Umbrellas have come a long way since the first scraps of material arranged to keep the rain off – and nowadays, they have evolved into the elegantly designed multi-spindled construction we’re so familiar with…and, well, bored with. Isn’t it about time umbrellas became fun again? From the best in pugilistic umbrella-mayhem to the sweetest way to woo a loved one, these 15 examples are guaranteed to chase the clouds away.

(Images via: Alex Woolley Design)

The rain is scything down, and let’s face it, your umbrella isn’t going to help much. It’s not about keeping dry: it’s about keeping your temper. And what better way to do that by taking out your frustrations in a sneaky water-fight against your companions? The Water Pistol Umbrella only works when it’s raining, by catching the falling water in the top of the umbrella and feeding it down the shaft into the handle-mounted pistol.  And if your target returns fire (as above) – the umbrella doubles as a shield! Eat my rain.

(Images via: ThinkGeek)

Here’s one not to take round Japan (unless you’re fond of being rugby-tackled by policemen). This Samurai Sword Handle Umbrella looks worryingly ready for business – for extra effect, it even has a nylon sheath you can draw it from…which would look even better when strapped to your back. Unsurprisingly, reactions to this product have got a little out of hand. Oh dear. (It’s an umbrella, dude).

(Image via: Yanko Design)

Continuing the theme of umbrellas that have people crossing the street to avoid you, we have Yoel Mazur’s Self Defence Umbrella. Cunning designed to look less assembled than whittled & hacked, this mean-looking lump of wood affixed with sword-like blades also opens out to become a half-umbrella. Even the rain will feel intimidated.

But when it comes to raw, hair-raising formidability, the kingpin of umbrellas has to be the Unbreakable Walking-Stick Umbrella. It is used by the bodyguards of the president of the Philippines – because not only does it keep the rain off nicely, it’s strong enough to support your weight, will take any amount of battering – and can split a watermelon in half with one blow. Maybe best left to the professionals, this one.

(Images via: Gizmodo)

It had to happen. Umbrellas simulating real-life weapons? So, like, what about lightsabers? Yes, it’s true, if you’re happy to be seen out in public with the accoutrements of a Jedi Knight, go grab this umbrella, the handle of which is a replica of a black lightsaber. (That’s if you can find it – the product page is no longer up). No, this beauty doesn’t light up…

(Images via: CrunchGear)

…but this one does!  While not official Star Wars canon (the comments at Crunchgear point to something similar being seen in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner), the glowing centre-poles of this umbrella definitely evokes A Galaxy Far, Far Away. Yes, practical – but oh-so-terribly geeky.

(Images via: Waylou)

If you regularly use your rain-shield in the big city, you’ll know how annoying it is when you’re always catching the sides of your umbrella on other things (such as other umbrellas). The Polite Umbrella – which had to have been invented by a Brit or a Canadian – makes room for the intruding personal space of others by drawing its arms in and hunkering down. A bonus? When it gets windy enough to threaten turning your brolly inside-out, this is the idea way to fight back!

(Images via: Book Of Joe and I New Idea)

But enough of fighting. Can’t we all just be friends? The Double Umbrella works like a tandem bike, by bringing people closer together – and if love blossoms, what better way to offer up your affections than with a Rose Umbrella? (Watering unnecessary, but inevitable).

(Images via: Gizmodo)

We have developed a special branch of furniture to deal with umbrellas, hats and coats – but if you prefer a more unobtrusive place to store your brolly, how about in the wine-rack? The Is.A.Brella Wine-Bottle Umbrella uncorks, sorry, unfurls from the depths of a cannister shaped exactly like a bottle of plonk (albeit one in a more livid color than you’re used to, so there’s no mistaking it when you’re rushing out the door).

(Images via: Senz Umbrellas and The Greenhead)

When the wind starts to howl, umbrellas become a problem. Rain? Perfectly shaped. Wind? Perfectly-shaped to trap it, yes – and there’s nothing like an umbrella for dislocating your arms in a gale, or exploding inside-out. Since the shape is the problem, the clever people at Senz have gone back to the drawing-board and made a brolly that tackles the wind aerodynamically. They claim their umbrellas will never invert, and are safe at windspeeds up to 60mph  – at which point we say, what lunatic goes out in a tropical storm holding an umbrella?

