This All-Electric Tiny Home Has Floor-to-Ceiling Glass, Two Lofts, and Still Fits on a Trailer

Posted on by

Most tiny houses on double-axle trailers share a common flaw. They prioritize portability over livability, squeezing interiors into standard widths that leave occupants navigating corridors rather than rooms. Escape’s eONE XL Wide & Tall rejects that compromise. At 9.6 ft (2.9 m) wide and 13.6 ft (4.2 m) tall, it exceeds standard tiny house dimensions on both axes, trading easy towing for something more difficult to find in this category: breathing room.

The trade-off is real, though. Those expanded dimensions mean a permit is required to tow it on public roads, which limits the spontaneous mobility that draws many buyers to trailer-based homes in the first place. Built on a double-axle trailer with a total length of 31 ft (9.45 m), the exterior is finished in custom-engineered wood siding topped by a metal roof. The eONE XL Wide & Tall is an upgraded version of Escape’s ONE XL, and the proportions immediately set it apart from the company’s other models.

Designer: Escape

Step through the glass door entrance, and the kitchen occupies the first section of the ground floor. For a tiny house, the appliance list reads more like a residential spec sheet: electric oven, induction cooktop, sink, microwave, dishwasher, fridge/freezer, and a washer/dryer. Cabinetry lines the space generously. Where many tiny home kitchens force owners to choose between a cooktop and counter space, this layout accommodates both without the usual spatial tug-of-war. The dishwasher alone is a rarity at this scale, a small detail that signals Escape designed this for full-time habitation rather than weekend escapes.

The kitchen flows into the living room, and the extra width becomes most apparent here. Generous glazing wraps a space large enough for a sofa, a full entertainment center with TV and electric fireplace, and additional storage. One large window frames the view and floods the room with daylight, turning what could feel like a dark box into something closer to a studio apartment. On the opposite end, the bathroom fits a vanity sink, flushing toilet, and a shower/bath combo, a feature that separates this from the shower-only compromises typical of the category.

A storage-integrated staircase (not a ladder, which matters for daily use) leads to the upper floor. The loft is a single open area divided into two connected sections joined by a small gangway. Ceiling height remains low, as expected in any lofted tiny home, but the extra overall height of the structure provides marginally more headroom than most competitors manage. The two sections can be configured as dual bedrooms or split between sleeping and storage, offering flexibility that a single undivided loft cannot match.

The eONE XL Wide & Tall is typically built to order, but the model shown is currently listed at $88,015. No delivery details have been published, so prospective buyers will need to contact Escape directly. At that price point, it sits in the upper range for trailer-based tiny homes, but the wider frame, full appliance suite, and dual-loft configuration position it closer to a permanent dwelling than a mobile novelty. Whether the permit-required towing is a dealbreaker depends entirely on how often the home will actually move.

The post This All-Electric Tiny Home Has Floor-to-Ceiling Glass, Two Lofts, and Still Fits on a Trailer first appeared on Yanko Design.

I guess this wasn’t an Xbox after all

Posted on by

In 2024, Microsoft caused a lot of head-scratching and general bemusement with the launch of its "This is an Xbox" marketing campaign. Now, though, it appears the quandary over what is and isn't an Xbox has been resolved. Game Developer noticed that the original blog post on Xbox Wire that kicked off the whole affair has been removed. It seems Xbox will be going a new direction with its future promotions.

Maybe since the new Project Helix hardware it has in the works is more definite attempt to blur console and PC gaming, "This is an Xbox" might have been truly confusing as a tagline. Maybe with the recent changing of the guard at the company, the top brass decided that it was the right time to start fresh with a less meme-able marketing plan. Whatever the reason, we have enjoyed this opportunity to learn about the existential philosophy behind being an Xbox. And fortunately, although the blog post may be gone, the video trailer still exists whenever we need to remind ourselves of the many things that can be Xbox-ified.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/xbox/i-guess-this-wasnt-an-xbox-after-all-230154314.html?src=rss

This Seoul Concept Just Ditched the Hair Dryer Handle

Posted on by

The hair dryer hasn’t really changed. Not fundamentally. You grip a barrel, aim at your head, and hold that position until your arm gives out or your hair is dry, whichever comes first. For something people use nearly every day, the hair dryer has been remarkably resistant to design rethinking. We’ve gotten quieter motors and better ionic technology and, yes, even a Dyson that costs more than a weekend getaway. But the form factor? The handle? The whole gun-shaped logic of it? That’s been largely untouched.

