I’d have loved to make a joke about card tricks (because the wallet holds cards), but I guess you just have to work with the cards you’re dealt (booyah). The Flip Flop Wallet by Bodega is probably the most interesting bifold wallet I’ve seen in quite a long time (comparable to Garzini Cavare’s Magic Wallet). It comes with two folding lines… one running vertically down the middle, giving it the characteristic of a bifold and allowing it to open and close like a book, and one running diagonally, letting you fold the open wallet from one corner to the other, to create a W-shaped wallet that neatly displays your cards and lets you pick the ones you want to use.
The Flip-Flop’s interaction is fun and does provide enough functionality so that it’s not a gimmick… it’s just a really cool wallet! The wallet’s slim and compact, fitting easily into your front or back pockets, and comes with a molded leather exterior and stitch-less construction, so it lasts long and doesn’t fall apart. It comes with a leather exterior, for the style, and a suede interior that gives the inside a velvety touch. The wallet stores up to 8 cards, and can also store banknotes if folded. It even packs RFID Blocking, protecting your cards and money from unwarranted scans or cyber hacks.
The Flip Flop just makes owning a wallet interesting! Unfold it to open it out into a rectangular shape and you’ve got yourself a regular bifold. Fold it down its diagonal spine and you’ve got a wallet that puts your cards out on display, wowing everyone around! Just be safe because your friends may expect you to foot the bill after seeing your magical little wallet!
Designer: Bodega
The WalkingPad is a winner product because it realizes that A. People are too lazy to go to the gym, and B. Houses and flats are too small to accommodate a home-gym into them. It, therefore, ticks the appropriate boxes with its innovative design and brings the gym to your home in a way that’s unintrusive yet feature-laden. This full-size treadmill folds up and slides right under your sofa or bed, occupying a space that is insignificant, only to be pulled out, unfolded, and used as a full-size treadmill.
The WalkingPad opens up into a full-size treadmill, sans the side rails. Two wheels at the front end allow you to easily roll the folded WalkingPad to and from under your sofa or bed, and setting up the treadmill is as easy as unfolding it open with a single lifting action. Once unfolded, the belt immediately tightens around the treadmill, and on switching it on, a display at the front of the product comes to life. The WalkingPad can be used in two modes. A manual mode allows you to set a pre-determined speed that your feet follow, while an automatic mode allows you to walk fast or slow, while the traction belt below your feet adjusts its speed to your gait. You’ve even got the additional handheld remote that you can use to work the WalkingPad, while a mobile app allows you to keep track of your walk and subsequently your workout… and when you’re done, just fold the WalkingPad and slide it conveniently under your couch! Having a proper, functional home-gym was never this convenient!
Designer: WalkingPad
Designer Xiang Guan redesigned the packaging for IKEA’s Hilver table to serve more of a purpose than packaging. With a pattern printed on it serving as a folding guide, the packaging for IKEA’s table turns into a stool that you can use with said table.
“Around 30.5 million tonnes of household waste are generated in the United Kingdom every year. With this in mind, FOLD is a packaging designed for IKEA’s “HILVER” table that encourages upcycling”, said Guan, who secured a Red Dot Award and Core77 Award for his innovative solution. Unlike most upcycled furniture, the Fold stool comes with a faceted design that looks good in most homes, and the print on it breaks the monotony of the brown cardboard color. The stool uses the corrugated board that comprised the packaging, with just an extra rubber band to hold it in place, making it not only convenient to assemble, but also easy to disassemble and recycle after it finishes serving its purpose.
Designer: Xiang Guan
Parrot has introduced a new drone that looks set to take on the DJI Mavic Air, and it looks pretty sweet. The Parrot ANAFI drone is made specifically to take high-quality photos and video from the air, while being portable enough to tote in a backpack.
The ANAFI is a foldable drone designed specifically to make it easy to take with you and store. It has an attached 4K HDR camera that can tilt on a 180-degree gimbal and has 2.8x lossless zoom. The camera also has three-axis image stabilization to eliminate any shake caused by wind or weather. Parrot designed the drone for quiet operation and to be resistant to weather conditions. An internal battery makes the drone good for flights of 25 minutes per charge.
