Category: Creativity

Mosaic Murals: Tile Patterns Spray-Painted in Deserted Spaces

[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Street Art & Graffiti. ]

A puzzle of layers rather than pieces, each of this spray-painted works takes aesthetic cues from historic Barcelona, deploying them in novel contexts using unexpected materials.

Catalan artist Javier de Riba creates these vibrant works with stencils, one of the original tools of the street artist, bringing them to life so well they could be confused for glass or ceramic tiles.

His target locations vary, but his pieces can sometimes be found on sidewalks or the ramps at skate parks, though the floors of abandoned buildings are a popular pick. Deserted places make it easier to take time with a given work, but also add to the element of surprise when discovered by others.

Some are composed in square frames, though many break borders and some even wrap curve surfaces or sweep across entire floors. Currently, some of his work is on display at the Miscelanea gallery in Barcelona, including a large site-specific installation.

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High-Speed Art: Murals Spray-Painted for Train Passengers

Made to been seen at high speeds, these colorful patterns intentionally form a sequential whole when experienced by commuters in adjacent railway cars. …
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Painted Shadows: Dark Art Haunts Deserted Psychiatric Hospital

Eerie shadows float out of empty wheelchairs, trailing up cracked and peeling walls and slinking under doorways in a series of paintings in an abandoned mental …
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Spinning Zen: Real-Time Patterns Painted on a Potter’s Wheel

Like a hypnotist’s pendulum, this fifteen minute visual experience will charm you with its rich variety of mesmerizing patterns, all drawn by hand before …
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[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Street Art & Graffiti. ]

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March 4, 2016
Masterpiece Mashups: Classic Art Gets the GIF Treatment

[ By Steph in Art & Drawing & Digital. ]

Vincent Van Gogh is having a good pop culture week on the interwebs with multiple humorous GIF treatments and stunning animations of his works exposing classic art to new generations. In this series, artist Kajetan Obarski (known as Kiszkiloszki) mashes up masterpieces by the infamous Dutch painter and others with contemporary life, bringing them firmly into the computer age.

Leonardo da Vinci gleefully photoshopping a range of different animals into his ‘Lady with an Ermine,’ Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel God plays pool, a 17th-century lady rocks out with a skeleton and Van Gogh himself receives a very insensitive gift. There’s chocolate flinging, baby throwing and sexting gone awry, not to mention the inevitable conclusion to Magritte’s men falling from the sky.

Classic art has gotten a big cultural boost lately thanks to projects that appeal to our sense of humor, like the excellent Classical Art Memes. While more conservative art historians may lament that the works aren’t being appreciated in their original context, as the artists meant for them to be, these projects have centuries-old paintings flying around the internet like cat videos, so it’s hard to complain.

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Pixelated Masterpieces: 3 Classic Paintings in LEGO Form

Chances are, you recognize these images, even though they’re simply arrangements of a few dozen colored LEGO bricks. Squint your eyes, and three of the …
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3D Printer Bot Creates Perfect Replicas of Classic Paintings

You can’t really get a feel for a Rembrandt painting by looking at a flat print – there’s just so much detail missing in the texture of the …
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Masterpiece Mashup: Genre-Crossing Digital Art Compositions

Diverse artistic disciplines from graphic design to architecture come together, crossing boundaries and merging eras, to bring the likes of Marina Abramovic …
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[ By Steph in Art & Drawing & Digital. ]

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WebUrbanist

March 3, 2016
Mobile Cabins: Go Off Grid in These 12 Rustic Modern Designs

[ By Steph in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]

Load up a prefab cabin on a truck and drop it virtually anywhere you want to be. Rustic lodgings in remote locations aren’t what they used to be now that modern mobile housing is available in so many forms and price ranges, from tiny houses on wheels costing just $ 11,000 to ultra-narrow habitable garden sheds to cabins shaped like actual logs to take the typology to its extreme.

Escape Vista

The Escape Vista is a 160-square-foot, cedar and cortex steel cabin on wheels that can be towed to the location of your choice to take advantage of its many large windows offering views of your surroundings. There’s room for one or two, and despite its small size, you’ll have a bed, kitchen, dining or work table, lounge area and bathroom. The open interior is finished with aspen wood, and luxury features include solid butcher block tops, designer faucets, integrated solar power, a washer/dryer combo and a pop-up flatscreen television. It starts at $ 39,900.

