The Eagle 360, a new tire design concept from Goodyear, is a rounded sphere held in place by magnetic fields and designed for a smoother ride in your future driver-free car.

The biggest advantage, of course, is omnidirectional steering capabilities, since the wheels have no orientation, unlike their forward-or-backward circular predecessors.

An organically-patterned, 3D-printed tread is designed to adapt like a sponge to different road conditions, while built-in sensor relay surface measurements to the onboard computer. Faster response times and immediate reaction capabilities in multiple directions all work toward improving passenger safety and comfort.

“By steadily reducing the driver interaction and intervention in self-driving vehicles, tires will play an even more important role as the primary link to the road,” said Goodyear’s senior vice president Joseph Zekoski.

“Goodyear’s concept tires play a dual role in that future both as creative platforms to push the boundaries of conventional thinking and test beds for next-generation technologies.”

Magnetized to stick together when you arrange them, these boxes take LEGO-style furniture construction to a new level by leaving exposed surfaces connector-free in any configuration.

Dubbed the BOB system by its creator, Paul Kelley, the component cubes themselves are durable but light and clad in copper that will weather differently over time depending on which surfaces are exposed.

The magnets inside them are designed to let you create anything you can imagine, from chairs, benches, stools and tables to interior space dividers or simply abstract sculptures. Their attraction is strong enough (and the boxes sufficiently lightweight) to allow limited cantilevers as well.

This work is being publicly displayed as part of the London Design Festival (via Inhabitat)- hopefully its creator will also allow the public to play with and reconfigure the exhibit, keeping it fun and interactive. Fans of magnetic furniture designs should be sure to check out this tensile floating table as well, which works on similar but reversed principles, repelling rather than attracting the constituent boxes.