Coke Mutation
We’re unsure on the survival prospects of this oddly mutated Coca-Pepsi-Cola can. This could be the ultimate coke – if only the current species could interbreed. Peculiar image of the week. Designer unknown.
What is Next Nature?
With our attempts to cultivate nature, humankind causes the rising of a next nature, which is wild and unpredictable as ever. Wild systems, genetic surprises, autonomous machinery and splendidly beautiful black flowers. Nature changes along with us.
Posts Tagged ‘supermarket’
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Fat/slim magnifying label
With an optical trick, this German bottle of water is trying to prove its effectiveness for the body. Though drinking water is a necessity for life, the downside of this product is, that it takes approximately 8 litres of virtual water to produce 1 litre of bottled water. Drinking water may look good on the body… The carbon footprint is BIG AND FAT.
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Grapple – a Grape flavored Apple
They say “An apple a day keeps the doctor away”, but now we wonder what this keeps away, the Grapple, a hyperfruit that “Grunches like an Apple. Tastes like a Grape.”
The manufacturers of the hyperfruit cheerfully present their product as the missing link between candy and traditional fruits that – according to them – could even be an answer to unhealthy eating habits:
“With childhood obesity increasing at alarming rates, Grāpple® brand apples could go a long way to improving the eating habits of children and introducing them to more produce.”
The Grapple is made by adding flavorings to a regular Washington Extra Fancy Fuji Apple, the process uses some “complex” infusion technique and adds no additional sugars or calories.
Grapples are not genetically altered in any way, which might give parents some comfort, although we should actually be disappointed that the Grapple is merely a processed apple, rather than a bred fruit, as this means that the production of every single Grapple requires additional energy and resources – then again, the same is true for traditional sugar candy.
Anyhow, parents will be in trouble when their kids ask to show them the “Grapple tree”.
See also: Who designed the Banana?, Why are Carrots Orange? It is political, Hyper fruits, Some Kids don’t like Chicken, Better than the real thing. Thanks: John Weeks.
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DIY Cardio Plumming
Don’t worry, your tongue will only stay neon green for an hour or two after consuming Liquid-Plumr-Cardio. Despite the plaque-busting nanoparticles, we doubt whether this is the do-it-yourself future of medicine. Fortunately it is merely a speculative product created by John W. Stanovich. Peculiar image of the week.
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Spray On Liquid Glass
Now here is a product that should soon find its way into the NANO Supermarket soon. At least, if supermarkets are willing to put it on their shelves, as they currently make huge profits from cleaning products and spray-on liquid glass would make virtually all of them obsolete.
According to its creators “Spray-on liquid glass is transparent, non-toxic, and used to protect virtually any surface against almost any damage from hazards such as water, UV radiation, dirt, heat, and bacterial infections. The coating is also flexible and breathable, which makes it suitable for use on an enormous array of products.”
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Nano Product: Pharmaceutical Sushi
Are we creating the penicillin or the asbestos of the 21st century? In the months preceding our Nano Supermarket Project, we share some speculative nanotech products with you. Here’s the first in the Nano Supermarket Products series: Pharmaceutical Sushi. Taking medicine becomes a social activity. And it tastes pretty good!
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Medicinal Blueberries
As our scientific knowledge of nutritious food increases, will healthy foods be progressively designed to look like medicines? This blueberry blister packaging created by Chinese designer Daizi Zheng certainly points in that direction.
Although utterly over-designed and unsustainably over-packaged, this might well be a product patients suffering from the healthy eating disease Orthorexia Nervosa would crave for.
Via Core77. Related post: Fresh from the Pharm, Orthorexia Nervosa, Food design in the 21th century, Organic Coca Cola, Nano Care Blueberry Paste Wax. Thanks Ehsan.
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Nano Supermarket – Call for Products
Nanotechnology is an important emerging technology of our time – it radically intervenes with our sense of what is natural – yet most people are still relatively unaware of its consequences. Hence, this autumn 2010 the Next Nature NANO Supermarket will be presented in Eindhoven (NL): a physical supermarket featuring debate–provoking visions on possible nanotech products expected to hit the shelves between today and 2020.
