Art

Marc Newson’s Lockheed Lounge sets new record at auction

By
30 April 2015
1 min read
Leave a comment
In Art
885 views

The Lockheed Lounge by Australian designer Marc Newson has retained its title as the world’s most expensive design object, after selling for more than £2 million.

Newson’s riveted aluminium and fiberglass chaise longue fetched £2,434,500 during a sale at auction house Phillips in London last night.

This surpasses the £1.4 million raised by a prototype of the design when sold by the same auctioneers in 2010, when it first became the most expensive object sold by a living designer.

We are proud to have set, yet again, the auction record for Marc Newson, one of the most influential designers of the last quarter century, said Alexander Payne, worldwide head of design at Phillips — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Science

Transparent Armour from NRL

By
30 April 2015
2 min read
Leave a comment
In Science
1067 views

Imagine a glass window that’s tough like armor, a camera lens that doesn’t get scratched in a sand storm, or a smart phone that doesn’t break when dropped. Except it’s not glass, it’s a special ceramic called spinel {spin-ELL} that the US Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) has been researching over the last 10 years.

Spinel is actually a mineral, it’s magnesium aluminate, says Dr Jas Sanghera, who leads the research. The advantage is it’s so much tougher, stronger, harder than glass. It provides better protection in more hostile environments — so it can withstand sand and rain erosion.

As a more durable material, a thinner layer of spinel can give better performance than glass. For weight-sensitive platforms-UAVs [unmanned autonomous vehicles], head-mounted face shields—it’s a game-changing technology.

NRL invented a new way of making transparent spinel, using a hot press, called sintering. It’s a low-temperature process, and the size of the pieces is limited only by the size of the press. Ultimately, we’re going to hand it over to industry, says Sanghera, so it has to be a scalable process. In the lab, they made pieces eight inches in diameter. Then we licensed the technology to a company who was able then to scale that up to much larger plates, about 30-inches wide.

The sintering method also allows NRL to make optics in a number of shapes, conformal with the surface of an airplane or UAV wing, depending on the shape of the press — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Craft, Wildlife

Needle Felting a Teddy Bear Skull: Unnatural History in the Making / Stephanie Metz

By
30 April 2015
1 min read
Leave a comment
In Craft, Wildlife
1050 views

Stephanie Metz creates one of her needle-felted teddy bear skull sculptures — in time-lapse. Taken from industrial origins, needle felting is the process of compressing and tangling wool fibres into three-dimensional forms through repetitive hand work with barbed needles.

Sculptor Stephanie Metz has been blazing a trail with this unusual medium since she stumbled upon the technique in 2002. Unburdened by any formal training in textiles or preconceptions about craft-based techniques, she turned her traditional sculpture education and curiosity to the unique and unexplored material. Thanks to subject matter and execution, her sculptural use of felted wool makes a marked departure from the more familiar craft-focused, utilitarian, decorative traditions associated with the medium. Stephanie’s iconic teddy bear skulls reveal unnatural history: believable specimens of the fossil record of man-made creatures — via Youtube

Design

Avery Coonley House / Frank Lloyd Wright

By
29 April 2015
1 min read
Leave a comment
In Design
1271 views

The Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Avery Coonley House in Riverside, Illinois is back on the market. But the price ensures that only affluent fans of the iconic architect will be seriously considering this place as their next home.

This prairie-style property was built between 1908 and 1912 and is said to be one of the largest houses designed by Wright, coming in at around 560m² and sat in one acre of land (down from the 10 acres that originally surrounded it).

It has been totally restored in the last 15 years, with many of the key design features saved and maintained, including the low hanging ceilings, art glass windows, mural and long, flat rooflines.

However, as we mentioned earlier, it doesn’t come cheap. You’ll need around $2,100,000 to own this slice of architectural history — via WowHaus

Design, Wildlife

Swedish ceramic bird pots / Pedlars

By
29 April 2015
1 min read
Leave a comment
In Design, Wildlife
1021 views

Who doesn’t love a retro ceramic to brighten up their kitchen? These Swedish bird pots, available from Pedlars, have got both colour and charm a plenty.

There’s no designer credited, but these birds have got masses of retro appeal and are reminiscent of some of Hannah Turner’s popular designs. Available in two colours — green and yellow — these ceramic birds have spotted bodies and stripy tails.

The birds are useful as well. Take off their head to reveal room to stash away sugar or salt or the like — the pots are also bigger than you think at 10cm high.

They’re priced at £39.50 each — via Retro To Go

Technology

Conversation With a Tech Support Scammer

By
28 April 2015
42 second read
Leave a comment
In Technology
967 views

When investigating an incident that involved domain redirection and a suspected tech support scam, I recorded my interactions with the individual posing as a help desk technician and researched the background of this scheme. It was an educational exchange, to say the least. Here’s what I learned about this person’s and his employer’s techniques and objectives — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Design

Mid-Century Turned Leg Planters / West Elm

By
28 April 2015
51 second read
In Design
1218 views

You don’t often see these around, so we’re very pleased that the Mid-Century Turned Leg Planters have just landed at West Elm.

It also helps that very look incredibly stylish. Take your pick from large or small, although both have a similar design, specifically tapered legs in walnut and a glazed ceramic bowl.

