Stefan Buchberger’s design reminds me of my university days when I was living with a few classmates. Its not as if I am a sucker for cleanliness but I dearly wanted a germ free refrigerator but could never manage it, thanks to my room mates who would keep mouldy bread and sour fruits in the fridge making it nearly impossible to use the common fridge. Himself a student at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, Buchberger has created a modular fridge unit for the Electrolux Design Lab competition 2008 that lets you use a refrigerator on a multiple sharing basis. The fridge comes in various modules that have separate doors much like your rack in the university. So now you have a choice to clean (or keep dirty) your refrigerator as per your convenience. I can predict that this product is going to be a real heartthrob among the students once it hits the shelves.

Via Core

To be an inventor is one thing but to be an inventor in style is another thing altogether. In our past blogs, we may have covered hundreds of varieties of head phones but I have never come across an idea as simple and yet innovative as this- wearing the earphone into the hat! With iLogic Sound Hat you can actually replace a hat for the headphone. Who would have thought of this earlier and yet how commonsensical it is!

It has double benefits, first being that you don’t need the messy, always falling out ear phones because it fits snugly to your hear and second, it keeps you warm and in vogue. All that you need is an iPod or a music player to compliment this cap.

Via SlipperyBrick

Not all of us have the means and the luck to fly a jet, but can still give wings to our fantasy by dreaming about it. Science has taken our dream one step ahead by developing simulators that can make one feel as if one is actually flying a jet.
The recently introduced SX02 Flight Simulator promises to give you first hand flying experience albeit air crash and all. Fascinating enough, but I am sure that the price of the simulator would be a damper for most of us. Spending $9,500 is not everybody’s cup of tea so most of us can only window shop the simulator! Or you may go to our earlier post where we have scanned all the simulators to give you the top 11. For now, let me describe this dream machine a little more.

The SX02 claims to be the mother of all flight simulators as it comes along with surround sound and surround screens to make the experience as close to reality as possible. It comes along with HOTAS Joystick and a tension adjustable hand throttle too. Price is the only factor that is not so perfect in this otherwise perfect piece but as they say, All good things come with a price tag attached!
ProductPage

IFA, world’s largest consumer electronics fair in Berlin is in full swing engaging the nerds and geeks. Lately, the German trade journal AUDIO claims to unveil the worlds most expensive HiFi system for enthusiasts. Those interested in attending a presentation have to bear the pain of waiting in long queue. The elite Hi-fi system is known to produce the sound to the fullest. The model is designed to do justice to your 25m² living rooms.

Via TomGuide

If 2002 is what you witness as the beginning of blogging evolution then here is my guest Matthew Sheffield who was well-versed with blogs in 1999. When asked what invited his attention towards blogging, his ready response was: “The informality, the lack of pretension, and the approachability of the medium are all things that appealed to me about blogging.”

“NewsBusters” can be seen as the brainchild of Matthew in alliance with Media Research Center focused upon critiquing the rest of the journalistic establishment. Read further to know more about this mainstream blogger, who has established an entity of a renowned “Media technology consultant” for himself at blogosphere.

Matthew, introduce yourself to my readers and take us through your usual day at work.
I’m Matthew Sheffield and I am the creator of NewsBusters, which I run on behalf of the Media Research Center through my web consulting firm Dialog New Media. I came up with the idea of NewsBusters in 2005 after my work with RatherBiased.com which was dedicated to monitoring the reporting of Dan Rather of CBS. After Rather’s retirement, I figured it made sense to expand my efforts into critiquing the rest of the journalistic establishment so a partnership with the Media Research Center was only natural.

My typical day involves scouring the web for interesting stories, sorting through reader tips, and then blogging about stuff that interests me. I also file stuff away for a weekly column I just started writing for the Washington Times.

You are known to be the creator of the conservative form of blog sites. What led to the infusion of that spark within you and how would you define the term “liberal conservative?”
Before I got into blogging, I was working as a web designer and the online editor for my college paper. My brother Greg came up with the idea of doing a small web page about Dan Rather in 1999. With my background in web design, I wanted to make it a much bigger effort. As time went on after our 2000 launch, the RatherBiased.com site evolved into a blog almost instinctively for us. He’s since lost the political bug but I’m still bitten.

Liberal conservatism for me refers to a philosophy that realizes that there are some things that don’t need to change but that technology, exposure to differing cultural perspectives and experience are all things that we should partake eagerly of.

