When looking at options for furniture for their new or current house, people either look at the design and aesthetics while some prefer the more comfortable ones over the ones that would look good in their space. But of course there are those that can probably offer you both so wouldn’t you want to have something that looks good in your space and also is pretty comfortable that you’d want to use it for a long time?

Designer: Mudu Studios

SOLO is a concept for a furniture collection that could offer both comfort and design. The focal point of this collection is the plush upholstery that is seemingly placed on a pedestal because of the materials used. The collection includes an armchair, sofa, and a pouf, all of which feature a soft aesthetic, in contrast to the metal or natural veneer of the base which acts like a pedestal to showcase the luxuriously soft upholstery and textile. This contrast highlights the plushness of the seating while adding a touch of modern sophistication. Accent seams further enhance the visual appeal, adding subtle detailing and contributing to the overall character of the collection.

The collection’s expressive design language allows it to seamlessly integrate into a variety of interior styles, from contemporary minimalist spaces to more eclectic settings. The varied color palette offers a range of options to suit individual preferences and complement existing décor. A standout feature of the SOLO armchair is its innovative twist mechanism. This thoughtful addition enhances comfort and allows users to easily find their perfect lounging position, further emphasizing the collection’s focus on relaxation and well-being. This isn’t just about aesthetics; it’s about creating a harmonious balance between form and function. The elevated design not only adds visual interest but also contributes to the overall comfort by providing optimal support. The combination of soft textiles, a sturdy base, and thoughtful features like the twist mechanism in the armchair make SOLO a truly exceptional collection.

Alas, the SOLO collection is still a concept and they are currently looking for a manufacturer. But to have something that is visually attractive and seemingly comfortable should make it easy for them to eventually find someone that can make this design a reality. I am now currently dreaming of taking a nap on that sofa or reading a book for hours on that armchair or sitting on that pouf while chatting and drinking with friends.

The post Soft furniture concept lets you place comfort on a pedestal first appeared on Yanko Design.

Everyone knows that stereotype of sleepyheads reaching for their bedside alarm clocks and simply pushing a button to turn them off. Even with smartphones, people approach alarm clock apps with that same detached and mechanical behavior. Of course, these clocks are just tools, but the way we interact with them in a way reflects our subconscious attitude toward time and waking up each day. Rather than simply letting time pass us by without our involvement, this minimalist and fun design turns the passive tool into something interactive, turning a routine action into something almost like a game.

Designers: Adrian Wright, Jeremy Wright (DesignWright)

We can sometimes feel like slaves to our clocks, moving according to pre-set schedules and called by the beeping or ringing of alarms. Smartphone apps made that situation simpler but also made us feel less in control. It’s only too easy to set up an alarm, sometimes even without our explicit action, and it’s just as easy to get lost in dozens of alarms and notifications. Having a physical alarm clock, especially by your bedside, helps us distance ourselves from the complexity of apps and digital experiences, and the Flip alarm clock adds a joyful twist to the way you interact with the object.

As its name suggests, you flip the alarm clock to determine how it behaves. One side is labeled “on” and it means what it says, that the alarm is enabled and active. Flip it over, however, and you’re greeted with the word “off” to indicate that the alarm is now disabled. Whichever way you turn it, the LCD display flips to show the time right side up, making it a reversible design as well.

This design that eschews physical buttons for kinetic controls adds an element of direct interaction with the object. You’re no longer dragged around by the alarms you set and become a willing actor in the scenario that plays before you. It can become an addictive action, one that kids will love, and it could even get you up and out of bed with less begrudging effort. Best of all, the Flip alarm clock looks just as fun and attractive on your desk or bedside table, adding a pinch of joy to your life.

The post Minimalist alarm clock offers a simple yet delightful way to control it first appeared on Yanko Design.

Graviton4 based Amazon EC2 R8g instances are more powerful and energy-efficient than the previous generation, AWS says.

When I first encountered a self-checkout system in IKEA a few years ago, I sort of panicked because I didn’t know what to do. But after experiencing it and eventually figuring things out, I thought this was such a convenient way to do your shopping, especially if you want to keep social interactions at a minimum. Now if only there was a also a self-packing system since the packing up groceries stuff is the most difficult.

Designer: MIT CSAIL

Eventually, this can of course come true and one step towards a system like this is the RoboGrocery. This was developed by MIT’s CSAIL department and uses a soft robotic gripper together with computer vision to help you bag groceries and other small items. It’s still in its early stages of course but seeing how it’s working at this time seems pretty promising.

They tested it out by placing 10 objects on a grocery conveyer belt, ranging from soft items like grapes, crackers, muffins, bread to the more solid ones like cans, meal boxes, and ice cream containers. The vision detects the size of the item to determine the order of placing it in a box. The grasper, with the pressure sensors in its fingers, then determines whether the item is delicate and should not be placed at the bottom of the bag.

 

While we’re still a few steps away from actually having a robot to bag your groceries, it’s an interesting first step towards that. Eventually, after it becomes available for commercial use, they might also be able to develop this for industrial spaces like recycling plants and factories.

The post RoboGrocery is the first step towards robots packing our grocery first appeared on Yanko Design.

Most of us generally use smartphones to set alarms without realizing that these little radiation mongers by the bedside are messing up our sleep patterns. It is better to leave the phones at a comfortable distance from the bed. But how do you wake up the lazy sleeper then? Well, invest in an alarm clock that can become your best pal to start off the day with a purpose.

If you have an agenda, a schedule, or a defined routine after the alarm goes off, you’re set and probably doing well for yourself. For the others – who are aimless waking up every morning, with no set routine to follow – the snooze button on the phone or clock is the favorite choice. The Fortune Clock arrives without the snooze option, rather a purpose-defined wakeup activity that goes a long way beyond just waking you up with something to do.

