Designer Alex Suvajac apparently thinks so. Obviously frogs inspire him. The result is a sleek concept track bike that looks a lot like an aerodynamic racing amphibian on two wheels. It is as much a work of art as it is a bike, blending space age and technological looks with nature.

I’m not sure about leaning that far forward to hold onto the handlebars. Then again, this beauty is obviously built for speed and since “being one with nature” is obviously the theme, why not lean into it and merge with the frame. Hopefully, that doesn’t mean swallowing a bug or two along the way. As cool as this bike is, it remains just a concept for the moment. It is however, proof that nature has a lot to offer when combined with technology. Especially aesthetically.

Of course it’s the fall and the days of summer are fast falling behind us but before you pack up the pool equipment there is one final thingy we want to show you. This is the Medusa pool light, a solar autonomous floating lamp for swimming pools. Toss one of these organic looking devices into your backyard pool and it will light up the water for your nighttime swims. The tentacles look to be made from fiber optics and gently twist and turn around in the current. The great thing about it is that since it gets all of its energy from the sun you never need to charge it up.

Take a look at this super-portable DVD player concept designed by Yeon-shin Seung. The design looks similar to the ultra-portable CD player concept we say back in August but incorporates a flexible display screen that scrolls up which would be made he Sony full color flexible organic electroluminescent display material, according to the designer.

It starts out looking like a candy bar style phone and the top half swivels to expose a speaker, DVD controls and a place to turn the DVD. The screen then pulls up like a rolled up projector screen to provide the display. Pretty cool.

Unfortunately the iSlide is still a conceptual transport device, but the idea looks pretty good and it’s getting some due attention. Designed by Ofir Tal in Israel, the iSlide would be powered by a hydrogen fuel cell to provide clean, personal transportation in a similar fashion to a Segway, but in a skateboard-like design.

The iSlide has a single wheel in the center that drives it, and is controlled by tilting it forward to move forward and back to slow down. The ends appear to also have some “wheely bars” to help with balance and it even has a light on the front for traveling at night. It’s top speed is a little under 10 miles an hour which isn’t too bad for a skateboard.

via GoodCleanTech

This design concept from Franziska Faoro is called the Triops and consists of 3 fish-eye digital camera lenses facing in 3 separate directions allowing it to take 360 degree panoramic shots. What’s really cool about the device is that it can take them on its own at unexpected moments.

The Triops will take pictures in reaction to movements or sound and can be thrown and take the photos in mid-air. It can also be set to take shots manually and then send them wirelessly to a separate viewing/storage/docking station. This design is still a concept at this point but is definitely something we think would be fun to own.

Take a look at this design concept of a CD-playing athletic shoe. (We had considered titling this post “BoomShoe” but then thought again.) It comes with everything you need to play CD’s built-in, including a compact disc player, speaker, tweeters and a small knob for volume. It even has some controls for play, stop, forward and back embedded into the side.

The design picture is pretty cool but I would bet you would have some real “skipping” problems with this one. Throw in some Flash memory and a small LCD screen and I think we would really have something.

via Guzer

Mitsubishi took the wraps off of a new zero-emission, all-electric concept car called the e MIEV Sport. Aside from having a pretty cool look to it, the i MIEV Sport features a couple less-common additions to add juice back to the battery while driving.

As with many other electric and hybrid cars, this one uses a regenerative braking system, but also adds a solar roof and small wind turbines built into the front grill. Additions like these aren’t going to make a drastic difference in the range, but adding a convex solar roof was found to bring as much as an additional 20 mile range to a Prius. The turbines would likely be less, but certainly can’t hurt.

Take a look at this iRing design concept by Victor Soto used to control any Apple media device including iPods and the iPhone. The ring charges in its own custom-sized cradle and has a small OLED display inside the small Apple logo that indicates it’s current status of play or pause, which can then be toggled by touch. Sliding a finger across the ring one way or the other will adjust the volume and the ring can be locked by squeezing your finger to avoid inadvertent touches. The ring can be used play, pause, move tracks back and forward and control the volume of an iPod or iPhone wirelessly, and will instantly identify you beyond the shadow of a doubt as a tried and true Apple fanboy.