It also means being open to the idea that you don’t need to have a religious faith in order to be a good person or even to be a conservative. As someone who used to believe the opposite but now believes in no faith, I think that it’s important for people to realize that religion is a system of morality but that morality doesn’t come from religion necessarily.

You are known to be a politically minded and conservative person. Are these traits innate or developed during the course of time?
I don’t think politics is something one is born with. The average child thinks politics is boring and that is as it should be. Most of us tend to go along with the ideas that are presented to us whether by our parents, teachers, and friends. There is a lot to be gained from such encounters but in order to be fully actualized I think it requires one to examine all externally provided beliefs against those of others that may think differently.

When did you sense an inclination towards blogging? Are you satisfied with the functionality of the blogging eco-system or think there is a need for revamp?
I pretty much was blogging before there was a word for it. For me it came more naturally as an easy way to report news and express opinion on the web. The informality, the lack of pretension, and the approachability of the medium are all things that appealed to me about blogging.

I think the blog ecosystem tends to get too specialized. It’s important to engage the arguments of those with whom you disagree but on the other hand it requires more effort. I think there is room for more pan-ideological blogs which try to blend things together to foster conversation. Unfortunately that requires money and most liberal and conservative donors/groups are (probably rightfully) not interested in that so this is an area that I think that traditional MSM can fill.

How far NewsBusters is successful in offering immediate exposure of liberal media bias and neutralizing it?
Over the past three years since our launch, we’ve launched a number of stories into the national media conversation, everything from Hillary’s sniper fire, Chris Matthews’s leg thrills to just regular live TV snafus. We’ve had an impact but I will leave that to others to assess to what degree it is.

Point us to other active players in the industry practicing the similar web revolution?
A few other places I think are doing some innovative things are the Huffington Post, Pajamas Media, and Talking Points Memo.

Do you still realize the need of corrections in news media reporting? If yes, which are those?
Being accurate and fair in your reporting is the most important thing a journalist or blogger can do.

Blogs Or Media Sites. Which out of these two is more successful in maintaining the transparency and criticism expected out of media as an institution?
That depends on the site. Both bloggers and regular journalists have varying degrees of ethical standards. One thing where blogs do have somewhat of an edge is that other bloggers are less-inclined to believe you if you make assertions w/o providing evidence. Big media outlets do this on a routine basis.

The reach of your conservative media blog RatherBiased.com penetrated to an extent that it became the first Website that Google pulls up if you search for “Dan Rather.” What all ingredients do you count for its unmatchable success?
It helped to have “Rather” in the domain name but also that we produced a lot of content and marketed it effectively.
Tell us about your association with Dialog New Media. How does it functions and enables you support conservatives and libertarians?
Dialog New Media is a political marketing firm whose purpose is to help clients maximize the “bang for buck” when it comes to messaging. We’ve found that in the Web 2.0 age, the internet is the most effective way of driving regular media because blogs are so important within newsrooms throughout the country. That’s not to say, however, that traditional media outreach and PR techniques don’t have their place. They most certainly do. The way marketing has been conducted has changed irrevocably. Luckily for us, a lot of our competitors haven’t figured that out yet.

What is your take on Traditional Journalism V/S Contemporary Journalism V/S Blogs Evolution?
I’m of the opinion that blogs are what you want them to be. If you want your blog to be a news reporting publication than you can easily do that. Unfortunately in the early days of blogging there was a widespread attitude among older media professionals that blogs were written by unemployed people lounging around in their pajamas.

That attitude exists today more than it should but by and large the “old media” has learned the lesson. Every big media organization has many blogs as part of their web portfolio and most journalists consider blogs an essential part of their media diet. Lots of traditional media outlets have begun hiring bloggers in traditional positions. The New York Times hired a TV news blogger to cover the television business for it, ABC News hired former Salon.com blogger Jake Tapper as an on-air reporter, Time magazine hired a gossip blogger to be part of its Washington bureau and a number of papers such as the Hill, London’s Guardian, and my paper the Washington Times have hired bloggers as columnists.

The main conflict today in my view is that old media institutions haven’t become as transparent with their political viewpoints as they should be. While it is admirable to try to remove your personal perspectives from your coverage, a lot of times it’s just not possible. No one is that dispassionate and without a personal history. Bloggers admit that they’re human beings with perspective. Most journalists haven’t been willing to do so yet. They should.

