Sarita Wilkinson features in StrategyEye and shares her opinion on the latest report from Juniper Research who predicts fitness wearable tech devices look more likely to drive the wearable space than smart watches.

That time of year has come again for ‘The Plastics Industry Awards 2014’. Every year it recognises the best that the UK plastics industry has to offer with 17 categories ranging from ‘Processor of the Year’ to ‘Apprentice of the Year’. PDD is a previous winner of ‘Industrial Product Design of the Year’ award, but this year I was lucky enough to be invited along as a finalist.

After attending CEF electronics show in Shanghai, Emily Lai investigates how local Chinese brands can survive and thrive if they want to expand in a global market place. What will set these Chinese brands apart from other players within their own highly competitive and fast moving marketplace?

As a university placement student at PDD, this is the first time I’ve had to commute to work. When possible I cycle the 9 miles from my flat to the office but sometimes there’s no avoiding it. Personally, I’ve never seen the appeal of a stuffy, tube commute – crammed like sardines in a tin with a friendly armpit in your face. However, I’ve recently been thinking that maybe there’s more potential than meets the eye. If we are willing to take a deep breath, step into the unknown and talk to the person standing next us on the tube.

PDD is delighted to announce that Tom Hamilton, Consultant – Technical Design, has been awarded the Young Designer of the Year at the Plastics Industry Awards 2014 for his Zebro Leg Split design.

There are a few things essential to all living things on this planet; food, water, oxygen and sunlight. As our world becomes increasingly populated, the demand put on the amount of land and natural resources needed to produce the food we eat has intensified. But what would happen if we could manufacture these basic life giving essentials in a shopping centre?

IFA, Berlin – one of the biggest technology shows in the heart of Germany’s capital, sees thousands of people gathered to witness the latest products and innovations in consumer electronics and home appliances. Vass was at the show and describes here, 5 key home appliance products we could be seeing in people’s homes very soon.

The connected home is becoming more and more of a reality as hordes of devices and services continue to flood the market. Want your heating to know your schedule and kick in when you’re exactly 10 minutes away from home – there is a device for that. Want milk ordered for you before you even realise you’re about to run out – there’s a device for that. Want your grass watered for you based on the changing weather – there’s a device for that too!

PDD’s Heather McQuaid, Principal – Human-Centred Design and Vicky Hong, Business Development Manager (China), talk to Design Magazine about our Human-Centred Design approach for innovation, following the workshop PDD facilitated in IXDC 2014 Beijing.

Modern hospitals are often hectic and complex environments. In this knowledge piece, Fabien Schmitt discusses how Human-Centred Design can be used to develop new products and services for the operating room – one of the most complex environments in the hospital – in order to “tame” this complexity and create safer and more user-friendly solutions.

Wow, we’re over half way through the year and it seems not so long ago that some of our team at PDD visited Ambiente (Frankfurt) and IHA Housewares (Chicago) to scout out the latest kitchen and table trends, as well as for the launch of our own collection for ZAK! Designs. So, well into the third quarter and in the midst of summer we’re taking a look back at some of the colourful and inspiring highlights!

Wearables have once more caused a stir in the studio; with always more potential but also unexpected (and sometimes questionable) applications being revealed every day. Wearables still need to come of age, but one thing is certain: they make technology ever more personal. Take Google’s ‘smart lens’ technology, released earlier this year, which could make wearables less about you interacting with a worn device and more about the worn device serving you, seamlessly blending with your life.

Heart failure, Stroke, Cancer, Dementia, Malaria, Bird Flu or even Ebola – take your pick from the latest challenges in world health. Each account of these relative pandemics sweeping societies across the globe allude to being your next arch enemy, ‘the one you need to watch out for’. At the time of writing this blog, five of the major newspapers featured health related headlines including ‘Dementia patients cut loose’, ‘500,000 denied cancer drug’, ‘Statins health risk’, and ‘Superbugs will send us to the dark ages’ – it is clear that health is high on the public radar.

Catching up on my LinkedIn newsfeed, I see a link to a video entitled, “Smartwatches could be a perfect home for augmented reality.” As there are few really good applications for AR, and even fewer for smartwatches, I thought I’d see how the designers envisioned combining two questionable technologies.

Wearables are all the craze this year, but as the Apple acquisition of Beats shows us – the focus should be on headphones and not on the wrist. Marko Plevnik talks to Fortune Magazine on how the ‘original wearable’ has the potential to offer more than just a private music experience.

So the internet has been an important pillar in society for a few decades now, but as the NSA spying scandal showed all of us – our vulnerability online is not limited to cyber criminals. Over the last few months there have been a plethora of articles on how to erase your online self, exemplified through the European Court of Human Rights’ ruling on ‘the right to be forgotten’. After all, everything we do online these days is tracked and recorded, unless you solemnly use Snapchat that is.

The second part of our coffee series looks at how science and technology have allowed professional coffee makers to fully understand the volatile process of making the perfect cup of coffee, tuning machinery and techniques to get the best out of the coffee bean.

It has been a bumper month for interesting links here in the studio with the longer days no doubt adding to the teams thirst for knowledge. Beating back breakthrough stories such as the ‘FDA approves first mind controlled prosthetic arm’ and ‘The world’s first Braille phone’, the king of the hill last month for me was a reminder to the days of the popular BBC program Tomorrows World showcasing the forefronts in technology set to change the future, that often many years later appeared to fizzle out disappointingly.

A vending machine is quite an interesting thing, other than existing since the early 20th century and now being as universal as sliced bread, the future direction for these vendors is just as fascinating as the stuff they dispense. So, I’ve decided to share with you my choice of the top 10 vending machines, and discuss how the marriages of new technologies and ‘convenience’ are revolutionising our fast-moving tech-savvy consumer culture.

Our appetite for coffee is staggering. The UK’s consumption, for example, is defying all odds, reaching a staggering £6.2bn turnover in 2013 = bucking most other retail trends in the same period. In this series of blog posts we will delve into the pinnacle of the industry – the world of craft, or specialty coffee, and outline some of the latest trends to understand what might (and how it might) be served in a high-street coffee shop near you soon.