Nail guns can be handy but also bulky and awkward, not to mention: limited by the presence of batteries or electrical outlets. A new tool for the kit comes from product designer Michael David Young: the automatic nail-dispensing hammer.

Strips of nails are loaded into the device, a tap sets the nail in place and readies it to be hammered home, speeding up the process while also reducing the risk of injury.

After years of drawing and testing, explains Young, “I finally got it to work after many many prototypes, got my provisional patent and shipped it around to the big tool companies.” He says major brands have expressed interest in his creation.

Beyond this single application, Young’s process shows the potential for rapid prototyping using digital design tools and 3D printers — versions can be modeled, printed, tested, scrapped and iterated upon in succession all for little upfront cost.

These ordinary looking stacks of square paper notes hold hidden surprises inside: each removed sheet reveals more and more of a secret Japanese structure, completely visible once all the pages are pulled.

The Omoshiro (roughly: “fun”) Block uses laser-cutting tech to craft the initial deck with its internal architecture. It is made by Triad, a firm in Japan that mainly makes professional architectural models for design firms.

In tihs case, they have replicated a series of classic buildings from around the country, including the  Kiyomizudera Temple in Kyoto and Asakusa Temple in Tokyo as well as the Tokyo Tower skyscraper.

Each block has 100 sheets or more, each uniquely shaped around the void to create the buildings within — in a way, they catalog their own order of usage, each edge profile reflecting the moment it was pulled. Subtly morphing hues between each layer reinforce the effect.

Currently, the blocks can only be bought in-store at Tokyu Hands in Osaka, along with other excavation-themed products and creations (like the book temple shown above).

Viral Silicon Valley controversies like those revolving around Juicero (a device that squeezed out juice) and Lyft (which seems to be reinventing the bus) are often held us as examples of how innovators are out of touch, which leads us to Brandless, a brand that is apparently reinventing minimalist packaging — the kind of thing that companies like Target have been doing for ages.

To be fair, the Brandless boxes don’t look all that bad, and color-coding products make some sense. Plus, the idea of making everything the same price (three dollars) is fascinating if a bit difficult to scale. They are trying to take things a step further, too, by putting more information on the box (including the Brandless name) and less on the product, which could in theory be a nice way to visually declutter one’s home.

But of course, reality and regulations don’t always play nice with packaging design — for starters, the smooth look is interrupted by a black-printed net weight stamp toward the bottom and other essential labels of that sort. And, really strangely, a white trademark stands out from the colored portion of the product. Naturally, if one wants to order the flat-priced products, a shipping charge also interrupts the otherwise consistent pricing scheme.

None of this is meant to knock the conceptual underpinnings or commercial viability too much — entrepreneurs Tina Sharkey and Ido Leffler are clearly tapping into the West Coast demographic that has money and craves simplicity. But their claim to be making something “completely fresh and new” is a bit much — grocery and convenience store chains have been selling products in simplified and distinctive brand-free packages for a long time, with the same mission in mind (to reduce the “brand tax” people pay to get a name-branded version of something).

For now, the company is rolling out around 200 initial products. And, at least for the time being, they are all at the same price point. But one has to wonder: does that flat rate idea really make sense for a growing consumer brand? Surely some things are best bought in bulk to save money, or simply too expensive to sell for a few dollars. And consumers who want one-stop shopping may find their offerings a bit thin. In the struggle for minimalist simplicity, Brandless just may be making things harder on themselves than they have to.

So far so good: the creators of these edible water balls have begun deploying them at large-scale festivals, the kinds of places where hundreds of disposable plastic bottles are used and trashed. But while this type of innovation bodes well for the future of biodegradable design, there are still some flaws to be sorted out before it can begin to seriously tackle the big problem: 35 billion plastic water bottles tossed in the garbage every year.

Ooho!’s solution is pretty simple and ingenious: drop frozen balls of water (or other beverages) into a (thankfully) tasteless solution that forms a gelatinous layer around the outside. Once the ice melts, drinkers can pick up and pop a gulp, or if that seems too strange: puncture the membrane (which then biodegrades in weeks) and drink from it. Made of seaweed, the “container” layer can also be colored and flavored.

Between crowdfunders and other backers, they have a lot of funding behind them, and “the team at Skipping Rocks Lab—made up of chemists, engineers, designers and business advisors–are continuing to pioneer the use of seaweed in other packaging uses, with a mission to become the leading global producer of seaweed-based packaging.”

The whole process uses a lot less energy than normal bottles require, but does it serve to replace them? In pop-up settings, like festivals and sporting events, it could — especially if the machinery used to make them can be made mobile. But for ordinary everyday use the problem is trickier — the membranes are delicate and would pop if tossed into bags or pockets.

Still, the science is worth pursuing: the same method could be expanded to make more robust and larger frameworks (better analogs for ordinary bottles). And the technology could be improved to, made to create and dispense water balls on a more mobile and automatic basis in public-event settings (e.g. ball-vending machines). For now, it isn’t the invention to end plastic bottles some might hope, but it is a step in the right direction and — at least in limited contexts — makes for a sustainable drinking alternative.

Solving a series of long-standing issues associated with taking out the typical fast food trifecta, this clever carrying case is a useful alternative to Happy Meal boxes, bags and cupholders that work better for cars than people traveling on foot or by bike.

The solution is more subtle than it might first appear – yes, it solves the timeless question of how to hold a drink as well as a meal, but it also separates out the warm foods (french fries and hamburger above) from the cool drink (soda or shake suspended below), then unfolds into a ready-to-eat spread. Thin cardboard makes the entire container easy to collapse as well.

Customers can hold the package in their hand or slip it over the handlebars and continue cycling unencumbered. Targeted initially toward markets in two bicycle-friendly cities (Copenhagen, Denmark and Medellin, Colombia), the company is also looking to give these a go in Amsterdam, Holland and Tokyo, Japan.

For now, it is a trial redesign that is as much about marketing toward young urban bikers, but if the packaging is sound there seems to be no obvious reason for McDonalds not to ultimately deploy these around the world (and for other fast food chains to follow suit).