Described as “new-stalgic,” the Ranchero Radio by Crosley is a perfect homage to the style of radio that was full of Mid-Century ornamentation. While it’s arguable if analog, tunable radios are even necessary, or stand-alone radios for that matter, with the Ranchero, the point really isn’t purpose but style. Maybe it is the fogginess and idealism of nostalgia, but the Western style in which Ranchero is designed was something like perfect. The Ranchero designers didn’t get mired in style alone, though. Continue reading →

I am convinced that jeans, really denim, is something like the ideal material. I get very uncomfortable, physically and emotionally, when for some reason I wear slacks instead of my dark blue jeans that have been perfectly broken-in. It’s my ideal outfit to wear these perfectly-fitted jeans, well-worn black boots, and a rugged shirt underneath a black denim jacket. So it’d make sense for me to get the limited denim edition of the acclaimed Beats by Dre headphones. Continue reading →

You can only attach a song or two to an eMail before you reach the data quota. And I’m sure few people pay every month for more storage with a cloud service like Dropbox. Most of us though, or at least I want to be able to quickly transfer files from my laptop to my best friends smartphone as quickly as I can without having to first synchronize a playlist to my Dropbox folder and send my friend the link so that he can then download the content.
Bridge, by Leef, a new kind of USB flash drive, aims to speed-up data sharing between devices. Continue reading →

There’s little better than design that uses one type of material for its form. There’s also few materials better than metal for illustrating the explicit beauty of products designed with this single-substance technique. Manipulated by an expert designer, certain metals immediately push-away competing designs that go for excess as a theme. This explains a lot of Apple’s success: their habit of minimizing materials has allowed them to focus and avoid frill.

The Titanium Clock Radio and Bluetooth Speaker by Lexon are these minimal material designs that join the Jony Ive-ranks of attaining attractive products through simplifying. Continue reading →

Motorola has broken down a rather overwhelming bit of data: we unlock our smartphones around 40 times per day. Do we do anything useful after unlock number 27? Maybe we do something quite productive. But either way, that is a lot of four-digit unlock codes typed to read an e-mail or scroll through our Twitter feeds. Continue reading →

Were I to be a little more disciplined with exercise, the Armour39 from Under Armour is what I would buy, or maybe it’s what I need to access some of that discipline. Even better, the Armour39 is the first product to measure something we might call “WILLpower.” The Armour39 breaks your workout down into a 0.0 to 10.0 scale that estimates how hard your body worked during your exercise regime. Continue reading →

As a guitar player, learning to love bass tones is like the slow-burn fulfillment of living as an adult. Everything to do with the word bass seems to get shoved into the background in most contexts. Solos are giving to so-called “lead” instruments like guitars. Stand-up bass players are confined to a corner of the stage near the drummer, both working in low-tone synchronization to make sure the song doesn’t fray because the trumpet and saxophone players are wandering around their instrument like they were the only musician playing. Perhaps as I get older though, I crave the security of bass tones. Continue reading →

I do not understand how 3D printers work, but there is no doubt that I am fascinated by them. I have some sense that a liquidy material gets extruded out and turns into a model rocket or a bouncy ball. I always thought that 3D printers would be bulky, room-occupying inaccessible devices, similar to a copy machine. But there seems to be a connection between excitement for a product and its eventual portability. Now, 3D printers are shrinking to a point where they can fit on a counter. Continue reading →

Sometimes I do not know the purpose of many of the world’s gadgets. It seems like we’ve reached a certain point where things can’t get any faster or any more connected. And maybe designers are starting to feel like this too, because some of them are starting to return to older ideas and revising them for modern use. The Smile Watch, an Indiegogo project, is one of these ultra-modern gadgets that refers to an older design scheme, the familiar wrist watch. Continue reading →

The touchscreen has transformed technology. There are some features that seem a bit comedic now, like the option to turn on clicking sounds when you press a virtual button on your iPhone. But, for the most part, we use actual physical buttons less and less. Now this seamless technology has carried over to the world of headphones. The Parrot Zik is a pair of wireless Bluetooth headphones for which you control the volume, song selection, stopping and starting all by specific movements of your finger on the exterior. Continue reading →