G-SHOCK Launches Star Wars Watch Duo
G-SHOCK teams with Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu for two rugged collector watches inspired by Beskar steel and Grogu.
Why ChatGPT 5.5 XHigh Mode Might Be the Most Powerful AI You’ve Ever Used
OpenAI’s ChatGPT 5.5 has quickly gained attention for its ability to handle complex tasks with precision and efficiency. In a recent breakdown, Robin Ebers explores how this model balances advanced capabilities with practical constraints like token efficiency and cost. For instance, the pricing structure includes modes such as High Standard and XHigh, which cater to […]
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Your Samsung Galaxy Phone Just Got Smarter: Google Gemini Now Controls Samsung Apps
Samsung Galaxy users are now experiencing a significant update that integrates Google’s Gemini AI Assistant with Samsung’s suite of apps. This update introduces a range of AI-driven features designed to enhance the functionality and usability of your smartphone. However, it also raises critical concerns regarding data privacy and user control. Understanding the implications of this […]
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This $45 Titanium Pocket Knife Uses Centrifugal Force and Neodymium Magnets Instead of A Button Lock
Most pocket knives are designed for the moment you need to cut something. The TiNova II is designed for that moment, but also for the five minutes after, when you find yourself opening and closing it just because the mechanism feels satisfying. That shift in priorities is intentional, and it required Ideaspark to rethink the entire knife after the first version shipped to over 1,300 Kickstarter backers in 2025.
The mechanism itself is straightforward. Two titanium handle scales connect at a single roller bearing pivot point. One scale stays fixed, the other rotates a full 360 degrees around it. Neodymium magnets sit at strategic positions to create resistance, so when the blade swings open or closed, you get a crisp magnetic snap that locks it in place. Flick your wrist and the momentum carries the blade through a smooth rotation with a satisfying ‘click’. Hold it differently and you can coax out a slower, weighted spin. What changed between Gen 1 and Gen 2 is the body shape. The original had flat sides and sharp edges like a traditional folding knife. The TiNova II uses an oval profile that matches the natural curve your hand makes when your fingers relax into a loose fist. That single geometry change makes the knife feel completely different when you’re holding it, which matters when the whole point is creating something you’ll keep picking up. The magnetic resistance is tuned tight enough to keep the blade from accidentally deploying in your pocket, but smooth enough that you can flip it open one-handed without effort.
Designer: Ideaspark
Click Here to Buy Now: $49 $70 (30% off). Hurry, only 64/100 left! Raised over $62,000.
The handle scales are machined from Grade 5 titanium, the aerospace alloy that shows up in everything from jet engine components to high-end bike frames. The material delivers the strength-to-weight ratio you’d expect (the entire knife weighs 59.3 grams, roughly two U.S. quarters), but the more interesting property is how it wears. Titanium doesn’t corrode, rust, or tarnish the way steel does. Instead, it develops a patina over time, recording scratches and scuffs as a visual history of use. Every mark becomes permanent, which means the knife you carry for a year looks distinctly different from the one that arrived in the mail. Ideaspark leans into this with two finish options: a raw sandblasted titanium that shows wear immediately, and a black PVD coating that creates higher contrast when the underlying metal starts to peek through.
The blade is D2 tool steel, heat-treated to HRC 58-60. D2 sits in an interesting zone within the steel hierarchy. It holds an edge longer than most budget steels (think 8Cr13MoV or AUS-8), and is a go-to choice for premium knives. The choice here makes even more sense for a keychain knife where you’re cutting tape, breaking down cardboard, trimming threads, or slicing through packaging, with practically negligible wear and tear over time compared to a knife that experiences the brunt of rugged outdoor use. The blade profile is a drop-point with a full belly, which gives you a long cutting edge relative to the 40.5mm blade length. The curve naturally guides material into the sharpest part of the edge, making it effective for slicing motions even when you’re working with something as small as this.
