Apple làm mới dòng MacBook sau khi bị rò rỉ thông tin

Hôm thứ Ba 18/5/2010, Apple đã giới thiệu dòng MTXT MacBook mới nhất, sở hữu BXL nhanh hơn và pin dùng được lâu hơn.

Model mới này trang bị BXL Intel Core 2 Duo tốc độ 2,4GHz và bộ nhớ 2GB RAM. Dòng MacBook này được tung ra chỉ vài ngày sau khi một trang web của Việt Nam rò rỉ chi tiết về máy tính này vào cuối tuần trước.

Dòng MacBook White mới không có thay đổi gì về bề ngoài so với phiên bản trước. Dù vậy, cấu hình bên trong của máy có dung lượng đĩa cứng lên đến 250GB và pin được nâng cấp, theo Apple công bố có thể chạy liên tục đến 10 giờ sau mỗi lần sạc. Mặc dù có nhiều cải tiến, Apple vẫn giữ nguyên giá của MacBook mới ở mức 999 đô la Mỹ (999 USD, ~19 triệu đồng).

Về đồ họa, dòng MacBook White mới này cũng trang bị màn hình 13” (33,02 cm) như “người anh em” MacBook Pro, nhưng thay thế card đồ họa NVIDIA GeForce 9400M bằng card NVIDIA GeForce 320M. Bản nâng cấp này giúp giảm đến 200 USD (~3,8 triệu đồng) so với dòng MacBook Pro 13”, khác biệt chủ yếu là khung của MacBook Pro bằng kim loại, nhiều RAM hơn, và khe đọc thẻ nhớ SD.

Nguồn: PCWorld Mỹ, 18/5/2010

Dupont phát triển quy trình in màn hình OLED thế hệ mới

Dupont đã phát triển một quy trình in ấn có thể tạo ra màn hình OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diodes) lớn chỉ trong vòng chưa đầy 2 phút.

Màn hình OLED là những thiết bị thể rắn nhỏ, cấu tạo từ các tấm phim mỏng làm từ các hợp chất hữu cơ, nằm trên lớp vật liệu phát quang. Việc sử dụng chất liệu hữu cơ dẫn điện này giúp cho giá thành rẻ hơn so với các phương pháp thông thường khác.

Theo trang HowStuffWorks.com, màn hình OLED có thể cung cấp màn hình hiển thị sáng hơn, sinh động hơn trên các thiết bị điện tử, và sử dụng ít điện năng hơn so với màn hình LED (light-emitting diodes) và LCD (liquid crystal displays) hiện nay.

Dupont cho biết, quy trình sản xuất này có thể in ra một màn hình OLED 50” chỉ trong vòng chưa đầy 2 phút. Theo trang TechnologyReview.com, việc in ra màn hình hiển thị rất khó có độ tin cậy, nhưng Dupont cho biết, qui trình của họ hoàn toàn đáng tin cậy và màn hình có tuổi thọ lên đến 15 năm. Công nghệ sản xuất này được phát triển bởi Dupont và Dainippon Screen, một hãng chuyên sản xuất thiết bị bán dẫn.

Dupont sẽ dùng công nghệ này để tăng tỉ lệ cho các màn hình lớn hơn bởi vì nó có độ tin cậy và chi phí sản xuất thấp. Hãng cũng cho biết giá sản phẩm có thể cạnh tranh với màn hình LCD.

Nguồn: PCWorld Mỹ, 18/5/2010

New York Design Week 2010 (Update 20-05)

New York Design Week 2010: The Future Perfect: Lift Hold Roll

The Future Perfect's show Lift Hold Roll challenged designers to create an object using a clamp, pulley or caster — or any combination of these — resulting in a tightly curated and at first glance, a very functional looking range of furniture, lamps and objects.

Limited to these simple utilitarian tools, most designers took the opportunity to add a layer of playfulness through the use of simple mechanical actions, unexpected function, and bright colors. Our favorite detail was the decorative treatment to the metal on Carrie Solomon's"Portable Candelabra" (pictured last).

Pictured above: The Future Perfect in Brooklyn,"Ring & Max" by Karl Zahn, and the Lift Hold Roll exhibition space.

"Coat Rack" by Seth Quest & Megan Heacock White

"Gun_Tackle Pulley Mirror" by Barion Garzon

"Desk Lamp" by Evan Clabots, Nonlinear

"Euclid on a Roll" by Sarah Yerkes (Age 92)

"Pulley Cabinet" by Caroline McKeough

"Design Lamp" by Klaus Rosburg, Sonic Design

"Chandelier" by Chris Haynes

"Coffee Table" by Evan Clabots, Nonlinear

"Bookend" by Michael Liu

"Wine Clamp" by Joseph Eberle

"30/360" by Carl Allen

"Raise the Black Lantern" by Chen Chen

"Power Reel" by Craig Berman

"Clothing Rack" by Brendan Timmins & Mark Grattan

"Thorn Ceiling Lamp" by Alex Valich for BSB

"Portable Candelabra" by Carrie Solomon

New York Design Week 2010: Cite goes America

For the New York Design Week, the Cite curators Alissia Melka-Teichroew and Jan Habraken had created a 400 square feet "skeleton house" in the Cite shop that they filled with a selection of current work made by renowned and emerging international designers and companies from many different countries and backgrounds, all currently living and working in the United States of America.