Seoul-based designer Giha Woo of UGLY DUCKLING ID apparently decided that was worth fixing. VOID, the studio’s 2026 concept, starts from a completely different question: what if we removed the handle entirely? Not just slimmed it down or repositioned it, but actually erased it and started over. The result is a geometric ring, a hollow torus-shaped dryer that sits in a freestanding cradle when not in use and can be held, angled, or used completely hands-free. The name is not accidental. The void in the design is literal: it is the absence of the handle that defines everything about this object.

Designer: Giha Woo (UGLY DUCKLING ID)

What I find genuinely exciting about this is not just the visual novelty, which is considerable. It’s the design logic behind it. Giha Woo describes the concept as “breaking away from the familiar, discovering new usability,” and that phrase is doing real work here. Most product redesigns tinker at the edges. VOID goes to the center of what makes a hair dryer a hair dryer and questions whether that thing needs to exist at all. The ring structure doesn’t force a single way of holding. You can grip it at different points, set it in the stand and step back, or orient it however the airflow needs to go. That kind of flexibility isn’t just ergonomically interesting; it’s philosophically interesting. It’s a product that doesn’t tell you how to use it.

UGLY DUCKLING ID has always operated at that intersection of wit and precision. Founded by Giha Woo in Seoul in 2010, the studio has developed a portfolio that reads less like a product catalog and more like a cabinet of curiosities. They’ve made a piglet-shaped VR device and a phone controller that looks like a gun. They’ve worked with Samsung. The name UGLY DUCKLING is deliberate: these are designs that don’t look like what you’d expect, and that’s the whole point. VOID is a natural extension of that sensibility, except it’s arguably their most commercially plausible concept to date.

There’s also the question of who this is really for. Hands-free drying isn’t just a convenience play. For people with limited mobility, shoulder injuries, or conditions that make sustained arm-raised postures difficult, a freestanding drying system is genuinely functional rather than merely aesthetic. Design that improves daily life for a wider range of bodies tends to be better design overall, and VOID seems to understand that without making it the centerpiece of its branding.

The textured inner ring, compact motor strategy, and directional outlet placement show real system thinking behind the design. This isn’t a rendering exercise dressed up as a product. Whether VOID ever reaches production is another question entirely. As a concept, it already does what good design concepts are supposed to do: it makes you look at a familiar object and wonder why it was ever made differently in the first place.

That said, I’ll admit the idea of aiming a ring of air at your head takes some imagination to warm up to. The muscle memory of gripping a dryer handle is real, and habits are stubborn. But every now and then a concept arrives that makes the existing solution feel like the strange one. VOID does that. After seeing it, the traditional hair dryer starts to look slightly absurd, a pistol grip that was developed by historical accident and never really questioned. That, to me, is the clearest sign of a good design idea: it makes the old normal look a little weird.

The post This Seoul Concept Just Ditched the Hair Dryer Handle first appeared on Yanko Design.

Meet the Electronic Dolphin, the Mini Robot That Cleans Oil Spills With Urchin-inspired Filters

Posted on by

A sneaker-sized robot developed at RMIT University in Australia is making a compelling case for rethinking how humanity responds to one of the ocean’s most persistent threats. The “Electronic Dolphin” is a Wi-Fi-controlled minibot built to skim oil slicks from contaminated marine surfaces without deploying any chemical dispersants, and without putting human responders anywhere near the hazard. Detailed in the journal Small, the device is compact, remote-operated, and draws on one of nature’s more underrated structural templates to do its job. It is not the first machine built to address marine oil contamination, but it may be the first to approach the problem with this particular combination of biomimicry, material science, and autonomous ambition.

The secret is in the filter. Rather than relying on PFAS-based absorbents, which are toxic, persistent in the environment, and increasingly regulated worldwide, the RMIT team engineered a composite coating from specialized carbon layers and modified barium carbonate. The resulting material mimics the microscopic spine geometry found on sea urchins, forming tiny protrusions that trap air pockets in a precise architectural arrangement. That structure makes the surface simultaneously superhydrophobic and oleophilic, a combination that causes water to roll straight off while oil latches on and gets drawn in. The chemistry here is elegant in the way good materials science often is: solving a messy physical problem through surface geometry rather than reactive chemistry.