At 64.4mm closed, the TiNova II is shorter than a standard credit card (85.6mm). Opened, the entire knife measures 100mm, just under four inches. The thickness is 12.4mm, slimmer than a stack of three coins. These dimensions put it squarely in the micro-folder category alongside knives like the CRKT Pilar or the Kershaw Chive, but the deployment method sets it apart. Most compact folders use a flipper tab or a thumb stud, mechanisms that require deliberate engagement. The TiNova II uses rotational momentum, which feels closer to spinning a fidget toy than opening a knife. The roller bearing does most of the work. Ideaspark uses what they call a Kugellager bearing (the German term for ball bearing), which is a pretty great way of saying their precision-made bearings boast the kind of well-engineered frictionless movement you’d expect from the Germans. The result is a glide that feels even smoother than air, with no grinding or resistance as the handle rotates.
The magnetic system does several jobs simultaneously. First, it holds the knife closed when it’s in your pocket, preventing accidental deployment. Second, it provides tactile and audible feedback at both the open and closed positions, giving you a satisfying click that confirms the blade is locked. Third, it creates just enough resistance during the spin to make the motion feel controlled rather than loose. The magnets are arranged to pull at the end of each rotation, which is why the knife doesn’t just spin freely like a bearing on a shaft. You feel the mechanism working with you, and that feedback loop is what makes the fidget factor so addictive. The physics here are simple but effective. The magnetic force increases as the scales approach their final position, so the last few degrees of rotation feel like they’re being pulled into place.
An elliptical body shape means there’s no fixed orientation when you’re holding it. You can rotate the knife in your palm, flip it between fingers, or just run your thumb along the curved surface. The absence of sharp edges or defined corners makes it comfortable to manipulate for extended periods, which sounds trivial until you compare it to a traditional rectangular folder that starts digging into your hand after a few minutes. Ideaspark claims this design philosophy came directly from user feedback on the Gen 1 model, where backers loved the mechanism but found the angular body uncomfortable during long fidget sessions. The oval profile solves that problem by removing pressure points entirely.
Two tritium slots run along the length of each handle scale, sized for 1.5mm x 6mm tubes. Tritium is a self-luminous isotope that glows continuously for around 25 years without batteries, charging, or external light. Drop a pair of green, blue, or orange vials into those slots and the knife becomes visible in complete darkness, which is useful for finding it in a bag or on a nightstand. The glow is subtle, not the kind of thing that lights up a room, but enough to catch your eye when you’re fumbling around in the dark. The tritium slots also add a small visual detail that breaks up the otherwise minimal design.
The blade deployment works two ways depending on how you hold it. The long spin involves gripping one handle scale and flicking your wrist, which uses centrifugal force to carry the other scale through a full 360-degree rotation. The motion is slow, weighted, and deliberate. The short flip is faster: a quick wrist snap that sends the blade open with a crisp tick as the magnets engage. Both methods work one-handed, and both feel satisfying in different ways. The long spin has a hypnotic, rolling quality. The short flip is sharp and immediate. You’ll find yourself alternating between them depending on your mood or how much time you’re killing during a meeting.
The knife comes with a keychain hole at one end, sized for a standard split ring. Slip it onto your keys and it disappears into the cluster, weighing less than most car fobs. The compact dimensions mean it works equally well on a wallet chain, a backpack strap, or worn as a necklace pendant if you’re leaning into the EDC-as-jewelry aesthetic. The tritium glow makes it viable as a functional piece of illuminated jewelry, though calling it that probably annoys traditional knife collectors who prefer their folders utilitarian and unadorned.
The TiNova II ships in two finishes: sandblasted (raw titanium) and black coated (PVD). Both finishes come with the same lifetime warranty, which covers manufacturing defects and structural failures. The knife is available now starting at $45 for the launch day special (36% off the $70 MSRP), with free worldwide shipping included. International shipping is scheduled for August 2026.
Click Here to Buy Now: $49 $70 (30% off). Hurry, only 64/100 left! Raised over $62,000.
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This strangely addictive gear-inspired magnetic fidget from METMO comes in brass, titanium, steel, and nylon
METMO has a talent for taking the visual drama of engineering and translating it into objects people want to touch, turn, and carry. The Grip reimagined the adjustable wrench after nearly 130 years of design stagnation. The Pen turned a dual-thread screw mechanism from 1892 into a fidget object. The Fractal Vise made a complex machinist’s tool into something people keep on their desks purely for the pleasure of operating it. Each time, the Leeds-based team finds a mechanical idea that was ahead of its moment, and rebuilds it with the precision and material quality the original never had.
