Pong has taken many strange twists and turns through our culture since the 70s and has somehow endured, despite it’s simple nature. Well, it’s back again and this time the game takes place on a table, allowing you to play and then dine. Or dine and then play a game for dessert. It’s from the mind of Moritz Waldemeyer. The table uses 2400 LEDs for display and has 2 trackpads.

Turned on, the trackpads let users control the paddles. Turn it off and it’s just a plain table again. It was part of MOMA’s Elastic Mind exhibit. I for one would love to see it go into production, but somehow I doubt it will. For one thing, it would force you to clear the table everytime you want a game and that’s just a bit too much if you love Pong and dining.

The XYZ Computer Desk has an awesome sleek design and gives the Sync some competition. It’s beautiful and at the same time easily upgradeable. The best part of course, is that you have the full computer right there, but it’s taking up no extra room.

All of the components and cables are inside the desk. Whenever you need to upgrade, just open the lid. The CDRW/DVD, USB and Hot Keys are on the side. It’s just a concept at the moment, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see it go into production. It certainly makes life easier and saves space. Plus, it’s just plain pleasant to look at.

Now building a computer into a desk is a great idea, the problem is that you don’t always want to use your computer when you use the desk. That’s why Gareth Battensby’s Sync concept is a good one. The massive flip-up LCD sells me on the idea. The illuminated keyboard doesn’t hurt either.

The main thing is that Gareth has made sure you can actually use Sync as a desk when you want to. It was designed as a final year project for his degree, so sadly, Sync is unlikely to see the light of day. Very sad indeed, because aside from the practicality, it’s also a lovely piece of furniture.

The NES Coffee Table is one of the coolest mods we’ve seen recently. Get this, it’s not just decorative. You can actually use it as a controller during game play, and it also provides excellent space for storing away all of your gaming gear.

There’s only one problem that I can see. It’s a conversation piece for sure, but once your guests see it, that’s ALL they are going to talk about, asking a zillion questions, like “how much?” and “will you make me one?”.
Check out a video below.

At some point in time it becomes necessary to move beyond the milk cartons and cardboard boxes you house your A/V gear in. One relatively new A/V cabinet we are eying is the AVSC-2061E from Bell’O, pricing at around $700.

Bell’o’s AVSC-2061E does up a nice combo of wood, glass and metal. It can hold a flat panel up to 65-inches in diameter as well as at least six audio video components and a center channel speaker. The middle shelf is adjustable as well.

Ky Michaelson, better known as the Rocketman, has been messing around with rockets most of his life and has even managed to create a few nice rocket inspired contraptions. This is the Rocket Chair. It’s what a dental chair would look like if Flash Gordon were a dentist. It will actually take off and keep you in the air for 45 seconds.

The chair is all metal and even features three wheels that have independent suspensions. A 500 Pound Thrust Hydrogen-Peroxide rocket motor sits behind the chair, which will drink up seven gallons of fuel during it’s forty five second flight. If you want to see it, it will be on display at the Bloomington Art Centre in Minnesota.

If you like recycling objects and have some extra time on your hands, then this Speaker Media Cabinet might be just the thing. You can store anything you like inside, though it won’t fit a body, you’ll have to continue using the old fashioned car trunk for that.

It would be a great place to store your entertainment media, like DVDs and console games. All you need is a pair of large junked speakers, several chopping tools, the usual array of nuts and bolts, and the will to succeed.

In our ongoing attempt to decorate Wayne Manor entirely, I present to you the latest in Bat chairs. The Half Moon chair by designer Louis Saul was recently unveiled at the imm Cologne 2008. It’s designed as a wing chair with built-in skeleton-like bright orange seat cushioning. It’s a must for those nights when you’ve just thrown the Joker in Arkham asylum once again and you just need some rest.

Just sit back and relax…Until You get that call…Or until you see this signal in the sky…Then you can forget relaxing while watching a movie in this… Such is the life of a brooding and rich super hero.

Upon first glance you might think the Globus workstation is someone’s idea of art or perhaps a giant egg cracked open. It is in fact a usable and mobile workstation designed by one Michael Van Der Kley and certainly something which beats working out of a cubicle farm.

Globus is described by Van Der Kley as a station offering flexibility in the work environment because of its rotating chair and pull out table top. It is on castors so you can roll this station around the office to make all of your officemates either jealous with envy or annoyed because you are sitting in an ugly egg.

We’ve seen a number of products featuring not just Han Solo but Han Solo frozen in carbonite, including this idea for a ‘fridge and we’ve even seen some pictures floating around of Han in carbonite built out of legos. Well now you can steal Vader’s prize to Boba Fett and have the frozen Han Solo for yourself and turned into a practical piece of furniture. This desk is actually real and was created by Tom Spina Designs for a client with an apparent love for Star Wars and some extra cash lying around.

via bbGadgets

This dinette could probably make you feel a bit dizzy if you looked at it too long. If furniture has personalities I would have to say that these could be classified as either “vertically challenged” or “objects on crack”. They’re equal parts creepy and cool. Designer Benjamin Hopf wanted to freeze them in time as they are falling apart before your eyes. But in contrast, they’re just as sturdy as most other chairs.

There’s no price listed for these on the site, but being art, I’m sure it’s inflated. It would be great to buy a bunch of this stuff and redo someone’s room while they’re away. They might be convinced that they have entered another dimension. One not of sight or sound, but one of mind…

It’s a simple enough story. First we see the human lying back, perfectly relaxed in their Armchair Paradise pod, looking quite content. Next, we see that the pod has slammed it’s jaws shut, trapping the human inside, leaving the legs exposed. It will take approximately 2.5 hours to fully digest the human mass. Midway through digestion, the legs will fall away from the structure, having not been consumed. Every pod knows that human legs are the worst part. Too stringy.

How do they lure humans inside? Total comfort of course, after a hard day’s work, plus a built-in sound system that envelopes you in sound. THAT is how they get us!

$31,500 can buy you a lot of home furniture from Ikea. You could also sink that money into one piece which will help you live out your home theater, fire blazing in the night fantasies. Meet the Vok Multimedia Fireplace.

This premium piece of wood is available in oak, birch or rosewood and comes in four sizes. You can of course guess why - for the different television sizes in the world. The largest piece will hold a LCD TV up to 52-inches.

The Mind Chair will blow your mind if the product description is accurate and can be believed. It uses sensory substitution techniques that enable the sitter to see moving images right in their brain. The nerves in the skin are the mode of transport. Cool and yet very very creepy. Just sit somebody down in this thing and you could interrogate them as if you had just pumped them full of psychotropic drugs.

The Mind Chair will be made available to curious onlookers at the MoMA in New York as part of the Design and the Electric Mind exhibition. Problem is, like a scene from some Phillip K. Dick novel, did you experience what you thought you did? Or in reality did they sit you down in that chair and brainwash you? I suppose you’ll never know. Sucks to be you. I’m staying away from the chair, thank you.

Ace Bayou, a developer of self described sound furniture, is coming out with a new recliner which will cut the cords, so to speak, when connecting to an audio device. It is called the Ace Bayou Wireless Audio Recliner. No specific word on pricing or availability.

The Ace Bayou Wireless Audio Recliner makes use of space inside the chair to “amplify sound, increase sound quality and improve the user experience.” It has a built-in 2.1 sound system with two forward-facing speakers and subwoofer.