The Nest. A New Smart, Savvy, Sensing, Stylish Thermostat For The Home.

This modern looking, smart thermostat, the Nest, has been getting a lot of coverage on design blogs and in the news recently - and with good reason. In addition to being great looking, the technologically advanced thermostat saves energy, learns from your behavoir and is wi-fi connected so you can even program it from a downloadable mobile app when away from home.



NEST PROGRAMS ITSELF AND SAVES ENERGY
Nest is the first thermostat that learns from you. Stay comfortable when you’re home, save energy when you’re away.


Builds a schedule: Nest programs itself in about a week. It creates a personalized schedule based on the temperature changes you’ve made. This flexible schedule adapts to your changing life.


The Leaf: The Nest Leaf appears when you set a temperature that saves you energy–and money. The Leaf guides you in the right direction and helps you be energy-efficient.


Auto-Away: About two hours after you’ve left the house, Nest will sense you’ve gone and adjust the temperature to avoid heating or cooling an empty home.


Energy History: Nest shows you how much energy you’ve used and if your temperature adjustments, Auto-Away or the weather affected your energy use most.

NEST SENSES AND LEARNS FROM YOU
Nest SenseTM is a combination of sensors and algorithms that help Nest understand what’s happening around it. It’s all built in.



Activity sensors: Nest's activity sensors have a 150° wide-angle view so Nest knows when to set itself to Auto-Away.


Temperature sensors: Three temperature sensors track your home's heating and cooling. A one-degree difference can reduce energy use up to 5%, so precision is important.

Weather aware: Nest uses its Wi-Fi connection to keep an eye on current weather conditions and forecasts so it can understand how the outside temperature affects your energy use.

Senses your approach: Walk up to Nest and it'll light up, but not too brightly. Light sensors automatically set Nest's brightness so it won't blind you at night.

NEST KEEPS YOU CONNECTED


Real-time control: Control your home’s temperature from your laptop, smartphone or tablet. Make adjustments in real-time, miles from home.

Your Nest Account: Log in online or download the Nest Mobile app to your smartphone. You'll be able to see and adjust your schedule, change the temperature and check weather.

Automatic updates: Software updates will load automatically as long as Nest is connected to your Wi-Fi.

Secure, private & reliable: Nest is completely secure and uses public key cryptography. Its security features include HTTPS, SSL and 128-bit encryption.

NEST IS SIMPLE TO USE
Since Nest programs itself, your job is easy.



Just turn the ring: Turn the ring to your preferred temperature. Nest will learn what you like and build a personalized schedule.

Save energy all year: Teach Nest good habits in the first week and it'll keep them up all year long. Just turn Nest down at night or when you leave the house and don't turn the temperature up too high or down too low. After a week, Nest will remember you.

Basic Specs:
• The brushed stainless steel ring around the exterior reflects any surface so the Nest blends in with any wall style or color.

• A bright LCD screen has a 320 dpi display in a 1.75" diameter

• Built-in rechargeable Lithium ion battery

• The Nest measures 1.44" deep and 3.20" in diameter




Learn more here

2012 Typographic Wall Calendar made with 2,012 Computer Keys by Harald Geisler.

The "2012 Typographic Wall Calendar" is a project to produce a large (70cm x 100cm / 27.56in x 39.37in) printed wall calendar for the year 2012. The calendar is made of two-thousand and twelve used keyboard keys. The keys are arranged manually by German typographer Harald Geisler to write out all days of the year 2012.



This is a real, usable calendar. The Typographic Calendar makes finding dates a fun and creative process. The keys are arranged in a grid. If you read them from left to right, they read each day of the year in sequence: January Sun 01 Mon 02 Tue 03 etc. You can think of it like a long array, sequence or string of all dates in the year. To make things easier, every month is differentiated by an "arrow key." This enables you to scan the grid for a specific month before beginning to search for the day. After a bit of practice, you can orient yourself quickly within the grid. You can also use certain brands of whiteboard markers to write events onto the calendar.



The calendars layout is simple, despite looking otherwise at first glance. Harald imagined a person working in an office typing every day of the year down like a text, every pressed key literally appears on the calendar. The keys are arranged in a grid. You read the composition just like a text: from left to right and top to bottom. The line breaks at the end of the canvas and the code continues on the left side again–like a monospaced typewriter. The entire text of the calendar fits on one big page, 70 x 100cm.


above: The 2011 calendar, made of two-thousand and eleven keys



The project is being funded on Kickstarter, where you can get a print of the 2012 calendar for just $35.
support it here.

Prints of the calendar
The printed Typographic Wall Calendar reproduces the keys in their actual size. The size of the print is B0 (70cm x 100cm / 27.56in x 39.37in). It's printed in four color offset on thick paper and UV coated to protect the print from scratches and the colors from bleaching.

You can order prints of the wall calendar from Harald's site here.

KAWS and Hennessy Release A Second Cognac Bottle Design Exclusively for Colette.

