lobster

Lobster iPhone case is delightfully impractical

What are you willing to sacrifice to make your iPhone really stand out from the crowd? How about the use of its camera? OK. How about your dignity, too? Great, I have just the case for you. It's the Lobster Mobile Telephone Case from Noddy Boffin.

Way back in 1938, Salvador Dali created a piece known as the "lobster telephone." It involves a lobster attached to the handset of a rotary-dial phone. Flash-forward to 2012 and Australian designer Elliot Gorham channels the ghost of Dali into an accessory for modern smartphones. … Read more

Ideo's prize-winning utility bike debuts via Kickstarter

A clever electric bike, which won a design competition last fall for creating the best urban utility bike, is coming to market via Kickstarter today.

The Faraday, designed by the Palo Alto, Calif., design consultancy Ideo and Santa Cruz, Calif., bike-maker Rock Lobster Custom Cycles, took home top honors in the Oregon Manifest creative collaboration challenge, which CNET followed. The competition paired global design firms with small, handcrafted bike builders to create a bike for city living.

That success generated enough interest that Adam Vollmer, who led the design efforts for Ideo, left the firm to launch a company to … Read more

Ideo's electric bike wins design competition

An electric bike, created by the Palo Alto, Calif., design consultancy Ideo and Santa Cruz, Calif., bike maker Rock Lobster Custom Cycles, has won the competition for creating the best urban utility bike in the Oregon Manifest creative collaboration challenge.

The bike, which combines classic styling with an electric motor, beat out the creations of the pairing of Portland, Ore., design firm Ziba with bike builder Signal Cycles, and the tandem of San Francisco design consultancy Fuseproject with Santa Rosa, Calif., SyCip Designs.

On its Web site, Oregon Manifest posted reviews of each bike from four independent critics. Then, it … Read more

The ultimate utility bike? Maybe it's an e-bike

PORTLAND, Ore.--For years, the cycling industry has wrestled with creating a bike convenient enough for the masses.

A new effort from the Palo Alto, Calif., design consultancy Ideo and Santa Cruz, Calif., bike builder Rock Lobster Custom Cycles may have pushed the industry a step closer to achieving the goal. The team created a bike for the Oregon Manifest 2011 Constructor's Design Challenge, a bike building competition pitting three teams of designers and handcrafted bike builders. Their goal: create the best utility bike for urban living.

This summer, CNET visited with the three teams--including the pairing of Portland … Read more

Robot lobster invades the deep

The invasion of the robots is heading into the sea.

Just a few days ago, we witnessed an underwater robot lumberjack that bore an unsettling resemblance to Spongebob Squarepants. Now the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum is showcasing a bionic lobster that is joining the denizens of the deep, mimicking its living counterparts for research purposes in coastal waters.

As Ubergizmo points out, the Crustastun may have finally met its match.