Google last week unveiled its gorgeous new hardware in a series of mesmerizing demos and videos. This was the first time I’d seen a major tech-company hold an entire event just to celebrate its achievement in aesthetics. And it was a sight for sore eyes.
While watching the Apple event online with my co-workers this summer, I saw our team become increasingly underwhelmed by lackluster reveals. The gear was fine; the iPhone X looked cool; but nothing seemed particularly special about any of it. Tim Cook and company regaled us with numbers and hyperbole. Sure it was decent, but I wasn’t wowed.
The mood was entirely different last week when we gathered to cover the Google event. We became increasingly excited with each reveal. More, we’d all declare how much we wanted whatever was streaming on our screens in a frenzy of virtual oohs and aahs. I won’t speak for everyone, but from where I was sitting, it looked like we were all very impressed with the product lineup.
Perhaps most interesting, those moods were entirely reversed before each event. The day before the Apple event there was a buzz surrounding TNW’s editorial staff – many of us expressed that we couldn’t wait to see what the Cupertino company was going to reveal. Yet, on October 3 rd – the day before the Google event – it was almost like business as usual.
Maybe next year Microsoft wows us, or Apple takes the crown back, but for now Google has tapped into something. It’s figured out how to make the same idea that fueled Material Design work for the physical world. Instead of trying to build something that looks different, they built a bunch of gadgets that don’t scream “look at me” — they just do awesome things without much fuss.
These devices want your attention in all the right ways, and they look good no matter where you put them.
The first time I saw the Pixel 2 my initial reaction was that it needed the word PHONE on its back in big generic letters. The most interesting thing about it is the screen, and that’s counter-intuitive to someone who owns a C3PO-colored glass-backed Samsung Galaxy S7 that would be a better match for Beyonce than a tech journalist. After I saw what the Pixel 2 was trying to accomplish, however, I got it.
The Pixel 2 isn’t trying to distract me with a leather back, weird curve, or a gimmicky notch, nor is it trying to pull off a tablet impersonation. Like all of Google’s new gear it’s trying to draw your attention to what it does instead of how it looks. It succeeds by looking like a concept smartphone from the future — it’s just black and white and easy to look at all-over.
The new Home Mini and Home Max speakers are obviously inspired by furniture, and that’s a good thing because they kinda are furniture. They feature a softness that allows them to blend in to a coffee-table environment while maintaining a neutral enough position on the color palette to be nearly invisible in an office.
I love the subtlety of each device, including the Pixelbook. It doesn’t insist upon itself with bold black lines like a lot of convertibles do. I love what Google’s done with bezels. In my opinion the only outlier is the Daydream View – it’s the only device with a design that didn’t immediately appeal to me.
It’s strange to write about technology without tearing down specs, but I love how the conversation is changing. TNW’s Bryan Clark spent a significant portion of his Google WiFi review discussing how important aesthetics are when you’re filling a home full of all this gear.
And he’s right. I’m sick of obtrusive devices that standout like sore thumbs next to everything else in my life. Google is proving, when it comes to gadgets, quiet elegance is very fashionable.
TNW is hosting a flagship event in New York City in December. It’s going to be
The world’s first Robot Film Festival in New York City
This July 2011, the world’s first Robot Film Festival will take place in New York City. The festival was founded by roboticist Heather Knight , who is currently conducting her doctoral research at Carnegie Mellon’s Robotics Institute while running Marilyn Monrobot Labs in NYC, which creates socially intelligent robot performances and sensor-based electronic art.
Knight hopes the festival will inject a sense of playfulness into traditional science and engineering, while exploring new frontiers for robotics before the technology is even possible. Her work with Marilyn Monrobot allowed her to explore how robot characters interact with people and how robots can be integrated into everyday life.
Knight naturally fell into studying the interaction of robots and art through comedy. “Comedy is one of those coincidences with a high amount of audience interaction because the spirit of the room influences you to some degree,” she explains. Knight recently gave a TED talk introducing Data, a robotic stand-up comedian that gathers audience feedback and tunes its act as the crowd responds. Watch her TED Talk here .