Pircher Oberland

Hangar Design Group created this prefabricated, mobile metal-clad cabin for Picher Overland to blend into rocky mountain environments. Vertical wooden siding on either end mimics tree trunks, and the interior is lined in natural wood flooring and synthetic stone-toned tiles.

Flake House by Olgga Architects

This nomadic dwelling by Olgga Architects is like a modern take on the log cabin, camouflaged on the outside by fully-round timber siding. It stands on the site of Frossay in France, open to anybody who needs a simple shelter overnight. The proposal is “based on the concept of the ‘foil’, where the wooden structure is broken in two halves establishing a radical spatial boundary while materializing an unexpected entry sequence. an object, recalling a broken branch, whose unconventional scale is the main idea of the project: to be built-up, taken down, moved, pt down, left behind or taken along, inhabited or left to its surrounding.”

The Wedge: Luxury Rolling Cabin

This 400-square-foot luxury turnkey cabin by Wheelhaus features a spacious bedroom with a king-sized bed, standard-sized bathroom, fireplace, large windows, high ceilings and a private deck. Base prices start at $ 89,500.

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Mobile Cabins Go Off Grid In These 12 Rustic Modern Designs

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Mobile, Modern & Modular: 15 Capsules for Off-Grid Living

Why stay tethered to the grid in a fixed location when you could live in a compact mobile pod that can be transported to the location of your choice? These …
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Bunyan’s Pride: 19 Log Cabins That Stack Above The Rest

The typical rectangular cabin plopped in the middle of the woods is no longer the standard. Homeowners are becoming increasingly creative with rustic design.
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Cabins in the Canopy: 13 Modern Tree Houses by Baumraum

Ranging from minimalist elevated meditation cabins to complex climate-controlled company meeting spaces, the many treehouse creations of German company …
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[ By Steph in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]

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WebUrbanist

March 3, 2016
Oil-Painted Van Gogh Film Features 12 Paintings Per Second

[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Drawing & Digital. ]

It took over 100 artists to paint this full-length movie, the first of its kind: a work where every frame was hand-painted, then combined into an epic animation about, in the style and using the techniques of Van Gogh (oil and canvas).

This first trailer of Loving Vincent shows the brushstroke style anyone familiar with the artist’s world will immediately recognize. The movie is about Vincent’s life, death and works, an honest look at what was anything but a carefree existence. His own work also shows up throughout, 120 of his masterpieces in total, smoothly transitioned into the frames as the narrative unfolds around them.

A great deal of care went not only into the planning process, but also the execution so that each frame is both original and unique but transfers seamlessly to the next, despite the number of painters involved.

Produced by Oscar-winning studios BreakThru Films and Trademark Films, production is still in progress in Gdansk, Poland, but this sneak peaks suggest it will be well worth the prices of admission (h/t Colossal).

More from the filmmakers: “Loving Vincent is an investigation delving into the life and controversial death of Vincent Van Gogh, one of the world’s most beloved painters, told by his paintings and by the characters that inhabit them. The intrigue unfolds through interviews with the characters closest to Vincent and through dramatic reconstructions of the events leading up to his death. Every frame in the Loving Vincent movie is an oil painting on canvas, using the very same technique in which Vincent himself painted.”

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Animating Van Gogh: World’s First Fully-Painted Feature Film

It is a fantastic endeavor and nearly finished – a movie made up of 56,800 stop-motion paintings, all presented in the style and told by the characters …
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Van Gogh’s Iconic Bedroom Brought to Life & Available to Rent

The Art Institute of Chicago has brought one of the most famous paintings of Vincent Van Gogh to life like never before: a complete replica realized in three …
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Painted Alive: 15 Boldly Brilliant Body Art Paintings

The human body can be and do so many things, but when it’s used as a canvas for fine art, truly magical things can happen.
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[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Drawing & Digital. ]

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March 2, 2016
Modular Skyline: Pixelated Skyscraper Takes Shape in Bangkok

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Offices & Commercial. ]

A joint project of Büro Ole Scheeren and the Office for Metropolitan Architecture, this skyscraper nearing completion in Bangkok, Thailand, features shifted box elements that break up its surface to create balconies and terraces.

Located downtown, the 77-story building features hundreds of apartments, a hotel and other mixed-use functions, including, plazas, shops, bars and restaurants. It is also the tallest building in the city. Originally scheduled for completion in 2010, the structure will now be finished this year (recent photographs above and below by Simon Rawlings, benstinyplanet and tsa.p).

