With each new iPhone rendition comes a slew of iPhone cases – some from new companies and many from industry-leading names, and makes it tough and stressful for us to choose an option. With countless competitors vying for attention, it’s challenging also for the accessory creators to stand out from the crowd. Amidst the sea of mundane offerings, one concept from Running Guy Studio Design Studio in London, UK shines with its unique style.

The Running Guy, an experimental design and fashion studio, brought a breath of fresh air to the iPhone case market first with the Air Case. It was an innovative case that deviated from traditional materials like leather, plastic, fabric, or rubber, to provide a refreshing alternative that caught curious eyes.

Designer: The Running Guy

After the Air Case made ripples among designers and fans, the studio is back with the next iteration: Air Case 2. What sets the Air Case 2 apart is its bloated textured pattern, which will beautifully complement Apple’s upcoming iPhone 15. This case is not only a fashion statement but will provide all-around protection for your valuable device.

Conceptualized by the talented product designer Philipp Pisarevskiy, the Air Case 2 is designed to absorb impact from any side. Its bloated cushions act as a shield, preventing the energy of a fall impact from reaching your smartphone. Also, the case adheres firmly to your iPhone, with its protruding contours ensuring a secure grip.

But that’s not what the Air Case 2 is all about. An interesting eye-grabber here is the plethora of color options it is revealed in. By incorporating this ingenious design and color options, the Air Case 2 significantly reduces the chances of your phone accidentally slipping out and your phone looking differently attractive.

Air Case 2 excels in style and protection but it does come with a limitation. Due to its peculiar design, it is not compatible with MagSafe accessories. This might be a drawback for users who rely on the convenience and functionality offered by MagSafe technology. However, for those who prioritize superior protection and a distinctive aesthetic, the Air Case 2 presents an enticing option.

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The way we interact with objects today has become increasingly virtual. The excitement is limited and we need reasons to fall back on the past for rejuvenation. This is recaptured with a new way of engagement of using physical objects from the past in the RE-PLAY.

RE:PLAY is designed as a revolutionary concept aiming to bridge the gap between the virtual and the physical. It invites us to reflect on the value of human-object interaction. By leveraging sound players as vessels, RE:PLAY ingeniously blends old-world physicality with modern digital audio sources; an exciting amalgamation that gives rise to a captivating experience to resonate with our nostalgic hearts.

Designer: Shin Huei Tsai, Tzu Yu Huang and Zhuang Zhujun

Rendered on KeyShot: Click Here to Download Your Free Trial Now!

Gone are the days of cassette tapes and vinyl records as primary sound sources. But in the RE:PLAY, these classics are seamlessly integrated with smartphone as the conduit for modern music.

Vinyl players have always evoked a sense of serenity and ritual and paired with a smartphone the contraption is very fresh. The cherished ritual of positioning the tonearm and spinning the disc is revived here with a modern twist. Your phone becomes the vinyl record itself. By carefully positioning the tonearm on your phone, you can indulge in the magic of playing music while visually interacting with the spinning disc.

Who can forget the cassettes? RE:PLAY pays homage to this beloved format by preserving the age-old action of spinning the tape in a cassette recorder. But instead of inserting a physical cassette, you kickstart music by placing your smartphone into the designated slot. We’ve also reimagined the once-cumbersome task of flipping the cassette over as a seamless way to switch songs. Every five songs, you’ll find yourself flipping your phone to continue the melodic journey.

The aesthetics of RE:PLAY are carefully crafted. Pristine white is chosen as the base color allowing the physical interfaces to take center stage. Translucent frosted acrylic adds depth and richness to the design that permits the spinning discs and tape to be visible while playing.

In an era where the virtual often overshadows the physical, RE:PLAY is a beacon of hope.  It’s a visual feast that blends nostalgia with a contemporary flair.

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Wireless chargers are becoming more common, and there is also a growing number of designs for these accessories, some of them more interesting than others. Despite the different appearances and functionalities, all these chargers often become practically useless the moment you remove the smartphone from its surface. Some might look interesting and pretty on your desk or bedside table, but they remain passive objects that offer nothing more beyond decoration. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t any room for improvement, especially when it comes to adding additional though unrelated functions. This design concept, for example, gives the wireless charger something else to do when nothing is charging on it, allowing it to provide added value in a way you might not have expected.