Designers: RMIT University

The filter sits at the robot’s nose, paired with a small onboard pump that actively draws the oil slick inward. In controlled laboratory tests, the prototype processed oil at roughly two milliliters per minute, achieving over 95% purity in the recovered material. The coating also demonstrated strong corrosion resistance when exposed to saltwater, and held up across multiple reuse cycles without meaningful degradation. Those numbers matter because reusability is one of the practical bottlenecks that has historically limited oil spill response hardware. A filter that survives repeated deployment in a corrosive marine environment is a filter worth scaling.

The current battery life runs to about 15 minutes, which is honest enough for a research prototype operating at this scale. The RMIT team is candid about the limitations, and equally clear about the trajectory. Future iterations are envisioned at dolphin scale, fully autonomous, and capable of operating in a continuous loop: skim the surface, return to a base station, drain the collected oil, recharge, and head back out. That remediation model borrows from how robotic vacuum cleaners normalized autonomous domestic cleaning, and it translates surprisingly well to open-water spill response, where the geography is hostile, the timeline is open-ended, and human supervision is expensive.

Marine oil spills remain one of the more intractable environmental disasters, not because the problem is poorly understood but because the cleanup tools available have lagged behind the scale of the damage. Dispersants break oil into smaller particles that sink rather than surface, which looks like cleanup but often relocates the harm. Booms and skimmers are manual, slow, and weather-dependent. The Electronic Dolphin does not solve all of that at once, but it represents a shift in the design logic: autonomous, chemical-free, biomimetically informed, and built from the start with continuous deployment in mind. That is the kind of thinking the problem has always deserved.

The post Meet the Electronic Dolphin, the Mini Robot That Cleans Oil Spills With Urchin-inspired Filters first appeared on Yanko Design.

Someone Built a True-Scale LEGO Velociraptor Skeleton and I Can’t Wait To Buy One

Posted on by

Jurassic Park lied to you. The velociraptors that terrorized a kitchen full of children and hunted Jeff Goldblum through tall grass were modeled after Deinonychus, a considerably larger North American cousin, because the filmmakers thought the real animal’s name sounded cooler than its actual dimensions warranted. The real Velociraptor mongoliensis stood about 1.6 feet at the hip and weighed roughly as much as a medium-sized dog. Formidable, certainly, but built to the scale of a farmyard bird rather than an apex predator capable of coordinated ambushes.

Which is exactly what makes this LEGO Ideas submission by creator Terraxz so interesting. Built to true scale from paleontological measurements of a juvenile V. mongoliensis specimen, the model sits at approximately 120 cm long and 40 cm tall on a museum-style display stand. It has the ribcage, the vertebrae, the sickle claw, the whole skeleton rendered in tan brick. LEGO has been on a fossil skeleton tear lately, but nobody has attempted one at actual 1:1 scale until now.

Designer: Terraxz

LEGO’s Dinosaur Fossils line began as a fan submission that became the 910-piece Ideas set 21320, featuring T. rex, Triceratops, and Pteranodon skeletons at 1:32 scale. LEGO then escalated with the Jurassic World set 76968, a 3,145-piece T. rex skeleton stretching over 105 cm at 1:12 scale, which launched in March 2025 and immediately became the largest Jurassic World set the company had ever produced. Every iteration in this lineage has been a scaled-down representation, a display piece calibrated for shelf real estate rather than scientific fidelity. Terraxz is doing something structurally different: the model matches the actual size of the animal it depicts, which reframes the whole exercise from decorative object to physical argument about what the creature actually was.

Look at the skull closeup and you can see individual tooth rows built from stacked brick elements, fenestrae represented as open negative space through clever plate offsetting, and a jawline that actually captures the elongated low-profile snout that distinguishes V. mongoliensis from the broader-headed Hollywood version. The spine runs in a proper S-curve, the tail extends horizontally as it should for a bipedal theropod using it as a counterbalance, and the legs are proportioned correctly for an animal that stood 0.5 meters at the hip rather than eye level. The black display armature borrows the same museum-mount language as LEGO’s official sets, with cross-braced vertical supports that would look at home in any natural history gallery.