Renderings below illustrate the street-level entrances, an aerial perspective and close-up views of the pixelation effects, as well as showing how the design evolved from concept to reality (as compared to photographs of its current state above).

From the architects: “The design moves beyond the traditional formula of a seamless, inert, glossy totem, and instead actively engages the city: MahaNakhon’s pixilated and carved presence embraces and connects to the surrounding urban fabric rather than overpowering it.”

“Its glittering stacked surfaces, terraces and protrusions will simultaneously create the impression of digital pixilation and echo the irregularity of ancient mountain topography.”

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Mini Sky City: 57-Story Chinese Skyscraper Built in 19 Days

The world’s tallest prefab building has just been constructed at a rate of 3 stories per day, showcasing the power of modular design and industrial …
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Triangle Tower Approved: First New Paris Skyscraper in 42 Years

At nearly 600 feet (180 meters) tall, this structure was narrowly granted permission to be the first skyscraper to grace the Parisian skyline in nearly half a …
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Sculptural Skyscraper: Ornate NYC Design Redefines Tower Decor

Architect Mark Foster Gage has unveiled stunning plans for this 100-story, skyline-defining structure for Midtown Manhattan with views of Central Park. …
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[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Offices & Commercial. ]

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March 2, 2016
Mad for Vintage Motorcycles: 14 Vespa-Inspired Designs

[ By Steph in Design & Furniture & Decor. ]

Synonymous with carefree cool classic Italian design, the Vespa has a timeless, iconic look that’s instantly recognizable even when translated to chairs, jewelry, alarm clocks, pizza cutters and uncanny animal-motorcycle hybrid sculptures. These vintage Vespa-inspired designs often re-use salvaged parts from discarded motorcycles, while some just make use of the simple, streamlined silhouette.

Scooter Chair by Bel & Bel

Made from real, original 1980s parts of the Italian scooter, these chairs by Spanish firm Bel & Bel translate Vespa’s aesthetics for a new purpose. The chair features functioning lights, soft tread silent wheels, imitation leather cushions and hydraulic pistons in the base for height adjustment.

Vespa Scooter Ring by Paul Michael Design

This fun design from Paul Michael lets you wear a Vespa on your finger. Get it in sterling silver for $ 300 or go all out with palladium and a real diamond for $ 2,295.

Zero Vespa Segway

Segways are inherently dorky, but if only this version would catch on, they’d at least be a lot more pleasing to look at. From the same design group that created the Vespa Chair, there’s the Zero, a scooter with two electric-powered wheels and a computer-controlled gyroscopic stabilizing system. Hand-built to order, it reaches a top speed of 12mph and can climb hills of up to 30 degrees.

Skootcase

Considering how many kids try to ride their parents’ wheeled suitcases at the airport or down the sidewalk, the Skootcase is actually pretty practical. The fully-functional scooter doubles as a child’s carry-on sized suitcase, with a sturdy tow strap so you can pull them along when you’re rushing to catch your flight.

Vespa-Inspired Rocking Horse

This awesome Vespa-inspired rocking horse was a one-of-a-kind gift for the designer’s grandson Diego.

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Mad For Vintage Motorcycles 14 Vespa Inspired Designs

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Roaringly Realistic Animal Chairs by Maximo Riera

A stunning series of sculptural animal chairs marries the awe-inspiring drama of elephants, rhinos, octopi and more to functional furniture in stylish black.
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So Retro: 15 Vintage Style Inspired Website Designs

Who says websites have to be as modern as the medium itself? These 15 sites feature boldly retro typography, illustrations, photos and textures.
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Neat Seats: 14 Crazy Creative Modern Chair Designs

More than just a surface to sit on, these modern chair designs are (sometimes literally) works of art, sculptural yet functional, from a flat-looking canvas …
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[ By Steph in Design & Furniture & Decor. ]

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WebUrbanist

March 1, 2016
Nazi Playground: Cult Compound Now a Twisted Tourist Trap

[ By Steph in Culture & History & Travel. ]

A former haven for Nazi war criminals, child molesters and their sympathizers, Villa Baviera is now a bizarrely whitewashed German-themed tourist attraction tucked into Chile’s Andean foothills. Established in 1961, the cult compound formerly known as Colonia Dignidad (Dignity Colony) hosted infamous concentration camp doctor Josef Mengele, known as the ‘Angel of Death,’ and served as a special torture center and illegal arms cache. Now you can drink beer and watch people stomp around in lederhosen as if none of those terrible things ever happened.

