Introduction
“Imagination is more important than intellect.” ~ Albert Einstein
Recent technological innovations have brought us many things from science fiction and fantasy making them possible in real life. Adding to that, there are several new developments in the technological world that might put even science fiction to shame. Although, these developments are in the conceptual design stage but everyone has great hopes with these concepts. Especially after seeing so many gadgets from science fiction movies become a reality, it’s difficult not to get excited!
Here in this blog, we will discuss about some of these innovative gadgets which are in their conceptual design stage, yet hold immense promise.
1. Bionic Vision with Cybernetic Contact Lenses –
Image Source: eyedesignoptometry
The first futuristic concept gadget on the list is more like a boon to the people with spectacles and poor vision. The introduction of Bionic Cybernetic Contact Lenses could make the glasses obsolete and give a boost to your eyesight.
The Ocumetics Bionic Lens was invented by an optometrist in Canada, promises to enhance eyesight to a level above the universal standard for normal vision. These are not like the normal lenses that you can pop in and out, was developed by Gareth Webb could be inserted into the eye via a painless procedure. These lenses don’t degrade over time, relieving you with problems of cataracts or failing vision for their complete life.
2. Games You Control With Your Brain –
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Have you ever tried to imagine what does the future of gaming has in its store for us? One thing that we can assure you of is that the games in the future would not require you to make the realistic motions with a game controller instead it will require to sit still, concentrate and use your brain.
This functioning in the games is achieved using the EEG technology, which helps in measuring the brainwaves in hospitals. And now this technology has entered the consumer market in the form of Mind Controlled Games and would soon let you do everything that games with hand-held controllers do now. Companies have already started to work on gadgets in this field.
Company Mattel, build a gadget called Mindflex, a funny headset that need to be worn while playing the game. You need to concentrate hard to make the ball float higher as the hard concentration makes the console’s fan blow faster. The moment you relax your mind, the fan speed gets lower and the ball descends.
3. Directions from Rainwater Powered Manhole –
Image Source: yankodesign
The other name that we could be used to denote it is Eco Sign. This concept was devised by Cheol Yeon Jo and Youngsun Lee, and it’s a pretty ingenious concept. The idea was to turn the ubiquitous urban object into a useful direction sign for about location of public transportation.
One such urban object which could easily be changed into the direction sign is the manhole. To know the direction, you simple need to apply pressure to one side or the other, and it tells you how to get to the nearest subway or bus station or also the distance to it. The device being used is powered with rainwater and hence doesn’t use any of the city’s electricity. This could be really helpful for the tourists and could save them from puzzling over a map. Eco Sign could be best put to use for turning the urban structures into different sign boards for the tourists visiting a new city.
4. Prosthetics Limbs Powered by the Mind –
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In Today’s date, many people are thankful to the prosthesis technology, because it returned them their independence of working around in their homes and offices. The further advancement in this technology is controlling the prosthesis limbs by the thoughts.
Many of you must have heard of Christian Kandlbauer, who lost both his arms in an accident at work place. And now he has 2 high-tech prosthetic arms that allowed him to function as normally as he did with his natural hand. The arms were developed jointly by Otto Bock healthcare company and the Medical University of Vienna. Kandlbauer had to undergo a complex procedure to re-wire the nerves in his arm stumps, the nerves used to control hand movements were moved to his chest to allow him to control his new bionic arm via electronic sensors.
5. Virtual Reality Treadmill –
Image Source: mathworks
Everyone had great hopes with VR Technology and envisioned VR big helmets and endless worlds for us to adventure through forever engaging all our senses. Cost and Technology are the 2 constraints for the companies for the conceptualization of the VR technology. Still, many companies are developing and working on this technology in the background.
Cyberwalk, a European Research Project aims to work on another challenging aspect of the VR Environment i.e. Locomotion. Cyberwalk created CyberCarpet, which is omni-directional treadmill and is revolutionizing the way Virtual Reality is used for therapy, training, architecture and eventually, gaming. This omni-directional treadmill works by densely packing small balls under a walking surface and letting a friction of the user’s shoes do the moving.
6. Apple Black Hole, the Holographic Phone of the year –
Image Source: arrangiati
We can always expect Apple to give something new and innovative to us. The concept on which Apple in working presently is true example of something from Science Fantasy world.
Apple iPads will come with a new phone called “Apple Black Hole”. This new phone from Apple Lab is designed using 3D Holography Technology. This Apple Black Hole comprises of 4 components: the charging base, the Prism, the Black Hole and the giftbox. The interesting part is the method in which the handset is used. Its central ball will levitate when you open your hand and all functions will be controlled in mid-air, with the aid of holographic technology.
Josselin Zaouche, a French Designer designed this virtual technology of 3-D display with holographic images. It has an elusive holographic screen.
7. Glassy Glassy Phones –
Image Source: 2.bp.blogspot
Tokyo-based designer Mac Funamizu has again come up with a new fluid concept design for the mobile phone. The design has been imbibed with prevailing technology to make the phone a thing of beauty known as Glassy Glassy Cell Phone Concept.
Though the translucent mobile phone concept is no exception, but the double layers of glass shield gives it an incredibly sleek and futuristic mobile phone design. The phone is completely transparent until it is turned on to make use of it and for that screen and keyboard light up for the person to press accordingly.
8. Ringen Watch –
Image Source: yankodesign
French Designer Marc Tran created a luxury watch concept named as “Ringen”. This luxury watch is made with white gold for the structure and black magnetic ceramic for slats and the balls. Marc Tran’s watch design is inspired by the perfect roundness of balls, games and automotive shapes. The complete mechanism of the watch is mainly dependent on the magnetic field.
The watch is designed in a unique way, with 3 different presentations for hour, minutes and seconds. There is a blue disc made of brushed, anodized aluminum represents hours of the time. This is the youth touch to the overall design.
The watch has black ceramic slats for presenting the minutes and each slat represent 2 minutes. The blue ball has horizontal progression on the slats to show the time. There is one more blue ceramic ball in the watch which orbits the face to display seconds.
9. Blue Bee –
Image Source: s3images.coroflot
Kingyo created a very interesting, simplistic and intuitive handset interface, dubbed the Blue Bee, which comes with an appealing and very slim smartphone. The UI looks are similar to the Windows Mobile 6.5 interface. The basic requirement for this feature is the large touchscreen and there is no need for any physical button at all.
This interesting idea in this concept is placing the touchpad at the back of the phone’s body. This futuristic concept phone has special integration with social networking features and exploits the front-side to the maximum by pushing the physical button to the back side.
The main unique feature is the Blue Bee “Back touch” button which is programmed to do several functions like scrolling, moving ‘forward’ or ‘back’ on a webpage or double tap to return to the home screen.
10. Siafu: Metamorphosing Computer Interface –
Image Source: images.pcworld
Siafu is a PC designed to give people with vision loss or impairment an intuitive experience of computer. It is a tactile computer display that combines the standard braille display with a new screen that can present text, braille and graphics in 3-Dimensional relief.
The PC lays flat like a tablet and allows full interaction with it through touch. The screen surface utilizes a conceptual material called Magneclay, an oil-based synthetic agent which has the feature to reshape itself into any shape via a controlled electromagnetic field.
Although we’ve decided to end the article here, the list is still incomplete. We will tell you about more such conceptual gadgets in the next blogs. Subscribe to our newsletter to receive the next blog in your inbox.