⚙️ Sci-Fi Glass
Hi, Hardwirers!
Objects stopped behaving like objects. Everything now unfolds, adapts, performs.
Foosball Turns Into Sci-Fi Glass
What is it: FAS Pendezza's Ghost foosball table, designed by Basaglia + Rota Nodari, is built from 12-mm and 9-mm tempered laminated glass bonded without visible screws. Shown at Salone Satellite in Milan, the EUR 8,900 table pairs chrome rods, monochrome resin players, and floating pitch lines with shadows that make it look like a transparent object from a sci-fi film.
A Suitcase Becomes a Scooter
What is it: Mazda's early-1990s suitcase car was a three-wheeled concept built by seven engineers for the company's Fantasyard contest, then packed into a hard-shell Samsonite. Using a 33.6-cc two-stroke pocket-bike engine, it assembled in about a minute, weighed 32 kg, and topped out at 30 km/h, turning airport luggage into personal mobility years before scooters went mainstream.
Your Roof Pops Into a Cabin
What is it: The Mohab Altus is a hard-walled rooftop shelter that rises with an electric lift in about 60 seconds, turning a truck or 4x4 into a tiny elevated cabin. Slider windows, folding front and rear walls, and a boxy standing-height form make it feel less like a tent and more like a mobile room perched above the vehicle.
Flashlight Refuses to Step Down
What is it: Wuben's X1 Pro stuffs 12,300 lumens, five Cree emitters, dual 21700 batteries, and USB-C power-bank output into a flat pocketable body. The trick is a removable waterproof cooling fan that helps it sustain 3,000 lumens for 1.8 hours, while a physical slider switches instantly between spot, flood, or both beams at once.
Cans Finally Drink Like Glass
What is it: Japanese designer Shu Kanno's DraftPro is a $60 can opener built to remove the entire top of a drink can in one controlled twist. Made in Japan, the compact tool turns beer, sparkling water, and canned cocktails into wide-mouth pours, opening space for aroma, ice, citrus, and garnishes without needing extra glassware or a separate cup.
IKEA Inflates a Real Chair
What is it: At Milan Design Week, IKEA finally showed Mikael Axelsson's PS 2026 Easy Chair, a 2014 inflatable concept that hides air chambers inside a chrome tube frame and upholstered green fabric. The result looks more like a proper lounge chair than a pool toy, and it arrives with the tenth IKEA PS collection on May 13.
Lexus Adds Two Extra Wheels
What is it: At Milan Design Week, Lexus showed the LS Concept inside its SPACE installation, turning its flagship into a six-wheel, chauffeur-first luxury pod. First seen at the 2025 Japan Mobility Show, the long flat-roof concept drops the spindle grille, expands cabin volume with twin rear axles, and redefines LS as "Space," not "Sedan," inside Lexus' future-facing design story.
BRABUS Goes Electric and Loud
What is it: BRABUS and DAB Motors used Milan Design Week to launch three electric motorcycles built on the DAB 1a platform: the DAB 1a BRABUS, BRABUS URBAN E, and 40-unit FIRST EDITION. A 72-volt 7.1-kWh battery, 150-km range, and 120-km/h top speed sit beneath carbon bodywork and colors like Superviolet, Peetch, Desert Sand, and Fusion Red.
Mushrooms Harvest the Room
What is it: Spoa is a conceptual trio of mushroom-like home devices designed to collect wasted electromagnetic energy and store it for later charging. Cap Spoa sits flat on surfaces, Slim Spoa slides into tight spaces behind appliances, and Stem Spoa extends an antenna to capture denser fields, turning background household emissions into reusable power for gadgets and small electronics.
Origami Gives Robots Muscles
What is it: Princeton engineers built a soft robot that moves without motors or gears by combining origami structures, embedded flexible electronics, and heat-responsive liquid crystal elastomer. Their demo robotic crane flaps its wings when localized heating activates printed hinges, showing a path toward lighter, smaller soft robots that can handle delicate work and navigate spaces rigid machines can't.