(Images via: InventorSpot)

Also handy for those moments when the wind gets a grip is the Burera Coiling Umbrella Handle. It wraps itself around your arm, your leg or any other appendage you might chose (careful how you go), and stays fixes in shape in the same way as a pipe-cleaner. A hands-free umbrella – who woulda thunk?

(Images via: Yanko Design)

And how about an umbrella that recycles as you go? The Eco Brolly is nothing but the frame – and you provide the material to stretch between the tines, using litter! Plastic seems ideal. Newspapers? Well, not so much, despite the example used above.

(Images via: CrunchGear)

Setting another good, green example is the Melt Umbrella: it springs open with the help of cylindrical pieces that automatically snap together (that’s not the eco-friendly bit), and once it reaches the end of its days, the whole unit can be safely buried – its biodegradable garden film and bamboo will “melt” back into the ground. There are even plant seeds embedded in the handle, waiting for the right moment to become a corner of your garden.

(Images via: Tuvie)

Last and certainly not least – a brolly that generates clean energy. The Parasolar mops up solar energy during the daytime (from being either propped up in the sunshine or used as a parasol), and when night comes, you’re keeping the rain off with a big green gadget-powering battery. If you’re one for walking for hours with your mp3 player blaring away, you don’t have to let weather or power capacity limitations get in the way. However, we have an even better idea for v2: catching the sun is clever, but why not harvest the rain as well?

The study of musical instruments (‘organology’ – no, really) is the study of the human condition. Every culture is defined by its own distinctive set of trills, whistles, parps, honks and beats, and every corner of the world has evolved its own location-specific indigenous instrument to renew a sense of cultural identity through noisy self-expression. And instruments evolve – never more so than now, in the midst of a technological revolution that has opened up entirely new ways to make music. So settle back and compose yourself as we look at ten new instruments that look set to accompany us into the world of tomorrow.

1. Eigenharp

(Images via: Eigenlabs and engadget)

In development for 8 years with funding of over £10m / $16.5m, the Eigenharp is a slow-crafted technological marvel. 120 keys (each one tilting to give a flexible tone), percussion buttons, built-in sound management capabilities including recording, playback and looping, and a potentially limitless range of noises thanks to running on uploaded digitally sampled sounds. It is played via keyboard, tap-pad and mouthpiece – and the result is an instrument that sounds like a band.

2. Electric Violin

(Images via: Wired and Riverstring)

Similarly digitally enhanced are the electric violins, a family of new hybrid instruments that are sufficiently well-established to become a mainstay of the modern music scene. Thanks to electrical pickups inside or outside the instrument’s body, the violin’s vibrations are run through electronic processing and transformed into any sound under the sun – most effectively, the noise of an electric guitar. Witness the magic of Ed Alleyne-Johnson performing on the streets of Chester, England.

3. Tenori-On

(Image via: Yamaha)

No, this isn’t the first good-to-go version of Minesweeper: this baby is for making beautiful music with.  The 16 x 16 grid of LED lights on the Tenori-On responds to touch and to real-time looped programming, creating soaring, rippling compositions that mesmerise beginners and experts alike (Peter Gabriel is a fan). If you want a hands-on demonstration of its power, try Andre Michelle’s ToneMatrix, an online AudioTool-powered simulation.

4. Samchillian

(Images via: Eitan Shefer)

Musical instrument or chest expander? You’d be forgiven for asking – but the Samchillian is a new, ergonomic-minded take on the keyed instrument, with each key representing a relative, not fixed, note. As the musician plays, the function of each part of the instrument is constantly changing, allowing a full range of musical expression (provided the player has a really good memory, of course).

5. BeatBearing

(Images via: BeatBearing)

And moving further into the realm of instruments that look like anything but – we have the BeatBearing. Instead of generating noise itself, the BB triggers the timing of preselected types of percussion – simply drop a steel ball-bearing in the right slot to get the beat you want, when you want. The inventor isn’t interested in manufacturing his design: instead, he has published the plans on DIY-tech online magazine MakeZine to encourage people to build their own – and with more than 1 million views of the Youtube demo (below) at the start of this year,  we reckon there will be plenty of takers.