White, red and black are the colours and prices are either £109 or £129, depending on your choice of size — via Retro To Go

Politics, Rights, Technology

Google slams Australian piracy site-blocking legislation

By
27 April 2015
3 min read
Leave a comment
In Politics, Rights, Technology
1198 views

Google has said that cutting off advertising from piracy sites is much more effective than censoring the sites from access.

The Australian government last month introduced legislation that would allow rights holders to get an injunction placed on internet service providers (ISPs) to force telcos to block specific overseas piracy websites from access by Australian users.

The rights holders would need to demonstrate that the primary purpose of a website is for the infringement of copyright before the Federal Court will order ISPs to block it. Latest Australian news

Dallas Buyers Club wants alleged infringer details by May 6 The censorship end game of the piracy site-blocking Bill Mandatory data-retention funding to be a Budget surprise Google slams Australian piracy site-blocking legislation NBN Co predicts up to 370,000 premises need work on HFC

The move has been welcomed by rights holders, but faces opposition from Google, which told the parliamentary committee looking into the legislation that site blocking “is not the most effective means of stopping piracy”.

A recent study of the piracy ‘ecosystem’­ in which the authors conducted a detailed analysis of the effectiveness of various anti-­piracy measures found that anti­-piracy efforts directed towards blocking access to pirated content have not been successful, Google said in its submission.

Google said that more effective measures include providing legitimate content that is more attractive to consumers than piracy, and cutting off advertising to piracy websites. The introduction of site blocking could have unintended consequences, Google warned.

Site blocking also has the potential to be used in ways that were unintended, included by blocking legitimate content.

Google said that legislation allowing sites that facilitate access to infringing copyright content to be blocked could lead to virtual private network (VPN) services being blocked.

VPNs also have many other legitimate purposes, including privacy and security, Google stated.

The court should be forced to consider the impact on freedom of speech when blocking sites, the company said — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Politics, Rights, Technology

Google slams Australian piracy site-blocking legislation

By
27 April 2015
3 min read
Leave a comment
In Politics, Rights, Technology
1343 views

Google has said that cutting off advertising from piracy sites is much more effective than censoring the sites from access.

The Australian government last month introduced legislation that would allow rights holders to get an injunction placed on internet service providers (ISPs) to force telcos to block specific overseas piracy websites from access by Australian users.

The rights holders would need to demonstrate that the primary purpose of a website is for the infringement of copyright before the Federal Court will order ISPs to block it. Latest Australian news

The move has been welcomed by rights holders, but faces opposition from Google, which told the parliamentary committee looking into the legislation that site blocking is not the most effective means of stopping piracy.

A recent study of the piracy ecosystem­ in which the authors conducted a detailed analysis of the effectiveness of various anti-­piracy measures found that anti­-piracy efforts directed towards blocking access to pirated content have not been successful, Google said in its submission.

Google said that more effective measures include providing legitimate content that is more attractive to consumers than piracy, and cutting off advertising to piracy websites. The introduction of site blocking could have unintended consequences, Google warned.

Site blocking also has the potential to be used in ways that were unintended, included by blocking legitimate content.

Google said that legislation allowing sites that facilitate access to infringing copyright content to be blocked could lead to virtual private network (VPN) services being blocked.

VPNs also have many other legitimate purposes, including privacy and security, Google stated.

The court should be forced to consider the impact on freedom of speech when blocking sites, the company said — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Wildlife

White Rhino Calf / Zoo Salzburg

By
26 April 2015
22 second read
In Wildlife
883 views

On 4 April, Zoo Salzburg’s Southern White Rhino, Tamu, gave birth to her first offspring. The healthy male calf arrived, without complications, and was up on his feet an hour after birth — via ZooBorns

Wildlife

Jaguar Cub / San Diego Zoo

By
25 April 2015
24 second read
In Wildlife
1452 views

San Diego Zoo’s photogenic Jaguar cub is proving himself to be quite the handful…and mouthful. He was born 12 March to mother, Nindiri, and he has been putting her mother-skills to the test — via ZooBorns

Design

Hand of God Pipe Organ / Jean Guillou

By
24 April 2015
53 second read
Leave a comment
In Design
1141 views

Notre-Dame des Neiges, a church in the resort town of L’Alpe d’Huez in the French Alps, has this unusual pipe organ. Jean Guillou, a master organist, designed it in 1978. The German organ builder Detlef Kleuker built it. Appropriately for a church, the shape of the organ is supposed to represent the hand of God. You can hear recordings of performances made on the organ at Pleasure of the Pipes and American Public Media — via Neatorama

Photo: Peter Atkinson

Design, Wildlife

Rosendahl Zebra / Kay Bojesen

By
24 April 2015
53 second read
Leave a comment
In Design, Wildlife
1019 views

Here’s another reissue from Kay Bojesen’s wooden menagerie — a rather handsome zebra.

This is actually a slightly older design, first made in 1935. The zebra has been lovingly crafted from beech, which has then been hand painted to add those all-important identifying stripes.

Like all the designs, it will add a touch of charm to your shelves. However, they’re not the cheapest pieces. This one is priced at £85. Order it from Hus & Hem — via Retro To Go

12 3 4 Next