What can one AA battery do? Although there’re many answers to that question, the most surprising one in fact comes from the Las Vegas’ CES, during which XPAL Power launched its SpareOne mobile phone and announced that the SpareOne can work for 15 years simply relying on one AA battery. The compact cellphone is mainly designed for phone calls, thus it doesn’t come with so many functions as other mobiles do. But that on the other hand makes it really ideal and suitable for outdoor adventurists who want to stay in contact, but without the worry of losing a more valuable device.

Designer: XPAL Power

Selling Price: $50

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Surely it’s dangerous to cycle in the evenings no matter what kinds of tools you’ve chosen to avoid the possible dangers, but this Lightning Vest is still here to offer you with more protection, by reminding the drivers and pedestrians of your existence. It’s hand-netted from a custom developed 3M reflective material, loose and large enough to be worn outside T-shirts, jackets or coats. It’s also very durable, lightweight and compact to fit into even your pocket.

Selling Price: $95

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Scientists from China have recently brought good news for people who seldom want to clean their clothes: the self-cleaning clothes. The new material was created by coating titanium dioxide and nitrogen on cotton fibers, and those two elements will break down dirt and kill microbes once exposed to the sunlight. Additional nanoparticles using silver and iodine are also adopted to accelerate the discoloration process. Of course the self-cleaning clothes can be washed with water too, as the special coat is claimed to be robust enough to withstand washing and drying.

Designer: Long Mingce & Wu Deyong

Pocket sandwiches developed for the U.S. army now features a much longer guarantee period that what we’ve ever imagined, as it can actually last for 2 to 3 years without refrigeration! Can you believe that?! The new technology to make these sandwiches is announced to focuses on taking care of the entities like water and oxygen that are responsible for decay, so that they can last a much longer time than ordinary sandwiches. What’s better is that the sandwiches will taste still fresh and good even after a long time of storage, and that’s really the best part we appreciate.

Designer: Dr George McGavin & Michelle Richardson

Based on their observations and researches of carol, scientists from Stanford University have developed a new technology to produce cement by mimicking carol’s action of taking in minerals and CO2 to build its hard exoskeleton. Therefore, during the construction process of the new cement, the material actually absorbs CO2 and dissolves it instead of releasing CO2 as common cements do, so as to benefit to the environments. The new cement is durable too, strong enough to last for a long time.

Designer: Brent Constanz

What will the next-generation fluorescent lights be like? “D’Light” from H_Design can offer us a possible answer. Made of heat resistant tempered silicone material and LEDs, the D’Light is expandable and durable, saves both your efforts to install the light tube and your money spent on electricity bills. It can fit into different sizes of lights too, and all you need to do is to hook it to one end and expand the length to the other side. Easy and practical as that!

Designer: H_Design

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Foldable, portable and practical, the ‘Radler Trail Camp’ by Timberland is a lightweight and water-repellent shoe quite suitable for outdoor activities. It is especially excellent for the foldable design, featuring a zipper along its sole so that the shoe can fold along its center when not in use. With that unique feature, even with simply one bag you can take almost ten pairs of shoes at one time, as they take up really small space indeed.

Selling Price: $65

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Lighter than paper but stronger than steel, the Minimal Backpack is so tough that it can even be used to hold bricks or steels. It’s waterproof too, so quite suitable for outdoors use, especially in rainy or snowy days. When not in use, simply roll it, place it in your pocket up and you’ll never feel it a burden.

Selling Price: $128

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The Bank of Canada has decided to release new $100 bill made of a plastic polymer all over the country. Due to its special material, the new bills are harder to counterfeit, longer to use and cannot be destroyed by liquid. These plastic bills are expected to be used for up to 22 years, which is 1.5 times longer than paper bills. As the $100 bills are widely accepted by Canadian people, the bank announced that $50 bills, $20 bills, $10 bills and $5 bills will also be released by the end of 2013.

Launched by Japan-based Panasonic, this is the world’s first LED bulb that uses clear glass to show the light source. It features a single filament, coming with a power of 4.4 watts while lasting for over 40,000 hours. Requiring no time to get prepared, the bulb offers 100% of the light once you switch it on, and thus quite ideal for public places like the stairs and toilets. As a bonus, the bulb is announced to get a high efficiency, even remaining high lumen of 70% at end of life.

