Technabob » urban

Urban Beehive Gives You Some Honey, Right on the Money

Hazel Chua — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 16:00:35 +0000

I use honey with a lot of stuff. Honey on bread, honey in coffee, honey in oatmeal, honey in tea, honey in milk – I think a whole lot of things just taste better with honey in it or on it.

I even tried honey that was still pretty fresh from the hive when I visited a bee farm a couple of years ago. But imagine being able to get the freshest honey ever with your very own beehive that you can mount, right in your very own kitchen.

The Urban Beehive is a design by Clive van Heerden and Jack Mama. It’s part of a new project by Philips called the “Microbial Home.” Through the project, Philips envisions a future where the waste from one household might become fuel for another.

Philips also says that there are more benefits to the Urban Beehive than meets the eye. Aside from providing people with fresh honey, the Urban Beehive can also boost pollination and provide some sort of therapeutic value to the owners by just watching the bees hard at work.

But my only question now is: what’s in it for the bees?

[via Daily Mail]

Graffiti Markup Language (GML) Turns Paint Tags Into XML Tags

Technabob — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 03:26:16 +0000

Graffiti artists of the future might not need to run their own late-night missions to tag their target locations thanks to this new technology. GML (Graffiti Markup Language) provides a method to store and describe graffiti as digital information which can then be played back and reproduced later.

GML was created by Jamie Wilkinson, Evan Roth, Theodore Watson and Chris Sugrue and stores gestural graffiti motions as a set of XML data tags. They fondly refer to GML as “today’s new digital standard for tomorrow’s vandals.”

There are already a variety of applications that can read and store GML data, including Grafitti Analysis, Laser Tag (which is completely awesome all on its own), Fat Tag Deluxe (for virtual iPhone graffiti) and EyeWriter (for drawing with eye movements), among others. You can even upload and store your graffiti creations and share them for others to download over at 000000book.com.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

There’s even Robotagger, an industrial robotic arm with a paintbrush in it’s grip, and programmed to follow GML paths to create robotic graffiti!

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

The guys over at Robots.net even go so far to imagine a future where you’d record your graffiti at home, then send out your own robotic army with their own spray cans to do your bidding. Sweet. Just not on my garage, please.

Cool Rider: Like a Segway, but Not Really

Technabob — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 01:52:43 +0000

Lately, we’ve been running into lots of unusual personal transportation vehicles. The Cool Rider is just the latest attempt to dethrone the venerable Segway from the top of the single-person transporter heap.

The Cool Rider isn’t quite as schmancy as a Segway, but it still looks like a fun way to get around. The vehicle features a powerful single-wheel drive system that can pull you along the streets at a zippy clip.

The battery-powered motor can hit a top speed of 12 mph, and can run for about an hour per charge. The battery pack is removable too, and plugs into any wall outlet. The other unique thing about the Cool Rider is that you can detach the standing sled from the back and just use it to pull you on your skates or rollerblades.

While the $1250 (USD) retail price isn’t exactly pocket change, the Cool Rider does sell for about 1/4 the price of a Segway. Sold? Then head on over to Opulent Items and plunk down your credit card. While you mull it over, why not watch this Cool Rider video clip…

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Gotcha.

BTW, Did you notice that none of the people in the photos are wearing a helmet or knee pads? I don’t know about you, but the whole thing looks just a little bit dangerous to me. I’d have to bet these things aren’t street-legal anywhere around here.

[via 7Gadgets]

Geek Graffiti Hits the Streets

Alisha K. — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 12:40:13 +0000

It’s not only Internet/text shorthand, with its LOLs and OMGs, that’s everywhere; it seems lots of tech-based and inspired memes are creeping out into the world at large, including in graffiti and other urban art forms. Forget the old tags — meet the new tags, the tags rooted in HTML and lolcats.

Not all of the designs in WebUrbanist’s excellent collection are traditional graffiti; some of the artwork is “reverse graffiti.” Instead of painting or otherwise marking a surface, the artist carefully cleans the areas that need to be lighter for the design. There are usually plenty of places in our cities for the intrepid young artist to practice that form.

[via WebUrbanist]