Designer: Jerry Kong

The earliest wireless chargers all came as flat horizontal pads because devices are required to stay still on a specific area right above the wireless charging coil. While the technology still remains limited that way, the introduction of magnets, courtesy of Apple, afforded a little more flexibility. You can now have chargers that are inclined at an angle or even raised a little above the base because they can hold the smartphone in the correct position all the time. What hasn’t changed, however, is that the charging surface remains flat and that this flat area remains unutilized when nothing’s charging on top of it.

The Dino Charger changes the formula a bit by adding one small component to the charger. The charger itself looks a little typical, just a pill shape with one end chopped off to provide a flat surface for a phone to latch on. When that phone isn’t there, however, you will be able to see a small circular display in the middle of the area, and that is where the charger’s other life begins.

The screen is around the same size as a circular smartwatch, and it functions almost like one as well. Despite its small screen real estate, it can easily show a few pieces of data through icons and images, like the weather, battery levels, and, of course, the time. It can even show a Bitmoji (or Apple Memoji), though the exact use of that function is left up to the imagination. Of course, this circular display will be useless when there’s a phone charging on top, but it’s possible for the phone itself to provide those functions while it’s charging.

The Dino Charger concept doesn’t drastically change the wireless charger’s nature, but neither does it take anything away from it by adding an orthogonal feature. It’s a simple redesign that turns what looks like a normal and boring wireless charger into an exciting multi-functional device, one that can potentially add value to your digital life without taking up additional space.

The post How an innovative wireless charger concept also functions as a tiny smart display first appeared on Yanko Design.

Although it might seem like it, controllers for different devices and gadgets are actually designed to help make users’ lives easier. The overwhelming number of buttons on a traditional TV or set-top box remote, for example, are there to give nearly instant access to functions without having to dig your way through menus. Needs and trends change over time, however, and devices need to adapt with them, just like how those TV remotes have become significantly minimal, some with no more than five buttons. There are controllers, however, that can’t really be distilled down to half a dozen switches and buttons. Complicating matters is how different people might have different ideas on how to best use those controls. Straddling the fine line between those two camps, this design concept puts users in complete control of one of the busiest controllers in the market.

Designer: Marko Filipic

When there are so many things happening quickly that need your attention, the last thing you need is to fiddle with menus to remain in control. Sometimes, you don’t even get a few seconds to think about your next move and just function on autopilot. This is often the case with complicated controllers like the decks that DJs use to mix, scratch, and direct the flow of music at any given moment. A deck controller would have dozens of buttons, sliders, switches, and dials, but not everyone uses those same controls in the same way all the time.

This modular controller concept brings one of the rising trends in product design to the world of DJing, allowing the user to decide exactly how to arrange those controls or which ones to actually have present in the first place. The idea is to have a platform where one can easily add, remove, or relocate those gizmos where they’re most convenient. There are parts that are permanently attached to the deck, like the two large dials on each side, but the rest is fair game for the DJ.

This design is made possible by a grid of Pogo connectors in the middle of the deck, similar to those gold dots you’d find in older smartwatches as well as tablet keyboard covers. Here you can make any arrangement of buttons, sliders, and dials, some of which take up more than one “block” on that grid. In a way, it becomes a fun puzzle activity for DJs to build their own personalized deck.

The base design for this modular DJ controller leans more towards minimalist trends with its white coating and lack of decorations. Admittedly, this might look a little out of place among a DJ’s other tools, so there’s also a variant that brings those familiar accent lighting on a predominantly black deck, a better representation of a DJ’s vibrant and unpredictable style.

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At the PlayStation Showcase 2023 event, Sony unveiled a handheld device that’ll make gamers both excited and longing for more. That’s because the Japanese electronics giant did unveil the Project Q gaming device but with a spoiler.

Rather than being a follow-up of the PlayStation Vita, the handheld will be more of a streaming gadget for mirroring PlayStation 5 games when you want to shift to the smaller screen for a while. That’s something akin to the Logitech G Cloud and the Razer Edge. This further reiterates Sony’s belief in mobile gaming since they announced the Backbone One game controller a few days back.

