Features the best chindogu inventions, inspired devices designed to solve all the nagging problems of domestic life, from reading in the bathtub to having a portable subway strap.

Addicts of the "unuseless" will love this collection of brand-new "Chindogu"--the word the Japanese have coined for the art of the unuseless idea--including the Eat 'n' Exercise (no one cares about calories when you exercise as you eat), the Drymobile (your laundry dries as you drive), the Solar-Powered Torch, and many more. Photos.

E. H. Gombrich's Little History of the World, though written in 1935, has become one of the treasures of historical writing since its first publication in English in 2005. The Yale edition alone has now sold over half a million copies, and the book is available worldwide in almost thirty languages. Gombrich was of course the best-known art historian of his time, and his text suggests illustrations on every page. This illustrated edition of the Little History brings together the pellucid humanity of his narrative with the images that may well have been in his mind's eye as he wrote the book. The two hundred illustrations—most of them in full color—are not simple embellishments, though they are beautiful. They emerge from the text, enrich the author's intention, and deepen the pleasure of reading this remarkable work. For this edition the text is reset in a spacious format, flowing around illustrations that range from paintings to line drawings, emblems, motifs, and symbols. The book incorporates freshly drawn maps, a revised preface, and a new index. Blending high-grade design, fine paper, and classic binding, this is both a sumptuous gift book and an enhanced edition of a timeless account of human history.

When was the last time you saw the beauty in everyday objects? If youÆre like most people, you probably havenÆt paid much attention. To change all that, the authors of Extra Ordinary spotlight the simplest of objects and seemingly reinvent them into something new and unique. In a world of high-tech and mass production, people live in a world ruled by excess, over stimulation, and even waste. "Within this existence, the role of creatives shouldnÆt exclusively be to meet client demands, or act as a vehicle for innovation, but to question the idea of the ordinary," the authors say. This book will help designers reinvigorate their creativity and observe what they would normally ignore, discard, or forget. The authors do this by taking objects such as a bra, tofu, and plastic spoons, and transform them into an evening bag, a pencil holder, or a pair of eyeglasses. Each of the new products created from the things that surround us, is accompanied by hand-drawn illustrations and simple written explanations. The package is immediate, punchy, silly, and yet completely hysterical.

How to use design as a tool to create not only things but ideas, to speculate about possible futures. Today designers often focus on making technology easy to use, sexy, and consumable. In Speculative Everything, Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby propose a kind of design that is used as a tool to create not only things but ideas. For them, design is a means of speculating about how things could be—to imagine possible futures. This is not the usual sort of predicting or forecasting, spotting trends and extrapolating; these kinds of predictions have been proven wrong, again and again. Instead, Dunne and Raby pose “what if” questions that are intended to open debate and discussion about the kind of future people want (and do not want). Speculative Everything offers a tour through an emerging cultural landscape of design ideas, ideals, and approaches. Dunne and Raby cite examples from their own design and teaching and from other projects from fine art, design, architecture, cinema, and photography. They also draw on futurology, political theory, the philosophy of technology, and literary fiction. They show us, for example, ideas for a solar kitchen restaurant; a flypaper robotic clock; a menstruation machine; a cloud-seeding truck; a phantom-limb sensation recorder; and devices for food foraging that use the tools of synthetic biology. Dunne and Raby contend that if we speculate more—about everything—reality will become more malleable. The ideas freed by speculative design increase the odds of achieving desirable futures.

The process of user-centered innovation: how it can benefit both users and manufacturers and how its emergence will bring changes in business models and in public policy. Innovation is rapidly becoming democratized. Users, aided by improvements in computer and communications technology, increasingly can develop their own new products and services. These innovating users—both individuals and firms—often freely share their innovations with others, creating user-innovation communities and a rich intellectual commons. In Democratizing Innovation, Eric von Hippel looks closely at this emerging system of user-centered innovation. He explains why and when users find it profitable to develop new products and services for themselves, and why it often pays users to reveal their innovations freely for the use of all.The trend toward democratized innovation can be seen in software and information products—most notably in the free and open-source software movement—but also in physical products. Von Hippel's many examples of user innovation in action range from surgical equipment to surfboards to software security features. He shows that product and service development is concentrated among "lead users," who are ahead on marketplace trends and whose innovations are often commercially attractive. Von Hippel argues that manufacturers should redesign their innovation processes and that they should systematically seek out innovations developed by users. He points to businesses—the custom semiconductor industry is one example—that have learned to assist user-innovators by providing them with toolkits for developing new products. User innovation has a positive impact on social welfare, and von Hippel proposes that government policies, including R&D subsidies and tax credits, should be realigned to eliminate biases against it. The goal of a democratized user-centered innovation system, says von Hippel, is well worth striving for. An electronic version of this book is available under a Creative Commons license.

Si usted quiere entender como se origino el sistema de producci?n Toyota y por que tiene exito, debe leer este libro. Aqui encontrara una introducci?n avanzada del justo a tiempo. El mundo le debe mucho a Taiichi Ohno. Nos ha demostrado como fbricar con mayor eficacia, como reducir costos, como producir una mayor calidad, y a examinar atentamente como nosotros, en nuestra calidad de seres humanos, trabajamos en una fbrica. El relato que Ohno cuenta en este libro es brillante. Deberia ser leido por todos los gerentes. No es solo un relato acerca de la fabricaci?n; sino tambien sobre como dirigir exitosamente una empresa.

Two prostitutes are murdered in Tokyo. Twenty years previously both women were educated at the same elite school for young ladies, and had seemingly promising futures ahead of them. But in a world of dark desire and vicious ambition, for both women, prostitution meant power. Grotesque is a masterful and haunting thriller, a chilling exploration of women's secret lives in modern day Japan.

Hubsch's argument that the technical progress and changed living habits of the nineteenth century rendered neoclassical principles antiquated is presented here along with responses to his essay by architects, historians, and critics over two decades.

Out of Control chronicles the dawn of a new era in which the machines and systems that drive our economy are so complex and autonomous as to be indistinguishable from living things.