A fully adult V. mongoliensis reaches around 1.8 to 2 meters in length, which would push this build into genuinely unwieldy display territory. Choosing a juvenile specimen is a calibrated decision that keeps the model physically manageable while maintaining the true-scale claim, and it maps to real fossil record data: a complete juvenile skeleton described from the Djadochta Formation gives the builder a legitimate scientific reference point rather than an averaged extrapolation. Terraxz has a catalog of related MOCs on Rebrickable, including a true-scale V. mongoliensis skull, so this submission is the culmination of an ongoing paleontology project rather than a standalone pitch.

LEGO Ideas requires 10,000 supporter votes within the submission window for a design to enter official review, and Terraxz currently sits at just over 1,000 with 605 days remaining. That’s enough time to accrue the votes needed to turn this into a retail set. I’m pretty sure that a whole bunch of people beyond
paleontologists would like a to-scale velociraptor skeleton adorning their bedroom or hallway. The submission is live on the LEGO Ideas website, and it takes about thirty seconds to cast your vote, so what exactly are you waiting for?

The post Someone Built a True-Scale LEGO Velociraptor Skeleton and I Can’t Wait To Buy One first appeared on Yanko Design.

Grammarly has disabled its tool offering generative-AI feedback credited to real writers

Posted on by

Superhuman has taken its writing assistant Grammarly on quite the merry-go-round ride regarding its approach to AI tools. In August, the company launched a feature called Expert Review that would offer feedback on your writing, offering AI-generated feedback that would appear to come from a famous writer or academic of note. These recreations were based on "publicly available information from third-party LLMs," which sounds a lot like web crawlers of dubious legality were involved. 

The suggested experts would be based on the subject matter and could be anyone from great scientific minds to bestselling fiction authors to your friendly neighborhood tech bloggers. Living or dead, these writers' names appeared on Grammarly without their permission or knowledge. "References to experts in this product are for informational purposes only and do not indicate any affiliation with Grammarly or endorsement by those individuals or entities," the company hedged in a disclaimer on the service. 

As one might imagine, once people took notice, a large number of the living contingent of those writers were none too pleased. In fact, there's an attempted class action suit already underway against Superhuman. The company initially attempted to address the complaints by allowing writers to opt out of the platform. Which I'm sure was a big relief to the deceased contingent and to those living ones who aren't closely following AI news and might still not know they were being cited by the tool. 

Today, Superhuman CEO Shishir Mehrotra wrote in a LinkedIn post that the company will disable Expert Review while it reassesses the feature. "The agent was designed to help users discover influential perspectives and scholarship relevant to their work, while also providing meaningful ways for experts to build deeper relationships with their fans," he said. Yes, Carl Sagan must be bemoaning the lack of deep relationships with his fans from the afterlife.

Update, March 11, 2026, 5:34PM ET: Updated to note pending class action lawsuit filed against Superhuman over this feature.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/grammarly-has-disabled-its-tool-offering-generative-ai-feedback-credited-to-real-writers-201614257.html?src=rss

65 Hybrid catamaran depicts an evolutionary journey for VisionF Yachts

Posted on by

We have a special affinity for catamarans, something you’ll recognize from our previous coverage. These marine beauties have an irresistible allure, whether it in a conceptualized rendering or a production-ready model like the 65 Hybrid unveiled by catamaran builder VisionF Yachts. The all-new model – chiefly designed by Tuzla, Istanbul-based builder, famous for its innovative power catamarans – is the company’s first foray into the sub-80-foot catamaran segment.

It’s an evolutionary journey for VisionF, which is particularly famous for its VisionF 80, VisionF 82, and VisionF 101 models. These are all 80-foot-plus power and fully electric catamarans offering a luxurious blend of comfort and performance. Scaling the same finesse to a smaller 62-foot form factor is not the only change heralding the proficiency of the 65 Hybrid, it’s also the new material used for its construction.

Designer: VisionF Yachts

Equipped with all the advanced technology and alternative power sources, the Vision 65 Hybrid catamaran is meticulously designed and crafted to provide an unparalleled experience at sea. With an overall length of 19m (62 feet), the catamaran features 30 feet beam, but sways from the usual aluminium construction reserved for VisionF cats. The model, instead, is built in GRP composite and is designed to provide efficiency and liveability of the highest order.