Earbuds Start Seeing for You
What is it: VueBuds are experimental AI earbuds with tiny black-and-white cameras that snap still images, then answer questions about what the wearer is looking at. Built by University of Washington researchers, they use under 5 mW for imaging, performed strongly on object and title tasks, and reached Ray-Ban Meta-level response quality in user testing despite their minimalist hardware.
This Screwdriver Cocks Like a Rifle
What is it: Cawom's Dream Knight ratcheting screwdriver stores six quarter-inch bits in a revolver-style magazine, then loads them into the chuck with a spring-loaded bolt action. The Kickstarter tool comes in an aluminum Basic model and a titanium Founder Plus, both designed to turn gun-like theatrics into something surprisingly practical for everyday repairs, tightening jobs, and quick toolkit carry.
A Rugged Tablet Packs a Projector
What is it: 8849's Tank Pad Ultra turns a field tablet into a Swiss Army slab by adding a built-in 1080p DLP projector, laser rangefinder, night vision, and a 23,400-mAh battery. The rugged 5G device throws up to 120 inches at 260 lumens, carries IP68/IP69K protection, and starts at $599 despite weighing a hefty 1.3 kg.
Your Fridge Gets Its Own UPS
What is it: Bluetti's FridgePower is a 3-inch-thick backup battery designed specifically to sit above or beside a refrigerator and keep it running through outages. The 2,016-Wh unit switches over in 10 milliseconds, can power a standard 18-to-22-cubic-foot fridge for up to 22 hours, and expands to 8 kWh with add-on packs for much longer emergencies.
Microwaves Print Circuits on Anything
What is it: Rice University engineers built Meta-NFS, a microwave-focusing device that lets 3D printers fuse conductive ink in real time without cooking the surface underneath. By concentrating energy into a spot smaller than 200 micrometers, it can print working electronics onto delicate targets like bone, tissue, and living plants, opening stranger paths for embedded devices and bio-integrated tech.
One Slab Replaces Your Desk
What is it: VitaLink unveiled a foldable portable workstation that merges a 13-inch 3840x1600 touchscreen and full-size keyboard into a 20mm aluminum slab. The device connects to laptops, tablets, phones, mini PCs, and gaming handhelds over USB-C, aiming to replace the usual mess of separate keyboards, monitors, stands, and adapters with one single travel-friendly object for creators.
Ebikes Deploy Landing Gear
What is it: Swiss company ecowerk built the Manta, a fully enclosed two-wheel ebike that deploys small wheeled outriggers like landing gear when riders stop or move slowly. A 500-watt hub motor, 1,500-Wh battery, roof solar panels, optional folding panels, and a sleeping setup turn it into part velomobile, part solar camper.
Samsung Gives AI a Face
What is it: At Milan Design Week 2026, Samsung Design's Open Lab showed an AI Companion shaped like a smooth sphere with an expressive circular face. Its top lifts open like a head to reveal a projector that throws games and interactive content onto nearby surfaces, turning a smart-home device into something warmer, more social, and strangely alive.
Yamaha Gives Pens a Beat
What is it: Yamaha's Swing Scribe is a writing instrument designed to move like a metronome. Created through the company's Scribe Tool Design project, it uses a weighted tip on a metal bar to swing as you write, feeding rhythm back into the hand. Users can slide the weight to change the pen's tempo, resistance, and mood.
Casely Recall Flares Again
What is it: Casely is again recalling about 429,200 5,000mAh MagSafe Power Pods, model E33A, after the CPSC said the chargers can overheat, catch fire, and cause burns. Sold online from March 2022 to September 2024, the batteries were linked to 28 new incidents after last year's recall, including one airplane fire and a fatal burn case in New Jersey.
Pocket 4 Dominates Vlogging
What is it: Engadget's review says DJI's Osmo Pocket 4 turns an already beloved vlogging camera into a stronger low-light, cinematic tool. The pocket gimbal adds a 1-inch sensor, 4K at 240fps, full 10-bit D-Log, 107GB of onboard storage, better controls, and longer battery life, though there's still no optical zoom and no U.S. launch.
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