Shown above is the Terrarium lamp by Lindsey Adelman and below theJuxtaposed Power book shelf by Mike and Maaike. It is the second part of a series of curated bookshelves, bringing together 2,451 pages, 2,390 years, 2,251 wars, 432 revolutions and 90 empires as 7 books in 1 shelf. Seven of the world's most seminal texts on power and its relationship to the ordering of society are brought together and presented on the same level.

Above is the Folder Shelf by Daniel Goddemeyer.

The Taglieri cutting board is created by Matt Brown, having 3D-scanned his grandmother's very old wooden chopping board which had a big dent, created by the long term use of the round cutting plate. Brown then re-created the shape with a CNC machine and therefore mass-producing the useful traces of long term usage.

New York Design Week 2010: ICFF: MICA presents MICA

The Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) just won an ICFF Award for their stand in the Javits Centre. The project presented is called also MICA, standing for Material Inspired Concepts and Artifacts. The brief was to get inspiration from traditional natural materials that have been around since centuries and are therefore "proofed by history".

Dig, Shift, Make... Earthen Play is a natural toy kit designed by Leslie Giron and Heiji Jun, including digging tools, a storage box with a sifting screen bottom and bamboo molds, to introduce kids to play with dirt.

Twist, Push, Pull... by Stephanie Sevich and Pati Pogodzinski is an interactive multipurpose object, inspired by a clarinet which uses cork as a fastener.

With his project Making non-woven objects by Sitting, Sunny Chong created a felted bag by attaching a plastic bag filled with felting wool and soap to his car seat By sitting on this plastic bag during long car journeys, i.e. applying pressure to the wool fibre-soap mix by sitting on it, a felt bag was created.

The Natural Hemp Body Pillow (summer and winter version) is designed by Christi Chung. The Jute Spool Seat was created by Karine Sarkissian, using a traditional technique from Scandinavia.

The Green Wood Rocking Stool by Antoine Heath is a simple yet very sweet rocking chair made from green wood (as the name suggests).

Core77

New telepresence robot could use some help in the design department

We all understand the point of videoconferencing: You save money on flights and hotels, reduce your carbon footprint by traveling less, yadda yadda yadda. Systems like Cisco's TelePresence, above, are supposed to provide the next best thing to a face-to-face meeting without the jetlag (and, due to product placement, it's apparently good enough for the President of the United States on this season's 24). Videoconferencing is also a currently "static" experience, meaning it's usually done by people sitting at desks. Is that a problem?

A California-based company called Anybots thinks so, and thus they've developed a "telepresence robot" that is something like a webcam on wheels. The idea is that the user can remotely control the robot; for example, you could be sitting at a desk in California maneuvering this thing through a trade show in Chicago and interacting with people. It sounds exciting or at the very least interesting...until you see the design of the thing:

Uh--really?

Anybots' aim is low cost, so the devices will go for roughly $15,000 a pop as opposed to the six figures you'd need to get into a top-of-the-line teleconferencing system. And clearly, whatever money the company has saved on production of the 'bots was slashed from the design budget.

In any case, if you've got six minutes to spare here's a video explaining the concept. It will require some patience to view as there's both an echo effect and construction noises in the background:

via cnet

Getting space-saving furniture right: Resource Furniture

These days people bandy the term "space-saving" about in hopes it will make their product more attractive to us city dwellers, particularly since there are now more of us than there are rural dwellers. But much of the supposedly space-saving furniture I've seen merely transforms from one thing to another, often in a very clumsy way; to me those objects do two things poorly rather than one thing well, and their novelty outweighs their functionality.

One company I've found that truly "gets" space-saving is New-York-basedResource Furniture, which distributes Italian brand Clei and other European furniture manufacturers. (You probably recognize the name Clei from their much-blogged orange couch that transforms into bunk beds.) The products Resource Furniture offers have a high level of design and engineering, with no compromises; there are no lumpy futon mattresses or "Grab lever A while holding switch B, then pull lever C" complications. The engineering is completely invisible, as it ought to be, the transformations do not require science backgrounds to execute, and each piece serves each of its dual functions as well as if it were a standalone. On top of that, they look good.

As seen up top, Ron Barth, President of Resource Furniture (along with Trade Account Manager Challie Stillman) took some time out to give Core77 a personal showroom demo. I'd be hard-pressed to pick a favorite out of all the stuff they showed us, but that hydraulic desk at 3:07 and the mind-blowing cabinet at 5:38 would probably make top of the list!

Core77