6. Hapi Drum

(Images via: Wikimedia Commons/OrangeHat)

At least the Hapi looks like what it is (well, kinda) – a steel drum with a hole in the base that allows the player to control the amount of noise emerging, using their lap. Since each key (or “tongue”) is part of the main body of the instrument, each note is accompanied by a subtle resonant harmony from other musically compatible notes. Time for a demonstration, methinks…

7. Electroencephalophone

(Images via: Glogger/Wikimedia Commons)

At first sight, you’re looking at a lady trying to listen to her iPod underwater, and a collection of buff young people stood up in a hot-tub. In fact in both pictures depict music-making, via an electroencephalophone – a device that converts brainwaves into sound (and therefore a quintephone). The lady is psychotherapist Ariel Garten participating in a concert performance – and the “hot-tub” trio are an electroencephalophonist and two assistants accompanying on electrocardiophones.

8. Hydraulophone

(Images via: wearcam)

Now to the merry, messy world of the hydraulophones. Water flows out holes in the instrument, and the player uses his fingers to block or divert each stream, triggering internal mechanisms – discs, shafts or valves – that produce sound. In other words, it works like a woodwind instrument, except the wind is replaced by water (which doesn’t directly create the sound).

9. Drawdio

(Images via: Jay Silver via Wired)

Daring you to not burst out laughing when it gets underway is the Drawdio, a homespun theramin. There are a number of ways to make one (cheaply and easily), but the working principle remains the same in all models – it runs a current through the graphite deposited from the end of your pencil (or any other appropriate medium, including yourself), and translates it through a synthesizer to create a noise like a kazoo in a gale.

10. Ocarina

(Images via: Smule)

But for breadth of lateral thinking, hats off to Smule, the inventors of the Ocarina iPhone application. Using the phone’s built-in movement sensors and touch screen, your phone becomes either a wholly keyed instrument…or a kind of flute, by detecting the passage of your blown breath and translating it into intensity of sound. Once you’ve finished your piece, upload it to the Ocarina online community and listen to the work of others. A virtual instrument that automatically shares its output online – can you get more contemporary than that?

For those who think that the glory-days of boat-building are over, think again – for there are modern-day Brunels, eager to build the next generation of ocean-faring superstructures. Here are 7 wondrous examples of epic modern ship design, from passenger liner to man o’ war, from staggeringly large to stealthily small – all demonstrating that when it comes to innovation, technology and breadth of ambition, the best designs are the ones making waves.

(Images via: Dark Roasted Blend)

Longer than the Eiffel Tower is tall, the Knock Nevis is a floating colossus with a fascinating history. Originally built in a Japanese shipyard for a Greek owner who couldn’t take delivery, the ship has had multiple owners, endured three name-changes and, while being used as a storage ship by Iran in 1988, been bombed and sunk by Iraqi jets. Today this near-half-kilometer-long behemoth can be seen permanently moored at the Al Shaheen oil fields, Qatar, where (as the Knock Nevis) it is being used as an FPSO.

(Image via: Relevant Search Scotland)

However, the title of Largest Ship In The World belongs to the Batillus-class supertankers of the late 1970s, each weighing in at around half a million tonnes deadweight. Massive they may have been, but all but one of these ships lasted less than a decade – the longest-lived was the Prairial, finally scrapped in Karachi in 2003.

(Image via: Oasis of the Seas)

Fancy sailing the world’s oceans atop a skyscraper? You’ll want to book passage on the Oasis of The Seas , the first in Royal Caribbean International’s new fleet of cruise ships…and the largest passenger vessel in the world.

(Images via: Oasis of the Seas)

Launched from Finland last month, the OotS is currently heading towards Fort Lauderdale on its maiden voyage. 70 meters high, 360 meters long and a whopping 225,000 tons (that is over four times heavier than the Titanic), it offers its passengers an astounding variety of luxuries including two-storey apartments, a mini golf course and an indoor park. Cruise travel gone mad?

