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Toyota announces winners in design competition (w/ Video)

Toyota has announced the winners of a sponsored design competition hosted by London's Royal College of Art. Based on the theme of ‘Intelligent Urban Living', the winners include a simple but effective vertical storage system to keep bikes out of reach of thieves and a keyboard display that makes life easier for two-fingered typists. Inspired by the design of Toyota's innovative iQ city car, which addresses many of the challenges of modern city living with its compact dimensions, the contest generated inspiration that gave a new twist to some familiar household objects and produced innovations to make modern life easier and more environmentally responsible.

Worth a read: Wired's 'Why Getting It Wrong Is the Future of Design'

Wired has just published a series of short articles entitled 13 Lessons for Design's New Golden Age. While there are some interesting examples cited in the piece, the concluding article, ‘Why Getting It Wrong Is the Future of Design' by the former creative director of Wired magazine, Scott Dadich, feels like it has particular resonance for car design. Dadich's Wrong Theory uses disruptive examples from the world of art, plus his own experience of working at Wired, to explain how design goes through phases: establishing a direction, creating a set of rules that define that direction and finally someone who dares to break from that direction.

2013 Bentley Mulsanne get even more sybaritic

The 2013 Bentley Mulsanne (2014 MY) comes complete with added luxury and new technology and debuts at the 2013 Geneva Motor Show. With the Mulsanne being Bentley’s flagship model, and pretender to the luxury crown held by its former sibling, Bentley are working hard to make the 2013 Mulsanne (2014 in the US) an even more luxurious and relevant choice for the modern plutocrat, with a range of additional luxury appointments and options and some new technology. We can’t really call the 2013 Mulsanne a facelift, because you’d have to look really hard to see any exterior changes (unless they have one of the new Mulsanne paint jobs - Dark Cashmere, Portofino and Damson) but there are tweaks and optional extra goodies on the inside.