Design

COLOGNE, Germany--We met up with the folks from Rudiger Maerz GmbH here at Photokina 2012 to find out more about the special dSLR customization service they recently started offering to consumers.

Using the same airbrush technique employed by the automotive industry, the company completely disassembles your camera and coats each part individually. Inscriptions and buttons, however, are usually left intact, so you still know your way around when adjusting camera settings.

Beyond cosmetic enhancements, the biggest draw of the dSLR customization service has got to be the ability to choose between different lens mounts. You can even opt to remove your dSLR's entire shutter mechanism. … Read more

Good news for giraffes! Construction has started on a house that's being called the world's narrowest.

The dwelling -- located in a passageway between two buildings in Warsaw, Poland's Wola district -- measures 47 inches at its widest point and 27 inches at its thinnest.

Polish architect Jakub Szczesny of the architecture collective Centrala conceived of the super-slender abode for acclaimed Israeli writer Etgar Keret, who will live and work in the space for part of the year.

When Keret's not using the home, artists and intellectuals from around the world will be invited to stay there for days and weeks at a time. … Read more

What does a cardboard box sound like? A lot like a weird clown head, it turns out.

Actually, most of the items that get sonified by designer Dennis Paul's "Instrument for the Sonification of Everyday Things" end up sounding pretty similar, but that's not really the point. The point is that Paul squeezes sound out of cardboard boxes and weird clown heads! … Read more

Brooklyn, N.Y.-based 3D printer manufacturer MakerBot hosted a press conference today, where it unveiled new products, as well as its first retail storefront. In addition to the store, the company announced a new Replicator 2 3D printer for immediate availability, a higher-end Replicator 2X due out in Q1 2013, and new 3D printing software, dubbed MakerWare.

The Replicator 2 comes on the heels of the Replicator, which debuted at this year's Consumer Electronics Show and went on sale at the end of January. The new model will cost $2,199, or $200 more than the highest-end original … Read more

I love baking. I love technology. I just never thought to put the two together. Israel-based artist and designer Debbi Nitsan, however, is already on the case.

Nitsan created an entire collection of electronics with their original casings removed and replaced with new, 100 percent more delicious, bread casings. The items include clocks, radios, and flashlights.… Read more

Italian artist Leonardo Ulian's mesmerizing piece "Technological mandala 02," doesn't look like the average sacred art commonly seen in Buddhism and Hinduism.

Ulian, based in London, created the mandala with hundreds of microchips, circuits, resistors, and other components found within everyday electronics.… Read more

I have a very basic grasp of sign language, including the alphabet and few simple words like "thank you," "snake," and "chicken."

The last time I spoke with someone who was speech impaired, we resorted to a scrap piece of cardboard and a pencil to get our messages across. A new invention may help break down those barriers.

The EnableTalk smart glove recognizes sign language gestures and sends them for text and voice translation to a smartphone or other device. … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--Building 3D models should be something everyone can do. That's the pitch from ZeroUI, a Silicon Valley startup that has created a technology platform designed to let anyone create their own digital models, whether a robot, drum, table, or anything else.

The Cupertino, Calif., company is relying on gestural input technologies such as Microsoft's Kinect, and soon, Leap Motion's Leap controller, as well as systems built into some computers, to allow users to create their models with nothing but their hands.

The company's name comes from the fact that its system has an extremely minimal user interface. Rather than requiring users to understand the mathematics and physics of a model they might want to build, the ZeroUI system simply allows them to stand in front of the input camera and use intuitive hand gestures to craft their 3D model (see the video below). … Read more

Wanna get from South Kensington to Piccadilly on the London underground? According to artist Yuri Suzuki 's Tube Map Radio, you'll just need to pass the capacitor and get off at the resistor.

Using an electronic circuit board, Suzuki created a radio that looks like a map of the London underground. He even strategically placed components to reflect London locales -- a speaker volume knob sits at the site of the famed Speaker's Corner, for example, and a power battery gets placement near the Battersea Power Station on the south bank of the River Thames. … Read more