Gizmodo: butterfly

Friendly Dragonfly Streetlamp Helps You Forget Big Bro Is Watching

Wilson Rothman — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 23:00:00 EDT

Its wings are covered with an array of bright LEDs, its head, a video camera. You see that it sees you, about to commit some misdemeanor. But it's too cute—there's no way you're in trouble.

For now, the seemingly innocuous bugs (get it? double entendre), which look a little like an ultra-low tech version of the bat bot, will make their way around Seoul and other parts of South Korea, and according to Newlaunches, will be in Tokyo soon. There's even a butterfly. How can a gentle butterfly turn you over to the cops for selling pot? There's no way that would happen!

NBS E. V. A. and Butterfly Speakers Look Like They'll Kill You

Erica Ho — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 21:00:00 EST

NBS' E. V. A. and Butterfly speaker systems are freakishly awesome and horrifying all at the same time, especially with those pointed edges. Cause, really, I thought it was a bench.

The speakers aren't obvious: the woofer faces the floor, and the apertures are on the side. All the sound reaches the listener indirectly. The speakers range from $25,000 to a whopping $200,000 if you have the money to do a good deed and stimulate the economy, all by yourself.

[NBS Electronics via Born Rich]

Backstory and Teardown of the Lenovo X300 (Components By Weight!)

Brian Lam — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 19:10:53 EST

Here's an interesting bit: The Lenovo x300 almost had the old IBM butterfly keyboard of old. This detail and others were revealed in a Businessweek cover story on the ultrathin, quickly being recognized as the antithesis to the Apple Air. The piece has a lot of other interesting background, like the above info graphic of a teardown with weight for each component. Also, it nearly had a 10-inch screen.

Businessweek's headline confuses me, a bit: Building the Perfect Laptop. David Hill, father of the x300 and chief Lenovo designer says, "I'm a bit tired of looking at silver computers. I'd never wear a silver business suit." The comparison is lost on me. Many of the people the Air was designed for simply wouldn't wear a business suit; why is wearing a suit a given for computer user? Sounds like the same kind of thinking that kept IBM trailing in the personal computer race before Windows. The piece is worth reading, especially for the opening section where the Lenovo people, tuned into Macworld Keynote coverage, scrambled to see if the x300 also fit into a manila envelope. It did. [BusinessWeek via BBG, more X300 on Giz]

Butterfly Keyboard:

Plantraco's Carbon Butterfly Remote Control Plane

Jason Chen — Thu, 21 Sep 2006 19:45:27 EDT

At 3.6 grams, this Carbon Butterfly is the lightest RC plane in the world. And because it's made out of Carbon Fiber, it's got the strength of steel but the flexibility of a 14-year-old gymnast.

It has a range of 400 feet, and is directed by a 4xAA RC remote control. It's a little pricey at $300, but it also includes a carrying case. You can even fly it around your living room dive bombing your little sister and aggravating your father's hypertension. – Jason Chen

Product Page [Plantraco via Cool Hunting]

BenQ AL26 Butterfly Phone

Jason Chen — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 17:30:48 EDT

No, the AL26 doesn't actually look or fold up like a butterfly—there's just a small purple butterfly on the top left. Quite disappointing, actually. Nonetheless, BenQ is targeting the phone toward women (really, that's what they say) with its sliding body and 130x130 pixel resolution screen. It's really just a slightly different version of the AL26 Hello Kitty phone.

Delicate purple butterfly motifs adorn the shimmering white casing of this compact slider phone, making the mobile into a top-fashion eye-catcher - and not just for romantic women either... both in Eastern and Western cultures, the butterfly is regarded as a symbol of evolving femininity.

If the BenQ engineering team thinks that women are going to be fooled into buying this phone just for the butterfly, they obviously don't know many women. Well, they are engineers after all. – Jason Chen

BenQ pursues painted ladies with butterfly-branded handset [Reg Hardware]

Flaunt Your Wealth With The AMEX Butterfly Card

Gizloco — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 16:49:42 EDT

It's no Black Card, but it's still something you can whip it out to impress passersby. The American Express Butterfly Card is a standard credit card that's available to members of AMEX's Gold Card members. What makes it so special, what makes our hearts sing, is that it folds in half, letting you store it inside of a svelte, metallic case the size of a keychain.

You can tell by the PR pictures on the AMEX Web site that the Butterfly Card is meant to be some sort of status symbol. And of course, who doesn't have friends who would be impressed by a folding piece of colored plastic?

At the end of the day, it's probably nothing more than a gimmick, but as we've seen time and time again, gimmicks can take off if properly managed. – Nicholas Deleon

Butterfly from American Express [American Express via OhGizmo!]