Here's what we looked at this week: Industrial designer Dani Clode's easy-to-use Third Thumb. Toyota does the right thing and supports their suppliers. Building Olympic swimming pools inside a football stadium. 2024 version of flooding the Colosseum. Human Mobile Devices' inexpensive smartphones are designed to be repaired. These Lego-like...

Here's an example of the exploratory behind-the-scenes projects that industrial design firms occasionally get. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (prior to the merger that created Stellantis) hired ID consultancy Mixer Design to do these hi-tech steering wheel design studies.FCA Steering Wheel Design Study"The visual relationship of the steering wheel and the...

The Steadicam, invented by Garrett Brown in 1975, revolutionized cinematography. The SnorriCam, invented by Icelandic filmmakers Einar & Eiður Snorri (a/k/a the Snorri Bros) in the mid-'90s, offloaded the camera to the actor's body. A sort of hands-free selfie stick, it allows the filmmaker to fix the actor in the center of the frame as they move...

Travis Moore owns Toy Factory Fabrication, a custom fabrication shop in Washington state. On a lark, Moore and his team spent four weeks building this Minibago:Gotta love that logo.Moore says he built the Minibago to "inspire kids to get off of their devices and get out there and make something cool." It's built atop a Yamaha golf cart. Moore and co....

As I'm on a farm, muck boots are an indispensable daily-use object for me. They're simple, cheap and effective. But they have their pain points.The first is that the material is always super stiff. The ankles don't bend well, making squatting and kneeling difficult. The stiffness also means you cannot easily and safely drive with them; the top lip of...

In the age of digital photography, how do you increase film sales? Fujifilm's clever bid is the Instax Square Link, a portable smartphone printer. It's essentially the Polaroid experience, with your smartphone's camera. It is admittedly nifty that you can snap a photo, message it to your friend on the other side of the world, and then they can print...