Pouring Money Down The Drain Can Be A Good Thing. Luxury Vanity Wastes For The Bathroom.

Murano House has turned that simple stainless feature, the drain, into a piece of art.

Murano House has launched its debut product: Venetian bejewelled marble and stone vanity wastes (aka sink and shower drains)

Titled as: 'Murano Scolpisce il Tappo,' this designer vanity waste range is jewellery in the bathroom for those who wish to indulge in understated and contemporary elegance.

The jewelled vanity wastes reflect the company’s branded strategy: luxury appeal, high-end quality and its unflinching integrity in its approach to design. The elegant glass and stone drains for sinks, showers, bathtubs (both overflow and fillers) really add a posh splash to the bathroom.

Polished stone, glass, terrazzo, marble and 24k gold finishes:



Watch faces that function as drains:


Bath overflows and bath fillers :


A bit about Murano House reprinted from their site:

Be seduced by Murano House defining the essence of bathroom beauty with handmade Venetian bathroom wastes for the sink, bath and shower.

Murano House’s myriad of colours and innovative creative sense incorporates precious stones including: Emeralds, Rubies, Topaz, Amber and Amethyst. The jewels are set in glass onto refined mountings in gilded silver gold and platinum.

The nimble hands of the glass master whose craft has been passed down through father and son generations fuses the glass together and moulds the glass giving the sculpture its form and shape.

This exclusive designer range of vanity wastes will stand alone as an independent objet d'art in any bathroom scheme. Additionally, when immersed in water, the vanity wastes sparkle brightly as lustrous and luminous jewels.

These exclusive Venetian jewelled vanity wastes will adorn any high-end specification including hotels, bars and restaurants as well as those discerning and indulgent clients from the domestic interior market.

Bespoke commissions are available, particularly; if there is a colour scheme you are working to. Bespoke pieces are priced on application. Also note that each vanity waste is individually crafted and therefore, colour variations can be expected.

Now your sink can have a beautiful drain as well as fixtures.
The also make drains for showers. Amazingly beautiful collection. And, well... another thing to spend your money on.

learn more about Murano House bejewelled venetian fixtures by clicking here.

Microsoft takes iphone tech and makes it BIGGER

I must confess, as a lifetime Mac loyalist, it made me laugh when everyone was so impressed with Microsoft's Vista which was released earlier this year because it simply took all the things the Apple's Mac interface has had for the past 5 years and applied it to their own software.

Now, the buzz is all about Microsoft's "surface computing" (codename: Milan) which is clearly the same sort of interface already available on the drool-worthy iphone by Mac. But, yes, it's bigger. And bigger is better.

Why they have made it a 'coffee table' in lieu of a desk surface, I'm not sure except that to see the surface in its entirety, you do have to be 'above it'. I wouldn't want to keep bending over the low surface -they ought to make it adjustable like a draftsman table, but it's still very cool.



By Dan Costa from PC Mag:
Microsoft has been looking beyond the desktop for sometime now, but with the launch of "Milan," the company is showing the potential for so-called "surface computing" to revolutionize everything from retail kiosks to the common coffee table. At its core, Milan is a PC running Windows Vista, but don't expect to use it with a keyboard and mouse. Instead, Milan uses a touch-sensitive display that enables multiple users to navigate the system's interface. See how it works!

Milan will start appearing in commercial locations at the end of this year (think casinos), but PC Magazine was able to sit down with Microsoft executives for a hands-on demo of the new system. The demo unit we saw looked a lot like a coffee table, but you won't want to put your feet up on this system; it was made for touching.

The flat display measures 30 inches diagonally, and is designed to make it easy for multiple users to reach across and touch the screen. Images are projected onto the display via a custom DLP engine. Five infrared cameras set below the display detect contact with the display and enable users to navigate the interface.
Microsoft Milan Surface Computing

By detecting every touch and gesture, Milan offers a very tactile way of interacting with digital information. Users must actually grab files and images with their fingers without the use of a mouse or keyboard. The system also allows multiple users to interact with the display at the same time; it can detect dozens of contact points.

The system includes support for object recognition using a proprietary technology, dubbed Domino, which works like a bar code. With the right Domino tag, basically a small sticker with a black and white pattern on it, Milan can instantly recognize other electronic devices. For example, in our demo, a Wi-Fi digital camera was placed on the surface of Milan and the contents of its memory were instantly displayed as a pile of snapshots alongside the camera on the display. From there, they could be moved around the screen, resized, or sent to other users via e-mail.

Likewise, when a couple of Domino-tagged Zunes were placed on the display, their contents were instantly shown on the display and songs could be exchanged between players simply by dragging their images from one Zune to the other. (With all the DRM-restrictions attached, of course.)

Using Milan is also inherently social. The first application we tested was a simple paint program. We painted on the screen using our fingertips and a simple pallet of colors and effects. We were also able to take photos that were loaded onto the systems hard drive and manipulate them—moving them around the screen, making them larger or smaller, even e-mailing them just by using our fingers. But surface computing isn't just for playing around. In fact, all of the early implementations will be commercial.

Microsoft has announced that Milan will be deployed at commercial properties by the end of the year, including Harrah's Entertainment's Las Vegas properties, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, and International Game Technology (IGT). Milan will also be featured at some T-mobile retail stores.

In our demo, Microsoft showed how Milan could be used to help shoppers choose cell phones. All the buyer needs to do is place two Domino-tagged phones on the surface of the display, and the system will call up features and technical information for each phone for side-by-side comparison. The company also showed how new service plans, ringtones, even music files could be added to your phone simply by dragging and dropping images in the Milan interface.

Microsoft wouldn't release the technical specifications of its Milan surface computing systems, but the company estimated each system would cost between $5,000 and $10,000. Like the Xbox 360, the device was designed and will be manufactured by Microsoft.