This might be the first DAB radio from Sony, but already they have learned the first lesson of design with the XDR-S10 – give it a retro look.
Aside from the 60s-style wood casing and large front speaker, the XDR-S10 has a very bright screen so it’s easy to see outside, a kitchen timer if you want to use it while you cook and all the programming/tuning features you would expect.
Mains or battery powered, you can pick it up now for £89.
The Uten Silo Wall Tidy was designed by Dorothee Becker and first released in 1969. One of the best known plastic designs of the 1960s, it has been now been re-released by Vitra.
The Uten Silo features a multitude of different shaped and sized pockets, hooks and clips, allowing you to store pretty much anything and everything in it.
It is available in two sizes in a choice of red, black or white plastic, priced from approximately £150 to £200. There is a deluxe version available in chrome that is much more expensive, but the plastic version is the original and in my opinion the best.
Utility Design are selling the full range online.
Possibly VW Beetles, possibly Citroens, maybe even Skodas, the set of Children’s Car Lights is made up of colourful retro cars.
Designed for all year round use, probably in a boy’s bedroom, they could also be put to good use during this festive period as Christmas tree lights.
They cost just under £19 for a string of ten cars, from Vinegar Hill.
Arne Jacobsen worked with Louis Poulsen from the 1930s through the 1970s, producing some very stylish pieces of lighting that still look incredibly contemporary today – including the AJ series which includes a floor, wall and table lamp (pictured).
The AJ series was designed for the Radisson SAS Royal Hotel in Copenhagen and is all about minimalism, straight lines and slanted angles – bringing the light closer to you or our seating. However, one feature doesn’t quite carry into 2007. If you look closely, you’ll see a hole in the base of the floor lamp, which was originally designed to hold a matching ashtray. In today’s PC world, that hasn’t been reissued.
But aside from that, everything is as the original, in a choice of white, graphite grey and black steel. No price as yet – contact Louis Poulsen for full details.
Find out more at the Louis Poulsen website
Never mind a camera on our mobile phone, how about one on your watch? It might sound like technology of the future, but this Kilfitt UKA 659 Bond-style camera watch is very much technology of the past.
It was a one-of-a-kind prototype developed during the 1960s in the Munich laboratory of Heinz Kilfitt. The watch has a small analogue camera attached to it with 1.3mm-10.5mm lens, a shutter speed from 1/15 sec to 1/1,000 sec and a custom film disc. Oh yes – and there’s a watch too.
A great Bond-style gadget and a unique item too, but with a price to match at a whopping $60,000 – which is just short of £30,000. Maybe that price will come down if no-one bids.
Find out more at the eBay website
Via Born Rich
As kids throughout the world wait expectantly for a Nintendo Wii, it seems a good time to look back at the toys we wanted as kids with TV Cream’s Toys: Presents You Pestered Your Parents For.
The book celebrates the toys and games that turned up under the tree in years gone by – from Big Trak to Buckaroo, Mastermind to Merlin, Sorry to Strawberry Shortcake and the likes of Subbuteo, Simon, Evel Knievel, Etch-A-Sketch, Rubiks Cube and many more too numerous to mention from the 1960s to the 1990s. Each is accompanied by details and anecdotes, as well as images and eBay values.
Part nostalgia, part reference book, it is available in hardback for £5.19.