(Images via: Crunch Gear via Ecofriend)

Attempting something a little eco-flashier is the Super Eco Ship 2030 (due to hit the seas in…well, have a guess). The ship is powered by hydrogen fuel cells and onboard solar and wind energy collectors – and with the help of a lightened, friction-reduced hull, the designed claim a 69% drop in carbon dioxide emissions compared with today’s container ships.

(Images via: Freedom Ship

Less a ship than a mindbogglingly huge chain of barges, the Freedom Ship is a vessel on a scale that even Roland Emmerich would raise an eyebrow at. It would house over 60,000 passengers (maybe even up to 100,000 at a squeeze) and would contain everything a modern community needs – even its own airport, turboprop-only. Where is it now? Lost in a sea of blueprints, without publicized investors (and at an estimated price of $11 billion this project needs a lot of them) and the target of accusations of scamming. If completed, the Freedom Ship would cruise round the world – and we have to ask, what exactly is it like to ride out a tropical storm in an oversized barge?

(Images via: 800HighTech)

Dear modern sea-pirates: how would you feel if one of these sidled alongside your scurvy vessel and ordered you to drop anchor? Meet the Visby-class stealth corvette, darling of the Swedish Navy.

(Images via: 800HighTech and Gizmodo)

Gizmodo likens them to waterborne Star Destroyers, and we see their point. These warships are designed to sneak under the radar at any distance above 13 miles in calm seas, thanks to advanced materials in its armored cladding and a greatly dampened electromagnetic footprint – and once up close, its guns, missiles, depth charges, torpedoes and grenade launchers would be sure to get the attention of even the most heavily-armed ship of hijackers.

(Image via: US Navy)

But for sea-policing at a disance, the prize goes to US Navy’s upcoming Zumwalt-class destroyer – a $3.3 billion, 21st-Century version of the ironclad. Thanks to stealth technologies its radar signature will be little larger than a fishing boat…

(Images via: US Navy and Wired)

…which would belie the truly formidable punch behind this hunter-killer, including an advanced gun system firing 10 rounds a minute to a range of 80 miles. Guided missiles can also be flung out the well-protected vertical launch tubes – and it has even been suggested that railguns and lasers might make up its future arsenal. For now, its cutting-edge nature means that a number of key technologies have yet to be fully developed. In every sense, this is a ship of the future.

(Images via: Inhabitat)

And last but not least, we have a ship that isn’t a ship at all – it’s a floating exhibition centre. This design, created for the 2012 World Expo in South Korea, is a pavilion with a difference…

(Images via: Inhabitat)

…because once the show is over, it can be detached from the shoreline and sailed elsewhere, drawn behind a tug. It may not be self-powered, but a ship it most definitely is – and one that would be towed around the South Korean coastline to wherever it is needed. The possibilities are intriguing: how about a theater where the venue goes on tour with the company? And is this the start of shipping that has a dual role, embedded in the seaward sides of our cities to perform an entirely different service to the community?

What could be more welcoming than a pot of tea in the morning? (Coffee drinkers, you are not allowed to answer that). From its humble beginnings in ancient China, the teapot has gone from obscurity to the height of luxury and finally to worldwide ubiquity, embedding itself firmly in the English language (“as useless as a chocolate teapot“) and becoming an object of adoration by millions, particularly the Brits. But now teapots are disappearing – at least the traditional kind are. The next generation of beverage-buckets are here and they couldn’t look more different from the norm, as these 19 examples show.

(Image via: Yanko Design)

Believe it or not, this is a teapot (rather than a model from 2001: A Space Odyssey) – and its curious, gorgeous design addresses the age-old problem of tea leaves. Those of us who insist on a full-blooded brew skip the tea-bags and go for the loose-leafed option…but are forced to faff about with a strainer to get the results into our cups. The Dione Tea Set is the best of both worlds by containing a fine mesh that traps the tea leaves in one hemisphere, and when you are ready for your cuppa, you flip the pot over, straining the tea through the mesh into the pot’s base which becomes your cup!

(Images via: Yanko Design and Gizmodo)

Is that pot still warm? Since there is little nastier than a tepid cup of tea (hot, good; iced, good; tepid, bleargh), modern designers have invented teapots that can tell you at a glance how hot their contents are. The Creativi*tea pot blushes to an appropriately flaming scarlet when it is up to temperature – while the Space Invaders pot lets loose its pesky interstellar critters from behind an innocuous pastoral scene when your tea is piping hot.