Helico follows that lineage, but takes a noticeably different turn. Where most METMO products carry a clear functional premise, this one leads with pure tactile indulgence, arriving as a compact magnetic form that looks carved from the DNA of helical gears. Every surface seems designed to catch the thumb, reflect light, and reward movement. It comes in four material variants, brass, stainless steel, Grade 5 titanium, and nylon, with each one shifting the personality of the object in a way that feels deliberate rather than cosmetic.
Designers: Sean Sykes & James Whitfield
Two cylindrical modules stack vertically, held together by nickel-coated neodymium magnets sandwiched between each section. The magnets are strong enough to keep the stack stable in your hand but calibrated to let you pull sections apart, rotate them, and snap them back together without fighting the object. That separation-and-reconnection loop is where the fidget factor lives, and it turns out to be deeply satisfying in a way that is genuinely hard to articulate. The snap of two sections realigning carries a small but precise reward signal, the kind that makes you do it again immediately. METMO has effectively built a tactile feedback machine disguised as a gear stack.
The angled herringbone grooves channel the thumb naturally while turning every surface into a structure that catches and shifts light as the object rotates. Rolling Helico between your fingers produces a continuous tactile rhythm, a frequency of peaks and valleys that keeps your hands occupied without demanding any conscious attention. The geometry is more considered than it first looks, with the pitch and depth of each tooth calibrated to feel satisfying rather than sharp or aggressive. On the inside of each module, a smooth machined cup creates a deliberate contrast, a quiet surface that makes the exterior texture feel even more intentional by comparison. It is the kind of detail that shows up in product photos but only fully registers when you are holding the thing.
Brass is the version that photographs best and probably sells the story hardest. High tensile HTB1 brass carries real weight, that dense satisfying heft that makes an object feel purposeful rather than precious. It also ages, picking up patina in the spots where your fingers land most often, building a record of use that the steel and titanium versions simply do not. Stainless steel, machined from 316 grade stock, takes the opposite approach: clean, cool to the touch, corrosion-resistant, and visually neutral in a way that lets the geometry do all the talking. Between the two, I would call stainless the everyday carry option and brass the collector’s piece.
Grade 5 titanium is lighter than either brass or stainless, and that shift in weight changes the feel of the object more than you might expect. The same herringbone geometry that feels dense and substantial in brass becomes almost nimble in titanium, sitting in the pocket without any real presence until you reach for it. Titanium also carries those aerospace-adjacent associations that the EDC world never quite gets tired of, and METMO leans into that without apologizing for it. Nylon, specifically PA16, is the outlier of the four, lighter still and matte where everything else is reflective, making Helico feel more casual and approachable. It is the version for people who want the tactile experience on a budget, or who simply prefer their desk objects without the weight class.
Every instinct in the EDC market seems to demand that small objects justify their existence with a list of functions, bottle opener here, hex bit storage there, ruler along the side. Helico skips all of that entirely, and the confidence of that decision is a big part of what makes it interesting. There is no hidden tool, no secondary feature, no apologetic add-on to make the price feel earned. What you are paying for is the machining quality, the material, the magnet calibration, and the sensory experience of an object designed from the ground up to be handled. That kind of object is rare in a product category that too often dresses fidget toys as tools and tools as fidget toys.
The four material variants give Helico a range that most desk objects cannot claim, each one tuned differently enough to appeal to a genuinely different buyer. Brass for the collector who wants something that ages with them, titanium for the EDC enthusiast building a curated pocket, stainless for the person who wants precision without warmth, and nylon for everyone who just wants to fidget without overthinking it. METMO has always been good at making objects that look like they belong in a museum and work like they belong in a toolbox, and Helico sits at an interesting point on that spectrum, leaning harder toward the former than anything the studio has made before. Whether that signals a deliberate pivot or just a smart product line expansion is worth watching. Either way, it would be very easy to put one on your desk and never move it again.
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A Mouse You Can Squeeze Like a Stress Ball While You Work
The computer mouse hasn’t changed much in decades. Still mostly hard plastic, still shaped like a bar of soap, still asking your hand to grip something that gives absolutely nothing back. The rest of the desk setup has evolved, ergonomic chairs, standing desks, wrist rests, but the one device your hand touches for eight hours straight has remained stubbornly rigid and deeply uninteresting.