Tell us about your ‘must-read’ or favorite blogs?
A few blogs I read regularly (besides ones I’m directly affiliated with): Ace of Spades, Patterico, FreeRepublic, Daily Kos, Matt Yglesias. There are lots of others I read on a slightly less regular basis.

Provide us with your five favorite posts you have written to date.
1.    One of my favorite things to do is to get big media figures and turn the spotlight onto them. They specialize on doing it to others but oftentimes don’t like to be the subject of attention. I was able to do that with Chris Matthews a few years ago when I caught him being hypocritical on the Valerie Plame story by ignoring it after news broke that sort of shattered his grand conspiracy theory about the Bush Administration. The story got up on Drudge and that same day, Matthews broke his hypocrisy.

2.    One of the more pervasive questions on the political right of late is how to modernize our public outreach mechanisms. I wrote on that last month that technology isn’t the savior that some people say but rather savvy, principled leaders at the top.

3.    I’m also interested in giving wider currency to stories that got missed in the hustle-and-bustle of the news cycle. Here’s a post I wrote about how former Bush press secretary Scott McClellan changed his book from what he originally intended it to be, a defense of the president.

4.    Another post illustrating the same spotlight-on-big-media approach I mentioned earlier involves an exchange I had with liberal PBS reporter Tavis Smiley who had made a series of offensive remarks about Republicans, never apologized, and then was amazed that many of them didn’t want to show up to a debate he hosted in 2007. I asked Smiley about the remarks since I knew no liberal journalist would do so.

5. This post chronicling how CNN science reporter fell asleep during a hearing about global warming presided over by Senator James Inhofe was a favorite of mine as well.

Your favorites:
1.  City: Miami
2.  Music: String quartets
3.  Food: Too many to list
4.  Book: War and Peace
5.  Gadget: Smartphones
6.  Color: Green
7.  TV show: TBS’s “Burn Notice”

What are those principles that blogosphere needs to learn from mainstream media or vice versa?
Bloggers should do more original reporting and research. MSM need to be more forthright about their opinions and be more transparent about their sourcing.

How would you like to be known as?
1.    Media Critic
2.    Blogger
3.    Entrepreneur
4.    Liberal conservative
5.    Writer
6.    Media technology consultant

I prefer #6
Your post on Vanity fair’s Blog Map points to Vanityfair’s selection of blogs residing across four verticals viz. News, Opinion, Scurrilous and Earnest. If Matthew is asked to handpick one blog topping each vertical, which one would those be?

Within the political sphere, I would do it as follows:
•    News: Instapundit
•    Opinion: Matthew Yglesias
•    Scurrilous: Huffington Post
•    Earnest: Outside the Beltway

Where do you see the future of Blogosphere?
The future of blogs is synergy. There will continue to be personal blogs but more and more people will find out that banding together to produce content is a lot easier way to gain an audience. The MSM will continue to absorb, copy and read blogs. The number of “A-list” blogs will decline as consolidation happens. If Obama wins, right-leaning blogs will become the most popular. If McCain wins, left-leaning ones will stay on top.

Quick bites:
1. Hours you invest digging net: somewhere between 4-8 hours daily

2. Biggest blogging mistake you did: Holding back from reporting on the Dan Rather CBS document story soon enough. We followed the story as it was breaking on FreeRepublic but did not want to report it until we had solid proof that CBS had been tricked. We would have retained our credibility had CBS not been tricked but we could have navigated the line a little better at first.

3.  One hidden truth: People who specialize in original analysis and reporting are the people who do best in the blog world.

4.  If asked to post only on one blog (neither NewsBusters nor MatthewSheffield), which one would that be? Probably Ace. He’s a friend of mine and a very sharp writer and political analyst.

5.  Advice you would have given yourself five years ago? Think outside the box. There are so many opportunities out there for people who simply think of them.

6.  Life without Internet: Very inconvenient!

7.  Count of professions you have been into: 5

8.  First post you have written: I wrote a very basic update to RatherBiased.com detailing how Dan Rather was once convinced that the George Bush 41 presidential campaign was behind the Gennifer Flowers accusation that Bill Clinton had an affair with her.

Whom would you recommend as my next EliteBloger and why?
I’d recommend talking to Josh Marshall of TPM. He has built an impressive web entity without the millions of Huffington.

Give us your views on EliteChoice.
It’s a cool site.  Your interview series is quite divergent and wide-ranging.

