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Posts Tagged ‘Electronic Device’

iPod accessory turns up in fine art museum

Filed under: Accessories, ipod shuffle

I’m in Chicago right now visiting some of my friends. Yesterday we decided to go to my old workplace, the Art Institute of Chicago, which has one of the best collections of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art in the world. Imagine my surprise when I found myself staring at a first-generation iPod shuffle accessory.

Some of you may remember this accessory from back in the day when Apple made the first shuffle that looked like a white stick of Wrigley’s gum. The accessory/piece of art is called iBelieve and is basically a T-shaped cap that turns your first-gen iPod shuffle into a Cross you can wear around you neck.

The plaque next to the artwork reads:

Scott Wilson
American, born 1969

iBelieve, 2006
iPod shuffle, plastic, and fabric
(including replacement cap)

Before relocating to Chicago in 2006 to set up his own studio, industrial designer Scott Wilson was a lead designer at Nike and IDEO. His innovative projects run the gamut from furniture to household products to high-performance sports equipment. iBelieve is part of a series of self-produced works and was inspired by the current popularity of the iPod. The conceptual design consists of a replacement cap, or what Wilson refers to as a “divine accessory,” for the iPod shuffle. When snapped onto a shuffle, the attachment creates a cruciform shape, which enables consumers to profess their devotion to this omnipresent electronic device. Conceived as a tongue-in-cheek commentary on consumer culture, Wilson took advantage of viral marketing techniques and posted the design to a blog, which received 250,000 hits in one day as a result.

I’ve always known about the various online Apple museums, but who could have imagined that a cap for one of Apple’s worst-designed iPods would some day be hanging in the same museum with the likes of Van Gogh’s Bedroom in Arles and Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks?

TUAWiPod accessory turns up in fine art museum originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 27 Feb 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nokia patent app reveals dreams of pressure-sensitive multitouch interface

Nokia’s no stranger to the patent application process here in the United States, and while we’ve certainly seen some strange ones emanating from its R&D labs, this one looks like something that should be implemented on the double. Explained as a “user interface for controlling an electronic device,” the multitouch solution would essentially allow you to pinch, zoom and rotate objects as usual, but it would also employ an array of pressure sensors in order to give your motions a sense of severity. If executed properly, one could theoretically envision the use of a strong push to simulate a double tap (for example), or as a means to activate a secondary function that generally requires another button press or the use of a ‘Function’ key. Hit the read link for all the mumbo jumbo, but be sure to keep your expectations within check. Or not.

[Via UnwiredView]

Filed under: Cellphones

Nokia patent app reveals dreams of pressure-sensitive multitouch interface originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 24 Oct 2009 22:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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