Get your creative juices flowing and challenge your thinking with a visit to trucdesign.com, a showcase of innovative, incredible, and often impractical products and concepts. Just a few direct links: Cardboard furniture for kids, CoffeeTime seating, Paper Airplane coffee table, Double-O cooking system, Carpet-lounge.
posted on Mar 28, 2008 - View this thread

Irritated and indifferent -- consumers in the Expectation Economy.
posted on Jan 23, 2008 - View this thread

Nasal strips for horses. I thought it was a parody when I saw it on Cardhouse, but no, they exist. Now your steed can nicker and snort as if with nostrils of Teflon.
posted on Oct 25, 2007 - View this thread

Are you tired of NOT smelling like characters in Neil Gaiman books?? Well thank Morpheus, just like Alex Burgess in The Wake, your long nightmare is at an end thanks to this collection of Gaiman-inspired perfumes & colognes.
posted on Jul 23, 2007 - View this thread

On Sunday, April 1, ThinkGeek.com jokingly introduced the 8-bit Tie, and due to customer demand, claims that now it'll be a real product. On Friday, April 13, apparently due to customer demand, hard drive manufacturer WiebeTech has now introduced the MouseJiggler, and claims it's not a joke.
posted on Apr 14, 2007 - View this thread

Grandma's Kitchen (youtube), the Roller Toaster, the water-less washing machine, the sculptures of Gwon Osong, a crucifix-shaped mp3 player... some of the people and things found on CubeMe, a blog about "wonderful stuff".
posted on Dec 20, 2006 - View this thread

Useful German Products
posted on Oct 21, 2006 - View this thread

From the Hands of Slaves: Common products of forced labor. [Via MoFi.]
posted on Feb 25, 2006 - View this thread

"Drove my Chevy to the levee..."? That's a lawsuit. "Pass the Courvoisier"? Yup. Lawsuit too. Artwork using Barbie Dolls? Lawsuit again... It's all part of the Trademark Dilution Revision Act, which would eliminate the non-commercial "fair use" protections of trademarks in art, literature, and speech-- To amend the Trademark Act of 1946 with respect to dilution by blurring or tarnishment. It goes to the Senate Judiciary Committee on the 16th, and there's a large roster of groups fighting it, including the American Library Association, EFF, and more, saying that consumers as well as artists would be preventing from exercising their free speech rights unless it's amended.
posted on Feb 3, 2006 - View this thread

Zombied-out customer-service reps beware: the Consumerist, the newest edition to Nick Denton's Gawker "nanopublishing" empire, is watching you. Gizmodo's Joel Johnson (who recently spent a month in New Orleans) serves up sassy shopping tips and customer-service-tests-from-Hell. More hip-product-pr0n-with-an-attitude, just in time for Christmas the happy holidays^TM.
posted on Dec 7, 2005 - View this thread

Ever spent your precious morning minutes in bed turning your pillow over repeatedly, seeking in vain for the coveted cool spot? Search no more.
posted on Nov 29, 2005 - View this thread

iPhone is here (nearly!) ...Apple reveals the iPhone! And the iPod nano?
posted on Sep 7, 2005 - View this thread

Thudguard: proudly creating a generation of children who randomly slam their heads into the ground after not learning the do-not-hurt-head part of growing up.
posted on Aug 23, 2005 - View this thread

Spray-on Mud - So you own a big 4x4, and you feel a bit stupid that you only use it to take the children to school. You want people to think you're a bit country - that you need 6 tonnes of car to get you from A to B because you like to take it off-road every so often. You need Spray-on Mud apparently.
posted on Jun 14, 2005 - View this thread

The Perfect Sideburns in just five minutes? Can it really be that easy? Why, this is a product fit for a king!
posted on May 14, 2005 - View this thread

Of Superheroes, Product Placements, and PSAs. A nostagia-filled gallery of comic book covers with all your favourite (and no so favourite) spandex-clad superheroes shilling everything from Hostess cream-filled Twinkies to saying no to crack.
posted on Mar 16, 2005 - View this thread

Gee Your Hair Smells Terrific! Yes, back in the 70s it was all right to say this to unsuspecting strangers here in the US. We live in different times now, but the product is once again available, imported from the Phillipines by The Vermont Country Store, also selling all manner of odd products from yesteryear. (Midget joke not included)
posted on Aug 31, 2004 - View this thread

Human Beans Fictional Products. The Karmaphone, the Live Cigarettes and more
posted on Aug 12, 2004 - View this thread

Beeman's
Brillo
Cream of Wheat
Classic American consumer products in 3-D
posted on Oct 1, 2003 - View this thread

Spirit Foam: cheerleading has finally been reduced to a spray can.
posted on Aug 28, 2002 - View this thread

I thought I'd heard every crazy idea in the world. And now I have.
posted on May 10, 2002 - View this thread

Introducing eMac, a new version of the iMac aimed solely at the education market. Rather than getting all slashdotty, let's discuss the looks of it, rather than the guts, and debate the wiseness of this new strategy. Oh, Apple also released a new 800MHz TiBook.
posted on Apr 29, 2002 - View this thread

Niches of Trust is an Online Journalism Review article about three 'consumer journalism' sites run by individuals who come from journalism backgrounds. They do something now rare in corporate media - provide honest information separate from advertiser influence and, when necessary, are critical of the business or product being reviewed. The sites are The Car Place, Theme Park Insider and Consumer World. What are your favorite run-by-one-person sites that provide critical analysis of products?
posted on Jan 27, 2002 - View this thread

Time's 2001 inventions of the year awards. Why do all of these have that cheesy "Sharper Image" feel to them? Aren't there inventions out there slightly more important than a potato masher or a remote control smoke alarm? Naww, everything else would go over the heads of the readers. Keep that gravy comin' ma!
posted on Nov 21, 2001 - View this thread

The Economics of Aesthetics Warning, free registration is required
This article points out an interesting problem with calculating how much a product is worth... How much is aesthetics worth to the consumer? How do you even calculate that? (via Signal vs. Noise.)
posted on Jul 12, 2001 - View this thread

The CES Hall of Shame. The ten stupidest products these guys saw at CES this week. My favorite: Panasonic's Internet-Capable Microwave Ovens. [shudder]
posted on Jan 12, 2001 - View this thread

A new feature from Deja.com "will automatically link mentions of product names in discussion threads to a commerce area on its site." Is it really useful, as Deja claims, or does it imply endorsements for the linked products by the authors of the posts?
posted on Jul 26, 2000 - View this thread