The insensitive nature of the transition of the 54-square-mile compound’s use is just the beginning, considering that an investigation in the ‘90s found evidence of decades of child abuse, torture and mysterious disappearances. Founder Paul Schäfer, a fugitive wanted in Germany for pedophilia, served as the authoritarian leader of 300 residents. Children were separated from their parents and siblings, all media from the outside world was banned, and sex was forbidden without Schäfer’s approval.

In the ‘70s, dictator Augusto Pinochet made use of the compound to detain political dissidents. Schäfer was finally apprehended in 1997 and died in prison in 2010, and though 20 colony elders were convicted of aiding him in his abuses, the roughly 120 remaining residents were allowed to keep the property and do what they wanted with it, which was to turn it into a money-maker. Rather than making it a memorial to the Holocaust or the crimes that were carried out on the compound, they decided everybody would rather feign collective amnesia.

The result is a 21-room hotel, swimming pool, playgrounds, wedding tents and restaurants along with all the German food and beer you can consume. A guard tower once used to spot escapees still looks out over the property, and the perimeter is still edged with barbed wire fencing, but hey, those hot tubs will help you relax away the memories of the atrocities committed there, right?

Catch more on the history of this twisted tourist attraction at Bloomberg and in the upcoming Hollywood film ‘Colonia’, starring Emma Watson.

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Mexico’s Creepiest Tourist Destination: Island of the Dolls

Deep in the swampy canals near Mexico City sits a tiny island full of forlorn toys. Created out of superstition, the island is like a nightmare come true.
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Transportable Tourist Towers Provide Stackable Housing

The Transportable Tourist Tower is a compact, stackable, modular prefabricated residence that can be placed vertically or horizontally for temporary housing.
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Abandoned Nazi Bunker Converted to Power Plant & Cafe

The words ‘Nazi power’ have taken on a new meaning in Hamburg, Germany as an abandoned bunker formerly equipped with anti-aircraft turrets has been …
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[ By Steph in Culture & History & Travel. ]

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WebUrbanist

March 1, 2016
First “Drawn in Place” Architecture Made with a 3D-Printing Pen

[ By WebUrbanist in Conceptual & Futuristic & Technology. ]

A group of students from the University of Tokyo have created the world’s first work of 3D pen-drawn architecture, extruding thermoplastic filament to generate a structurally-stable arch installation.

A digital tracking system helped builders connect rods with extruded supports, generating a lattice-like system of interconnected trusses (resulting in a kind of lightweight, smaller-scale space frame). The combination of rigid rods and fluid connectors helps the whole structural network, providing tension as well as compression capabilities.

The handheld device enabling the extrusions operates much like a hot glue gun or static 3D printer, heating the constituent material and making it malleable before it hardens upon deployment. Unlike large-scale printers, this approach enables minute on-site work by anyone trained to use the machine, reducing costs and complexity.

“Technology has traditionally been used to automate and replace human labour,” design team member Kevin Clement, said in an interview with Dezeen. “The issue with this approach is that it fails to take advantage of human intuition during fabrication. We believe our approach can bridge the current dichotomy between machine and human-made production.”

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Printing Prospects: 10 Hi-Tech Printer Prototypes & Concepts

Printers are no longer just the bulky machines that sit on our desks. Current and future printers can create our homes, our toys and even our new body parts.
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Under Construction: World’s First Concrete-Printing Robot

An interdisciplinary team of architects and material specialists is developing a commercially-viable 3D-printing machine capable of creating complex objects …
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Rapid Resin: Liquid 3D Printing Looks Like Morphing T2 Metal

Generating objects 25 to 100 times faster than traditional layer-based 3D printers, this new continuous-liquid approach to high-speed fabrication can create …
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[ By WebUrbanist in Conceptual & Futuristic & Technology. ]

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WebUrbanist

February 29, 2016
Out Cold: 12 Closed & Abandoned Dairy Queen Stores

[ By Steve in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

Chill out, soft-serve ice cream fans, these 12 abandoned Dairy Queen stores aren’t typical of the 75-year-old chain’s 4,000+ locations worldwide.

