Autodesk's Elbo Chair
Autodesk’s Elbo Chair is the result of an uncommon partnership. Designers in the company’s generative design lab harnessed the power of algorithms to make the organic wooden seat.
To start, the designers fed a 3-D model of a chair inspired by Hans Wegner’s iconic Round Chair and Berkeley Mills’ Lambda Chair into Dreamcatcher, Autodesk’s generative design software.
Then they let the algorithm do its thing. Every so often, the humans would pick one of the algorithm’s designs, and the software would propagate a new lineage based on their selection.
The result was the chair you see here—a skeletal creation that points toward a future in which designers collaborate with algorithms on new ideas.
Microsoft Surface Studio
The $3,000 desktop computer is aimed squarely at the creative set.
With its massive 28-inch monitor and a hinge system that allows the display to become a tabletop touch-screen, it’s easy to see why:
The Surface Studio is more interactive drafting table than it is computer, and proof that Microsoft is thinking seriously about what the future of desktop computing should look like.
https://www.wired.com/2016/12/2016-innovative-objects/