If this thermostat looks like something that Apple would have designed had it been interested in home heating, there’s a reason. Tony Fadell, who conceived of the iPod and then went on to work on the iPhone while at Apple (he left in 2008), came up with this household device through his own company, Nest Labs. The clean Apple aesthetic and intuitive ease-of-use are evident in the Nest Learning Thermostat. The temperature is displayed in bright, clear numerals, and the rim ring acts as the dial. The LCD-lit center turns red if you are raising the temperature and shows blue if you are lowering it. A green leaf appears under the number to indicate a setting for optimal energy savings. Not only that, the Nest programs itself, using software to analyze and track your usage patterns over time. Once it learns your preferences, it adjusts itself automatically, and even turns itself down to the “Away” mode, if it doesn’t sense any movement in the house. The Nest also comes with a mobile app that lets you change the temperature and schedule remotely by laptop, smartphone or pad.

Programmable thermostats, even ones that can be controlled remotely, are not new to the marketplace. What makes Nest exceptional is that it is designed for the user. You don’t have to squint to read the temperature gauge or gnash your teeth when trying to figure out the instructions to get it to do all the things that the ads promise it can do. It doesn’t try to impress consumers by displaying the complex engineering of the product. That’s more intimidating than impressive. What good design does best is create an interface with the user that makes the complex simple. Given the large number of consumers (including me) who don’t know how to program their existing thermostats, a device that is pleasing to view and as easy to use as an iPod is a welcome advance.

What better way to showcase the newly released Eames Century Modern font collection than to print each letterform on a Mid-Century Modern LTR (Low Table Rod) table designed by Charles Eames? A collaboration between type designer House Industries and Herman Miller Japan, the Eames alphabet table is a limited edition series of 80 tables adorned with A to Z letters, numbers and ornaments from the Eames Century Modern font. House hand-printed each tabletop at its Grand Rapids, Michigan, factory and then returned the tops to Herman Miller for attachment onto the metal rod base and packaging in a special House-designed wooden crate. House owner Andy Cruz says, “As with most House Industries projects, I tried my best to make the packaging for this limited edition something you wouldn’t throw away once the table was removed. Who doesn’t like a printed wooden crate that can do double duty as a storage container?” Good point.

Now for the bad news. The custom Eames LTR tables are probably sold out by now, since only 80 tables were made in total. Forty were offered at the Herman Miller Reach Exhibition in Hong Kong in September and the other 40 at the HM Tokyo Showroom in October. If there are any leftover crates, I’d be willing to settle for one of them.

Elegant. Simple. Intuitive. Graphic. These are descriptions not applied to technology until Steve Jobs dazzled the world with the Macintosh, the iMac, the iPod, iPhone, iPad and more. He understood the purpose of design on a visceral level and not only transformed the way designers work, but elevated public awareness that design is not merely an aesthetic marketing device, but the heartbeat of innovation. Thank you, Steve. Well done. Rest in peace.

Designed and built by Ethan Frier and Jonathan Ota, two industrial design students at Carnegie Mellon University, Project Aura is an ingenious solution for making bicyclists more visible at night. That’s the time of day when most bicycle fatalities occur. Thirty-six percent of these accidents happen at intersections. One reason is that while many bikes are equipped with headlights, taillights and reflectors, they aren’t very visible from the side – which means they can be clobbered at intersections or nicked from cars changing lanes without seeing them. Frier and Ota addressed that by installing RGB LEDs inside the rim of the wheels, and made them powered by a wheel dynamo that worked through pedaling. Not only are the lights visible from all sides, they respond to speed of motion, making the wheel lights change from white when at cruising speed to red when slowing down. The rim-mounted LEDs are self-powered (no batteries, motor or switches required), and can be seen from passing vehicles – a great safety idea for cyclists and a relief to motorists – plus they looked really sci-fi cool.

Clocks have come in analog, digital, sundial, atomic, round face with hands that point to hours and minutes, and numbers that flip forward with each advancing minute. The Qlocktwo Touch, made by German design company Biegert & Funk, is the only clock that I can think of to declare the time typographically in a complete sentence. It’s perfect for dyslexics.