The PILLIGA mouse concept makes a fairly obvious argument for why that should change. Instead of hard plastic, the entire upper chassis is a squishy, flexible membrane packed with a viscous, translucent gel. It’s the same basic impulse that makes people reach for a stress ball mid-meeting, except it’s also the thing you need to get any work done.
Designer: Guillermo Gonzalez
The thinking behind it is straightforward enough. Deadline pressure builds, calls run long, and the urge to fidget becomes almost impossible to ignore. Rather than keeping a stress ball in the desk drawer as a separate ritual, the mouse folds that habit directly into the tool that’s already in your hand. You can squeeze, press, or knead the gel without ever lifting your hand off your workflow.
The dome shape isn’t just for show, either. It follows the natural arch of your palm rather than forcing your hand flat against a hard surface, and the gel underneath absorbs the kind of low-level muscular strain that builds up quietly over hours of clicking and scrolling. It’s the sort of ergonomic consideration that usually requires its own dedicated accessory, not just a different material.
The controls themselves are sensibly laid out. A flat circular interface sits embedded in the front of the mouse, cleanly split for left and right clicks, with a textured, rubberized scroll wheel running between them. A USB-C port at the front handles charging, keeping the wireless design intact without the inconvenience of a separate charging dock. The bottom carries the optical sensor and power switch.
What makes the PILLIGA mouse concept genuinely interesting is how far it extends color as a design element. The gel comes in several variants, from vivid green with gold flecks and a blue version scattered with purple glitter, to darker, more subdued options that look considerably more at home on a professional desk. Each colorway pairs with a matching base and click interface, making the whole thing feel deliberate.
That range matters. The more reserved colorways hint that this isn’t a novelty item for a niche corner of the internet; it works just as comfortably on a professional desk as it does on a creative’s workstation. The gel doesn’t make it look cheap. It makes it look like something designed by someone who gave serious thought to what a mouse should feel like.
Concepts like the PILLIGA are more useful as provocations than promises. Computer mouse design has been coasting on the same assumptions for decades, and the idea that your primary input device could also be physically satisfying to hold hasn’t come up often enough. The gel-filled body raises the question, and that’s honestly more than most peripheral design manages to do.
The post A Mouse You Can Squeeze Like a Stress Ball While You Work first appeared on Yanko Design.
Forget Smarter AI, This Robot Thinks Presence Is the Point
We keep building AI to do more. More answers, more speed, more certainty. Designer Mehrnaz Amouei looked at that trajectory and asked a fundamentally different question: what if we built AI to be more present instead? The result is POCO, a soft robotic companion that might be one of the most quietly radical design concepts to emerge in recent years. It doesn’t talk over you, doesn’t flood you with information, and it doesn’t pretend to know things it doesn’t know. POCO sits with you. Literally.
At its core, POCO is a soft, tactile object that pairs with a smartphone, which serves as its computational brain and face. A soft textile body wraps around the device, transforming rigid, glass-and-metal technology into something that moves, breathes, and gestures in response to your presence. Together, they create something that sits somewhere between object, creature, and companion, and that deliberate ambiguity is very much intentional. You’re not quite sure what to call it, and that’s entirely the point.
Designer: Mehrnaz Amouei
Amouei developed POCO through research at the University of Illinois at Chicago, grounding the project in studies on loneliness and trust. Her findings indicated that people don’t actually want AI that projects certainty or control. They want availability and responsiveness. They want something that shows up without taking over. From those findings came the concept of “constructive interdependence,” a design philosophy where POCO’s limitations aren’t bugs to be patched but features embedded directly into the interaction model itself. The robot communicates what it can and cannot do through its behavior and physical states, which is a level of honesty you don’t often get from technology that typically overpromises and underdelivers.
I think that matters more than it might initially seem. The dominant conversation around AI right now is almost entirely about expansion: more capability, more integration, more autonomy. POCO pushes back on that without being preachy about it. It reframes the question of what good AI design actually looks like, and the answer it offers isn’t “smarter,” it’s “more trustworthy.” That is a genuinely different value system, and it feels overdue.
