The VW Transporter T1 was a cultural icon of the 1960s and 1970s, the ultimate travel van for free spirits both in Germany and around the world.

This revival design by David Obendorfer references the original but also brings it into the world of streamlined modernity – a realistic vision that respects the spirit of the vintage shape and details.

The wheelbase has been extended and the curves smooth out for aerodynamics and interior updated with contemporary technologies.

“The concept doesn’t aim at mimicking the ‘T1′ forms of over 65 years ago, but rather it tries to capture its unique personality, translating it into a contemporary language; with curved surfaces, rounded corners, circular headlights, chrome details and bicolour car paint.”

The post VW T1 Revival: New Design Modernizes Classic Travel Van first appeared on Gajitz.

Kuala Lumpur is about to get what might be the classiest subway trains in the world. The city is trying hard to get more citizens to take public transportation, so they are installing 58 gorgeous new trains designed by BMW. DesignworksUSA, a subsidiary of German car makers BMW, designed the cars to be appealing both in appearance and in experience.

One of the goals in this project was to build a system that honored the area’s rich cultural identity while inspiring progress. The exterior of each train displays a pattern of lights that call to mind the faceted architecture of the city. The interior of the trains uses an LED lighting system beneath the seats to inspire a feeling of spaciousness and safety.

Even the interior of the trains will pay homage to the traditions of the area. The interior color scheme features traditional Malaysian patterns in varying shades of blue, reminiscent of the vitality of Kuala Lumpur. The trains will also be kind to disabled passengers, with hand rails, space for wheelchairs, and sound and light indicators to indicate when the doors are opening and closing.

The train cars themselves are nearly as impressive as their appearance and features. They are made of lightweight stainless steel with weight-optimized components. When the trains reach the end of their estimated 30-year lifespan, they will be approximately 95 percent recyclable. The 58 new driverless trains will be in use in Kuala Lumpur’s subway system by 2017.

The post Next-Gen Kuala Lumpur Subway Cars Designed by BMW first appeared on Gajitz.

The trend of prominently displaying your home stereo system has faded into the realm of tackiness. Whether it’s the wall-mounted squares of the classic Bose surround sound system (were we supposed to believe those speakers were unobtrusive, floating up there in the corner?) or, god forbid, the old component towers, these systems have antiquated connectivity and are very aesthetically unpleasing. Amina Technologies has a very modern solution.

The company’s iQ series works like modern electronic instruments – electrical engineering is crossed with acoustic sound manipulation. Best of all,  the AIW5X Dual-Channel speaker is flat, can be built into walls and in a world first, can be covered with up to 2mm of plaster. They quite literally become invisible. Amina’s website claims they offer more creative freedom by “allowing designers and builders a very high quality wall or ceiling finish ready to accept a decoration of choice (paint, paper, etc).” Are they expensive? Of course. But the sound quality and uses for the AIW5X are enough to no doubt attract a myriad of sound enthusiasts.

The post Plastered: New Invisible Speaker Can Be Built Into Walls first appeared on Gajitz.

The predictive powers of people in this history of modern technology have been limited at best. It was once thought by many that only a handful of computers would be needed in the entire world, that digital cameras could never compete with real film and that cellular phones would forever remain as few, far between and big as bricks. Each of these originals seems awkward and unsophisticated in retrospect, but were pivotal in pioneering essential new directions for future technologies to come.

The first portable computer was released in the early 1980s and cost surprisingly not much more than our high-end laptops do today (just under $2000).  Still, the Osborne 1 had a screen only a few inches across, weighted dozens of pounds and of course had the processing power of a contemporary digital watch. The lid doubled as a detachable keyboard and the unit itself could be attached to external modems and printers. Though its success was short-lived, the Osborne helped establish that there was a market for mobile computing and competitors quickly rose to claim their own pieces of this new technological pie.

The first home gaming console actually predated the first portable computer by nearly a decade. Released in the early 1970s, years before the now-infamous Atari Pong, the Odyssey by Magnavox had (almost) everything we think of as being essential to a modern-day game system – including interchangeable cartridges and a light gun – though it sadly lacked sound, was a strange mix of analog and digital and perhaps most fatal for its sales: the console was widely misunderstood to only work with Magnavox televisions.

The first digital camera surprisingly dates back to a prototype design from the mid-1970s, when Kodak engineer Steven Sasson developed a device essentially from scratch capable of capturing images using an analog-to-digital converter. The result was the size of a small toaster, took over twenty seconds to shoot a photo and had a dismal resolution of one one-hundredth of a megapixel. The initial images were blurry and fuzzy with faint silhouettes and shadowed outlines, the product was never even remotely intended for mass-production or even for sale, but the patent went through for the original digicam.

The first cellular phone to get the thumbs-up from the FCC was released in the early 1980s, decades after Bell Labs first began to probe the possibilities of creating such a device. While Motorola pushed forward with portable phones for cars (that required large amounts of energy to run) Bell slowly built, tested and released the first cellular network to support such mobile communications devices. While Motorola€s DynaTAC 8000X – the first commercial hand-held cellular phone – came with a whopping four-thousand-dollar price tag and was over a foot in length, many people still purchased one, perhaps portending that to this very day people will overpay for portable phone service.

The first solid state audio player was perhaps destined to take over the world of music players, but no one knew for sure at the time since compact disc-playing devices had such a strong hold on the market. Appearing for the first time for sale in the late 1990s, the MPMan had a few dozen megabytes of memory and was already quite compact (weighing only a few ounces). The public was not sure what to make of this and did not readily adopt this first of its kind, though subsequent versions and competitors began to take off and eventually led to the iPods and other MP3 players we know and love today.

The post Original Gadgets: 5 Modern History-Making High-Tech Firsts first appeared on Gajitz.

Aren’t you tired of all of those numbers cluttering up your clock’s face? Then it’s about time you got the Qlocktwo by Biegert & Funk, because it’s got none of that nonsense. It spells out the time in clear, plain English…or German, if you prefer. The sleek acrylic face features lines of letters that spell out the time in five-minute increments, and four dots in the corners let you know exactly what time it is, down to the minute.

At 885 Euro (around $1300 currently), the clock, handmade in Germany, comes with some pretty awesome features like a time-signal receiver so you never have to set it, and automatic daylight saving time adjustments. You can choose between several colors to match the rest of your room. It even senses ambient light and adjusts itself accordingly. The design is very cool and, we must admit, pretty original.

The post Word to Your Wall Clock: Letters Spell Out the Time first appeared on Gajitz.