(Image via: Clothing Shoes Accessories)

Staying with teapots that should rightly be called tea-carafes, here is the snuggest of them all. The Eva Solo teapot’s winsome curves (because this pot is slightly kinky, let’s be honest here) are hugged by a zipped cozy to trap the heat inside. For those wishing a slightly less naughty-looking version, it also comes in black.

(Images via: Sorapot)

Now for a design that has got tongues wagging. Garnering the enthusiastic attention of Wired, Dwell, New York magazine, Apartment Therapy and many more, the Sorapot is a word-of-mouth marvel. Glance above and you can see why: the body is transparent and allows you to see your tea brewing, all without sacrificing the simply grab’n’pour functionality. Unclip, up-end, pop your leaves in, top up with hot water, reassemble…and enjoy the show.

(Images via: Peter Bo and Design Milk)

And for other teapots that look nothing like teapots? First up, the Maru, a torus of ceramic with a walnut base that wants you to slow down – which you most certainly would, as you struggle to work out what it is and how it works. Then there is the Potter, looking like a cross between a non-stick saucepan and a kettle (so much so that the product page comes with a warning for the unwary).

(Images via: design boom)

You have just woken, and you are blearily making your first cuppa of the day in the hope that it will give you the strength to go on. The Mistea is designed to catch your mood – shaped like a snail, it encourages you to take your unhurried time and enjoy yourself before things get manic. Just don’t get too comfortable.

(Images via: freshome and Yanko Design)

But if getting too comfortable is your guiding principle in life, aim for Lotte Alpert’s Lazy Teapot. Thanks to its rocking action when in dock, you don’t have to lift this pot to pour your tea – and the temperature control means you don’t have to expend a single second’s thought on wondering if it’s hot enough.  The Zygo looks like it should do something similar, but in fact this sturdy, fantastically curved design (centred around a stainless steel sphere) is the traditional kind of pick-me-up beverage.

(Images via: TeaPottery and Book Hunter’s Holiday and thisnext and design boom)

Can’t tear yourself away from the computer screen or from your book, even for just one cup of tea? The Computea or Book Teapot might help (or make your problem worse – one of the two, anyway). If you’re feeling distracted or too tired to think, the Gun Teapot waved in your face should refocus your attention nicely…while the T-Pot‘s function is obvious even to the fuzziest brain.

(Image via: design boom)

When teapots are having such obvious identity crises, it seems inevitable that many designers will turn to other non-beverage sources of inspiration…such as birds. The Birdy tea set copies the perky shape of our smaller avian friends- but for good practical reasons. The set’s tea-cups and saucers are fixed directly against the pot’s body, heating up as it heats up – so when you’re ready to pour, it is into pre-warmed receptables that won’t cool your tea before it reaches your mouth.

(Images via: Yanko Design and The Boston Globe)

The Cigno‘s inspiration is obvious, and the design manages to look stunning and be practical at the same time – the handle is its ribbed-rubber neck.  (Now to ruin the elegant vibe: would it be the perfect venue for a spot of teapot-blowing?) On similar lines, the So Fly copies the shape of a nesting black-headed gull (the “head” being a rubber lid).

(Images via: uberreview and designboom)

But the world is far from finished with the traditional teapot shape, as these two designs show. The Toaster Teapot slots in nicely with our current obsession with multifunction gadgetry, firing out slices of toast while your tea is brewing inside. Tropics, on the other hand, isn’t a teapot at all, it’s actually a citrus fruit squeezer…but the teapot shape lends itself so well to the idea that we’re amazed it hasn’t been thought of already. So, while faux-teapots dispense lemon juice, actual teapots are getting harder and harder to identify…all over a hot drink that is supposed to relax us! Ah, modern life.

While many of us go for a functionalist, pick’n’mix approach to home decor (“I need curtains: oh, that will do” etc.), let us be upstanding for the financially brave, creatively passionate and unashamedly geeky souls who transform their homes into miniature versions of their favorite corners of modern culture, as these 8 thoroughly unique examples illustrate.