The acrylic glass faceplate is secured magnetically against its back supports so that it appears to float without visible attachments. The interchangeable faceplate comes in seven colors and is available in several languages, including English, German, French, Italian, Dutch, Arabic, Danish, Russian, Swiss German, Spanish and Swedish. Priced in the neighborhood of US$1000, a Swatch it is not. For 99 cents, however, you can download Qlocktwo as an iPhone/iPod/Android app. Still, Qlocktwo is what design is about – looking at what is and imagining it in a new way. When it comes to clocks, it’s about time.

Reflect on this: the English-language QWERTY keyboard layout was designed by Christopher Latham Sholes in 1873 not to make typists faster, but to slow them down – and we have been living with that ever since.

As with so many inventions, the design was driven by available materials and technology.

Sholes was the fifty-second known person to try inventing a mechanical writing machine, but the first to call it a “type-writer.” He worked out the basic design of the type-writer readily — each key was attached to a metal typebar that had the corresponding letter, molded in reverse, to the striking head. The problem was that when multiple keys were hit too fast or simultaneously, the typebars became entangled and would have to be unjammed by hand.

Sholes tried arranging the keys alphabetically in two rows. The keys jammed. Then he took common letter pairs such as “TH” and kept the key bars apart so they wouldn’t lock. For six long years, he tried arranging and rearranging the keys, and finally turned to a study of letter-pairing frequency done by educator Amos Densmore, brother of his financial backer. That’s how Sholes arrived at the QWERTY arrangement that is standard to all keyboard layouts. The layout of the letters forced users to type at a more even, albeit slower, pace. The keys were also not aligned, but each row was slanted diagonally to accommodate mechanical linkages.

Sholes sold the commercial rights to his invention to E. Remington & Sons, which also made firearms. Improvements to the No. 2 Remington model introduced upper and lowercase letters, via a shift key, and Sholes’ invention became a hit.

Fast forward to the 21st century. The technology has changed. Mechanical typewriters have gone the way of horse-drawn carriages. Computers don’t have typebars that jam, but with rare exception, most of us are still using the QWERTY keyboard, even though some designs such as the Dvorak Simplified keyboard layout, patented in 1936, have been shown to require less finger motion, increase typing speed, reduce errors and be more ergonomic. Dvorak is also an option on all computer operating systems.

Resistance to giving up QWERTY has been described by some as “muscle memory.” Even if our brains can learn a new sequence of keys, our muscles reflexively resist. Is it logical? No. Is it better? No. But like Americans refusing to join the rest of the world in using the metric system and clinging fast to Fahrenheit over Celsius, most typists stubbornly hang onto QWERTY flaws and all.

Over the next few years, it is likely that many countries will be redesigning their travel passports. The purpose isn’t to make them more attractive, which certainly they can use, but to deter increasingly more sophisticated and dangerous counterfeiters.

Along with hi-res micro images, encrypted biometric information, hidden data chips and other security devices, passports are being issued with different full-color images on every page. They aren’t just any kind of image, but ones using microprinting, holograms, fluorescent dyes, thermochromatic inks, ornamental patterns made with a geometric lathe, intaglio, watermarks, and magnetic inks, among other techniques. All this is for public safety, but since nations are investing millions of dollars anyway, it would be nice if they gave some thought to the aesthetic quality of the new design while they are at it. Like currency and postage stamps, passports can be used to communicate the beauty, style and uniqueness of the issuing country.

Compare the different approaches of the UK and Switzerland. The new UK passport, for instance, presents pictures of British landscapes – the white cliffs of Dover, the Gower Peninsula in Wales, Scotland’s Ben Nevis, the Giant’s Causeway of Northern Ireland, along with fishing villages, dry stone walls, etc. The Swiss cross, geometric patterns, and architectural landmarks for each canton grace Swiss passports. Both express national pride, but don’t come across as arrogant or nationalistic – important qualities when traveling abroad. Today the image that travelers present to the world has to be nuanced and sensitive, beginning with what’s shown on the passport.

