Month: August 2019

Spotted: UK-based NGO Buses4Homeless is turning decommissioned buses into shelters as part of an intervention aiming to improve the living conditions of London’s homeless.  The buses have been donated by Stagecoach, one of the main bus operators in London. They are part of a three-month recreational programme attempting to reintegrate homeless people back into the…

Spotted: The German Aerospace Centre (DLR) has developed the world’s first fully autonomous delivery helicopter. The gyrocopter is a modified commercial craft designed to operate without a pilot. The seats have been replaced by a loading bay, additional sensors have been installed and a flight computer has been added for the autonomous features. The gyrocopter…

Spotted: Mexico-based Esrawe Studio has designed two collections of low-cost, easy-to-produce furniture for a state housing project. The collections aim to prove that high-quality housing does not have to be expensive. Designer Héctor Esrawe and his team used easy-to-obtain materials – wood and metal – to create the furniture. All the pieces can be easily…

Large-scale performative artist and stage designer Es Devlin is designing the UK’s pavilion for Expo 2020 Dubai, UAE. Titled the Poem Pavilion, the structure will encompass a 20-metre high façade lit by LED lights to beam a collective, artificial intelligence (AI) generated global poetic message to outer space. All of the expected 25 million visitors…

Spotted: A team at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) in Israel has developed a way to train dogs using vibrations. The researchers created a modified mesh vest that uses haptic technology. Four small, painless, vibrating motors are operated via remote control and can dictate different commands to canines.  The study appears to be the…

Spotted: UK inventor Ed-Pennington Ridge has developed a high-tech prosthetic limb that will cost less than €100. The limb was designed to target amputees in developing countries, which mostly consist of young soldiers that have become incapable of working due to their immobility. Among the problems with access to prosthetic limbs are price (costing up…

Spotted: Australian-based Flora&Fauna is creating an interactive marketplace for zero-waste goods and services. Customers will be able to recycle and learn about eco-friendly lifestyles through workshops and pop-ups. The store will also include the first bulk eco-refill station in the country, providing customers with the opportunity to bring their own containers to refill with shampoo,…

Spotted: Scottish biotech firm CuanTec is planning to replace plastic food wrappers with a biodegradable material extracted from shellfish waste. The material is made out of a natural biopolymer derived from fermenting shellfish remains. The fermentation process, which resembles that of alcohol or yogurt, gives rise to a natural biopolymer called Chitin. Chitin is then transformed…

Spotted: British online retailer PrettyLittleThing was able to turn a viral social media post into a new dress design. It started when 19-year-old Eleanor Walton accidentally spilled red wine on her white jumpsuit whilst at the Ripon races. Her friend, Mia, salvaged the situation by masking the spill using even more wine, creating a tie-dye…

Spotted: The South Korean app Sidekick gives travellers immediate access to locals via text messaging. Samsung workers Scott Barrow and Jungwon Yang say that app works like a “concierge in your pocket”. The two created the app when they realised how much they depended on texting local colleagues for advice when travelling.  Sidekick links tourists…