Last year, Knight worked with Syyn Labs on OK Go ‘s famous viral video This Too Shall Pass . “I realized how incredibly talented entertainers are at engaging and touching an audience. They know how to craft a story that will go viral. Meanwhile, as engineers and roboticists, we’re good at packing something together and making something work. It seems like a perfect marriage to combine those communities for inspiration and the ability to follow through,” says Knight.
Think of the film festival as the first dance on the path of creating an interdisciplinary community; a rich and fun way to kickstart this integration between technologists and artists, roboticists and performers. “There’s something forgiving about film versus live performances. In addition, story telling has a powerful force in terms of shaping innovation, which is why science fiction is so influential in this space,” she says.
The Robot Film Festival opened up 6 days ago and Knight has already seen submissions from famous rappers, interesting experiments in claymation, crazy performance art from Italy, clips from Portal 2 and a query from Tazmania: “Is this festival really open to the whole world?” Yes, it is. Submissions are due by June 5th, more details here .
The team and advisory board includes a number of stellar names in the scene including Natalie Be’er of NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program , Suzan Eraslan and Kevin Laibson of Magic Future Box Productions , Documentary filmmaker Jason Sosnoff and Ken Perlin, the Director of the Games for Learning Institute at NYU.
The main event will take place July 16-17th at the Three Legged Dog Art and Technology Center in New York City. The “Botskers” Award Ceremony will be a red carpet event with full on robot paparazzi and dramatic art installations. There will be multiple categories such as “Best Robot Actor,” and maybe even “Best Robot Director.”
Review: iDapt i4. Finally, a gorgeous universal charger.
Most universal chargers are incredibly ugly. If you want to charge multiple devices you’re normally in for a big black brick of some sort, lots of cords and a forest of tips. Oh so many easily lost tips. The iDapt i4 is a different breed entirely. It looks fantastic, doesn’t use tips and is a welcome addition to my desk.
The i4 consists of a base with an acrylic top that houses three interchangeable plugs. These plugs can be swapped out to fit a variety of different devices including Mini-USB, Micro-USB, Apple’s 30-pin dock connector and most brands of cell phone.
The i4 comes with the base, a power adapter and a full set of plugs to get you started. iDapt also lets you order the i4 with a pack of custom plugs instead of the 6 generic ones so you can get just what you need. This is a super cool touch and one that I think all universal charger manufacturers should take note of.
I love the deco influenced design of the i4, it stands out from the pack when it comes to desk chargers, which are normally black plastic monstrosities. The angular base leads up to an acrylic top that has a nice embedded laminate of color. You can get a variety of different colors but I went with the red, it makes for a nice splash of color among all of the grey and black on my desk.
The plugs themselves have a clever spring-loaded design that makes it much harder to break the plug or the device that is sitting on it. If you bump a device while it’s on or rock it on the connector while you’re attaching it, the plug just sways backwards or forwards, keeping the plug and the connector on your device safe.
It’s an inventive solution to the problem of how delicate the charging ports are on most mobile electronics.
To change out the plugs you punch in the buttons on either side of each hole, ejecting the plug. Then you insert a new one. It works very simply and never caused me any issues. In addition to the top plugs there is also a standard USB port on the side for charging just about anything else.
I do have a short wish-list of features for a future version of the i4. I would love a sync passthrough, something that iDapt told us was coming when we previewed the i4. I’d also like a thinner power cord, perhaps of the DC variety, although that would mean an external power brick, something that iDapt has tucked away in the interior of the i4 now. So that’s really just a personal preference.
I’ve absolutely come to love the iDapt over the course of my testing and it’s become a permanent fixture on my desk. It looks so good though that I would be just as happy if it was sitting on my kitchen counter or the side table by the door. I wish that all of the accessories that I had were this stylish and well thought out.
The iDapt i4 charger is available now for $60 on iDapt’s site .
