Cool Product Design Post #63

Here's a great way to start the day...

Roll yourself out of bed (rub eyes, scratch stuff, yawn, etc.) and take a stroll to the bread-box, then the counter and feed a few slices to your Rollertoaster

"...2006 Red Dot Award-winning design not only toasts bread, but it also allows the user to watch the slice magically transform before their eyes—from cold and squishy to hot 'n crispy!"

More info: www.jarengoh.com

...add butter, jam to taste. Make coffee. Then, take a slow stroll to the dining room and open the Bloomframe balcony.

"With one push on a button the balcony opens smoothly within 15 seconds. On the few square meters which are generated two persons can enjoy breakfast in the open air."

More info: Hofman Dujardin

...grab a comfy chair, a table if necessary -- and enjoy! No hurries or worries.

Just a thought.

Yellow Submarine

Yellow Submarine
Originally uploaded by
Jeff Kubina.

Ok, here's a yellow submarine photo. It's a photo by Jeff Kubina, and he has some really great shots and interesting categories...

Flickr

This is a test post from flickr, a fancy photo sharing thing.

Sweet interface, sour functionality?

What's up with Yahoo!'s video UI?

The new Yahoo! mail interface is sweet, but the news video interface leaves me with mixed feelings. The controls have a nice slick and sophisticated look (form is good), but it just doesn't work in Firefox 2. The picture is cropped on the bottom, the "pause" video control buttons do not function. It's slow and chunky-clunky... makes you not want to use it.

All that aside, here's a great video news clip of a great new product: A Personal Mini-Submarine. Can you get it in yellow?


>>> WATCH: Your Own Personal Mini-Submarine
(AP) Small enough to fit on a trailer, this mini-sub can dive 160 feet and packs 2 hours of battery life.

Fiddling with Photoshop

I'm finally getting back on track and starting to do fun stuff again. I gave myself a challenge to do a quick exercise and create a Photoshop file that makes it easy for me to pump out sized icons and other artwork as "sets".

The idea was to make it easy to open the file, churn out some artwork based on a current need (someone needs a particular icon or whatever), and then create a set of similar stuff in a consistent style. I'm also working on getting faster with the process. Here's one example...

Divers compete in ice hockey world championship... underwater

Sun Feb 25, 2:04 PM ET

VIENNA (AFP) - The lake of Weissensee in southern Austria hosted an unusual sporting event this weekend, with divers taking part in the first-ever ice-hockey world championship -- underwater ice-hockey, that is.

Read the full story >>

Eight international teams from Austria, the Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia, competed under 30 centimetres (12 inches) of ice in 2-degree Celsius (35 degrees Fahrenheit) water and without oxygen tanks.

Philly boutique gets two buckets of pot

PHILADELPHIA - Workers at a downtown boutique called police after unexpectedly receiving two buckets of marijuana worth $90,000. Police were called to Fusion on Saturday after employees received the two packages of marijuana totaling about 20 pounds.

Read the full story >>

"It was obviously intended for someone in the Philadelphia area," Werner said. "We are trying to find out who."

They've got the Beef!

Pa. restaurant creates 123-pound burger

2 hours, 35 minutes ago

CLEARFIELD, Pa. - The newest addition to the menu at Denny's Beer Barrel Pub is one whopper of a burger. The Beer Barrel Main Event Charity Burger weighs in at 123 pounds, a meaty monstrosity that its cooks maintain shatters the world record of 105 pounds shared by two restaurants in New Jersey and Thailand.

Read the full story >>

The sizable sandwich features an 80-pound beef patty, along with a pound each of lettuce, ketchup, relish, mustard and mayonnaise, 160 slices of cheese, up to five onions and 12 tomatoes.

It's topped with a couple of pounds of banana peppers, then sandwiched into a 30-pound bun. Don't forget the garnish of 33 pickles.

There's a pretty hefty price tag, too: $379.