Philips recently unveiled their version of a green-tech future at a Moscow conference, including an intelligent LED street pole system that looks like a flower opening up to the skies.
The so-called ‘Philips Light Blossoms’ charge up on solar and wind power during the day, light up when people stroll by at night, and to conserve energy, dim down when the streets are solitary from dusk ’til dawn.
For the last few years, Philips’ Simplicity Event has been the place where the company thinks big and throws up a bunch of design concepts at the wall to see what sticks, as well as a preview of gadgets they’re actually working on. However, putting up a Green Tech event in the middle of one of the world’s largest beneficiaries from oil production makes it seem a bit shady. But that’s a story for another blog.
Here are some of Philips’ other ‘future life’ scenarios found at the conference:
The Interactive Kitchen Table is a touch-enabled slab that pushes out
recipes on its surface and allows kitchen gadgets to talk together.
Presumably, the table will include useful features like measuring the
weight of a plate, cooling or heating pans, and advising you on correct
food choices.
There’s no word on whether a giant robot arm will pop out of its
digital innards and swipe a giant KitKat from your greasy fat palms.
This gadget regulates the breathing of those who suffer from sleep apnea or other breathing disorders. When the device notices irregularities (like if you’re sucking in too much air through your mouth), it pushes out air pressure and conducts air through your nose properly.
The energy-saving Wake-up Light lamp is supposed to have similar properties to the ‘blossom’ with smart dimming. Another similar light concept (but in a more elegant, spherical design) can be seen at the bottom of this post.
Philips will release frameless HDTVs with a combination of colorful,
patterned removable frames called Flavors, for TVs of 22, 32 and 42 inches. This idea is bound
to be a favorite with girls from the age of 6-10 for a significant
period of time (maybe 5 weeks?) after which the Flavor frames will end
up scuffed, broken, and firmly a part of Fido’s chew toy cycle.
Looking Glass frames are smallish video message-dedicated displays that
allow you to leave a message for a loved one even if they’re not in the
house. But video voicemail is already being incorporated into software
and giants like Google, Microsoft, and Apple won’t let a hardware-only
company take on this type of service by itself.) Already, MS has a voice mail service connected to their own webcam.
The Intellipatch wireless cardiac monitor comes with built-in Bluetooth
radio sends detailed heart data to your cell phone, which updates in
real time to a heath data center in the cloud. Any irregularities would
be immediately accessed by doctors in case of an emergency. They’re
shooting for a 36-hour limit on one charge for the battery.
And this one is my favorite design from this conference, mainly because
the German Institute of Design and Ergonomics worked tirelessly, for
months, to create the best wrist action design possible for a vacuum.
That’s right. All that work for the best wrist positioning. And if vacuuming is
as fun as the model is making it look like in this picture, you know
the future is in good hands.
Here are other pics from the conference (from Philips):
Photos courtesy of Philips and HardwareStore
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Thanks to my wonderful wife for the idea and for her help with the costume this year. She also made a special treat for people at work:
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