core77.com

Here's what we looked at this week:Design overkill: Casio's "luxury" calculators. The MAD EasyLoad: A ceiling-mounted electric loading crane for vans.Takolink: A large extra screen for your phone.

Here's a timely project by Eva Steinz, an Industrial Design student at Austria's FH Joanneum University of Applied Sciences, Graz.VitapackIn times of international conflicts and economic crises, more and more people are forced to leave their homes — they start a journey of escape in search of refuge. Unfortunately, thousands do not survive this journey each year. More than half of those who die drown, others fall victim to violence, accidents, exhaustion, illness, or harsh environmental conditions.Vitapack is an attempt to provide as many refugees as possible a safer journey — regard

This Nice to Meet You table is by Gabriel Schroer, an Industrial Design student at Germany's Burg Giebichenstein University of Art & Design Halle. "The bar table is an often overlooked and underestimated piece of furniture and not only by designers. It tends to evoke associations with company parties, silver wedding anniversaries, and somewhat subdued atmospheres. Yet it has its merits: it is a piece of furniture that naturally facilitates encounters, defined by moments of coming and going."

In Taiwan, Panasonic's Deco Lite series of light switches are ubiquitous.They're so ubiquitous that Taiwanese manufacturer Switch Papa finds them boring. They've thus designed this Piko line of switches that fit over the Deco Lite, switching them back to lever-style rather than rocker-style.

Even for skilled painters, masking edges by hand can leave little wiggles and slightly inconsistent reveals. A Dutch company called Masking Master solves this problem with their eponymous tool.

Is Memphis making a comeback? While I wouldn't go that far, Alessi has unveiled their new Vite expresso maker, which wouldn't have looked out of place in the '80s or '90s. Designed by British-Canadian industrial designer Philippe Malouin, the bodies are cast aluminum while the base is magnetic steel (so they'll work with induction ranges). The handles are thermoplastic resin.

When we last looked in on Chinese mobility company XSTO, it was for their all-terrain stair-climbing wheelchair. The company has also adapted their stair-climbing mechanism to dolly carts. Their Self-Balancing Stair Climber allows the user to effortlessly hump 551 lbs up or down a staircase.

An end to hoses: Festool's new research breakthrough eliminates them altogether. Using AI, the company has designed two interconnected portals that simply teleport the dust from the tool to the extractor:It looks very convincing in video: Are there logic problems with this design? Of course. If you can teleport the dust, why would you bother sending it to the extractor, as opposed to within the cab of a competitor's truck? Or forward in time, into the client's home on the day after your workmanship warranty expires?

Konstantin Grcic's Scout Work Mobile is a workstation designed for flexible workspaces. It's a small, wheeled trapezoidal desk with a tubular steel frame.

Vans are great for hauling bulky items, but sometimes the trick is how to load and unload those items. Dutch vehicle outfitter MAD solves that with their EasyLoad, a ceiling-mounted electric loading crane.