The sustainability dimension is also worth paying attention to. Rather than introducing new hardware and generating more electronic waste, POCO repurposes a device most people already own. That decision isn’t just a nice bonus; it’s built into the concept from the start, aligning with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals around mental well-being and responsible consumption. In product design terms, that means the project was developed with a broader cultural and environmental context in mind, not just a user persona sitting in a lab.
Physically, POCO responds to touch, movement, and environmental cues. It adapts to a user’s preferences while maintaining a consistent identity, which is a surprisingly nuanced balance to strike in any product, let alone one sitting at the intersection of soft robotics and emotional design. Because interaction happens through touch rather than voice commands or screen taps, there’s an intentional slowing down embedded in the experience. You can’t rush a tactile exchange the same way you can type faster or speak louder. That shift from speed to presence feels like a meaningful counter-proposal to how most tech is currently designed. We’ve grown so accustomed to interfaces that demand our attention that a device asking only for our company reads almost as radical.
POCO has already earned an Honorable Mention from the International Design Awards and drawn coverage from major design publications. Whether it ever moves into consumer production remains an open question. But as a design statement, it’s doing exactly what the best concept work should: prompting us to reconsider what we actually want from the technology we live with, and whether expanding capability was ever really the right goal. Maybe the most interesting AI isn’t the one that knows the most. Maybe it’s the one that knows when to just stay close.
The post Forget Smarter AI, This Robot Thinks Presence Is the Point first appeared on Yanko Design.
OpenAI introduces AI-generated pets for its Codex app
It's like Microsoft's Clippy, but useful.
This 3D-Printed Lamp Has a Shell That Opens and Closes to Shape Light
The 3D printing community has spent years trying to prove that a printer can produce more than desk trinkets and cable organizers. Lighting has always been the harder sell, where aesthetics and function have to work together in ways that cheap plastic usually undermines. The better designers in that space have been quietly closing that gap, and the results are starting to look like things you’d want to live with.
OHR Design, a Canadian 3D printing studio, is a good example of what that progress looks like. Its Armadillo series takes inspiration from one of nature’s most recognizable shapes, the segmented, overlapping bands of the armadillo shell, and turns it into a lamp shade that adjusts depending on how much, or how little, light you want in a room. And it all started from a tea light holder.
Designer: OHR Design
The original Armadillo grew from an earlier OHR Design called the OHRB, and it’s since inspired a whole family of spin-offs. True to its origins, the Armadillo wraps a tea light in a series of concentric rings that tilt forward to close the shade down or pull back to widen it. At 240mm tall, it’s compact enough for a bedside table or a bookshelf without demanding much real estate.
For those who want the same aesthetic energy at a bigger scale, the Armadillo XL scales the concept up into a proper desk lamp. At 373.8mm tall and 283.9mm wide, it makes a statement on a desk without being overwhelming. It accepts a real light bulb rather than a tea light, making it far more practical for anyone who actually needs their lamp to pull its weight.
What gives both versions their character is the adjustable ring system. The segmented shade isn’t just decorative; opening and closing the rings changes how the light spreads through the room, softening the glow when the rings are fully open or concentrating it when they’re pulled shut. It’s the kind of thing that turns a simple on/off appliance into something you keep reaching over to tweak.
What’s equally interesting is how OHR Design sells these. You aren’t buying a finished lamp; you’re buying the STL files to print one yourself. The original Armadillo fits on a 180mm × 180mm print bed, making it accessible on smaller machines like the Prusa Mini or Bambu Lab A1 Mini. The Armadillo XL, being larger, requires a 256mm × 256mm build volume.
The filament choice is entirely yours, which means the lamp can be as neutral or as bold as you want. OHR Design has been spotted using Overture’s Super PLA+ in various colors, from muted naturals to vivid hues, all of which change how the diffused light reads. Not many lamps invite you to physically shape the light they cast, and fewer still can be reimagined entirely based on the color spool you have on hand. The Armadillo family puts creative control squarely in the hands of whoever prints it, and that’s a genuinely refreshing place to land.
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Tesla starts selling Chinese-made Model 3s in Canada at the EV’s lowest price ever
The cars made at the Giga Shanghai factory start at $39,490 CAD, or roughly $29,000 in USD for a Model 3 Premium Rear-Wheel Drive variant.