Urban transportation planners everywhere are grappling with the question of how to move traffic faster, cleaner, greener and cheaper. They have urged people to ride bikes, telecommute, buy hybrid vehicles and mini-cars, but here’s a concept from China that is truly original – a super gigantic bus taller than an overpass that straddles the road creating a moving tunnel that regular cars can drive through. Bus passengers board on the upper level from elevated platforms, while smaller vehicles drive under and through the bus. Ultrasonic waves alert trucks too tall to fit to go around the bus on another lane. A stop light activates to stop cars in the tunnel when the bus needs to make a turn.

The “straddling bus” was exhibited at the 13th Beijing International High-Tech Expo in May and a pilot model is being built in Beijing’s Mentougou District by its developer Shenzhen Hashi Future Parking Equipment Co. Powered by electricity and solar energy, the straddling bus can carry between 1,200 and 1,400 passengers at a time and travel at speeds of up to 60 km per hour. Developers claim that it will reduce traffic jams by up to 30% on main roads and can be built in a fraction of the time that would be required to construct a new subway. The bus is also projected to save up to 860 tons of fuel annually, reducing carbon emissions by 2,640 tons. There is also no need to build a parking lot to house buses out of service; they can be left straddling the road.

Hospitals are notorious for making people sick. In the U.S. alone, the government estimate says that one in ten hospital patients catches a hospital-borne infection, and such infections contribute to about 90,000 deaths in the nation annually. What’s particularly disturbing is that studies have shown that one-third of these infections are considered preventable. Thorough sanitizing of surfaces, for instance, has been effective against staph infections and gastroenteritis.

In the UK, the relative percentage of hospital-borne infections is comparable, but the Brits aren’t taking it lying down. The UK Department of Health and National Health Service enlisted the support of the Design Council to design hospital furniture and equipment that are easier and faster to sanitize. In 2008, they launched the “Design Bugs Out” campaign with an advisory board of microbiologists and healthcare experts assigned to work with designers. The Design Council, in turn, organized teams of designers, ergonomists and researchers to meet with nurses, patients and housekeeping staff to identify problem areas that could be addressed through design. Their findings were presented to the Expert Reference Group and Advisory Board, who chose the top 10 priority areas to develop into design briefs. The Royal College of Art’s Helen Hamlyn Centre was assigned to work on such things as hand sanitizers and blood-pressure cuffs. For furniture and larger equipment, the Design Council sponsored a national competition for teams of designers and manufacturers, with a monetary award given to winning concepts for prototype development.

One product that made the public see that design is about more than making an object pretty is the new commode by designers Tom Lloyd and Luke Pearson and their manufacturing partner, Kirton Healthcare. The commode is molded from 100% polypropylene plastic that can weather repeated use of germ-killing chlorine bleach and a sturdy stainless steel frame that won’t harbor germs in the scratches. Designed to minimize unnecessary touchpoints and joints between metal and plastic, the structure is safer and can be disassembled easily for cleaning. The commode design also integrates a number of features that enhance user comfort. Armrests are textured with a fine grain to create more grip for the user and swing up to make it easier to get the patient in and out of the seat. The chair is equipped with wheels and footrests so patients can be transported from the bedside, and looks like a regular porter’s chair to dispel the impression that the patient is being wheeled about on a toilet. The pan is made from disposable paper pulp that drops into the hole, rather than mounts from underneath it, thus eliminating splash back. It also has a lid to contain waste when taken away.

While the intent of the commode’s design was to minimize contact with infectious germs, it addressed many more critical issues including functionality, comfort, cost of replacement parts, the dignity of the user, and, yes, the modern aesthetic look of an essential piece of hospital equipment.

Sir James Dyson continues to innovate with his bladeless fan, “The Air Multiplier.” Using the same technology from his “Airblade” hand dryer to create an addition to his long list of unique products. Although not available in stores until next year, you can get into the queue at Dyson.co.uk.