(Images via: Hack N Mod via Geeky Gadgets)

If you wish that the Steam Age was still with us and have a thing for overengineered pipes and rocket-firing dirigibles, you would feel thoroughly at home in this Extraordinary Gentleman’s house in New Zealand. The house is designed to look like a beached  Twenty Thousand Leagues-style submarine, complete with rust, encroaching greenery and a working periscope! Feeling similarly inspired? Prepare to have your savings torpedoed – this beast cost $100,000 to build.

(Image via: Gizmodo)

Everyone wants a treehouse. (Even adults want a treehouse.) But is it going too far to build a treehouse in your bedroom?

(Image via: Gizmodo)

The Kidtropolis Magic Indoor Treehouse Bedroom is kitted out with everything a treehouse-hugger could wish for. As well as the bed (only accessible via ladder), the room contains trapdoor storage facilites and a table that folds down from the ‘fence’ running round the room.

(Images via: Illusion 360 and Sellsius)

Staying with wood, what happens when you want a plushly-paneled basement study and your budget won’t stretch? For Lexington (Kentucky) lawyer Charlie Fratzer, the answer was simple: pull out a pen and draw it. With nothing but a $10 Sharpie and a fertile imagination, Fratzer has decorated his basement with staircases, furniture, members of his family and historical & fictional characters including Winston Churchill, Sherlock Holmes and Bullwinkle & Rocky.

(Image via: Gizmodo)

Now for the work of truly dedicated parents. This is a kid’s bedroom (please let it be a kid’s bedroom) in a house currently up for sale…

(Image via: Gizmodo)

…and the centerpiece (if you can call something entirely filling a room a ‘centerpiece’) is a reconstruction of a Star Wars Y-Wing. If you are wondering where the bed is, it’s laid along the wing. All you need is a droid alarm clock and the illusion is complete. (“R2, that duvet’s broken loose again, see if you can’t tuck it in”).

(Images via: SlipperyBrick)

Or perhaps your scifi tastes lean more towards the other largest franchise in the known Universe – in which case this NCC-1701D (that’s “Star Trek: The Next Generation‘s USS Enterprise” to us terrestrial folk) home theatre should push all the right buttons. Check out other 14 similarly creative / mad-as-a-fish examples over at SlipperyBrick.

(Image via: The Telegraph)

But for sheer unadulterated Trek-lurve, the prize goes to interior designer Tony Alleyne. After his marriage faltered, Alleyne decided to turn his flat into the ultimate geek bachelor pad – by modeling it on the set of Star Trek: Voyager.

(Images via: The Telegraph and The Mirror)

Press the doorbell and a voice says “welcome to the 24th century” – and from there it’s a Trekkie’s paradise, complete with a “fully-working transporter” (a what?), touch-panel lighting, command consoles and a replica of Voyager‘s warp core that propels the ship between the stars. (It’s in the spot where the fridge used to be).  The price of all this geeky luxury? Fourteen maxed-out credit cards,  $160,000 in debt…and bankruptcy. Alleyne remains philosophical: “I’m still proud of what I created, but it’s been a financial disaster”.

(Images via: Wired)

If you constantly have the Mario theme-tune running through your head (like the creators of this little masterpiece), why not turn your home into a shrine to your favorite Italian plumber? That is what Antoinette J. Citizen has done, as reported by Wired. The walls are painted in jolly Mario colors and are studded with bricks that play the original sound effects when poked and pushed (and maybe even when jumped on). How many shiny gold coins did this cost?

(Image via: Daily Mail)

And finally, for all young girls pining to live the Cinderella dream (the glamorous ending, not the sitting-in-cinders part) then that dream can be a reality – if daddy is a premiership footballer with $80,000 to kick around, that is.

(Image via: Daily Mail)

The individually-tailored work of Mark Wilkinson Furniture, these luxury items of furniture include ornate murals and hand-crafted carriage beds. Some footballers have even come up with their own designs – leading the British media to label these creations the latest demonstrations of footballers having more money than sense. Would you like your darling treasures to grow up expecting to be treated like fairy-tale royalty?