The bulb received the gold award in the “Japan Good Design Award 2011″.

Italy’s largest producer of brushes “Venice” now brings us with its biodegradable brushes and combs made from cellulose acetate that is derived from cotton. Free of dyes, these new brushes appear in a slightly milky transparency, making it nice and comfortable to see.  Moreover, the brushes and combs are durable too, featuring a good ability to server you for a long time.

Designer: Acca Kappa

Selling Price: $7-$40

Wood, stone, steel… Forget those traditional materials used to build furniture, and have a look at these carbon fiver furniture set. They all have merely thin surface plate that measures 1 cm, but can actually bear great strength and work for a long time. As an additional bonus, the carbon fiber furniture is very lightweight, so you can conveniently move it in or out of rooms according to your needs.

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The first high-efficiency OLED on plastic was claimed by researchers from the University of Toronto recently, which is deemed as an important development that may lead to more durable and “impact-resistant” displays. The flexible OLEDs were invented by adding 50-100 nm thin layer of tantalum oxide onto plastic, thus to achieve the same refractive index as that of heavy metal-doped glass. The new technology is believed to be producing OLEDs with a low cost, while promoting the efficiency and durability of OLEDs in the meanwhile.

Designer: Z.B. Wang, M.G.Helander

Totally unbelievable… a pen sharpener cannot come with a much simpler design than the Twist! It is constructed of merely a stainless steel sheet, bent to mimic a sharpener. So if everything can get a simple basic design, will the environment left with less footprints? We hope so.

Designer: Tianyu Wu, Yinbin Shuai, Mingya Wei & Zhengyu Lin

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The Compact Café Table by Sigurd Larsen is no doubt the best furniture you can ever find if you’re someone concerning both a stylish design and strong functions. Made from recycled paper and resin, the table and benches set is suitable for either interior or exterior use, according to your different needs. When viewing from the front, these four pieces of furniture are rightly displaying their nice thin lines… So cute!

Designer: Sigurd Larsen

Surely we don’t need to take a canoe all the time, but if we could do that, why not? This Foldable Canoe designed by Ori Levin is rightly a portable one that can shrink down to fit into a bag. It weighs about 4.1 kilos, lightweight enough to ensure an easy transportation. It is also easy to be assembled, costing the users merely 5 minutes to get the boat finished.

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Designer: Ori Levin

Wish you would have a bag that can last for many years or even all your life? Possibly the Footbag should be added onto your list. It is made of a pair of boots, featuring a simple look but really good durability.

Designer: Marco Scuderi

A research group from Tokyo Institute of Technology have recently developed artificial bone using fish scales. In early experiment, the researchers found that “the collagen that makes up fish scales, has a similar structure to the thickest layer of the human cornea, the corneal stroma”. After that they tried to turn the scientific discovery into real products, artificial bones made of fish scales.

Compared with artificial bones made of pig skins, the new material mainly has three advantages: safer to use, stronger in structure and easier to convert into bones. Firstly, fish doesn’t have viruses that are common to people and animals, so the new artificial bones won’t cause illnesses. Also, artificial bone made from fish can have a much higher density so that it is very strong. Thirdly, with artificial bone made from fish scales, it takes about three months for the material to convert into bones after it is implanted, while comparatively it takes artificial bone made from pig skins twice the time to finish to conversion process. The new material is said to be used in treatment for older people in the future, but before that the research group will continue to investigate the bone conversion process further.

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Basically it’s not that difficult to make a stool but very difficult to design one. However, these Stitching Concrete stools here cost the designer’s much energy and time in both its design and production process.

It is made of concrete canvas, with colorful threads stitched along sides. To make such a stool, the designer firstly soaked concrete canvas in water, manipulated it for a certain shape and then left it to harden. The finished stools are strong enough to sit, and also fireproof and waterproof.

