Australian designer John Van Den Nieuwenhuizen, now based in San Francisco, sums up the intuitive nature of his Hidden Radio: “The product attempts to be silent both visually and functionally by having the cap in the downward position. By lifting up the cap the user proportionally increases the volume. The further the cap goes up the louder the sound gets. To tune the radio you simply rotate the cap and receive feedback of tuning quality via the LED on the front.”

+ hiddenradio.johnvdn.com

Korea’s DND Casa’s line of television-equipped mirrors uses German mirror image technology from Ad Notam to conceal the workings. These “no-tv” mirrors are also foils for a PC computer and LCD display. But DND has applied the technology to other furniture, so that everything can become multifunctional. Watch TV on your bookshelf or perhaps even your lamp.

+ dndcasa.com

Jesper Larsson provided some recent coverage for us in Milan and reports the following: “Many events were closing down on Monday, the last day of Milan Design Week, when I finally got a chance to visit some of the smaller events in the Zona Tortona area, such as the ChauhanStudio, with work by brothers Tej and Sach Chauhan. I finally managed to get my foot inside the door, and I'm glad I did. On display were beautiful retro futuristic designs that made me think of Naoto Fukasawa, one of my favourite designers. I especially liked the Colombo II, a trimline style DECT phone that looks to re-establish the lost relationship between earpiece and mouthpiece on modern telephones. The phone is manufactured by Suncorp Communications and should be available spring/summer 2008. According to ChauhanStudio's homepage, they are also planning to release the corded telephone Colombo III in 2008.”

+ chauhanstudio.com

So sleek, so small – whatever can it be?
The Mesiro Home Entertainment PC is a digital all-in-one that fits tidily into the context of the living room. The Merium allows Internet access and lets you to enjoy on your TV anything for which you would usually use your monitor. The Merium PC can be personalized by way of different covers and is powered by a Core2Duo running Windows Vista Home Premium.

+ mesiro.com

London’s ChauhanStudio will be presenting a new collection in Milan, including a new TV concept for Humax Electronics and the Colombo line of telephones for Suncorp Communications.

+ tejchauhan.com

+ The gas-fired Blitzgrill by Radius Design is a sleek barbecue that is ready in 5 minutes and comes with a cast-iron barbecue plate.

+ Japan’s GG-Kids have some interesting wooden toys, like the Step to the World set of flag-printed socks for matching and the Mame Ohagki wooden bean sorting game.

+ The Urbanati DJ Console by Trevor O'Neill is made entirely out of recycled materials (except the light fixture).

+ Aton’s new line of Elio tables combines fanciful swirls in clay, not unlike swirls of rope, with panels of glass and wood. The clay is either matte white or glazed a gunmetal grey and casts intricate shadows on the wood that is either lacquered white of stained dark.