Designer: Sony

By no stretch of imagination is this gaming handheld a competitor for Steam Deck or Nintendo Switch. It’s basically a device to be used with PS Remote Play, and looks like a stretched DualSense controller. Much like a third-party mobile gaming controller that fits your smartphone.

Even though it won’t play any games standalone or without internet connectivity, the option to stream your favorite titles on the 8-inch HD LCD screen sandwiched between the controls is simply awesome. The device will be capable of streaming games at upto 1080p and 60fps over a Wi-Fi connection. Not to forget, you’ll get all the buttons and features of DualSense controller like the haptic feedback and adaptive triggers.

According to PlayStation boss Jim Ryan, “Innovation is our passion, and that applies to not just what games you play, but how you play them.” He further emphasized the cloud gaming aspect moving forward, making the streaming handheld a potent tool in the quest for leveraging the “trend of mobility.”

For now, Sony has just uncovered these details and there’s no word on the pricing or the release date of the Project Q handheld. That said, we are still rooting for Sony to release a dedicated gaming device that’s more than just a cloud gaming gadget and can play offline as well.

The post Sony’s new gaming handheld device streams PS5 games on the go first appeared on Yanko Design.

The pen is mightier than the sword, and that aphorism remains true even in this highly digital age. In fact, there has been a renaissance of interest and even passion for handwritten notes, giving birth to a myriad of paper-based productivity systems and beautiful notebooks, as seen on YouTube. Unfortunately, it’s also hard to deny the advantages and conveniences of digital notes, particularly in terms of organization and searching. Fortunately, there is no longer any need to choose between the two when you can have the best of both worlds thanks to this innovative AI-powered ballpoint pen that turns your handwritten scribbles into digital notes, whether you’re writing on craft paper or on the back of an envelope.

Designer: Nuwa Innovation

Click Here to Buy Now: $234 $360 (35% off). Hurry, only 237 left! Raised over $150,000.

There is a certain appeal to the age-old art of writing things by hand, not to mention the cognitive and psychological benefits that the practice brings. Unfortunately, it’s also no longer possible to ignore the drawbacks of paper notes, especially ones that get lost or are hard to decipher months or even just weeks later. There are quite a few products trying to bridge the gap between analog and digital, but these often require the use of special paper that doesn’t feel like paper, special pens that may be discontinued in the unforeseen future, or both.

The Nuwa Pen is a revolutionary solution that approaches the problem from a different angle. You can use your favorite stationery or grab any piece of paper within reach, and standard D1 ballpoint refills are never going away. Instead, the Nuwa Pen employs an innovative TRIDENT imaging system to see what you’re writing and harnesses the power of AI to digitize those ink marks that can be saved to a digital file. The result is complete freedom to write what you want on whatever kind of paper you want, confident that you’ll be able to easily search through them as if you had typed the notes directly.

Searchable Notes: Keep track of your notes

Text Conversion: Exact copy of your notes

Augmented Notes: Stay connected

This AI-powered Ballpoint Pen, however, does more than just digitize your handwritten notes. Although the pen itself has 2Gb of built-in memory, you can also send your notes to the Nuwa Pen App for unlimited cloud storage. And with the Nuwa Pen+ subscription, you’ll be able to convert your scribbles into searchable text and, soon, connect those notes with over a hundred apps, including Google Calendar, Todoist, emails, and more. With its built-in battery, you can write non-stop for 2 hours before needing to charge the Nuwa Pen in just 15 minutes. The included charging case lets you do that five more times, giving you nearly unlimited freedom to put your thoughts on paper and, in the long run, on the cloud.

Starting at $234, not only do you get the well-designed ballpoint pen and its charging case, you also get a one-year Nuwa Pen+ subscription. With the AI-powered Nuwa Pen, you no longer have to choose between the joys of writing and the conveniences of digital notes. Write on your favorite paper, digitize your notes, and sync with the cloud to let your thoughts and ideas take you to new heights and new worlds.

Click Here to Buy Now: $234 $360 (35% off). Hurry, only 237 left! Raised over $150,000.

