Look Ma! No Hands! And my Umbrella is Staying Up

Than you Daily Mail for today's invention. From a cabbie, no less: "Cabbie Ibra Ahmed hopes his hands-free umbrella will be ideal for ladies who struggle carrying their brolly and other items." Now, why this should only be for women, I don't know. Seems to me that men might want to text while walking in the rain, too. So after Mr. Ahmed makes his initial fortune with "Hands Free Brolly Bag" maybe he will turn his attention to the other half of the population and create a brolly with a man bag.

Of course, there is competition out there. So wish Mr. Ahmed luck against The Hands Free Brolly Company, Ltd. (for those who push prams or wheelchairs) and, of course, the often featured Nubrella.

We Got Your Back: Wet Umbrella Protectors

This may have been around for a while ... and they are not cheap (that is, commerical use only), but hey, we are protecting our umbrellas; not leaving them around wet and then forgetting them later. Now, when you look at the comments at The DailyWH, you see folks objecting, since water dries up, etc., but these folks just don't understand, it is not that we don't want our umbrellas to stay wet, but that we want to keep our umbrellas with us. So, way to go Kasapon.

Squidarella: The Color Changing Umbrella

http://www.urbantrim.com/squidarella-color-changing-umbrella/Thanks to Fabsugar for directing us to this one. The designers at SquidLondon have come up with this color changing technology. According to UrbanTrim:

The umbrella starts out in black and white. As the rain starts falling on the umbrella, each drop will cause the colorful design to show through. Eventually when the whole umbrella is wet it will have morphed into the vibrant colorful version that you can see above. When the rain stops and the umbrella dries the colorful design will slowly fade back to white.

They don't seem to be the only ones, since you can also get a Suck UK Color Changing Umbrella So let us start the color changing wars--maybe even start a color changing blog, so you can track color changing animals and color changing roof tiles. Or, reject it all and accept the true umbrella color: black.

X-Ray Umbrellas: Disappointing, You Can't See Through Things

How could we not check this one out. Thanks to Walyou, we were introduced to the X-ray umbrellas of Anastacia Spada, but our hopes of some technological breakthrough--think of the possibilities!--were dashed when we found out her work was making umbrellas out of old X-rays. A worthy cause, complete with an instruction manual, but not one we were hoping for.

Spada's project was inspired by the magazine ReadyMade. She was given the task of finding objects that are commonly discarded, and re-purposing them in a way similar to projects found in the magazine.

Review: Wired Touts Heavy Duty Umbrella: A "Blunt" Instrument

Well, look at this one: "beefier-than-usual struts arranged in a more redundant, robust structure than most umbrellas" and a "'radial tensioning system' helps move the ribs firmly out against the fabric without requiring you to exert a huge amount of upward force." Now that is TECH talk. So, thanks to the folks at WIRED magazine for letting us in on the Blunt umbrella.

Other features that kept the reviewer dry in San Francisco include "a solid plastic collar that you push up until the umbrella snaps into shape" and "the ribs' tips are rounded, which keeps them from poking through the fabric."

But why trust the reviewer, check them out yourself at Blunt umbrellas or watch it in action: 

The Tech Wars: Shade and Sun Power at the Same Time

The war between the rain umbrellas and sun umbrellas has gotten a big tilt toward solar with the energy harvesting Powerbrella. The developer's idea is for these to be set up at hotels, coffee shops, etc., and have then converts sunlight into electricity to charge laptops, mobile phones, iPods and other portable devices--at the same time, presumably, as they are providing shade. But, maybe, they won't electrocute you when it starts raining, too.

Read much more than you might want to know about zonarka Technologies, Inc., an innovator in development and commercialization of Power Plastic®, a material that converts light to energy, and SKYShades®, who will sell a Powerbrella to you, at the Skyshades website.

