With the arrival of netbooks and the iPad, computers are getting smaller and smaller – but compared to what we’ll be sporting five years from now, they’re still downright clunky. The computer of the future isn’t just teeny tiny – it’s a wearable fashion accessory that gets its power from our daily movements.

The HOLO 2.0, dreamed up by a group of designers as the next-generation computer in the year 2015, looks sort of like a sporty bracelet but performs all of the same functions as your laptop.

Its battery is charged by the kinetic movements of your hand, and it includes an interactive holographic display that projects photos, chat, web browsers and other computer functions. Need a bigger display? No problem, say the HOLO 2.0 designers – you can simply hook it up to the included desktop docking station.

It’s streamlined, sexy and green – what’s not to love? Well, there is one catch: a lot of the technology included in this concept is still entirely theoretical. As of right now, there’s no mobile device that can project 3D holographic displays into thin air. Still, it’s intriguing enough to make us cross our fingers that it all works out and preemptively ask, “Where can we get one?”

Images: tuvie

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The kitchen could be considered the hub of a home. It’s the spot where people congregate at parties, despite protests from the hostess; it’s the place a family gathers to break bread as often as three times a day.

There are all types of kitchens. We’ve shown you recycled or sustainable parts and entire islands of green. But I can’t recall setting my eyes on living or growing.

The Flow2 kitchen isn’t for the faint of heart. It gets down and dirty; it reveals the cycle of life from potted plants to edible food to composted waste to fertile fertilizer to potted plants. And round we go.

It’s a cool, cutting edge concept by the Oregon-based Studio Gorm team of John Arndt and Wonhee Jeong. And it’s their second go of it. The first kitchen, Flow or the kitchen of terrestrial mechanics, was Arndt’s graduate degree project.

Updated and more flexible, the designers have taken the idea of conservation and efficient living (or eating or cooking or growing) to a new level.

Case in point (see image above): The hanging dish rack drips water on the herbs and plants arranged below. The refrigerator is cooled via an evaporation cooling process (sounds fancy, but it involves H2O and not much more), rejecting the need for a large energy-guzzling fridge. There’s a cutting board that slides away to reveal a composting bin below with live worms read to nosh. And the list goes on.

The flow of Flow2 is indeed seamless, but is it feasible or just a fantasy? Whatever it is, it’s cutting edge…and just a concept for now. Time will surely tell.

– via Dezeen

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