OmniTechNews covered the launch of both Octa as a company and the first tablet, e-reader and iPad handle and stand in its TabletTail line. They called the Vacuum Dock + WhaleTail iPad handle one of the most unique iPad accessories they’ve seen. (more…)
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MacWorld UK’s David Price stopped by Octa’s booth 6221 at International CES to review their new tablet, e-reader and iPad stand, the Vacuum Dock + WhaleTail. (more…)
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For the last year and a half, co-founders Prometheus Trotsky and Nikki Braziel (your writer) have been working feverishly to build a business to support the launch of the TabletTail line, a group of interchangeable iPad accessories they invented that work with any tablet or e-reader. Now, we’re on a (very slow-moving) shuttle bus to the Las Vegas Convention Center to ring in 2012 International CES. We have our team with us, wearing Octa shirts, and we’re carrying one very strange package.
Booth 6221 has been its own mini-journey. After securing Quantum Foam 3D reflective wallpaper from a very generous Louise Wakefield at Beware the Moon, we backed the booth in its glow. Then we set about working with Brian Pinkham of PhotonicBliss to design and engineer a suction-reactive LED display table. Finally, we cut a beautiful frosted plexiglass Octa sign. We packed it all in a crate, crossed our fingers and shipped us to CES.
At the Convention Hall on Sunday, we located our booth behind the Great Wall of Moshi, a monolithic and impressive display of iPhone cases and iPad accessories. Our crate was no where to be found. After a bit of searching, we located it misplaced an aisle away. We flagged a forklift driver and started building. LED table intact. Check. Quantum Foam wall secured. Check. OCTA sign? CRACK!!!
Our beautiful sign snapped in two. Scope out Octa on Facebook to see pictures of the saga. It involved a crash-prone taxi driver, getting stranded in suburban Vegas, foam core, spray painting in a parking lot, a bus, an exacto knife, and several Wynn towels covered in green acrylic. Now we’re on the slow bus to the convention hall, carrying our revived sign wrapped in craft paper. We’re ready to share our iPad accessory — the result of our hard work, tenacity and excitement. Look for the Vacuum Dock + WhaleTail, launching today! But first, look for our beautiful repaired sign in booth 6221.
Unveils versatile TabletTail™ line and signature products – the Vacuum Dock and WhaleTail – to increase mobility and ease of use of tablets and e-readers
Las Vegas – January 10, 2012 – Octa™ (https://www.octa.com), a creator of tablet and e-reader accessories, today announced the official launch of the company and its TabletTail™ line. The company will debut its never before seen product at booth #6221 at the 2012 International CES in Las Vegas at the Las Vegas Convention Center and World Trade Center/Las Vegas Hilton.
Prometheus Trotsky and Nikki Braziel founded the company on the premise of combining technology with forms found in nature to create distinctive tablet and e-reader accessories that suit every lifestyle.
The TabletTail product line is launching with two separate components: the Vacuum Dock and WhaleTail stand. Their compact and agile design compliments the sleek construction of tablets and e-readers and gives users the mobility their lifestyle demands. The Vacuum Dock is a comfortably-shaped grip with a convenient low-angle stand. When attached to the Vacuum Dock, the WhaleTail increases functionality by acting as both a stand with a full range of angles and a handle for tablets and e-readers. Additional docks and tails that are compatible and interchangeable will be released throughout 2012.
“Many tablet accessories are created simply to provide protection, but they don’t extend the functionality of the device,” said COO Nikki Braziel. “Our goal at Octa is to improve the way people use their technology. Our product line is not only universally adaptable to a range of tablets and e-readers, but it also adds usability when you’re on the go. The WhaleTail creates a handle that allows you to safely use your tablet while working, walking, traveling, multi-tasking, reading, or watching a movie.”
Product Highlights:
The TabletTail is priced at $59.95. It is currently available for pre-order and will be shipped in April 2012. For more information, visit https://www.octa.com.
ABOUT OCTA
Octa creates distinctive mobile electronics accessories that make the digital experience more enjoyable. The creation of Prometheus Trotsky and Nikki Braziel, Octa was born from their combined love of technology and natural form. The team is comprised of a small group of artists, philosophers, and inventors, constantly striving to combine beauty and functionality. They maintain a creative environment by combining work and playfulness in their Denver headquarters.
For more information, visit us at https://www.octa.com.
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(Photograph Courtesy of Michael Holden)
You may imagine that people who make the annual desert pilgrimage to Burning Man do so to escape their schedules and technology. (more…)
(Photo Courtesy of Dave Patten)
In the 2006 comedy Idiocracy, Mike Judge depicts the Great Garbage Avalanche of 2505. That falling mass is almost certainly full of original iPads, first generation iPods, and antiquated iPhones, along with device-specific chargers and trashed FM transmitters. Technological advances have their costs. More pernicious than the stylized movie threats of new weapons or rampaging dinosaur clones, we face a not-so-subtle and advancing threat: the exponential growth of stuff.
This is the environmental impact of planned obsolescence, or the design practice of deliberately providing a product with a limited useful life. Items are created with intentional shortcomings to force users to make ancillary purchases. It’s no surprise that the sale of consumer electronics accessories represents $10 billion in annual revenue. Most consumers plan to use their accessories for a few years, but when the form factor, or geometry of a product, shifts from generation to generation—common among smartphones—accessory purchases may become more regular. Think of all those dead dongles: DisplayPorts replaced by Mini DisplayPorts, FireWire replaced by Thunderbolt. (more…)
(Photograph Courtesy of Sarah Faulwetter)
“To understand ourselves, we must embrace the alien.”
– PZ Meyers, octopus neuroscientist
As discussed in Biomimicry and the Design Revolution, our species is learning to consult the natural world for evolved solutions to contemporary human problems. This paradigm shift – commonly referred to as “biomimicry” – has inspired everything from tailfin-shaped tidal energy generators to new adhesives based on the pads of gecko feet. Now designers have turned it on one of our era’s unique dilemmas: the growing demand for extended memory and cognition in an accelerating technological society. (more…)
This photo is of artist Theo Jansen’s Rhinoceros and is brought to you by Octa, creators of the Whale Kit iPad Handle.
Humankind has a proud history of developing technology. Defined by the Greeks as technologia, it is the creation and use of tools, techniques, crafts and systems in order to solve problems or affect purposes. As soon as we humans recognized our mortality, we began using fire, clothing, and farming to distance ourselves from the vicissitudes of nature.
In the quest for comfort and material security, our species spent thousands of years separating itself from nature. Now designers are looking back to the natural world out of reverence for its evolutionary intelligence. Nature, it turns out, already has the solutions to many of our problems. (more…)
