There was a time when every day seemed to herald the opening of a new hotel in the United Arab Emirates, each one pushing the envelope of acceptable taste further and further in an orgy of cartoon rococo gold mouldings (real gold) and marble for miles. Developer Jumeirah was responsible for its fair share of crimes against design. That time is over it seems as Jumeirah opens its latest hotel in the Etihad Towers in Abu Dhabi - Dubai's more sensible, and richer, uncle. The stunning modern towers enclose an interior that is a sophisticated and dare one say, fashionable, Euro-Arabic fusion. Read More

Two things are certain in this crazy world - unicycles are cool and unicycles are seriously hard to ride. Well no longer. Now anybody can clown about on a unicycle and what's more, you don't even have to pedal. Thanks to Focus Designs and several years of development the learning curve required to master the unicycle has been reduced from several weeks to an average of 20 minutes, making it a viable and incredibly cheap-to-run personal transport. Read More

The SL is a defining vehicle for Mercedes Benz. It represents the core values of comfort, style and effortless power, and was for many years the default choice for successful lawyers and lucky lottery winners. With the outgoing model, introduced in 2003, MB somehow lost its way. Over time the “Sports Light” model had gained significant weight and lost design coherence. As a consequence of the ludicrous Daimler/Chrysler merger costs were slashed, build quality suffered and the electronics were notoriously quirky. Fortunately Mercedes has turned that ship around and after the successful launch of the flagship SLS it’s time to introduce a completely new, and it must be said, strikingly handsome version of the iconic SL. Read More

We have covered luxury watches many times on Gizmag and it's often a little problematic. The marketing spiel from the manufacturers is always in that strange flowery language that's designed to appeal to those for whom the primary concern is not cost. However, every now and then along comes a series of watches that seem to truly justify their price tag in terms of provenance, style and sheer craftsmanship. The extraordinary "Blue Ocean" and the Platinum Collection from which it comes is just such a line. Read More

Birmingham UK may be the birthplace of many an historic motorcycle marque but Birmingham Alabama is where we'll find Confederate Motorcycles, builder of exclusive "heirloom" machines for the rich and famous. These aren't custom choppers; not the Bondo-filled multi-lacquered fantasy machines of reality TV fame. These are properly engineered and prototyped limited-production models that in the past have sported prices tags of well over $100K. This time, with the X132 Hellcat, Confederate has created a machine that could almost be thought "affordable" whilst still retaining its obsession with detail and stunning design. Read More

Camping can be fun but to be honest, tents are a pain. The romance of carrying your accommodations with you and the excitement of arriving at a new destination can both be swiftly tempered by reality. Erecting your tent using bent aluminum poles, bits of string, damp plastic sheeting and too few pegs becomes old very quickly. Add in pitch darkness and/or rain and the temptation to head for the nearest dodgy hotel can become irresistible. It doesn't have to be that way. Eight years ago two Stefan's from Germany had an idea for a better tent - and now it's here. Time to erect - 1 minute. Read More

Being in Belgium in November for a truck show may or may not be your cup of tea/mug of Java, but Mercedes is at least doing its best to make the "Trailer 2011" exhibition interesting. The truck design world moves at a glacial pace compared to the consumer automobile business, and new models have to provide serious and significant commercial improvements if they are to be accepted by the trucking fraternity. Coming off the back of the well-received launch of its new Actros heavyweight tractor unit, Mercedes brought along a trailer concept design that aims to match and extend the significant commercial and environmental advantages of that unit. It looks cool, too. Read More

It would be hard to imagine a greater contrast between today's launch by Canon of its EOS C300 digital cinema camera and the launch of RED's long-awaited Scarlet. Canon's event was huge and long-winded with a string of cinematography heavyweights on stage. At the RED gathering half an hour later, an ad hoc bunch of the faithful turned up at RED studios, ostensibly just to watch the same web page update as the rest of the world. Alas it didn't quite work out like that. Read More

The fact that Canon chose to release its new camera on the Paramount lot in Hollywood should be a big clue as to how it is positioning it's new baby. Scorsese was there! Ron Howard was there! Though it records to the same video codec as previous Canon cameras (50Mbps 4:2:2 Canon XF) 'video camera' would be a misnomer. Digital cinema camera would be more appropriate with the S35-sized 4K sensor designed to appeal to budget film makers and episodic TV producers. Canon sees an opportunity to sell the equivalent of an Arri Alexa for a third of the price and compete with Sony's CineAlta F3 large sensor offering. Of course Canon has a bit of a psychological advantage in this regard. Read More