Maybe it’s because many of us geeks heated up wires with electricity to create a make-shift toaster as our 5th grade science project, or possibly it’s that toast is one of the tried and true breakfast foods that we have trouble screwing up? Whatever the reason toasters seem to be a popular item with gadget lovers everywhere, despite a limited variety of designs available to consumers.

When we saw this transparent toaster concept we couldn’t help but share. It uses heated glass to burn a single piece of bread in plain view right before your eyes, eliminating all guessing as to what setting your toaster needs today to get it just right. How to clean it and where the crumbs go and how you get your toast out of it may still have to be worked out, but we’d be one of the first few in line to give it a try.

What happens when a Japanese electronics manufacturer gets back to the basics when teaming up with a Japanese PHS operator? Something only Sanyo and Willcom could produce, The Wilcon!

This little gem of technology has a battery that is capable of 250 standby hours and 5 hours of talk-time. What kind of special battery is this you ask? A single AAA battery, making this the first ever cell phone to have such a power source. Now if only they could make the device a little more aesthetically pleasing and bring it stateside I’d have a phone to recommend to all those people who complain about having extra “bells and whistles”.

But this phone is so basic it ironically almost makes up for the lack of features. The Wilcon, however, will not work on 3g networks.

via AkihabaraNews

The idea behind this conceptual design is to provide an additional “safety net” of storage for your computers deleted items. The Tempo is an external 250GB (the site indicated Gb, but we’re guessing they meant bytes for this to be practical) hard drive that connects to your PC or Mac via Bluetooth and monitors your deleted items. Each time you delete files from your computer they are stored on the Tempo trash drive where they can be recovered if needed, providing you another layer of recovery for those accidentally deleted items.

The device itself is shaped like a little trash can that can sit on your desk withing Bluetooth range of your computer to wireless transfer the files. LED indicators on the Tempo drive light from the bottom up indicating at a glance how full the …

Check out this portable CD player concept by Yong-Seong Kim we found over at Yanko Designs. The device looks a little longer than the radius of a CD and can store and play MP3’s just like a normal portable MP3 player might. If you have a CD that for some odd reason you haven’t ripped to MP3’s (maybe you want that original, old-school CD quality sound) you can spread out the arms of the MP3 player, slide in a CD and play away. It would also be really cool if you could use it to read data from a CD or rip your CD’s directly to the device.

via RGS

Researchers at the University of Magdeburg-Stendal in Germany are coming close to replacing the poster-animal of fighting forest fires from Smokey the Bear to a robot beetle. The OLE beetle would be used to patrol a large area of forest on its own using infrared and biosensors to detect fires in their early stage. Once detected OLE can move towards the fire as fast at 20km/hour depending on the terrain to report the location of the fire and attempt to put it out using an impulse appliance.

OLE is designed from the pill millipede which can roll itself into a protective ball. Should OLE be overcome with the fire it can roll itself into a ball and retract its legs and withstand temperatures of up to 1,300 degrees centigrade without damaging the internal …

When I’m riding in a plane I love to see those little LCD’s in the seat that show you exactly where the plane is at as it follows it’s flight path, and just how much further we have to go. So it makes sense to me that kids would appreciate that as well, not to mention the chance that it might cut down on some of the repeated questions regarding our ETA.

For this device, Popular Mechanics got a look inside the test facility for Volkswagen to see what kinds of things they were working on. This particular gadget is a child navigation system which has an LCD screen that shows the child a simple form of the planned route from the car’s GPS. It also shows descriptions of …

If you are looking for ways to beat the heat as you slave away in front of your workstation we’re here to tempt you with things that you can’t get just yet. What you’re looking at is a USB capsule fan that can be carried around in your pocket, a proposed design that we saw floating around on the web.

Snap off the plastic top, connect the fan into a free USB port, attach the device to your monitor or use the base to position it somewhere on your desk and then have some cool air blow at you as the mini fans oscillate back and forth. It’s a great idea and we especially love the compact design of the device. There’s no other details for this invention or whether it’s being actively pushed by its inventor(s) but it’s something that we would definitely …