Wizkid Makes Pleo Look... Well, Prehistoric.

The text, images, videos and information below is from the wizkid site.

Wizkid looks like a computer, but it’s a robot. With its social skills and physical presence, Wizkid introduces the simplicity of everyday interactions in the world of computers. You can teach Wizkid about habits, introduces it to your friends and pets. Day after day, Wizkid will learn to recognize you and them and react differently in each context.

Wizkid expresses itself by "shaking" its head, nodding, bending its neck in various ways and with a very simple "eye brow" system consisting of two horizontal bars that can go up and down. Despite the fact that this design is non-anthropomorphic, Wizkid conveys rather convincing expressions.


Wizkid introduces a novel interface system entitled "Halo". Interacting with the machine, the user sees himself in a kind of augmented mirror. Around him, several widgets and other interface elements appear. He can just select them by waving his hand. This "interactive halo" follows the user everywhere so that Wizkid's tools are always "at-hand".



Wizkid is the results of a collaboration between an engineer, Frederic Kaplan, and an industrial designer, Martino d'Esposito. It was developed at the CRAFT Laboratory at EPFL and benefits from the support of the EPFL-ECAL Lab.

In the living room, Wizkid can act as a central interface to media players:


Just show a CD to Wizkid and it will play it. If you organize a party, Wizkid will take pictures autonomously of your guests and create a visual summary of the event that can be sent to your guest afterwards.


In the children’s room, you can play augmented reality games with Wizkid. Look at yourself “in” the robotic screen and wait for the metamorphosis. With Wizkid you can really go beyond the mirror, seeing yourself in imaginary worlds where a simple playing card can turn a fantasy creature to life. At any moment, if you can talk or share thoughts with Wizkid. Although Wizkid does not speak, it listens carefully.

At the office, Wizkid introduces video conference with a presence. Your remote coworkers are really here with you, controlling the Wizkid’s directional head and expressing their reaction through physical movement. During meetings, Wizkid is following conversations just like any other participants paying attention to who is speaking (and who is not), acting like an efficient secretary.

Many more applications can be envisioned for shops, museums, schools, etc.
Whizkid is currently presented at the MoMA in New York at the "Design and the Elastic Mind" exhibition.

Interaction with visitors at MoMA:





tech info:
Robotic display with camera / 2 microphones / WIFI / Bluetooth / IR receiver/emiter / RFID reader
Face and object recognition / Halo Interface / Curiosity-driven development / Programmable in URBI
Inside housing : Aluminum and polycarbonate plastic
Slipcover : Elastan-polyamide fabric
41×32×44 cm

Wizkid website

Go here to contact the makers of Wizkid.

Ordinary Life: Disturbed by Nika Zupanc

Tired of cutesy dolls and cradles? Looking for unusual edgy nursery items? Or chairs, footstools and tables? Well, then I've got the a designer you should meet. Slovenian Nika Zupanc has an unusual take on items of domesticity. Her polycarbonate and acrylic cradles, chairs, footstool and dolls are edgy, even goth...but still functional.

Diamonds Are A Plumbers Best Friend? Teknobili's Diamond Oz Faucet

Above: Bathroom Bling

Teknobili of italy has a limited edition of their OZ collection bathroom faucet made in pure gold (2,580 grams of 750% gold, that's 18k folks ) and embellished with 282 VVS, F color diamonds -that's 10.42 carats.
Here's a closer look:







Designed by architect Nilo Gioacchini, it has been reproduced in this version by master goldsmith Professor Alberto Cotogno, winner of the International De Beers Diamond Awards 2000- Paris Louvre museum.

See it here.

Funky Find Of The Week: Tree Jewelry, Necklaces For Trees

This post has been updated in 2009 to include new necklaces for the trees. All are available for purchase.... seriously.- editor

I really thought I'd seen pretty much everything until I saw this, thanks to my friend Betsy Wills who brought this odd and incredulous product to my attention.







Tree Jewelry® are actual steel necklaces strung on indestructible marine line, finished with marine hardware and are said to last a lifetime (yours or the tree's, I am not certain).









Feel the need to adorn your Oak? Embellish your Maple?
Need to get the Little Alpine something to say your sorry?

To see pricing or to purchase, go here.

Donatella Versace And Artist Tim Roelof Dress Up The Runway.

above: one of Tim Roelofs' 3 dimensional collage pieces for versace and one of the four dresses from the collection

During fashion week in Milan, edgy Dutch collage artist Tim Roelof (based in Berlin) and Versace debuted their collaboration of fashionable, wearable art which consisted of four beautiful dresses utilizing artist Roelof's style with Donatella's designs and utilizing some of the famous Versace icons along with Berlin imagery.

Please note, the following text is from Wallpaper magazine:

Working with his own photographs and a pair of good ol’ fashioned scissors, Roeloffs’ three dimensional visual montages each depict an aspect of Berlin’s history and social landscape. For Versace, the artist created a total of twelve original works that were completed as recently as January this year.



