I have a tendency to gravitate towards digital watches. But every once in a while I’ll stumble onto an analog that catches my eye.

Designed by Italo Fontana, the Welder K24 is about as macho looking a watch as you’ll find. This chunky timepiece won’t win any awards for subtlety. This is no wimpy little…

This wild piece of modern furniture may look like an abstract shape from the mind of its creator, but it’s actually been precisely engineered from a 3-dimensional waveform plot of a brief audio clip.

To make his Sound/Chair, designer Matthew Plummer-Fernandez started with a 3D plot based on the volume, time and frequency of a short piece of audio.

He…

If you’re a Technabob regular, you know I’m a sucker for cool modern watches. I don’t know why – maybe it’s that I got stuck wearing a dorky Casio calculator watch as a kid that makes me want to rebel in my old age.

Created by Italian architect/designer Denis Guidone, these watches work their magic thanks to their minimal modern…

It’s amazing what a difference a couple of decades makes. Back in the 1970s, fiber optic lamps were some of the ugliest, tackiest things you could possibly bring into your home. And as this photo proves, fiber optics can truly be used for evil. Thankfully, tastes have changed, and the dynamic illumination medium has found new life in this modern…

Hot off the presses comes the latest über-cool modern watch from the guys over at Tokyoflash. Their latest creation features a reverse LCD display which lets you view the time without the need for pressing any pesky buttons.

The Tokyoflash Negative watch gets its name from its “always-on” inverse LCD display which uses oversize black dot-matrix pixels to reveal the…

Despite his recent “everything I have designed is absolutely unnecessary” comment, I’m still a sucker for most everything Philippe Starck creates. His latest watch design – the Crystal Clear – is a real stunner.

Despite its name, the Crystal Clear actually sports an red face, not a clear one. The watch features a smooth black polyurethane band and a large…

The results are in for our just completed Tokyoflash watch giveaway, and I can now reveal the answers and winners. Read on for the answers, the winners’ names, and some really special watch designs in case you’ve never seen them before.
S-Mode Oberon IPB: 11:36

Tokyoflash Infection: 3:56

Nekura Progression: 10:45 (PM)

Tokyoflash Shinshoku: 9:37

Tokyoflash 1000100101 Black: 10:19

Nekura…

Looking for a really cool lamp to replace that cheap IKEA lighting fixture on your desk? As long as you’re willing to drop a little dough, this Italian designer lamp is sure to impress.

Designed by Iliara Marelli for Nemo Italianaluce, the Chain Lamp is a real thing of beauty. Made from case aluminum and lit by 4 bright white…