WHY 58×38 & now Why 37×24

The French fashion house Hermes has joined the Italian yacht builder Wally to create a new class of innovative and luxury yacht, the WHY 58×38.

This revolutionary yacht with enormous proportions, 58m long (190 ft) & 38m (125 ft) wide, an area of 3400 m2 with seating for 12 passengers and 20 crew members, represents the concept of a “floating island” ( a moving Villa on a piece of land”) and is developped with the latest and the most advanced sustainable technologies :
- a revolutionary photovoltaic roof panels of 900m2 (9687 sqft) producing a daily output of 500 kW,
- a thermal energy recycling system allowing to save 20 to 30% in fuel and 40 to 50% in electricity consumption on board
- as well as an organic/inorganic waste recycling system.

The main equipments proposed by the WHY are:
- 3 decks connected by stairs but there is also an elevator,
- a 25 meter pool,
- a spa helicopterpad a 100m2 with hammam, sauna, gym and massage room,
- a promenade of 130 meter,
- a music room, a dining room, a cinema, sun decks, suites, terraces, a lounge, a bibi.

The suite of the owner is an area of 200m2 and completely covers the third deck with a great sea view on a private terrace of 25 meter long.

The WHY 58×38 was unveiled on september 2009 at the Ancona site of the Italian manufacturer and presented in October 2009 at the Monaco Yacht Show. A full sized model of the WHY was displayed, at the 2010 Abu Dhabi Yacht Show.

The WHY 58×38 is expected to have a price tag of $160 million.

Few weeks ago, following its success, the brand WHY, Wally Hermès Yatchs, has just officially launched his little brother, WHY 37 × 24, smaller and lighter but just as comfortable and impressive.

Have a look on the photos gallery and the video.

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High-Tech on Board

A superb 15.3m long yatch with all the latest high-tech equipment will release in 2010 by  the Austrian Design Studio focused on naval construction and industrial design, Motion Code: Blue.

source:  Yanko Design

The New Eco-Friendly Black Pearl of the seas

I was watching this summer Whale Wars, a one-hour weekly American documentary-style reality television series on the Animal Planet cable channel. This TV program follows Paul Watson, founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, as he and his crew aboard the MV Steve Irwin attempt to deter Japanese ships that hunt minke and fin whales off the coast of Antarctica.
I was amazed by this group that stands between a 750-ton whale-killing machine and its prey even going to crash their ship to the japanese whaler.

With the arrival of the austral spring, the Japanese whaling fleet prepares to sail again in a few days to begin a new season of hunting in Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary waters. So the association unveiled few weeks ago in L.A. its new ocean defense vessel for supporting Steve Irwin to interpose between Whales and whalers, the Ady Gil.

The vessel, previously known as the Earthrace, is a fast, futuristic looking trimaran that set the world record for global circumnavigation in June 2008, crossing the globe in less than 61 days. The vessel renaming reflects the ship’s benefactor, Ady Gil, who helped acquire the vessel.

This is an amazing powered trimaran capable of moving at 45 knots (53 mph, 83 km/h), if necessary to navigate a few meters under water to avoid waves.
It was made resistant to ice of Antarctica through shell-covered Kevlar.
With biofuel, the trimaran is also announced as one of the most environmentally friendly ships in the world.

source: Raym

Design Discussions in 3D

Check this out, a online collaborative discussion platform integrated into a CAD software, in SolidWorks 2009 for instance. A kind of Social Innovation solution…
And it’s already available. Also integrated with Pro/E, Excel & wordPress now….

Vuuch for SolidWorks

Here is also an interview of the CEO that some of us knows pretty well: Chris Williams

source: Raym

Art design in the pocket

–>” Autodesk is putting the fun in your pocket” review

Autodesk is proposing a “Lite” version for free of its iPhone app called SketchBook MobileX (for eXpress) in addition to the full featured one for $2.99.
Both come with a “community” website associate to the user’s creations (Alias Community).

I guess to perform such art design using the touchscreen of the iPhone you need to use a stylus and the one I found is awesome, the Pogo Stylus from Ten 1 Design.

source: Raym

M-Line PC ?

Thermaltake, one of the leaders of computer cooling hardware devices (CPU, video card, HDD, enclosure) manufacturer has contracted BMW DesignworksUSA to define a new PC design approach as Apple did it with the iMAC in the 90′s.

The result is gorgeous as a BMW 6 Series car, is it fast and powerful as the M6 line-up?