Umbrellas to Light Up the Night

Thanks to the folks at Crave, I now know about the Twilight Umbrella. Unfortunately, one can only acquire them from the brolly kingdom at Firebox UK: "Guaranteed to brighten up the rainiest of days, these hi-tech brollies utilise fibre optics, three AAA batteries and lots of LEDs to create a truly magical effect."

Matthew Swinton's Sprout Umbrella

CNETjust brought this to my attention, but it is apparently at least a couple years old. As designed by Matthew Swinton, this "brolly concept may just grow on you, literally." According to Yanko Design:

The canopy and all the hardware is enclosed in the handle. A knob on its face turns to unlock the inner mechanism. The knob slides down the umbrella, forcing the canopy arms out through the top of the shaft. The flexible plastic arms are bent as the exit the handle, pulling the canopy with it. When fully open, the knob is turned back to lock the umbrella open.

Alas, no evidence that this sprout has sprung, so don't look for this in your neighborhood brolly store.

Black Umbrellas: Anything but Basic for Milan Design Show

The final design selections have been made for Tuttobene Milan 2009 during the Salone Internazionale del Mobile in Milan, and some black umbrellas are one of the features of one of the winning international designers. "Umbrellas for the Civil but Discontent Man" were designed by Bruce and Stephanie Tharp of Materious. In a preview for the design week, the designers describe their efforts:

Sigmund Freud contends that aggressiveness is a fundamental human instinct whose inhibition is a necessary obligation of social life. These umbrellas combine a symbol of gentlemanly refinement--the full-sized, black umbrella--with an element from more manly sword-bearing times. The umbrellas offer brief psychological respite from the dictates of social amiability.

These aren't the first black umbrellas for the Tharps. In 2005, they had their concept prototype "Forecast": "Using existing wi-fi technology to wirelessly pull information from the internet, Forecast's lighted umbrella handle glows more intensely with the increased chance of precipitation offering a clear and unobtrusive signal to the user."

The Bottle Cap Umbrella: Not New, But New to Me

Well, they seem to have been around for a while, but if it is new to me, it is still ripe for the Brolly Blog. So, here's a link to Samm's Umbrellas and their unique "Bottle Cap Umbrella," which they describe as the world's first successful flat-top umbrella and the world's first flat-surface umbrellas for advertising. According to Samm's website: "The refreshingly new "Bottle Cap Umbrella" using innovative engineering design, perpetuates the umbrella in the field of advertising without the sacrifice of functional protection." Thus, these umbrellas resist inversion or collapse and do not trap wind.

I am not an advertiser and I have not tried one out, but they certainly are flat!

Pileus: The Internet Umbrella

An oldy, but goody, just found a link to this one!



Check it out at Pileus.net:

Pileus is an umbrella connected to the Internet to make walking in rainy days fun. Pileus has a large screen on the top surface, a built-in camera, a motion sensor, GPS, and a digital compass, and it provides two main functions; A Social Photo-sharing and A 3D Map Navigation.

The photo function is connected to a major web service "Flickr". A user can take photo with a camera on the umbrella, and pictures are uploaded to Flickr in two minutes with context tags via a wireless Internet connection. User can also enjoy theirselves watching photo-streams downloaded from Flickr with simple operation of wrist snapping.

The Washington Post Covers the Nubrella

Well, The Washington Post has caught brolly fever . . . it is all over the Nubrella in this article from May 5. This come compete with a picture, showing how a Nubrella user can keep on texting in the rain (sort of Gene Kelly-ish that would seem!).

Well, what are you waiting for? Go buy your Nubrella now!

Brolly gets a punch-up, too: "The "brolly" hit England in the 18th century. The Brits took a while to warm up: An 1871 history reads, "Only a few years back those who carried Umbrellas were held to be legitimate butts."

Reinventing the Umbrella; THE NEW YORKER Got Me On This

So, Susan Orlean--she of fame--wrote this long piece in the February 11, 2008 issue of The New Yorker: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/02/11/080211fa_fact_orlean