Self–cleaning windows, contact lenses with a display, smart medicines that are delivered exactly on the spot, molecular printed food, blush–reducing make-up, self–healing anti scratch surfaces, nano-particle tagging spray that may identify your possessions when stolen, cyborg insects, breathing textiles, tooth phones, organic jewelry, implantable microprocessors and whatever you may think of.
We call upon designers, technologists and artists to submit their speculative nanotech products for the NANO supermarket. A selection of the projects will be presented in the Nano Supermarket and the accompanying publication. The best submission is awarded with a € 2500 price
Event website: http://www.nextnature.net/events/nano-supermarket/
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Oil Diet: Recipes for Disaster
Do you know how much oil you use per day? Neither did director John Webster. In 2005 he decided to make a documentary about oil from his own families perspective. How would it be to live a life without fossile-based products? John put a ban on things packaged in plastic like food, makeup, shampoo, toothpaste and kids’ toys in order to reduce their carbon footprint. “Recipes for disaster” (2008) is the result of a one year oil-detox.
From the director’s statement:
“(…) The first concern of every film maker is how to make the subject matter visible. One of the difficulties of this subject, and the great tragedy of the world, is that greenhouse gasses are invisible. So too, is the 31 billion barrels (1 barrel = 159 litres) of oil the world consumes every year. When that oil is burnt, it releases as much carbon as a forest fire four times the size of France. If France was burnt to cinder every three months, we would be aware of it, but somehow the oil we use (and mostly burn) fails to catch our attention.” -
http://www.vimeo.com/6158274 Friendly Vending Machine
Designer Guus Baggermans was quite annoyed by the clumsy impoliteness of current vending machines, that typically require you to enter some abstract number to select your drink or candy, which is then rudely dumped in the bin at the bottom of the machine – forcing you to bend down to get your treat. He decided to design something better.
For his master graduating project at TU/e Industrial Design he created a vending machine that should interact with the customer on a more ‘human’ level. Inspired by his colleagues Chris Heger and Sjef Fransen, who during a workshop created a hilarious scenario on future food that would fight for the customers attention (crappy video alert), Guus arrived at his concept of a ‘Friendly Vending Machine’.
As you walk by the machine, the cans will follow you and try to get your attention. The user can interact without using any buttons, or browsing menus. Once you decided which drink to buy you slide a coin in the machine after which the tube ingeniously slides opens – It is almost like a ballet – allowing you to grab your treat. The machine is adjusted to recognize a potential customer at a distance of six meters.
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Nano Care™ Blueberry Paste Wax
Surely we are quite attuned to some unexpected flavors in these quarters, but this Nano Care™ Blueberry Paste Wax wins our syncretic mash-up award for combining technorethoric with biomimicmarketing.
Who wouldn’t fall for the prospect of giving your car an all-natural-hi-tech massage with a Nanotech Blueberry wax? The creators of the car wax must have wanted to make sure they would reach all imaginable target groups with their product.
“This easy to use formula uses nano-technology based polishing agents and waxes for enhanced surface penetration, durability and gloss. Nano Care Blueberry Paste Wax is made with pure Carnauba and Nano waxes and contains no abrasives. Because it contains a special non-swirl agent Blueberry Paste Wax is especially effective on dark or bright colored cars.”
Sometimes it seems the surrealists were telling the truth after all. Peculiar product of the week.
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Natural Flavours
This article was originally published by JoLynn Braley on The Fit Shack and slightly edited for Next Nature.
Have you ever noticed the ingredient “natural flavor” listed on a food label? I’ve read it on the label of ground turkey that I purchased in the past, as well as listed on various other food items. I didn’t think much of it and now I realize that I was definitely uninformed.
Perhaps there was a part of me that did not want to question it, but I did think that it meant what it said, that it truly was natural. I have since learned by reading “Fast Food Nation” by Eric Schlosser, that natural flavoring is anything but natural.
