Personally, I'm a bit baffled as to why Sony unveiled this range (which is called 'odo'). From a styling point of view they're deeply unprepossessing, and let's face it, since windup radios have been around for a while, these aren't particularly revolutionary in concept. I'm normally a big fan of Sony's industrial design department, who do an excellent job in spite of being hampered at every turn by their bosses' insistence on lumping everything with a proprietary format... but this leaves me totally cold. I mean, what is that viewer thing?
Personally, my feeling is that somebody took their eye off the ball here. IMHO, there are relatively few people that actually need to watch a DVD in the bathroom; basically, it's a prop for your make-believe life where you live in the future. These gadgets do not, it seems to me, have that "just dropped in from 2059" look which is the prerequisite for this sort of gadgetry. They're clunky - even the camera, which is definitely the best of the bunch. They just don't fit into the 'living in the future' story that gadgeteers like to tell themselves. And maybe I'm missing something, but the technology, while admirable, doesn't seem to me to be sufficiently exciting to distract from the clunky design.
On the other hand, this is Japan we're talking about. Where even the trains have cute little ears. So maybe it's just jarring to my Western sensibilities.
A few photos here
4 comments:
Great find -
Reminds me of a scene from late '60's Star Trek or the future-model cars of the 70's (Oddly the Ford Siera & Vauxhaul Cavalier did look somewhat like the predictions, being as they were the result of wind-tunnels)
Apparently nothing new from an Enabling Tachnology view point
I wonder what the solar-panel-looking-thing far right, by the sign, is?
I believe it's a 'juice box' - a recharging box which you can plug your other odo items into to charge them up.
I dunno, I like it. It's kitchsy.
I'm not sure that kitschy style and earnest self-generating design really rub along well together - after all, kitsch has to be the ultimate in short-term, ephemeral style... but whatever. But come on: that viewer thing? That's going to be a pain in the ass to use.
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