Hennessy, the cognac house founded in 1765 collaborated with artist Kaws for limited edition "collector" bottle (shown below) which you might have seen on such culture blogs as Hypebeast and Nitrolicious.



Now, a "special" version made specifically for Colette, published in 213 copies exclusively for 213 rue Saint-Honoré.



The Special Kaws X Hennessy bottle for Colette (shown below) will be available at Colette and online starting November 21st. (50€).



Produced and bottled in Cognac, France.

You can use the Hennessy Kaws locator on their facebook page to find the first KAWS Hennessy Cognac Bottle.

iPlates by Todd Borka. Software Editing Interfaces With Food in Four Fun Plates.

French illustrator Todd Borka invites you to play with your food.. or more specifically, edit your food, with his iPlates. Utilizing the interface from popular editing software like Photoshop, Todd has decorated four different china plates with recognizable tools and key commands.

iPlate "Import Food":

detail:

iPlate "Edit Food":

iPlate "Image Size":

iPlate "Ctrl Z":


Not unlike kickstarter, Todd's plates are available for pre-sale at Ulule, a company that raises funds for the production and distribution of creative and imaginative products and ideas.



You can pre-order the set of 4 plates, which includes one of each version and then all the money will be used for production costs, printing, packaging and distributing and Todd will also start the process of finding design stores to distribute the series of plates.



These plates are china and are dishwasher safe. Buy them here
About Todd Borka:

A French illustrator working for both youth literature and magazines, Todd likes mixing the aesthetic of indian ink with the multiplicity of possibilities offered by image editing software.

He says he spends most of his time in front of his screen hacking Photoshop... So, obviously, sometimes, it turns him crazy! I think it makes him creative.

See more of Todd's work at his site

a special thanks to Yatzer for briging Todd's work to my attention!

The LEAP (Living Ecological Alpine Pod), a Prefab Modular Hut for High Altitudes & Mountain Living.

A new modern bivuoac for mountain living. Designed in Italy by Luca Gentilcore and Stefano Testa, the Alpine huts are modular, highly sustainable and complete with a comfortable interior. The LEAP (an acronym for Living Ecological Alpine Pod) is a technologically sophisticated shelter, prefabricated and assembled offsite, that does not alter the environment in which it is placed.





This type of installation represents an interesting form of support to trekking and mountaineering activities with a much lower environmental impact than the traditional mountain shelters. LEAP solves all the problems of existing types of bivouac. It is entirely built off-site, suitable for transport by helicopter and easily installed on location at high altitude requiring a limited number of operations. It is built using state-of-the-art technology for durability and to withstand all kinds of mechanical and atmospheric stress. It offers comfort beyond any present proven standard.

3D models:






Designed to resist the stresses of extreme altitudes the pod has photovoltaic film incorporated in the outer shell to provide the energy necessary to run the installed equipment:





The Interior Space:


Even if limited, the interior space is furnished for a pleasing and rewarding stay under all aspects. The selected materials guarantee durability, hygiene and safety (class A1 fire-reaction) while providing a warm and welcoming interior of refined design. The proposed solutions are fully customisable both for the functional layout and the finish of the materials used. LEAP can be equipped with technological systems for the production of energy and a unit to measure local conditions (self-diagnosis, weather conditions, web-cam, emergency rescue communication) connected with logistic and rescue headquarters. A sanitary module is available, equipped with a biological toilet that disposes of all sewage without polluting the environment.


above: Entrance unit with thermally isolated inner door, storage/drying rack and rescue equipment compartment.




above: Living/dining unit with pantry and cooker (electric induction hob).




above: Sleeping unit with adjustable bunks for maximum comfort, according to the number of users.

Effective and Flexible


Each module is identified by a specific function. It is possible to organise the best layout for each location in terms of sleeping accommodation, living room space, number of entrances. Different accessories allow the choice of the outside view, including impressive scenic solutions. This kind of layout also gives the opportunity to change the layout of the bivouac over time: increasing the size or swapping around the functional units. In the case of serious damage it is very simple to remove modules to be taken off-site for repairs or replacement.







Respects the Environment
The aesthetic features of LEAP don't try to mimic or resemble any traditional alpine structure. On the contrary, the intention is to effectively declare its unrelated look in the surroundings through the expression of its high-tech features. The ecology of LEAP lies in its transitional nature and total reversibility. At the end of its "life cycle" the pod can be lifted away by helicopter without leaving any permanent trace of its presence in the natural environment. The industrial off-site construction makes use of ecologically certified materials and processes and leaves no production waste.







• All materials used throughout production are rated with a certificate of ecological origin and recyclability.

• The overall cost of LEAP is highly competitive with the traditional solutions thanks to a fully industrialised production and its high-end engineering process.

• The construction technologies are derived from the nautical and aeronautical industry. The remotely controlled diagnosis equipment reduces running costs for higher effectiveness.


Information and images courtesy of Leapfactory