Despite the compactness, the 62-footer catamaran doesn’t compromise in the interiors department. The beam delivers space-defying standards. It allows a luxury accommodation for up to eight guests. This is arranged as four cabins with their own quarters for a crew of four. Designed for cruising, the living quarters also comprise a large salon, expansive glazing, and an interior flooded with natural lighting from all sides.

The 65 Hybrid, interestingly, is not only about style; it’s about substance as well. The catamaran is powered by 450 hp Volvo Penta D8-450 diesel engines and an electric powertrain. The latter comprises a pair of batteries, 101 kWh and 23 kWh capacities, charged primarily by 42 solar panels laid out on the rooftop, which helps run the electric catamaran silently.

Featuring an advanced energy management system, the 65 Hybrid hull has been created as a demo model for those willing to buy. It is a tangible idea of what the final product could be, even though the customers, VisionF says, have extensive flexibility. VisionF is open to exploring customization in technical configurations, layout, and finishes, if required. According to press information, 65 Hybrid catamaran is likely to go on sale in the months to come. If you’re interested, head over for a hands-on experience and order for your customized beauty now!

 

The post 65 Hybrid catamaran depicts an evolutionary journey for VisionF Yachts first appeared on Yanko Design.

Valve defends loot boxes in response to New York’s lawsuit

Posted on by

It must be 2017 because loot boxes are back in the news again. Two weeks after New York's attorney general sued Valve over its use of the gimmick, the company has responded. In short, the Steam maker essentially said, "See you in court."

New York's lawsuit accuses Valve of promoting illegal gambling through its games. AG Letitia James called the loot boxes found in titles like Counter-Strike 2, Team Fortress 2 and Dota 2 "addictive, harmful and illegal." The state seeks to "permanently stop Valve from continuing to promote illegal gambling in its games" and pay relevant fines.

In its defense posted on Thursday, Valve likened its mystery boxes to kids buying packs of physical trading cards. "Players don't have to open mystery boxes to play Valve games," the company wrote. "In fact, most of you don't open any boxes at all and just play the games — because the items in the boxes are purely cosmetic, there is no disadvantage to a player not spending money."

That last point, while applicable within the game itself, isn't quite that cut and dry once you zoom out beyond that. As James pointed out, players can trade the cosmetic items they win from loot boxes on Steam's marketplace or sell them on third-party marketplaces. Rarer ones can sometimes fetch lucrative sums.

CS2 gun skin listed for $20,000 on a marketplace
A CS2 gun skin listed for $20,000 on DMarket
DMarket

Here, too, Valve defended the profitable practice by rolling out the trading card comparison. "We think the transferability of a digital game item is good for consumers — it gives a user the ability to sell or trade an old or unwanted item for something else, in the same way an owner can sell or trade a tangible item like a Pokémon or baseball card," the company wrote. "NYAG proposes to take away users' ability to transfer their digital items from Valve games. Transferability is a right we believe should not be taken away, and we refuse to do that."

Valve is also facing a new class-action lawsuit over its loot boxes.

Some of Valve's points land a bit more than its righteous defense of a gaming gimmick that, well, isn’t exactly beloved. The company accused the NYAG of proposing that Valve collect additional user information to prevent VPN use. In addition, the state allegedly "demanded that Valve collect more personal data about our users to do additional age verification." Privacy experts have been sounding the alarm about the recent push for online age verification.

Valve also addressed James's erroneous and outdated statement that video games encourage real-world violence. "Those extraneous comments are a distraction and a mischaracterization we've all heard before," the company wrote. "Numerous studies throughout the years have concluded there is no link between media (movies, TV, books, comics, music and games) and real world violence. Indeed, many studies highlight the beneficial impact of games to users."

The company says that, while it may have been cheaper to settle the suit, it deemed the NYAG's demands user-hostile. "Ultimately, a court will decide whose position — ours or NYAG's — is correct. In the meantime, we wanted to make sure you were aware of the potential impact to users in New York and elsewhere."