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This absolutely heartwarming plant-inspired stand lets you dock/charge your Nintendo Switch between long sessions of playing the new Legends of Zelda game…

Styled like a piranha plant from the Super Mario universe, this Nintendo Switch stand comes with a place to dock your main Switch device, as well as two sets of JoyCons, to make them look like a flower and two sets of leaves. The stand features a hollow conduit running through its main stem, letting you string a charger cable through so you can charge your Switch while it’s docked in the stand. Meanwhile, the ‘soil’ of the planter features multiple slots, allowing you to store game cartridges with all your saved games on them.

Designer: 3DPrintedCanadaCo

Click Here to Buy Now: $57.94 US$ 77.26 (25% Off)

The stand lets you dock your controller with or without the JoyCons, giving you a degree of freedom that feels quite liberating. Two separate offshoot stems on the main stem allow you to add multiple other JoyCons to your stand, although the stand doesn’t charge the individual JoyCons – just the main controller.

If you’re the kind to game with multiple people (or if you just bought extra controllers because of the controller drift problem), the stand has dedicated slots for stashing spare controllers. You can pop them out and play a game while the screen remains docked within the stand, making for a pretty suitable gameplay arrangement, especially if your Switch is running on low battery.

My favorite part of the design is the one detail you’re most likely to miss. The dock comes with enough slots to store up to 10 Switch cartridges, allowing you to build a mini library for all the games currently in rotation. Perfect for if you want to replay Breath of the Wild before starting Tears of the Kingdom!

Click Here to Buy Now: $57.94 US$ 77.26 (25% Off)

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Apple makes great primary devices… but has the worst peripherals on the market. Look at how the Magic Mouse charges, or how unrepairable the AirPods are, or that godawful AirPods Max carrying case, or even the fact that their Magic Keyboard (for both the iMac and iPad) don’t come with backlit keys. The products look remarkably sleek and cutting edge, but there’s really no excuse for bad usability… and rather than just wait for Apple to fix their problems, Satechi just decided to make a better version of their products instead.

Meet the Satechi Slim X3, a vastly better version of Apple’s own Magic Keyboard. The beauty of the X3 is that it acknowledges that the Magic Keyboard’s design doesn’t need changing, but its functionality does. Made to look strikingly similar to Apple’s own keyboard, the Slim X3 offers unique features, like the ability to connect to and switch between multiple devices, USB-C charging (so you can use the same iPad charger with your keyboard), and perhaps the greatest feature of them all, backlit keys that glow to help you easily type at night. The X3 comes with an extended 100% layout featuring arrow keys and a numpad too, although Satechi also makes the X1, with a compact 60% layout for people looking for a smaller keyboard.

Click Here to Buy Now

Right off the bat, the Satechi Slim X3’s design stands out as something an Apple aficionado would absolutely love. You’ve got the keyboard in both silver and space-grey variants, with a machined aluminum outer chassis that has a slight angular tilt, and black plastic keys for that familiar Magic Keyboard experience. The Slim X3’s layout is as expansive as the Magic Keyboard, featuring all the necessary keys along with the function keys on top as well, although understandably enough, there’s no TouchID key on this particular device, given that it’s proprietary Apple technology.

The lack of a TouchID key, however, is more than made up for by the Slim X3’s more prized features. The entire keyboard offers a backlit experience, giving you the ability to work comfortably even in low-light settings or at night without needing to have a table lamp or a light switched on. It’s a simple yet crucial detail that bizarrely enough, Apple completely missed… much to Satechi’s advantage. The Slim X3 also supports connections with 4 devices at the same time, using Bluetooth 5.0, and the ability to even switch between them by tapping the device keys located right above the numpad.

The Slim X3 offers a pretty uncompromising experience for Apple lovers looking for a better solution than the Magic Keyboard. Satechi’s attention to visual design has resulted in a keyboard that’s so remarkably similar to Apple’s own, it blends in with your work setup beautifully. Moreover, the keyboard sports a USB-C port, allowing you to use a regular cable to charge it rather than needing a special Lightning cable handy all the time. If you’ve got an iMac or MacBook, or even an iPad, chances are you’ll have a USB-C cable lying around (since all those devices have USB-C ports of their own), making the Slim X3’s integration even more seamless. Moreover, the Slim X3 Wireless Keyboard boasts compatibility with any Apple device launched in or after 2012, making it perfect for your MacBook, iMac, Mac Mini, Mac Studio, iPhone, or any iPad you’ve got from the past decade. Chances are, it’ll probably work with the Apple Watch too!

