Good Thinking

Last month we reported that a huge vertical farming operation near Copenhagen in Denmark recently completed its first harvest. That setup uses hydroponics, but the veggies grown in Vertical Field urban farming pods take root in real soil.

The Design Museum has revealed the winner of the 2020 Beazley Design of the Year Award, the Teeter-Totter Wall. The judges hailed its ability to bring together communities on either side of one of the world's busiest and most politicized borders.

Much sturdier than flimsy take-out giveaways, the reusable S+ fiberglass cutlery set packs down into a pocket-size carry case to easily transition between breakfast parfaits and sushi dinners.

Lipstick is a personal thing – you generally don't just slap on any ol' color that's close at hand. The Lip Factory system takes that concept to the extreme, by creating customer-specific lipstick on the spot.

While having a hot lunch certainly is nice, it's not always possible if you don't have access to an electrical outlet or a microwave oven. That's where the Dutch-designed Heatbox comes in, as it uses an integrated battery to steam-heat your food.

If you're the user of a powered wheelchair, it goes without saying that you really don't want that chair to tip over, or to crash into obstacles. The LUCI system – which gets added to existing chairs – is intended to keep those things from happening.

There are already computer vision systems and sensor-equipped gloves that can detect a person's hand gestures. Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley have developed an alternative technology, however, that offers some key advantages.

When trying to learn a skill such as judo or yoga from a video, it can be frustrating if you're not able to keep up with the onscreen action. That's where Reactive Video playback comes in, as its slows videos down to match the speed of their viewers.

With colony collapse disorder continuing to decimate honeybee populations, it's more important than ever for beekeepers to monitor hive conditions. The ApisProtect system is made to automate the process, potentially catching problems earlier.

The future of food security, sustainable agriculture and the environment as a whole calls for a lower reliance on meat products over the coming decades, and a newly announced XPrize contest puts this issue center stage.

When training for any sort of physical task, it's important to keep challenging yourself as your skills improve. That's the thinking behind a new adaptive basketball hoop, that gets higher and smaller as users make more shots.

The bottom of the crowdfunding barrel never seems to dry up. Once again New Atlas pulls on its thickest gloves and boots and wades into that murky world of ideas and innovations that are somehow both half-baked and completely cooked at the same time.