Inhalers are clunky. They look too medical, and they aren’t really pocket-friendly. Who needs to have that ‘L’ shape bulging out of their denim? No one! Bloom is a brilliantly sleek inhaler that’ll fit into any pocket. Its smart actuator design isn’t just convenient, it’s accident proof too, and extremely classy!
The design is made explicitly for convenience, but it has the potential of making a style statement, just like spectacles aren’t just vision correctional devices anymore. The bloom stores up to six pumps within its svelte steel enclosure, which can easily fit into wallets and pockets alike. The actuator needs lifting up in order for the pump to be used. This helps accidental spraying, given the Bloom’s limited dosage.
I personally have only good things to say about Bloom. Quite a few people end up using their inhaler at times of anxiety, and the inhaler’s inherently medical/clunky looking design isn’t a confidence booster. The Bloom takes care of that, making the inhaler inconspicuous in some situations, and shine through as a champion of medical product design in others!
Designer: James Cazzoli
Simple design is always the best type of design. Add to that a beautiful story, and you have a winner of a product! The Bloom toilet brush stands out as an example of a simple design with a beautiful story. Made as pretty much a single part, the Brush has a cup with bristles on the inside. Press the brush against a flat surface and the cup flips outwards, revealing the bristles within, completing the “bloom” story!
Yes, I know this is a toilet brush; but toilets are allowed to have nice things too!
Designers: Guosheng Rong, Chen Qian, and The Xu Shengli.
A finalist in the 2015 Electrolux Design Lab, Bloom is a one-of-a-kind kettle that utilises steam – an otherwise wasted form of energy – and recycles it through three separate pods in a safe and accessible way for children. Bloom’s unique pods function in 3 ways: steam Cooking, growing and air purification, and product sterilization. The pods can be controlled through a native app or the directly on the hub. Using a tablet or smartphone, the app bridges the gap between digital and practical education, teaching children about the processes occurring in the pod, e.g. photosynthesis, the water cycle, germs, cooking and more. For motivation, it also awards them for using the pods, carrying out new tasks and challenges, creating an incentive to want to learn and do more.
Additionally, Bloom creates a focal point for the whole family to come together where parents can join their children in building new skills, creating memories, having fun and get more involved with daily routines. It helps parents achieve entertaining ways to educate their children and encourage good habits such as healthy eating, growing and cooking – all safe, easy and time efficient. Bloom doesn’t just benefit children, but the entire family.
Designer: Jordan Lee Martin
Earlier today, Philips announced two new add-ons for its app-controlled Hue system: LivingColors Bloom, a standalone portable fixture, and LightStrips, a 6.6-foot LED tape that you can affix to any surface using the included adhesive back. Both products are fully compatible with the existing Hue system, including the base station and three-bulb kit that launched at Apple Stores last year. Knowing that part of the solution's appeal is its quick and easy setup, we decided to build out a five-light rig at home using three standard bulbs, one Bloom and one LightStrips set. It took less than an hour to get up and running, including swapping out bulbs, running power to LightStrips and setting up the base station and app.
In order to take full advantage of available "scenes" (lighting color macros based on uploaded images), you'll want to install all of your bulbs in one room or open space. You can very easily control the color and brightness of each unit using the Android or iOS app, however, so if you prefer to go that route, there's no reason you can't install Hue all over your house, as long as you don't go beyond the 50 maximum units each base station can support. For now, most of the available scenes support one through three fixtures, not the five you'll end up with if you have one complete kit, a Bloom and LightStrips in your home, so we avoided using scenes for the time being. If you're using app version 1.1 on iOS, you can take advantage of IFTTT integration, too, letting you set up a virtually endless number of macros.
Even with five Hue fixtures in a small space, the room was a bit too dark -- this solution works best for accent lighting, so unless you're prepared to use 20 bulbs in a room, you'll probably want to mix in traditional fixtures, too. Still, Hue serves its purpose well, and we definitely see the appeal despite the $200 you'll spend on the base kit, $80 for the bloom and $90 for the LightStrips. See our installation in action in the hands-on video after the break.
There's no shortage of home automation solutions on the market, but none can touch the cool factor of Philips' Hue. The Android and iOS-controlled lighting solution consists of a base station that controls up to 50 different lights, including the company's existing LED Connected Bulb, and two new additions, designed to let you add light without a standard lamp socket. The first product, LivingColors Bloom, is a compact fixture that you can position on the floor, on a shelf or anywhere in a room. It sits on the ground and bounces your pick of 16 million colors off any surface.
LightStrips, on the other hand, is a better fit for more permanent (and subtle) installations. The 6.6-foot LED strip can be cut to size, and includes an adhesive backing, so it can be easily mounted under a counter, bed or inside cabinets. Both offerings support the full Hue color spectrum, and are compatible with existing apps and macros, including the IFTTT integration that debuted in May. Hue Bloom is set to retail for $80, while LightStrips will run you 90 bucks. Expect both products in Apple Stores this Thursday.
Filed under: Household
Based on the latest reports, the company once chided for making too large an impact on Mother Earth is now claiming that a full 75 percent of its energy is being sourced from renewables. Apple's chief financial officer, Peter Oppenheimer, informed Reuters this week that all of its data centers -- including the gargantuan facility in Maiden, North Carolina -- are now fully powered by renewable energy from onsite and local sources, while three-fourths of the energy used by the whole company is pulled from green sources. For those wondering, that includes solar, wind, hydro and geothermal, and the 75 percent mark is a stark 40 percent uptick from just two years ago. As for what the future holds? According to Apple: "We won't stop working until we achieve 100 percent throughout Apple." Alrighty then.
Source: Apple
Music making apps for the iPad are ten-a-penny, but when it's the brainchild of a super-producer like Brian Eno, you have to take notice. Scape is the third of his collaborations with Peter Chilvers after Bloom and Trope, an app that lets you generate ambient music with Eno's own sounds on a colorful, conceptual interface. Unlike standard beats'n'loops setups, each sound is tied to a series of rules -- including the time of day -- that ensures the tunes you create never play the same way twice. It's available from iTunes for $5.99 / £3.99, and who knows, maybe in a few years time, Coldplay'll come calling for your professional expertise.
Filed under: Portable Audio/Video, Tablets, Software, Alt
Scape, Brian Eno's new ambient music creation app is now available on the iPad (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 29 Sep 2012 05:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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