Articles By: Blaine Brownell

Veritex

Shape-memory composites are made with resins whose qualities have been altered to give them dynamic properties. Under thermal stimuli, shape-memory polymers exhibit a radical change from a rigid polymer to a very elastic state then back to a rigid state again. Veritex is similar to other high-performance...

December 16th, 2005 | feature, textile | Read More

Image-Mesh

Image-Mesh is a video wall comprised of a plastic mesh embedded with tiny, pixel-addressable 3-in-1 RGB LEDs. Its panel structure is unobtrusive, lightweight, and may be easily erected and dismantled. It can be bent to a radius of 0.5m. Each 0.9m x 0.9m panel ‘module’ weighs just 1.5kg and...

December 9th, 2005 | light | Read More

Acousticel

Acousticel is an acoustic insulation material made from 100% recycled rubber. The rubber comes from old car tires and is broken down into small strips to make this non-woven sheet material. The insulation is supplied in 10mm thick rolls for floors and 1 m2 panels for walls. [via rematerialize] Contact:...

December 7th, 2005 | rubber | Read More

TileToy

TileToy is a modular, electronic-game prototype for game tiles developed by English game designer Daniel Blackburn with Finnish designer and media artist Tuomo Tammenpää. This game platform brings the flexibility inherent in digital software to a physical tile with which people can touch and interact....

December 2nd, 2005 | interactive | Read More

Planon

Osram’s Planon lamp systems are new light sources with high output and extremely uniform luminance in a flat panel design. The Planon lamp is a flat, dimmable, mercury-free discharge light source. Its sleek shape and high luminance makes it the perfect solution for liquid crystal displays (LCD) and...

November 30th, 2005 | feature, light | Read More

Plastic Mirror

Andy Ouderkirk and fellow 3M scientist Mike Weber were zapping polymers with powerful lasers as part of a materials science experiment when Ouderkirk realized he could bind together hundreds of sheets of polymer film to create a highly reflective material. The resulting plastic mirror is much cheaper...

November 22nd, 2005 | plastic | Read More

Almute

Almute is an engineered metal panel that absorbs sound. Manufactured by Peer Inc., Almute represents the culmination of many years of development in advanced sintering and fine-grain metal processing. Peer Inc. mixes aluminum grains mixed with pre-alloyed metal powders and forms them into rigid panels...

November 18th, 2005 | metals | Read More

SmartSlab

The SmartSlab has been described as the world’s toughest digital video display for walls, floors, billboards and buildings. Each slab is designed in a honeycomb structure inspired by the optics of a fly’s eye. Instead of using standard pixels it uses hexels (hexagonal pixels) that provide...

November 11th, 2005 | interactive | Read More

Liquidmetal

In the same way that the inventions of steel in the 1800s and plastic in the 1900s sparked revolutions for industry, a new class of amorphous alloys is poised to redefine materials science as we know it in the 21st century. Welcome to the 3rd Revolution, otherwise known as the era of Liquidmetal alloys,...

November 10th, 2005 | feature, metals | Read More

Icestix

British Columbia-based Interstyle makes several lines of beautiful hand-crafted, etched glass mosaics which are impervious to liquids and vapors, resistant to fading or discoloring, simple to install with standard tools, frostproof, and easy to clean. The tiles come in mesh-mounted sheets which can be...

November 10th, 2005 | glass | Read More