Your turn! You can ask me one question. Where is my free coffee mug?
Well, you deserve more than a free coffee mug for fetching time and feeding my readers with such lovely responses. No I owe a treat to you.

We thank Matthew once again for accepting our invitation and penning down informative set of responses.

Call it a space-crunch issue or privacy involved; folding screens from Japan were measured as no less than a dividing wall to do away with that unwanted presence of objects that may disgrace you upon your guests visit. Let’s confess the fact that despite their purposeful behavior, they look competitively ugly and hence convince us to look for other appealing solutions. Seems Daewoo was silently hearing our needs and therefore have developed DID-FS, a folding screen sporting an LCD video display integrated into each section enabling to to entertain your guests with idyllic Japanese scenery, or clips from Kurosawa flicks.

Further, it gives you the freedom to nosh each sheet with an individual image, thereby gathering the attention of your group of friends with diverse taste. For now, we have no information if the DID-FS will ever be urbanized beyond its archetype phase.

Via RegHardware

Monowheels: The Bizarre Transport Ever Developed (Thanks Avi for featuring Elitechoice.org)

Drive a Car for $1/day, Visit Toronto

Samsung X360 claims to beat Macbook Air in ‘Mr Slim’ competition

ASD’s 3G Dock Station is ultra cool

Weburbanist crew captures 23 curiously paranormal garden furniture designs

Relax your fingers upon waterproof virtually unyielding keyboard

David Tonkinson unveils Carbon Footprint Monitor

Stylish tree charger respects your gadgets and energy-crisis concern

El Zulo by Frank Ehners is power napping creation

Condom Gun comes packed with weapons

Conscious Packaging or Conscious Exposing? Ask the Lush

Luminous Bras: Cover your assets to flaunt

Contemporary coffee table with integrated magazine space, courtesy Sara Huston

The viteo outdoor kitchen for foodies

Ted Camilo has been with the sea beauties for years. Yes, he has been deep down fro seven years learning the trade of Dolphins- how to swim, and how to swim fast and most importantly, how to swim gracefully!

All this research has given us Lunocet, a high performance Monofin that makes you swim as naturally as the fishes themselves. The aluminum and titanium footplates can make one do acrobatic skills under water. So, be wear the monofit and be ready for “aquabatics”.

Priced at $1,800, it can be all yours if speed is what you crave for. But old fashioned divers like me would rather prefer their slow and steady sojourn into the water, peeping at all the wonders on my way.

Via | Product site

Sky cars…Flying cars…and other such futuristic automobiles is a reason enough for us to appreciate the hard efforts made by design firms. After featuring the Pal-V Flying Car that looked more like a motorbike; the M400 Skycar concept from Moller is a four-seat flying car that is all set to ride on skies within three years time from now. The company claims that the M400 Skycar is the first viable, budgeted vertical take off and landing vehicle. It shuns your worry of cursing the traffic light that turns red every second you reach near it as there is not even a remote possibility of someone coming from the opposite direction.

The M400 Skycar engine is accessible and adaptable enough to burn an extensive array of fuels i.e. diesel to natural gas, allowing you refuel it irrespective of your location. Whilst running on normal petrol, the coupe can ride over 20 mpg, adequate to park your car and drive it to and from your start-up point but once in air is able to speed up to three times faster than any light airplane.

It also features a storage space inside the cabin for your grocery stuff. It is being said that it would hit the market at an anticipated price of £250,000 but if a measured demand is witnessed leading to mass production then it would cost £30,000- £40,000.

ProductPage

The ongoing Japan’s aging society has witnessed a surge in number of funerals with every passing day, which poses a handicap before the restricted space options. This has led to the evolution of creative alternatives; hence generating a god deal of death business here in Japan. Earlier, we introduced you to the multimedia tombstones unveiled in Japan and then considering the dearth of space, the available room costs about $20,000.

It was then Japanese nationals woke up to calculate a way to deal with the problem following a technological twist. Therefore, Nichiryoku identified an interactive family plot that fuses expertise with the customary. It stores the cremated remains of your loved ones in a personal sealed box that is kept in a secretive vault. As per your requirement, you can access the box and scan an RFID card that directs the system to fetch up your box and rest it in the entreaty area.

Jump over to experience the first-hand view of videos, packed with voices beyond the grave. Apologies for not translating the video but for sure visuals would convey the idea. The top one depicts woman visiting her father (speaking from beyond the grave) who is amazed that she came.

Via KilanNakaMura