21st-Century Bedside Clock

I'm staying in a hotel as I write this, and I'll tell you one thing: I'm not using my room's alarm clock. It's some feature-packed beast that I don't know how to use, and I don't want to learn - my phone will work just fine, thank you. Of course, that means I had to dig behind the bedside table to find an outlet to plug in my phone charger.  It's people like me who must be target users for this bedside clock, which swaps out the alarm (de-emphasized or perhaps not even present) for two gloriously convenient USB charging ports. Add a simple LED clock for midnight time checks, and leave all the other features behind - I don't need them. Welcome to the 21st century!
[via Gizmodo]

Design for Digital Mortality

One interesting aspect of the newness of digital services and accounts is that not much thought has been put into former users who are... no longer alive. Eventually, users and companies should should consider the inevitable: who will inherit your iTunes and Kindle libraries? What will happen to your Facebook page and Twitter feed? I'm not sure about those companies, but Google's got a plan with its Inactive Account Manager. Without ever mentioning death explicitly, the system offers the steps you'd want to consider, enabling you to automatically notify contacts, share data, and delete the account entirely.  It's good forward thinking - because in this case, a little late is definitely too late!
[via Engadget]

Situation-Specific Design: Sony's Prison Radio

Most of the attention in gadget design goes to the latest and greatest high-tech toys for first-world consumers - but that's not the only customer who can benefit from thoughtful design. The audio player of choice in prisons isn't cloud-based, streaming, MP3, or even CDs: it's the simple Sony SRF-39FP AM/FM radio. It features a clear housing so it won't be broken open to check for contraband; it eschews anything fancy, like digital reception, to conserve power and deliver more listening time for the prisoner's battery purchase.  And of course, as a radio it comes with a built-in range of never-ending free content. The right design choices for the situation are what makes it, as the New Yorker's Joshua Hunt writes, The iPod of Prison.
[via Gizmodo]

Negative-Space Packaging

ColaLife asks an intriguing question: "Coca-Cola seems to get everywhere in developing countries, yet essential medicines don't. Why?"  Coke is highly profitable, so it's developed a huge distribution network to every corner of the planet - a network that can be piggybacked by a clever design to help bring crucial anti-diarrhea medicine to those who need it. ColaLife's Kit Yamoyo is designed to fit in the "negative space" of a Coca-Cola crate, nestling between the bottles without adding any volume to the overall package. This way, it can utilize an existing distribution system to help people at virtually no cost. It's almost enough to make selling sugarwater seem noble!
[via Core77]

The dreaded "Perfectly Ambiguous Typo"

I was playing a board game the other night (I'm just that cool), when we needed to consult the instructions - and encountered what I'm calling a Perfectly Ambiguous Typo. That's where either of two possible meanings is equally likely, the context provides no clues, and the error could easily have been made either way. Behold: Nore than one playing piece can occupy a single square. It could be "More" or "No more," either meaning is viable, nothing around it suggests one versus other, and it's an easy typo to make from either original text. Fortunately, the problem was averted: the baby decided it was bedtime, so we never finished the game!

NOTA Mug keeps your spoon in check

For drinks that need repeated stirring - I'm thinking hot cocoa, but designer Lee Hae Seung Scott's experience is tea or coffee with condensed milk - the required spoon can be a nuisance. When taking a sip, the spoon handle must be held out of the way to keep from banging into your mouth. Scott's NOTA Mug design provides a fix, holding the spoon in a designated spot - which is cleverly aligned with the handle, the one place you'd never try to sip from! It's an elegantly simple fix to a longstanding problem.
[via Gizmodo & Yanko Design]

Venn Diagram Menu: "Vennu?"

Venn Diagrams are already beloved by geeks, but I've always thought they deserved to a part of the general conceptual lexicon. So here's to Giddy Up Coffee in the UK for framing their grill menu as one! The logic is clean, the pricing is understandable, and the food sounds delicious.
[Cory Doctorow on BoingBoing, via Gizmodo]