The current global climate and environmental crisis has given rise to concerns about a sustainable future. With the rising pollution levels, the future seems bleak and in fact oxygen will soon turn into a luxury that only a few can afford. Reminding you of this need to preserve and protect our environment is designer Pedro Gomes. With his concept o3 Oxygen Bottle, the designer highlights the need to become environmentally conscious to ensure a future. The concept bottle is a project that urges people to realize the urgency and realize the seriousness of the situation and possibility that oxygen might not be available so easily once the pollution levels rise. In fact the designer imagines people will have to go to the grocery store to purchase oxygen and have oxygen tracking applications in their mobiles. That’s when the o3 bottle comes into play. Acting as personal unit for your daily oxygen supply, it provides oxygen through compressed oxygens refill units that can be refilled at your local oxygen supplier. Twisting the refill unit lets you adjust the membrane to your lips and control oxygen flow.

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Designer Adam Nagy from Budapest has captured my attention with his concept Polyurethane safety boots. The main aim of his design was to reflect the values of Bata Industrials through the design of the polyurethane safety boot. The sleek boot is designed in line with EU standards and features two soles. It was designed to look and feel like the ‘ultimate gumboot’. Looking futuristic in its white colored body with green colored soles, these Polyurethane safety boots are definitely a class apart.

[Coroflot]

Planning to hit the frosty white slopes with your snowboard anytime soon? Well, here’s something that might interest you and make your trip up there a tad easier. Burton’s Snowboard Bag works just great, packing your snowboard and everything else you’ll require up the hills. No longer do you need to juggle around with your snowboard, boots and stuff while in the ski-lift taking you up. Just slide in your snowboard in the reinforced space, slip in your boots in the interior space of the bag, strap on your Burton Snowboard Bag and you’re all ready to go.

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Railway Foot Over Bridges are a usual site on the Indian Railway. All over the country, station are interconnected by bridges, besides subways beneath. Now, carrying a suitcase from one platform across to another can be troublesome at times. The stations at times are equipped with slopes instead of steps to access these bridges. Not all of them feature this though. So, one may need to carry all those heavy wheeled suitcases up a flight of stairs. Well, dump those old suitcases and use the Mounty Travel Trolley Bags instead. Bigger wheels pop out of its side by using a lever. So you don’t need to carry the bag vertically up the flight of stairs. The wheels help you pull it over the steps. Once done and at the top. Simply use the lever again and the big wheels go back into place, making the bag a regular trolley.

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Lunch boxes, those friendly rectangular containers that carry our lunches when we’re far away from home, at work or school perhaps, are destined for a change in design. A Japanese brand, Metaphys, came up with the Ojue lunch box. This one is so designed to have a slim base, meaning that it can be stacked up and easily placed into a slim bag too. The lunch box is made up of three separate units that can be combined, depending on how much food needs to be carried. Using a polypropylene body and lid with an ABS resin cover, the Ojue can also be used in a microwave. Measuring around 160mm x 160.5mm x 55mm, the lunch box’s three compartments have storage capacities ranging from 140mL (upper), 300mL (middle) to 300mL (bottom). The box also contains an in-built pair of chopsticks and a holder too.

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Ever had that annoying situation wherein you step home from a rainy outside with a folded wet and dripping umbrella in your hand? Not exactly sure how to get it to dry? You could simply prop it up between the sponges in the Lawn For Rain umbrella holder, that keeps your umbrellas upright and dry. Designed by Cun-Min Zheng, Yan-Zhen Li & Xin-Yu Wang, the Lawn for Rain (a really unattractive name) has its sponges soak in the water from your umbrella. That’s not all. Tiny plants at the bottom of the umbrella holder are watered with this. So you really do your bit with your little green buddies by quenching their thirst with water right out of the clouds.

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Dragging your luggage behind you on a railway station or the airport can literally be a pain in your neck, your hands and legs too. Things are different now, and pushing or pulling luggage is a whole lot easier, if you happen to go packing with Agent’s Move On wheeled luggage. Now this is much more than a normal suitcase with wheels. The Move On luggage range with a little on-the-spot tweaking turns into a scooter too! So you can have your kid riding besides you instead of walking along with him whimpering while you drag the luggage.

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Many folks are choosy about their luggage. And if you too are one such person in search of that perfect luggage that is both sleek and sturdy, we are sure you will the concept luggage designed by Diane Gallardo. Dressed in black, Diane Gallardo’s concept luggage boats of two wheels at the bottom that help you move it easily. Smart and stylish, it looks large enough to store your wardrobe for that weekend getaway.