Designer:  Florian Schmid

Could ropes support us as powerfully as wood? I may not think that’s possible until I saw Jon Fraser’s chair made from merely 80 meters of rope. It’s both simple and functional. To make the chair usable and durable, the rope is soaked in polyurethane resin and cured into 20 unique profiles. Clever.

Designer: Jon Fraser

Stephen Ambrose’s Self-inflating Earbuds is a clever solution to help the wearers hear sounds clearly while not hurting their ear drums. The technology is called the Ambrose Diaphonic Ear Lens (ADEL), and it’s a 2.5-micron thick polymer membrane that can inflate in ears to redirect acoustic energy or sound vibrations in your ears to the outside world. As a result, we may clearly hear sound at a lower volume and save our ears from damaging audio effects.

Designer: Stephen Ambrose

Striving for a new breakthrough in technological innovation, the Energy Return Wheel designed by Brian Russell is an airless tire that can roll flat, save energy and most importantly never get flat during the moving. In that case, the number of traffic jam or traffic accident resulted by a flat tire would be greatly reduced.

Designer: Brian Russell

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A wallet especially designed for your front pockets! Coming with a round corner, the new wallet will not create ugly bulges or wrinkles on your trousers or clothes while still keeps your cash neatly. More importantly, the wallet is made from soft satin leather which is so soft that you may hardly feel it is in your pocket.

Selling Price: $49.95

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When Anirudha Rao found that expanded polystyrene helmets only protect the users’ heads 16 percent of the time during a crash as polystyrene does little to absorb impact energy, the designer offered us a much effective alternative of cycling protections: ‘Kranium’.

 Exhibited during London Design Week 2010 at Designersblock, the new helmet is made from cardboard and features several ribs that will flex and de-flex during a crash to absorb the energy of impact. When tested against British (EN 1078) standards at the imperial college, ‘Kranium’ was found to have the ability of absorbing four times the amount of impact energy as that of regular helmets. And we bet that exciting news will surely make ‘Kranium’ the most popular one on the helmet market.

Designer: Anirudha Rao

Though flax fiber is widely used for suits, have you ever thought of making a bike with the same material? Actually, the world’s first bike has already won EuroBike Gold Award. Built from biodegradable flax fibers, the bike is durable and lightweight, and it performs well at absorbing and dampening road vibrations. It’s also built with a battery-free lighting system that is powered by a dynamo in the front hub, making it a stylish and eco ride.

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Collaborated by Claus Jensen and Henrik Holbaek for Monoqool, the Helix Series Eyewear is a winner of the red dot award, and the design has become quite popular on the internet for its clever design of the spiral hinge. That makes the eyewear look cool, right? And that also makes the glasses much more durable than ordinary ones.

Designer: Claus Jensen & Henrik Holbaek

There is an element of surprise in the “Levita” shelf, an interesting piece of decor and furniture created by Alessandro Loschiavo. But do not let the images or the designer fool your eyes, because these A4 paper sheets are actually a series of hammered sheet metal planes. So the shelf is really durable though people may take it as a fragile one. It indeed looks like an art piece, but the shelf is also practical for frequent use.

Designer: Alessandro Loschiavo

Do remember that a gentleman is, before anything else, a man that dresses neatly and decently. But if you don’t have adequate confidence keeping your suits and shoes clean in rainy days, you would possibly like to have a look at the waterproof suits, waterproof shoes as well as the waterproof wallets. Ideal for those who are very busy with invitations to parties or conferences, these stylish products will always keep you clean and dry even if you accidentally fall into the mud!

Selling Price: $1200

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Boots and microwave oven seem to be unrelated to each other. But the Cozy Feet is something that makes you easily associate shoes with electronic appliances. The boots contain a special blend of natural wheat grain and dried French lavender, which can stay warm for up to two hours once heated. It can last quite a long time, allowing the users to reheat them for thousands of times. You don’t believe? Get one pair home and try it out then.

Selling Price: £15

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Different furniture has their own secrets of success: excellent quality, reasonable prices, exquisite shapes, or unique techniques. And as for this chair designed by Gilli Kuchik, it has drawn forth exclamation of praise at the Milan Design Week 2010, because of its amazingly perfect flexibility and durability as wooden furniture. Elastic material is also used to make the chair, and its main task is to join one board with another so as to transform the 2D spread into a 3D shape.