Click Here to Buy Now

The post Satechi’s Apple Magic Keyboard Redesign Features Backlit Keys and USB-C Charging for Enhanced Performance first appeared on Yanko Design.

The venerable computer mouse hasn’t changed its basic format in decades, though there have been additions like the middle mouse button or scroll wheel and shifts from trackball to laser. That means that this essential tool for modern-day life still bears many of the ergonomic flaws of its ancestor, an almost literal pain point in the age of computing. There have been a few design ideas centered around fixing this problem, though many of them pretty much change the mouse to the point that it has become unrecognizable. This particular design concept, however, has none of those and is instead focused on making the mouse a little bit more sustainable, mostly by letting you reuse keyboard parts that you might already have lying around.

Designer: Hizin Joo

Rendered on KeyShot: Click Here to Download Your Free Trial Now!

There has been a surge of interest in mechanical keyboards, especially among workers and gamers that rely heavily on precision, comfort, and satisfying experiences. Because of this, there are plenty of keyboard switches and keycaps available in the market for those who not only love customizing their keyboards but also repairing them on their own. In contrast, computer mice have barely reached that point where you can easily replace broken buttons, let alone change certain parts to your heart’s content and delight.

That is the kind of limitation that the Gima mouse concept tries to overcome, and it does so in a rather curious and almost whimsical way. The typical mouse buttons are replaced by what looks like keyboard keys because they are actually keyboard keys. Underneath the keycaps are actual mechanical keyboard switches that you can mix and match with whatever spares you might be lying around.

The general idea is to offer the same level of customization and flexibility that mechanical keyboards have, but on the other computer peripheral that barely offers such features. You can, for example, use the level of resistance you prefer using different switches, or you can use different keycaps to reflect your personal style. You might settle for simple L and R letters, or you can use specially-designed caps with different graphics. This also means that should one or even both of the buttons break, you can easily replace it with any other keycap or switch.

While the design is definitely interesting, Gima, unfortunately, doesn’t address the mouse’s ergonomic problem and may, in fact, make it worse. The resistance offered by mechanical switches for keyboards might not exactly be ideal for repetitively clicking with the same finger. The soap bar shape of Gima might also lead to incorrect positioning of the hand and the wrist, and the location of the touch-sensitive slope for the mouse wheel exacerbates the situation. To its credit, Gima does touch on the need to have a repairable and customizable mouse, much like their larger keyboard partners.

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Samsung Display, a subsidiary of electronics giant Samsung, unveiled a world’s first OLED display with its own integrated fingerprint scanner capable of monitoring its user’s blood pressure as well as heart rate. Dubbed the “Sensor OLED”, Samsung revealed its innovative new display at the Display Week 2023, an exhibition for the electronic display industry currently being held in Los Angeles. The Sensor OLED, Samsung Display mentions, is poised to be a powerful tool for health monitoring right within your smartphone or tablet.

Designer: Samsung Display

The Sensor OLED is more than just a scanner and monitor. It’s a comprehensive health assistant designed with you in mind. It has the capabilities to measure stress levels, tracl sleep patterns, and provide essential data to enhance users’ overall health and wellness. According to Samsung Display, in order to take accurate readings, measurements need to be taken from both arms simultaneously, quite similar to how you would with the Kardia device by AliveCor. The OLED screen offers multitouch abilities, but goes beyond by also being able to recognize both left and right hand fingers at the same time. This new display helps simplify health monitoring and increase accessibility by allowing anyone with a smartphone to measure their fitness without splurging for a fitness wearable.

This cutting-edge piece of technology is realized thanks to Samsung Display’s state-of-the-art organic photodiode (OPD) technology. The OPD, a light-sensitive sensor, is the beating heart of the Sensor OLED. It adeptly captures fingerprints and heart rate data, incorporating these vital features right into the panel. Samsung hasn’t really unveiled any roadmap for when the display will officially find itself on devices, but it could possibly bring an end to the cheap fitness tracker industry.

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