Founded in June of 1940, Dairy Queen has carved out a viable, sustainable, and for the most part successful niche in the fast, er, “fan food” industry. Take it from Warren Buffett – the legendary investor’s Berkshire Hathaway holding company has owned International Dairy Queen Inc outright since 1998.

Though abandoned by Dairy Queen, the chain’s original location on 501 N. Chicago St. in Joliet, IL still stands thanks to its 2010 designation as a city landmark. Originally built in 1895, the building was a DQ until the early 1950s – subsequent tenants included a lawn-mower repair business, a furniture store, a motorcycle shop and a plumber. Since 2007 the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God has dispensed The Lord’s message at the historic location, presumably accompanied by chilled communion wafers.

More Like Ender

“Abandon all hope, ye who enter here…” the hope of enjoying some fan food (not fast food), that is. Credit Flickr user haymarketrebel with the above photo of a closed and abandoned Dairy Queen in Tustin, CA snapped on November 20th of 2013.

Grilled, Chilled, Killed

Traditional fixtures of small-town America, larger and more restaurant-style Dairy Queen Grill & Chill stores began to appear in 2001. The above store, located in Savannah, GA sports the revised corporate logo that debuted in 2007.

Too big to fail? Nuh uh: Flickr user C-Bunny snapped the shuttered store in April of 2011 and noted the presence of “Closed for Renovation” and “Notice of Bankruptcy” signs plastered to the glass drive-thru window. Which is it, DQ… why not both?

Stuckey’s to be You

Flickr user Steven Wilson (ezeiza) has the hots for Dairy Queen: his dedicated online album features over 140 photos and counting! Wilson included but a single abandoned DQ; a combination Stuckey’s/Dairy Queen store in Lindsborg, KS that judging by the overgrown landscaping has been shut for some time.

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Out Cold 12 Closed Abandoned Dairy Queen Stores

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So Long, Suckers: 11 Closed & Abandoned Candy Stores

When it comes to abandoned candy stores like these 11 examples, sweet has turned to sour quicker than toothache sufferers turn to their dentists.
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Blue Lights Out: 10 Closed & Abandoned Kmart Stores

Attention Kmart shoppers… would the last one out the door please turn off the blue lights? These 10 abandoned Kmart stores have rung up their last receipt.
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Nix Tape: 10 Closed & Abandoned Blockbuster Stores

Blockbuster Video’s torn-ticket logo once fronted thousands of stores worldwide. That was then, this is now… by late 2013, Blockbuster was officially busted.
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[ By Steve in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

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February 29, 2016
Lightweight & Portable Egg-Shaped Drone Folds Up Into Shell

[ By WebUrbanist in Gadgets & Geekery & Technology. ]

Boasting practical portability with an eye to aesthetics, the new PowerEgg stands out against its more ungainly competitors, able to fold up into a smooth oval when not in use.

PowerVision “wanted to create a beautiful yet functional design for the poweregg,” explains CEO Wally Zheng. “The oval shape is not only clean and pure but also has the structural and functional benefits. This simple yet vital design means that this is more than a flying robot but a work of art.”

The device features a 360-degree panoramic HD camera able to relay long-range video, advanced optical flow sensors for indoor navigation and an easy-to-use remote control.

Developed over a year and a half, a great deal of work went into structural engineering, particularly making the moving parts work as it transforms to active from passive modes and back again.

“We want flying a drone to be child’s play, something even a five-year-old can do,’ continued Zheng. “With this next generation of drones, much like the internet expanded access to information in the virtual world, drones 2.0 led by innovations like the PowerEgg can expand access to the physical world and bring together humans and machines in this journey.”

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Collaborative Construction: Aerial Drone-Built Architecture

Unmanned aerial vehicles can do more than just take pictures, pick up and drop off objects – they can also work together to create solid structures, …
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Project Wing: Google Testing Drone Delivery Service

Google sees Amazon’s Prime Air drone delivery service and raises it with the enhanced aesthetics of its own Project Wing, a series of autonomous aerial …
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Boat to Go: Portable Flat-Pack Vessel Folds Up Like a Tent

This is one boat that doesn’t require any special equipment to transport to the lake. It folds up just like a tent, then becomes a fully functional vessel.
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[ By WebUrbanist in Gadgets & Geekery & Technology. ]

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February 28, 2016