
Seems that car makers are having a lot of fun right now. For all the doom-mongering from disruptionistas around an imminent collapse of the mainstream manufacturers, there sure is a press-storm of news about their plans for our future. From stalking the edges of SXSW for the last few years to this year’s floor shows […]

A conversation yesterday around the Picking up the pace post flicked a lightbulb (LED?) on about the current debate around what ‘drives’ cars; and if, perhaps, our cars are potentially this Century’s ‘difference engine’? A word of warning, though. I’m not at all certain where this is going, or even if there’s a point to […]

It seems that last year may have been the year when the automotive industry turned a corner, leaving behind a century of steady development, and entered a brave new world where its decades-old business model becomes increasingly irrelevant, thanks in no small part to the involvement of (or interference by, depending on your view) the technology sector.
Motor shows continue to be snubbed by big automotive brands, who are increasingly attending events such as the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). This year’s CES saw myriad automotive-related products and services launched, including important announcements from Faraday Future, Harman, TomTom and Delphi, while the keynote address was delivered by Carlos Ghosn (Chairman and CEO of Renault and Nissan, and Chairman of Mitsubishi Motors).

With the news that the original set of emoji’s are now honoured at the MoMA, the explosion of a new language of characters (beyond our humble 26 plus numbers and diacritics in English) to express what were thinking can seem a little, well, flat, sometimes. But no longer, thanks to Rejoinders, by Molly Young which […]

Zelf Koelman is busy inventing the future of material interactions, or as he captures it, a place “Where digital meets nature”. What does that mean? A series of rolling experiments where art meets tech meets material science meets interaction. The result, in this instance, is called Ferrolic – which I guess is a compound of […]

Yesterday, Geely, owners of Volvo, launched a new car brand: Lynk & Co. The company also launched its first product – the logically-named 01 – which follows the Qoros and Borgward approach of ‘designed in Europe, made in China’. The car itself looks conventional, albeit contemporary – an SUV with a choice of conventional, hybrid […]

Maybe not, but what a thing… check out the video! Richard Clarkson has created a small remote-controlled cloud for the home that plays music and flashes while hovering a few centimetres from the ground. It’s apparently made from “white polyester fibres, the cloud and its base are embedded with magnetic components that allow it to […]