Time-Telling Vibration

This is the mobile phone version of “Touch ‘n’ Know The Time”. Many people use their mobile phones as alarm clocks (including myself), so this might be a little help.

In short, you squeeze the phone and it vibrates for a second. The more “vigorously” it moves, the sooner it is until the set time. So you can FEEL how much more you can sleep without opening your eyes to check what time it is. Oh how lazy we can be!

Pressure on both flanks activates the time-checking vibration for a few seconds.

The vibration interval and strength vary according to how much time left until the set time.

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Oh, this phone? Yeah I thought you’d ask.
If you are ever able to completely customize your mobile phone on a website or something when ordering one, I’ll definitely make mine something like this. Does it remind you of one brand?

Time-Telling Vibration

By the way, I heard my ideas (fireworks projection and handgrip charger) were introduced in a British TV “Richard & Judy” and a Colombian newspaper “El Tiempo”. Is there a way I can take a look at them???

Glassy Glassy

The previous mobile phone concept seems popular, so I made a few more designs with double glassy layers. Your fingerprints would have to be cleaned off so often, but I want to have one like these.

glassy phone

glassy phone giving the feeling of depth

glassy phone giving the feeling of depth

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/32242596]

glassy phone giving the feeling of depth

glassy phone giving the feeling of depth

glassy phone giving the feeling of depth

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMlVyY2EpLA&w=420&h=315]
It was used in the TOTOTA official near future mobility life short movie!

Your Kilo Bites?

This is an idea for a product design competition called pdweb design competition 2008.

shy step on the scales

shy step on the scales

shy step on the scales

shy step on the scales
Afraid of directly looking at your weight? Why don’t you hide with your foot and slowly reveal it?

shy step on the scales
Afraid your measured weight being seen by someone else? Don’t worry. It can be seen only from above.

shy step on the scales

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My Methodology

One year anniversary of petitinvention!

I started this blog on November 9th, 2007, so it’s just one year old. I really thank you all for your comments, pingbacks, interviews, features in magazines, etc. etc. I never thought it’d have this many readers and fans.
It was such a wonderful first year, but I just had by far the most exciting experience last week, which I’ll be able to let you know next year.

As I mention in the about page, I’m having my rough scribbles in my Moleskine rendered with 3D apps to show here. I think I’ve introduced roughly 30-50% of all the ideas in the book. Of 10 ideas I think of, about 3 are usable for this blog, 3 are too trivial and 4 too crazy to show. I hope there will be a chance to show the rest some time.

I’ve never had a chance to say this, but every time I make a new post, I feel ashamed when thinking about the great product designers out there. I respect them very much because they have far better concepts than I do and try really hard to commodify their ideas solving lots of real-world problems with developers and others from various fields. On the other hand, what I do is just dreaming of something and showing them in a blog. So I often think that they’ll just laugh my idea off as a joke or something.

Feeling ashamed, I always think of a question that I often hear ever since I graduated from university:
“How do you stop the water running from the holes on a bowl?”

That is a question as a metaphor of problem solving in many situations. When I was in a service industry, my boss back then reminded me of the question many times, but my answer was always the same. I almost never told the boss about my answer because I didn’t think it was a realistic one, but now I know it doesn’t have to be realistic.

What is your answer? There must be no right answer, but here’s mine.
“Put a magnet that attracts water above it.”
It can not only prevent the water from running away, but also move the water away from the holes (upwards). That might not be a perfect solution for a problem, but that’s the way I think about stuff. Happy-go-lucky, right? But that magnet is what I really want. Creating a magnet is so much fun for me and I believe it’s that kind of magnet that moves the world forward. I can live on that magnet.

Sorry about my poor English, but I hope it makes sense to you.
Well anyway, I appreciate your interest. I hope I’m getting better in many ways.

my methodology

Touch ‘n’ Know The Time

Have you ever woken up wondering how much more time you can sleep? I usually do, but every time I wake up, I was wondering if there’s a way to know how soon the alarm goes off without even looking at the clock.

touch 'n' know the time

Reach the clock to find the triangles. If they’re far apart, you have lots of time left to sleep, but if they’re close, you’ll have to get out of the bed pretty soon.
I know there must be lots of people who don’t need this though :).

touch 'n' know the time

touch 'n' know the time

touch 'n' know the time

(weirdly inspired by the way the aliens’ bomb count-down in the movie “Independence Day”)

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