More pics after the jump.

Unless you have a system worked out, you no doubt know clearly that you have to keep everything highly organized to keep your table clean and tidy. But what will you do with the electrical wires? Bind them together using a rope? Designer Beatus Kopp wants to save you that trouble with ‘aTable’, which features four hollow legs to store the cords. So simply put the electrical wires through the four holes and hide them in the legs, you can easily make room for more books. Made of glass-reinforced plastic, the table is really lightweight but still highly stable.

Designer: Beatus Kopp

Thanks to GE for coming up with the Energy Smart® LED bulb, we can save much more electrical energy in the future. Compared with ordinary bulbs, the new one can distribute light in all directions, but costing less energy. It consumes 9-W of energy, amounting to a 77% savings compared to 40-W incandescent. It is also said that the LED bulb can last up to 17 years, if you use it 4 hours per day. The GE will launch it sometime early 2011 at a price of $40 to $50.

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People say that swimming pools offer more than entertainment to the users, but also resulting in illness, provided that the pools are not completely safe from contamination. The Healthier Pool Purifier puts an end to the algae and other bacteria in the water with the mineral electrode insert, which would release ions to kill them. Powered by solar panels on the top, the electrode insert has a life span of up to one year while the passing of time won’t weaken its function. You like the design? Purchase it for $349.95 through Hammacher.

Soaring prices of urban apartments have forced the citizens to choose small residence and make a full use of the limited space. Addressing that issue, the Brazilian Design Studio ‘Baíta Design’ has come up with the Slide Aluminum Sofa. It features five profiles finished in anodized aluminum, which could be fit together to form a sofa. Also due to the slide design, the sofa could easily split into profiles, ensuring an easy transportation and storage.

Let’s start the article from the disadvantages of high tech. Taking USB flash drive for example, the small-sized storage device  effectively keep our information safe and allows us to use them anywhere. Then you never imagined what would happen if they went wrong? Well, all the information disappeared…and left nothing. That’s why the designers are developing these heavy-duty USB flash disks. Made from metal, these key-shaped flash drives could last quite a long time to serve you while not requiring you to pay special attention to them.

This is Outlife, a portable shelter that allows you a real natural life in the wild. Not just any shelters. Neither airtight nor lightproof. It features a perfect durability and air permeability; therefore you won’t feel uncomfortable even in a poor condition with the temperature reaching -20°C low or 60°C high. Besides, the Outlife also comes with collapsible dual layers, protecting your privacy without hindering the visibility.

Designer: Alvaro Poblete Poulsen

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Not to be too excited with the Casio’s G-Shock branded watch released in 1983, the EX-G1 is a too-solid gadget that claims to be water-resistant, dust-resistant and shock-resistant. Several related experiments here will let you learn more about the EX-G1. Nothing goes wrong when it falls from 7ft (2.13m). It is also waterproof and freeze-proof, which means that the camera also works at a depth of up to 10ft (3m) below the water for an hour, withstanding temperatures as low as 14°F (-10°C). More amazingly, the 12.1MP camera also features an interval shooting function and a high speed continuous shutter. Only 19.9mm wide, convenient to carry. It is expected to be on the market in December.

Selling Price: $299.9

To people who wear glasses, it’s an inevitable annoyance to result in some scratch on glasses when put them upturned on the table. So why not try the scratchproof glasses? Once you fold up the frames, the two extra brackets on them will then hold up the glasses to protect the lens.

Its two screens can display the book at the same time just like a real one and you can flip pages by opening and closing the whole book. In addition, the two screen can be separated.

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Because of the stick design, this foldable trivet gonna save more space for you. It is made from durable and sturdy silicone which could fit for heavy hot pot. Plus, it’s stylish.

Price: $20

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US Air Force Research Laboratory aims to develop a new battery whose juice could last 30 years.

This new battery is constructed from semiconductors and uses radioisotopes as the energy source. The reason the battery lasts so long is that neutron beta-decay into protons is the world’s most concentrated source of electricity. Plus, the reaction is non-thermal which means laptops gonna be cooler than ever before.