James Holloway

Patch Planter isn't the first self-watering herb planter to cross our radar: that would be the AeroGarden. But where that product was an all-singing, all-dancing "kitchen garden appliance," Patch is a much more down to earth and affordable piece of design, and one that doesn't require a power supply.  Read More

For its design of the Kempart loft in Liège, Belgian company Dethier Architectures wanted to throw out the style book for converting industrial buildings into loft apartments, which it promptly did with the help of an aluminum pod inspired by a classic piece of American design.  Read More

A patch of central London is festooned with pink this week, which can only mean Clerkenwell Design Week is in session once more. Lovely old buildings such as the Farmiloe Building, House of Detention and the Museum of the Order of St. John have opened their doors to designers and design enthusiasts on the lookout for inspiration. Armed with a camera, Gizmag went exploring, and was pleased to see one or two favorites among the novelties.  Read More

Clerkenwell Design Week kicked off in London on Tuesday. Though primarily catering to fans of light shades and soft office furnishings, there are some interesting and innovative gems lurking among the event's 60-odd showrooms. Among them was Ying Chang's Sketch Objects, a series of paper plates, bowls and vases waterproofed on the inside with resin.  Read More

They may not make for the showiest videos, but some of the most interesting problems in robotics are to do with the subtleties of human interaction. Even something as apparently simple as receiving an object poses great difficulty, but it's a problem that will need to be solved before multipurpose robots are ready for the home. By building a database of captured human motion, Disney Research and Karlsruhe Institute of Technology are making strides towards building a robot that can take an object handed to it by a human.  Read More

"Imagine opening a hatch in a submarine under water. The water will flow into the submarine with enormous force. It is precisely this energy potential we want to utilize." This is how German engineer Rainer Schramm describes his idea for storing energy under the sea. By using surplus energy to pump water out of a tank at the seabed, the water is simply let back in again when there's an energy shortfall, driving turbines as it rushes in. The deeper the tank, the more power is generated.  Read More

With eight days of his already successful Kickstarter campaign still remaining, John O'Nolan has cited the uncertainty surrounding Yahoo's newly-announced US$1.1 billion purchase of Tumblr as a reason to back his open source, non-profit blogging platform, Ghost.  Read More