Scientists Make Fuel from CO2 Emissions and Sunlight

Scientists Make Fuel from CO2 Emissions and Sunlight : Gas 2.0.

The device is called the Counter-Rotating-Ring Receiver Reactor Recuperator or the CR5 for short. I think we’ll stick to that shorter title for now. This method of forced-photosynthesis was initially …

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Objectified DVD Pre-Order + New Screenings Announced

We’re big fans of Gary Hustwit’s Objectified movie (check out the trailer) here at Form Loves Function and we’re happy to learn that the DVD is available for Pre-Order on the Objectified website. We’re also happy to see the filmmaker embrace new distribution …

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Marissa Mayer on Innovation

Everyone’s favorite Vice President of Search Products & User Experience, Marissa Mayer, talks about how innovation happens at Google. Well, how it happened three years ago anyway. Her 9 keystones are still relevant today:

Ideas come from everywhere
Share …

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EDM Tolerances

That’s a trick title. Most of the time design engineers aren’t concerned with the tolerances associated with EDM process directly and I will tell you why.
First some background. EDM, or Electrical Discharge Machining (thanks again Wikipedia), is a material removal …

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Hartmut Esslinger on Crappy Products

Entrepreneurial icon Guy Kawasaki asks design icon Harmut Esslinger ten questions. My favorite is, of course, the one question I would ask if I were doing the interview:
Question: Why is it that companies with billions of dollars who can hire any designer or design …

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Cross-Disciplinary Education of Design and Engineering Students

One of the best ideas I’ve heard in a while:
Cross-Disciplinary Education of Design and Engineering Students.
…an industrial design professor and an engineering professor decided to switch students for one quarter each year, each teaching their contrasting …

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Nearest Tube – Augmented Reality for iPhone

It was only a matter of time before augmented reality apps started showing up on the iTunes app store. Nearest Tube from acrossair displays information on London Tube station locations over a live view from the camera. Check out the video:

Related posts:Realtime …

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Realtime Data Overlay

Augmented reality is old news in academic circles, but a new application called Layar may well the tipping point, bringing really useful information to the mobile-device-carrying masses.
The app uses a mobile device’s built-in camera, magentometer, GPS, and data …

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Lego: The Frank Lloyd Wright Collection

Yet another for the I-wish-they-made-this-when-I-was-a-kid:


{img: CNET}

Related posts:More “I Love Sketch” The first video was inspiring. Autodesk’s answer was encouraging. This...Jet Pack Just forget about the umbilical for moment and think...

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Engineering Competition

When I finished reading this article, “BYD throws 5,000 low-cost engineers at auto battery packs,” I wasn’t too surprised to hear that a gigantic Chinese manufacturing company was working on new battery technology. After spending a total of about 6 months in …

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Spherical Robot

Inventor/Mechanical genius Greg Schroll’s take on an all-terrain robot - put the robot inside of a big ball:

Related posts:Golf Balls + Computational Fluid Dynamics If I had 300 hours, 500 fast processors running...Does Your Vote Count? [caption id="attachment_92" …

Design Business Review

If you’re a designer you need be checking out the Design Business Review.
Designers are in the business of doing business; their clients rely on them to make smart, market-savvy decisions and yet there is no resource to provide the necessary knowledge to make these …

On Form, Curvature, and Emotion

Gray Holland of Alchemy Labs has a great article up on Core77 about the relationships among form, surface curvature, and emotion. You can argue some of the technicalities around class-A surfacing and “C” versus “G” continuity definitions, but his insight into …

Tolerances

I’m writing this post to help those in the audience that aren’t familiar with detailed mechanical design. A basic understanding of tolerances is essential to follow subsequent discussions here.
First, a quick definition:

Engineering tolerance is the permissible …

Getting Started

Before getting into details I’m going to post a few quick notes on fundamentals. I will be referring back to these posts as the discussion goes deeper. Some of what I have to discuss may not be too interesting to those of you with degrees in engineering. I’m …

Caffeine

I’ve been away from my DVR and getting my Jimmy Fallon fix via Hulu this week. The only problem is that most computers don’t care that you’re running Hulu (or Vimeo, or Youtube, or … ) at fullscreen and they’ll kick into powersave/screensaver mode. That’s …

Marc Newson Documentary

This BBC documentary on industrial designer Marc Newson offers great insight into his creative and production processes. It is available in 5 parts on youTube:

Related posts:Objectified Gary Hustwit, director of the documentary Helvetica is at it...

Marc Newson Documentary

This BBC documentary on industrial designer Marc Newson offers great insight into his creative and production processes. It is available in 5 parts on youTube:

Related posts:Gary Hustwit talks with Doug Pray I just found this interview between Gary Hustwit, …

Baby Mop

This is real innovation; fitting a need with an opportunity in a novel way.  If I had hardwood floors I would have bought a few of these when my baby was crawling.
Unusual Clothing Baby Mops

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What Do You Want to Know?

I have a few ideas for posts and topics of discussion and I’d like to know what would be most valuable to you. Most of my input will focused on practical applications in product design and development but I’m open to other ideas.
Here’s what I’m …