AI is embedded to allow the drone to fly in autonomous modes to capture pro-quality shots, like automatically framing or following a subject. The camera uses a 1/2.4″ 21 megapixel CMOS Sony sensor with a wide-angle f/2.4 ASPH lens, and the still images it shoots can be output in Adobe DNG/RAW format for optimal quality. The ANAFI is priced at just $699.99, with additional batteries going for $99. It’s available for pre-order today from the Parrot website, with shipping starting on July 2, 2018.
Four pivot points and ingenious designing makes Gerber’s Freescape Camp Saw a slim, portable delight. Designed to occupy no more space than a baton when folded, the Freescape takes less than three seconds to open up into a robust and capable hacksaw.
The design not only makes the hacksaw compact, it ensures it stays safe. While hacksaws aren’t really portable (you wouldn’t put one in your backpack), the Freescape’s folding design not only makes it easy to carry, the body of the hacksaw actually becomes the sheath for the blade, covering it completely so it doesn’t accidentally snag, rip, or cut anything.
Opening out the Freescape is simple. Just unlock it by opening out the grip unit and the rest is pretty intuitive. It uses the industry standard 12″ blade that opens out of its sheath, does a 180° and locks into the body again. Press the grip down against the Freescape when it’s opened and it locks into its new shape, robust and ready to cut. The blade can easily be replaced after it wears off, or if you want to switch between different blade types. It also comes with a small protective sleeve that slides on it to prevent the blade from making extra contact with air or moisture, therefore preventing it from rusting. The entire unit when opened, works like a proper hacksaw that can be operated with both hands, and when folded down, occupies less than a quarter of its previous space and weighs a mere 0.9lbs (420g). Throw it in your backpack, or under your car-seat and forget about it!
Designer: Gerber
Basic drones are a dime a dozen these days, turning up everywhere from Walmart to your local 7-Eleven. But most of them share a few drawbacks – they’re cumbersome to carry around, easy to damage, and their spinning propellers can be a hazard to anyone who goes near them. A new drone design from engineers the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne aims to solve all of these problems.
Designed first and foremost as a delivery drone, P.M. Kornatowski, S. Mintchev, and D. Floreano’s autonomous flying machine carries a small payload (up to about a pound), without risk of injury to the item or its recipient. The main innovation is its folding cage, which not only allows the drone to collapse to about 8% of its full size for storage, but acts as a shield to protect its cargo and propellers from damage, as well as keeping fingers away from the blades as it lands.
Check it out in action in the video below:
It’s a pretty novel approach to several problems, though it does require that the recipient know how to open the cage to remove their package, and then to close it properly before it returns to its sender. Even if it’s never used for package delivery, the design would make for a pretty awesome toy.
At this point, the drone is still in the development phase, and there’s no word on if or when it will be commercialized.
[via The Awesomer]
The folks at Kolelinia have created a unique personal mobility device called the Halfbike. It is basically a pedal-powered scooter or standing tricycle that is compact and light, so you can take it anywhere with you.
It can easily be folded down in just seconds, which is great for public transport or to put in the trunk of a small car. City dwellers will love the versatility.
As Halfbike points out, the standing rider position brings you closer to natural walking and allows you to control the vehicle with your whole body for a smooth and intuitive ride. It’s so awesome, even Darth Vader rides one:
These are for sale now from the Halfbike shop for $599(USD).
[via Laughing Squid]
It’s never a bad idea to wear a helmet while riding a bicycle, but their bulk makes them hard to carry after you’re done riding, and this makes it unappealing for many. To make your life easier, The Fend helmet is able to fold down to 1/3 of its original size, kind of like an accordion. Its proprietary hinge means it won’t collapse in case of an accident, and is designed to exceed all US CPSC and European EN1078 Safety Standards. It features excellent ventilation and a plush interior liner for added comfort. A $79 pledge will get you a helmet of your own, with expected shipping in May 2017.
[ Project Page ] VIA [ NewAtlas ]