In a clever way of protesting this, Spanish street art collective Luzinterruptus set up eighty of these illuminated, micro toilets at the Plaza de San Ildefonso in downtown Madrid. Each micro toilet was filled with a yellow liquid (for obvious reasons, they didn’t use urine) and attached with a LED light.

Luzinterruptus explained the reason for their art intervention: “During the day and at night time, people urinate anywhere in the streets without any embarrassment. They just walk along, turn round, zip down and, even in crowded places, seen by passers-by, let go. Through our installation, public toilets, we have tried to attract attention -in a comical manner- about the problem we encounter when walking in centric streets and squares.”

At first glance, the plastic urinals they used look like oddly shaped socks for people with giant feet. But they’re actually plastic containers that are used for male patients to urinate into at hospitals. Who knew?

[via Pop Up City]

The Love Box was created by the Honest & Smile agency in Barcelona, Spain and it was conceived for a documentary film as a simple way of capturing both sides of a conversation in a single shot, using an iPhone. It’s a wooden box which pops open to reveal a tray inside. It’s got a slot for an iPhone, and a carefully positioned mirror which you line up about 1/2 way in front of the camera’s lens. It requires a little fiddling with the angle to get it just right, but once set, it allows you to shoot split-screen videos and stills.

It’s definitely an interesting idea, but you’ll have to shell out €58 (~$78 USD) on Etsy for what amounts to a few blocks of wood and a small mirror positioned in the right spot. I suppose if you’re the DIY type, you could make your own if you don’t want to spend the money.

[via Wired]

The cool thing is that they’re not really X-rays. Max actually disassembled these objects and took photos of the individual components, then layered them back together to create the X-ray effect. Max chose to expose a cassette recorder, various cameras, an old reel-to-reel deck, and other delightful tech relics. In the collection, you’ll find a bunch of other retro gadgets X-rayed, which is even better in my opinion, because I honestly don’t want to know what an X-rayed smartphone looks like. It can’t be nearly as interesting as something mechanical.

You can see the rest of the Proposition One series here, or see them in person in New York at the Klompching Gallery through December 9, 2011.

[via Fubiz]

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

The snake struck at his hand, but given the current state of the world economy, he grabbed his money anyway. It’s just what you have to do in that situation. All ended well though. He called the police and a bank manager activated the cash release that had trapped the snake.

The snake was presumably returned to the board room on the top floor of the bank, where he sipped champagne, lit a cigar with a thousand dollar bill and made jokes about the 99%.

[via Neatorama]

One of the hassles of being an in-patient is that you’re often hooked up on to monitoring machines and are literally confined in your hospital room. However, a team from the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid in Spain want to change that with their Nuubo smart shirt.

Obviously, this shirt is no ordinary piece of clothing. You can think of it like a portable monitoring machine that you can wear to keep track of your vital signs, and can alert doctors and nurses if anything is amiss. It’s also embedded with a GPS unit that will let hospital staff locate you if you wander too far away from your ward. Moreover, the shirt can even be programmed to run an EKG chest remotely with the push of a button.

The shirt is currently being put on a trial run in a hospital environment, and I hope it’s something we’ll be able to see in use in hospitals very soon.

[via Engadget via Dvice]

Arcosur will also name streets after Sonic, Space Invaders and Zelda. All in all, the neighborhood will have a dozen video game-related street names, while the remaining 46 roads will be devoted to musical composers and Spanish monuments. The neighborhood is a  government-sponsored project, with a goal of providing 21,000 houses for 20 to 35 year old people looking to buy their first homes. That’s a gamer demographic all right.

But as Antonio Almudi Miranda, president of the Arcosur neighborhood association, also admitted the naming was also done as a publicity stunt, but it’s for a good cause. The residents hope that the increased attention to Arcosur will help convince their government to finish the neighborhood on time. Mario needs a castle, you know.

[via CNN via Loot Ninja]

These installations were realized by El Colmado in collaboration with Quim Roqué and Helena Delgado for their (badly named) spaceinvARTders exhibition.

The structures were made made out of steel and PVC, filled with over 1500 balloons to simulate the pixels of the classic video game. And no, they weren’t filled with water.

[via Design You Trust]

Created for Spain’s DAB Light Works, the bulb-shaped Dear Edi (a nod to Thomas Edison) lamp is actually made from metal, not glass. A small cutout at the bottom of the hanging fixture lets its bright directional light source cast a dramatic beam onto the surface below.

The fixture hangs from your ceiling by a metallic fabric cable, and the “bulb” is available in either a shiny chrome or bold black anodized finish. Depending on your preference, you can choose from an intense halogen light source, or go all modern with a 3-watt LED lamp.

I definitely wouldn’t complain about a set three of these hanging over my kitchen island. For more information on lighting by DAB, contact their U.S. distributor, Global Lighting.

[via DesignZen]

At first glance, it’s hard to get over the ridiculously suggestive shape of the Torre Agbar (Agbar Tower), but it’s the cool light show that’s really the eye-catcher here.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

The 474-foot tall, 38-story office tower has over 4,500 LED devices that can be computer synchronized to display massive, colorful images wrapping the entire building. The building was designed by noted French architect Jean Nouvel, whose designs include the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis and Tokyo’s Dentsu Tower among others.

[photos via flickr]

The “tree” features a fully-animated version of the classic arcade game, rendered across thousands of colored LEDs.

From what I can tell (my Spanish isn’t that great), its currently on display in downtown Madrid at Nuevos Ministerios.

[via Clipset, with extra photos over on Kartones Blog]

Looking like something out of an alien civilization, The Drop speakers are designed for those who like their speakers to make a bold visual statement. But these don’t just look good, each speaker is designed to handle up to 100 watts of power. Sensitivity is rated at 89dB, with frequency response is rated at -6dB at 50Hz and 22kHz. While they certainly don’t hit the very deepest frequencies, you can always pick up a subwoofer if you need that extra boom.

Measuring in around 20-inches high, their funky colored cabinets are custom molded from ABS (the same stuff is used to make Lego blocks and some tattoo inks.) Thanks to their hard plastic shells, they come color-infused in white, black, silver, blue, yellow or red. The Drop speakers retail for £549 (appx. $1095 USD) per pair.

[via Retro To Go]