This Crystal Fragment turns everything you see into 8-bit Pixel Art, and it’s FASCINATING

There is no denying that modern graphic resolutions have reached unachievable heights. Yet, there are many with an emotional connect to pixelated style: an art form that rekindles memories of early computers and video game graphics. If you’re one of them, who rejoices the blurring the lines between analog and digital, you can (when available) lay hands on the Pixel Mirror that creates an inverted pixel image of what’s behind it.

The wearable Pixel Mirror, developed by Hakusi Katei aka Monoli, a Japanese material designer and Ph.D. in engineering, is a crystal that reduces the resolution of what’s behind it – regardless of distance and movement – leaving you with a pixel art of what you are looking at.

Designer: Monoli

Made from light-colored transparent crystal in forest green, gray, and colorless variant, the Pixel Mirror is designed for use in bright environments. While for some of us, it’s only a gimmicky wearable (more on the aspect later) it might have real utility for artists and painters, who can leverage from the immediate, readable fat swatches of the scene behind the prism you’re looking through.

The Pixel Mirror measures 16mm x 16mm x 10mm, which means it’s small enough to be worn as a pendant in a necklace. Monoli’s series of wearable and handheld prisms are all handmade, and because of the nature of polishing natural stones, they are not perfect square “pixels”. They are handmade to suit the condition of the available stone.

After the Pixel Mirror, Monoli now has the Pixel Window in works, which as the artist puts it, “the lens minecrafts scenery without electricity.”  Pixel Mirror is on sale in Japan for ¥ 19,800 (roughly $120). If you’re outside of Japan, you’ll want to keep an eye on Monoli’s tweets for information on international availability.

The post This Crystal Fragment turns everything you see into 8-bit Pixel Art, and it’s FASCINATING first appeared on Yanko Design.

Holographic Pants: A Vision of the Future

You know what your closet has been missing? Holographic pants. My closet? My closet is missing a door. And while Düsseldorf, Germany-based Etsy seller ReflectiveClo might not be able to help me; they can help you with these iridescent “holographic” pants that appear to bend space-time in bright light. I can imagine myself getting sucked into a wormhole my pants accidentally created.

Created using ReflectiveClo’s self-developed material, the $79 pants are “one-of-a-kind and so comfortable you will want to wear them all the time no matter the occasion.” Hmmm – no matter the occasion, you say? A wedding? Why not! A funeral? They could always use some brightening up anyways.

Pants not your thing? Mine either! I hate wearing those things. Thankfully, they also sell shorts, jackets, tracksuits, hats, bikinis, and even dog coats made out of the same material. I’m going to be shining so bright I’ll be visible from space. Take me with you, aliens – please!

[via ThisIsWhyImBroke]

Yes, the Patriot Act amendment to track us online is real

Just being able to calmly purchase toilet paper feels like reason enough to celebrate these days. But one thing a lot of people won’t be cracking champagne over this month is the renewal of the Patriot Act/USA Freedom Act — and its terrible inclusion...

Tashi Bharucha’s graphic design background helped him make the iconic Prism blade

The Prism bases itself off a legend of sorts. Inspired by the Church, a wildly popular knife by Tashi Bharucha, the Prism is smaller, more fortified, and just as iconic. Bharucha started off as a graphic designer with a mere penchant for knives. His sense of style, proportion, symmetry, and form helped him carry his skills to knife-designing, allowing him to create the iconic Church, and then redesign it as the small-yet-stunning Prism.

Measuring 7.4 inches when opened, the Prism comes with an eye-catching skeletonized handle made from two titanium parts brought together. Sitting between them is the Prism’s money-bringer, its 3.4-inch blade, made from RWL34 stainless steel. The custom steel, named after legendary knifemaker Robert W. Loveless, is characterized by its high edge strength, toughness, hardness after heat treatment, and corrosion resistance. Couple that with the Prism’s spear-point shape and it’s already a winner. The blade works like a charm for piercing and slicing (you could use it outdoors, or to open boxes… it’s your choice, really), and swivels right into the skeletal handle when not in use. While it can be opened any way you like, a small cutout in the blade’s body is perfectly placed for you to flick it open with your middle finger. If that isn’t the most badass way to deploy a blade, I don’t know what is. And you know what makes things even better? The Prism’s lifetime warranty.

Designers: Massdrop & Tashi Bharucha

Court says data swept up by the NSA is protected by the Fourth Amendment

An appeals court may have just shaped how the US treats the NSA's bulk data collection. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that American communications scooped up under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act's Section 702 and PRISM is...

FISA court: FBI use of NSA’s electronic surveillance data was illegal

A US court ruled that some of the FBI's electronic surveillance activities violated the constitutional privacy rights of Americans. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) deemed that FBI officials improperly searched a National Security A...

Samsung’s customizable refrigerator comes in nine colors and eight sizes

Samsung wants to capitalize on consumers who value personal tastes and experiences, and they plan to do so with refrigerators. Yesterday, Samsung revealed Project PRISM, or what it's calling a "new era of customized home appliances." The first produc...

The AR Headset that puts sound first

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Jonggun Kim realizes something pretty important with AR and VR adoption. We’re less likely to adopt it if it’s alien to our current lifestyle. No one currently carries (or needs to carry) a VR or AR headset with them so the only way to make them more widespread is to actively integrate them into one’s way of living.

No one carries headsets around with them, but there’s a large portion of the population that carries headphones with them. Realizing that, the Prism is an AR headset that transforms into an innocuous pair of headphones. With a HUD that slides upwards and downwards, you can turn the Prism from an immersive audio-visual AR experience, to a pair of headphones. Giving you the power to switch between modes, the Prism does something clever by making you actively adopt one technology by providing you with an alternative that seems more acceptable and commonplace. The headphones get used pretty much every day, while the Prism weans you onto AR by constantly being an available option that’s just one HUD-swivel away!

Designer: Jonggun Kim

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