Motorola’s international design team has unveiled a series of twelve fantastical concept designs to mark the 25th anniversary of the cell phone. The designs are an attempt on the company’s part to create that they call a “design mythology,” or a unified set of aesthetic principles. Although almost all of the designs rely on technology that doesn’t exist and may not exist for some time (if ever), they reflect the company’s determination that, among other guiding principles, the industrial design of the future must rely on advanced materials, eschew obtrusive software in favor of intuitive interfaces, and integrate with human [...]

Several towns in Germany have taken saving on energy bills a step further and turned out all the street lights. Residents were initially concerned about crime and personal safety, but a system was developed to allow them to turn the lights on by calling a number from their cell phones. Of course, the bigger the city, the more complicated the system. In Morgenröthe-Rautenkranz (pop. 900), one phone call turns on all the street lights, but in Dörentrup, citizens must plan their routes ahead of time. The BBC reports:
Although residents appear happy with the system in this BBC clip, the Dörentrup [...]