Designer: Ho Hyun LIM

When out in the market for an alarm clock, you look for the nightlight option, volume levels, and of course the snooze button. For the Fortune Clock, you might have to have a different mindset: An outlook to look at your fortune based on how you get up in the morning.

Sounds interesting? It well is! The clock with a digital display on the front quarter – featuring time and day – has an interesting wheel of fortune just below. The idea is to fill the clock from the top with balls. When you wake up in the morning to turn off the alarm (by pressing the button on top) a ball with a number is released (this happens every day) and appears in the groves cut out on the front.

While the idea of the clock is to get the user into the habit of making an effort to get up to stop the alarm and put the ball rolling (not literally); the designer believes, the numbered balls are fortune tellers as well. User can, Ho believes, combine the numbers on the balls obtained from this effort of getting up, to purchase lottery tickets, to seize their luck. How much numerology magic the clock does is for you to understand, but these hard-earned numbers will definitely make a difference to your sleep cycle and waking-up routine.

The post Lottery-inspired Alarm Clock gives you rewards for taking the effort to seize the day first appeared on Yanko Design.

Microsoft dévoile une nouvelle fonctionnalité qui va faire frétiller d’impatience les gamers sur Windows 11, et plus particulièrement les utilisateurs de machines équipées d’une puce Qualcomm Snapdragon X : j’ai nommé Auto SR, pour « Automatic Super Resolution ». Derrière ce nom qui claque se cache ni plus ni moins qu’une solution d’upscaling basée sur l’IA, dans la lignée de DLSS chez NVIDIA ou de FSR chez AMD.

Concrètement, c’est quoi l’upscaling ?

Et bien imaginez que vous jouiez sur un écran 4K mais que votre GPU a du mal à suivre et affiche une résolution native bien inférieure, genre du 1080p. L’upscaling va permettre d’augmenter artificiellement la résolution de l’image en 4K et vous offrir un rendu bien plus détaillé, tout en préservant vos précieux FPS. Alors bien sûr Auto SR a quelques limitations puisqu’il est réservé pour le moment uniquement aux puces Snapdragon X qui intègrent un NPU (le processeur dédié à l’IA). Et ensuite, ça ne fonctionne qu’avec les jeux natifs ARM ainsi que certains titres DirectX 11 et 12 (oubliez DirectX 8 / 9, OpenGL / Vulkan).

Auto SR ne supporte également pas les résolutions d’affichage inférieures à 1080p ni le HDR, ce qui est dommage si vous avez un OLED ou IPS de haute qualité. Il faudra aussi parfois mettre les mains dans le cambouis et éditer des clés de registre pour activer des options. Bref, pas super user-friendly tout ça…

Mais des gros jeux comme The Witcher 3, God of War ou Borderlands 3 sont d’ores et déjà compatibles. Et pour les autres, un petit tour sur le site Worksonwoa.com vous permettra de savoir s’ils peuvent profiter des bienfaits de l’upscaling automatique.

Pour ajuster le paramètre Auto SR par défaut, allez dans Paramètres > Système > Affichage > Graphiques et activez la super résolution automatique dans les paramètres par défaut.

Lorsque vous lancez un jeu compatible avec Auto SR, une notification apparaîtra pour confirmer que la super résolution automatique est activée.

Vivement qu’on puisse tester ça en tout cas !

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Vous pensiez que les cartes graphiques Intel Arc étaient réservées aux processeurs x86 ? Et bien détrompez-vous car un ingénieur de génie nommé Vladimir Smirnov, a réussi un exploit tout à fait inattendu. Il est parvenu à faire fonctionner un GPU Arc A750 sur un processeur ARM 64 cœurs Ampere Altra, et tout ça sous Linux !

Vladimir était en train de monter un serveur ARM avec une carte mère ASRock Rack et un processeur Ampere Altra et en attendant de recevoir toutes les pièces, il s’est dit qu’il allait tester différentes cartes graphiques qu’il avait sous la main : une vieille Radeon RX 550, une RX 5700 de minage et un Intel Arc A750 flambant neuf.

Pour la Radeon RX 550, pas de souci, installation simple et sans galère. Pour la RX 5700, petite compatibilité problématique avec le noyau Linux 6.1 sur ARM, en raison de registres non sauvegardés et d’un bug PCIe spécifique aux puces Ampere Altra. Heureusement pour lui, des correctifs ont été intégrés dans plusieurs distributions Linux, donc c’est facilement contournable.

Mais mais mais… Pour l’Intel Arc A750 c’est un autre délire. En effet, les pilotes (le i915) pour ce GPU d’Intel sont principalement conçus pour une architecture x86, ce qui pose problème sur ARM et malheureusement, le nouveau pilote Xe dédié aux cartes Arc pose aussi problème sur ARM.

Alors que faire ? Se rouler en boule dans un coin et pleurer ? Non ! Vladimir ne s’est pas laissé décourager. En commentant des bouts de code liés à la compatibilité avec les vieilles consoles VGA, il a pu obtenir une image via HDMI. Mais pas de 3D… snif… Il a donc fallu recompiler Mesa3D avec la version compatible Xe et appliquer des correctifs pour résoudre ces bugs spécifiques aux puces Ampere Altra. Et finalement, petit miracle 2024, l’Intel Arc A750 a pu afficher de la 3D sur son processeur ARM 64 cœurs !

Bien que cette configuration ne permette pas de jouer à des jeux extrêmement gourmands tels que Crysis en 8K, pouvoir faire tourner Doom 3 représente déjà un exploit ! Bravo Vlad, tu es notre héros

Bref, la prochaine qu’on vous dira « c’est pas possible« , fait comme Vlad, persévérez !

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