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/valve-defends-loot-boxes-in-response-to-new-yorks-lawsuit-190655554.html?src=rss

TikTok will let you stream full songs in its app if you’re an Apple Music subscriber

Posted on by

TikTok will soon let you stream full songs in its app via a new integration with Apple Music. The company's new Play Full Song feature makes it possible to link your Apple Music account toTikTok, and play any song that strikes your fancy directly in the app while you're scrolling.

Starting a song is as simple as tapping a button in the Sound Details page or your For You page. Assuming you pay for Apple Music, TikTok will then open up a streamlined version of Apple's music player, which you can use to listen to the song, save it for later or add it to a playlist.

TikTok says that Play Full Song is built using Apple's MusicKit APIs, which let developers surface elements of the Apple Music streaming service in their apps. TikTok has previously offered integration with multiple music streaming services through a feature it calls Add to Music App, which made it possible to save songs you heard on TikTok to your streaming library. What's particularly interesting about this new integration is that because it's using Apple's APIs, songs streamed with Play Full Song count as normal streams for the artists in Apple Music, so they don't lose out on any money.

Alongside the new feature, TikTok and Apple are also introducing a way for fans to listen to music live with their favorite artists. TikTok's Listening Party feature creates a live "shared environment" where people can listen to music and interact with artists directly, in what effectively sounds like an audio-only livestream. TikTok livestreams are a whole ecosystem in their own right, and Listening Party seems like a way to leverage some of the same technology for a more controlled, music promotion-focused end.

TikTok is already a popular tool for music discovery and launching the career of new artists, and the platform also briefly dabbled in offering a streaming service of its own in 2023. The company abandoned those plans in 2024, but under new owners, TikTok's ambitions could ultimately be bigger than just offering nice integrations with existing streaming services.

TikTok says Play Full Song and Listening Party are rolling out worldwide “in the weeks ahead,” so if you don’t see either feature now, you may soon.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/tiktok-will-let-you-stream-full-songs-in-its-app-if-youre-an-apple-music-subscriber-183333143.html?src=rss

Microsoft’s full screen ‘Xbox Mode’ will roll out to Windows 11 PCs in April

Posted on by

Microsoft first debuted its full screen Xbox experience for Windows in the ROG Ally Xbox handheld, in a bid to compete with Steam's nearly 15-year-old Big Picture Mode. That Xbox interface eventually made its way to other Windows 11 gaming portables last year. Today at GDC, Microsoft revealed that its big screen Xbox UI is headed to all Windows 11 devices (including laptops and desktops) in April. Oh yah, and it's now simply called "Xbox Mode."

Xbox Mode will only be available in select markets at first, and Microsoft describes it as bringing "a controller-optimized experience to your Windows 11 device, letting players browse their library, launch games, use Game Bar and switch between apps." You know, just like Steam Big Picture mode. Microsoft didn't have much else to share about optimizations in Xbox Mode, but when it debuted the feature for Windows 11 Insiders last fall, the company noted that its task switcher will let people quickly move between games, as well as their apps.

Microsoft revealed at GDC today that it plans to start sending Project Helix systems (likely dev kits) to developers next year. Last week, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma announced the Project Helix codename and confirmed that it will play both PC and console games. Xbox VP of next generation Jason Ronald also noted that the new system will be built on AMD’s next-generation technology, which sounds very similar to what AMD will be bringing to Sony’s PlayStation 6.

Microsoft also has some geekier developer-focused news for the Games Developer Conference. Advanced Shader Delivery (ASD), which first appeared on the Xbox ROG Ally, will be made available to all developers on the Xbox store. ASD allows delivers to pre-compile shaders, so you're not stuck waiting for them to get processed on your system. That should also help to avoid the shader stuttering so common when playing a new title, since shader processing often occurs in the background too.

DirectStorage, Microsoft's technology for speeding up game loading on NVMe SSDs, is also getting support for Zstandard compression, as well as a tool called the "Game Asset Conditional Library." According to Microsoft, that tool enables "improving compression efficiency while simplifying asset conditioning across production pipelines." Microsoft also plans to give developers a glimpse at how next-generation Machine Learning will be implemented in its DirectX gaming API.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/xbox/microsofts-full-screen-xbox-mode-will-roll-out-to-windows-11-pcs-in-april-181000289.html?src=rss