Supplied with reference books by Versace, Roeloffs fused images from old ad campaigns with his trademark scenes of Berlin. The results range from people waiting for the tram dressed in Versace outfits from the 1980s, and figures lounging in a palatial interior filled with the label's neo-classical furnishings and a fragmented skyline of Berlin in the background.



'Donatella wanted to do something about Berlin because Gianni loved Berlin,' Roeloffs said. Armed with a list of artists to vet, a design team from Versace was dispatched to the city, where they discovered the Berlin-based Roeloffs and his work.

'I’ve been wearing the same clothes for the last 20 years, and I know nothing about fashion. I think they expected to meet someone in a suit. But I was very impressed with the result as I didn’t know how they planned to put photo-montages onto clothing. They did it very well and still maintained the dimensionality that’s in my work.'

Apart from specify that he work on both pink and yellow backgrounds, Versace gave Roeloffs the freedom to create what he liked. In addition to the Versace imagery, he was also given books relating to Gianni Versace’s personal interests, such as 1960s wallpaper, which inspired the floral motif that appears prominently in all four dresses.




Fresh off the back of our ‘Artists Relations’ story in this month’s issue, the sheer unexpectedness of this collaboration is what we found the most intriguing. While Versace epitomizes Italian glamour, Roeloffs is a true modern bohemian living in Prenzlauer Berg and exhibiting his work in the Tacheles, a bomb-damaged Jewish department store that is now a gallery run by an art collective in Berlin’s Mitte district. The two could not belong to further ends of the spectrum. 

When he attended last week’s Versace show in Milan, Roeloffs readily admitted, “I arrived in such a chaos by train because I brought my two dogs, three kids and my wife with me. Of course, there was a limousine to pick us up and it was really like coming from the gutter to being at their level.”

Here are some of Tim's three dimensional collages that he created for the collection:





Below are a few more examples of Tim's work:






See the artist's site here.
The Versace site.

Shulman Book Signing AT DWR Friday

I'm a huge fan of Julius Shulman and have previously mentioned him in my posts about Neutra's Kaufmann House auction, beautiful Calendars for 2008 and the 2008 Photo LA exposition.

Well, for all you fans out there in the Los Angeles area, he will be doing a book signing at Design Within Reach on Beverly Blvd. Friday, February 29, 6–8pm, and today is the last day to RSVP! Read on for details.


Above: Shulman is seen here in his Hollywood Hills home.
photo: John Ellis for Metropolis

The photographer’s new three-volume set is drawn from his extensive archive, which contains more than 260,000 images.


Above: Julius Shulman, Modernism Rediscovered, 3 Vols.
Shulman, Julius / Drohojowska-Philp, Hunter / Edwards, Owen / Shulman, Julius / Ethington, Philip J. / Loughrey, Peter Hardcover, 3 vol. in a slipcase 11.4 x 14.5 in., 1008 pages, ISBN 978-3-8228-4287-4
$ 300.00


DWR is pleased to welcome photographer Julius Shulman. The legendary architecture photographer will join us in the Studio for a book signing and retrospective of his prolific work behind the lens. Shulman is responsible for some of the most sought-after architectural photography to date, with an emphasis on images of Southern California modernism. The photographer will be joined by author Michael Stern who will discuss his recently penned “Julius Shulman: Palm Springs.” Inside you will find striking images of many celebrated Palm Springs addresses from Richard Neutra’s Kaufmann House to the Raymond Loewy House and John Lautner’s design for Bob Hope.

Book Soup will be selling copies of this freshly published photo essay and Shulman and Stern will be signing copies. Refreshments will be served.

RSVP to beverlyblvd@dwr.com by February 27.


Above: Julius Shulman's photo of the 1960 FRANK GEHRY Steeves Residence


Above: Shulman's photo of the 1960 PIERRE KOENIG Stahl Residence

About the artist:
A resident of Los Angeles since 1920, Julius Shulman has been documenting modernist architecture in Southern California and across the globe for nearly eight decades. His images of Pierre Koenig's Case Study House No. 22 (1960) in Los Angeles and Richard J. Neutra's Kaufmann House (1947) in Palm Springs are among the most recognizable and iconic architectural photographs of the 20th century. Shulman's interest in photography developed into a career when he photographed Neutra's Kun Residence in Los Angeles with his Kodak Vestpocket camera in 1936. Neutra admired young Shulman's images and continued to commission his work. Other leading architects of the time followed suit, as did hundreds of magazines, newspapers, and book publishers. Shulman's numerous awards include the Architectural Photography Medal from the American Institute of Architects (1969), a lifetime achievement award from the International Center of Photography in New York (1998), and honorary doctorates from various academic institutions.

The book is also available for purchase online from Taschen here.