Here is the Official Press Release

source: BMW & Thermaltake

Trash-PaperPlastic-Glass Column

In the US, the recycling process is quite easy.I have a food waste disposer in the kitchen sink, a big dark grey trash container for trashes and a red plastic box for paper, plastic, cans & glass.   

In France, for sorting and recycling trash, I had a standard metal trash can for food trashes, a green & white square plastic bag for cans, paper and plastic and a yellow & white square plastic bag for glass. The recycling process was more binding than easy and need some room.

Here is the answer for optimizing the recycling process experience in France: a very nice design three-trash collector in a column easy to use : Tri3.

  

      

source: Guisset Constance via le Blog Déco via StyleCrave

(Aptera,RideMission) equation

eco-Design(Efficiency|Zero emission) + Aerodynamism + Light Weight + Safety   = …

What else…?

source: Aptera & RideMission

DS, DS2, 3DS, DS4, DSn by Design Studio (update)

After watching the following video presenting the DS Design Studio and the company vision of the Future of Design, 3D & Collaboration…

This corporate ad reminds me several others videos and brings in my mind some similarities and questions:

@ 0:41min, we discover a Designer in front of a ” new”  type of device and he activates it with some hand and fingers gestures. It looks pretty much like the Microsoft Surface concept presented in May 2007. Something new or different in the vision/concept from Microsoft and the one in the video?

@ 0:48min, the 3D rendering is auto-generated from the pencil sketch put on the Surface.
Is there a 3D solution that can generate from a pencil sketch scan the 3D exact geometry ?

@ 0:58min, even the future of Design is 3D, the Designer is still displaying the five 2D drawings/views (top, front, bottom, left & right) of his new project.
3D, is it or is it not enough to design, share and collaborate ?

@ 1:04min, the Designer activates some new features of his ” digital device” with his two fingers and launches the voice recognition tool. I remember there two movies that already have explored this “old” concept:

• Minority Report (2002) based on the short story ” The Minority Report” (1956) from the famous writer Philip K. Dick.
  

• Iron Man (2008) directed by Jon Favreau, with Robert Downey Jr. based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name created by writer-editor Stan Lee, scripter Larry Lieber, and artists Don Heck and Jack Kirby (Tales of Suspense #39, March 1963).
  

Why using his two index fingers? Is one not sufficient? Why not directly launch the screen by a voice command?

@ 1:50min, the actor’s typing some annotation and comments using a virtual keyboard.
With the voice recognition activated few seconds before, he should tell his comment vocally and it should be translated directly into text on his holographic screen, shouldn’t it? Or better, he should talk directly to his collaborator using his video conference tool displayed on his bottom right of his screen and avoid her to read on her screen few seconds later (2:04min)?

@ 2:30min, a third designer is testing how the door handle fits in the hand and simulate the action mixing 3D Lifelike experience and real life. Back to the same concept already seen in the Iron Man movie.

@ 2:58min, finally the Designer is using the video chat for collaborating. We get at this time a mix of an iChat 3 people video conferencing view and the actual DS ENOVIA 3DLIVE and the DS V6 patented powerful and really easy-to-use 3D turntable in the center.

These are already available. Why not implement this into the V6 solution instead of using two immersive pop-up windows (one for the buddy list and the other one for the video conference in the 3D session)? Maybe it’s already planned so when will it be available?

So…
Is there any futurist concept in this movie?  I would say yes.
However, it’s based an old concepts defined in the 60′s for defining the 21st Century life (2054 for Minority Report). We don’t have today neither software nor hardware some very expensive prototypes and conceptual videos. This is still a most common vision of Future from the “Twist” years and it has never evolved.
Why do we continuously postpone the date of its reality…? I have some opinion on that….

iPod Audi

Several months ago, some posts informed folks that Volkswagen AG and Apple Inc were working closer on a new concept car dashboard based on Apple ‘GUI’ & products approach.

A Designer, Ondrej Jirec, is proposing his vision of this hypothetical partnership: a mix between Audi brand spirit (A3 platform)  and iPod/iTunes Store concepts, the Audi O.
Obviously, Glossy White color, Web connection, a 650 Gig Hard Disk Drive to store the online purchased music, a bluetooth connection to share your stuff with the other Audi O and unfortunatly an old fashion DJ Set turntable to play some playlist mixes hidden in the trunk are proposed.

source: Diseno Art via Yanko Design & IGreenSpot