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These day’s you are spoilt for choice when it comes to buying a lighting fixture for your home. But if you like contemporary designs, I recommend you opt for the unique Bucky lamp designed by Studio Lagranja for Pallucco. Unveiled at the Salone del Mobile 2010 in Milan, this lighting fixture wins your heart with its design and functionality. The shape of this lamp is inspired by a kite and pays tribute to Richard Buckminster ‘Bucky’ Fuller, the visionary American architect and designer who was the first to experiment with tensile structures. The lamp has been made using the very same tensile structures. One can expect the lamp to bathe you in a colorful glow if the three rods, realized in 700-mm milk-white blown glass, are equipped with orange or purple glass filters. But the best part is that this lamp is available as a pendant light, a table lamp and a floor lamp.

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Who says soft toys have to always look cute and cuddly? Graphic designer Hildur Hermanns has given a new look and role to the cuddly toys by creating her own line of toys, dubbed the VeikYndi. VeikYndi (Icelandic for “SickNices”) is a collection of offbeat stuffed monsters that are like a psychedelic version of Care Bears. The purpose of these monster toys is to cheer up sick children. Her collection of stuffed monsters consists of 8 monsters, each battling a sickness. The sick toys expect the children to love and nurse them to health. In this process, the designer hopes to cheer up the children. Hákon, one of the monsters, suffers from heatstroke and boasts of red eyes and yellow dreadlocks pulled into a ponytail. He needs a loving child to feed him water and cool him down. She came up with the concept as part of her graduation project from the esteemed Iceland Academy of the Arts, and hopes to one day see them fully developed into a cartoon. Until then, let’s hope the kids take a liking to these stuffed monsters.

[Coolhunting]

The HoodieBuddie is all set to start a revolution in the hoodie market. The HoodieBuddie can be termed as one high-tech piece of garment. The string of the regular hoodie has been replaced by earbuds! The front right pocket has a 3.5mm jack, which runs inside the hoodie up to the little earbud-things! Smart, genius and oh-so-wow! But here is the best part, it’s machine-washable! Yup, so no need to fret if you spill a glass of water on yourself or even step out into a light drizzle with this hoodie on.

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If diamonds are a girl’s best friend, then shoes are her “sole” mates (pun intended). Only a girl can understand the joy a new pair of shoes give. And if shoes are on your mind, a look at Dsquared2’s fall/winter 2010 collection of shoes is definitely a must. The collection features some of the most unique skeletal stilettos. The shoes are mostly plain with lace-up side details on some, straps and simple leather patterns on others. But it’s the heel that gives them the style. Every shoe features a heel that looks like it has been made from a spinal column. Spooky yet oh so cool, these shoes with a spine, are sure to help you become the trendsetter this season.

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When Jeff Webber injured his left foot five years, he definitely did not expect the discomfort that was caused to him by the standard crutches handed to him by the hospital staff. Weber's hands chaffed and his wrists ached because of poorly designed, badly placed grips. So he finally decided to take matters into his own hands once he recovered. The fact that he is seating designer by profession and an apprentice to Bill Stumpf, a legendary pioneer of ergonomic design, only helped him in his pursuit of creating comfortable crutches. Weber began by working out sketches and eventually took them back to his Minneapolis studio to create prototypes. He also couldn’t find anyone who had redone the standard crutch that was both well-designed and affordable to the masses.

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Since I love dogs, any item that is made to pamper my four legged buddy never ceases to appeal to me. The latest item to have succeeded in wooing me is the unique concept the Empyrean Pet Lounge by designer Zorana Brnovic. Like its name suggests, this lounge will become your pet’s heaven on earth. A unique abode for your pooch, this lounge with its unusual circular shape is truly a class apart. It looks like a giant ball with hollow insides that make for a luxurious setting for your pooch. Since no information is given, we have no clue what materials have been used for this lounge.

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Indian designer Hakkim Roshan has designed a unique concept that will let you flaunt different styles of footwear without investing in new ones. Confused? Let me explain. The Designers concept shoes proposal for Adidas, christened the Adidas Switch comprises of a simple strap cut from soft goods' waste. These straps can be used to close the shoe. Furthermore, the wearer can customize these straps according to his/her wishes and even mix several colors or can even paint or draw on these straps to personalize! Thus letting you flaunt a different style every day. By attaching a Velcro closure to the strap, one can eliminate the use of a plastic bag to carry the shoes in, and directly carry the box instead.

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