Sometimes it feels like our planet's future is going to be more similar to Idiocracy than Star Trek.
We won't know for sure until we get there, but humanity isn't all bad. In fact, people can be pretty gosh-darn smart. Let's celebrate some of our more clever innovations.
This prototype bottle from Carlsberg is made of plant-based fibers. It's designed to degrade back into the earth within a year. We could see these on store shelves in the coming years.
Store loading docks and truckbeds never seem to fully match up. These trucks eliminate that problem by having beds that can be moved up or down using hydraulics.
Maybe you don't want to touch the elevator buttons because of germs. Maybe you just have your hands full. Either way, with these foot-level buttons, you don't need a free hand.
Considering people have literally died pursuing their quest for the perfect selfie, identifying "selfie points" is probably a good idea. This ferry shows Instagrammers the best, safest spot to take a good pic.
This button-up shirt has a hidden feature: buttons on the inside that prevent any sort of boob gap. It's wild that every shirt doesn't have this simple design feature.
If you're in an unfamiliar grocery store, finding what you need can be a pain. This store uses themed helium balloons to make things easier. If you want bananas, just look for the floating anthropomorphic banana.
I'd never thought about this before, but I guess situations will arise where there's a lot of plane, and not much hangar. This solution seems like it works alright.
Everyone and their mother loves pizza, but the large, flat shape of pizzas makes them tough to fit into a fridge. This fridge, with its in-door pizza storage, is the answer to my prayers.
Ruins usually require some imagination, because they're, well, ruined. These transparent signs help visitors understand the context of what they're looking at, and how things looked during a different time.
These plugs are not only angled to allow easy access to other outlets, they're equipped with pass-throughs that allow other plugs to be plugged directly into them. I've never seen anything like this before.
This rooftop office in New York's West Village probably costs, conservatively, a thousand million dollars a month to rent out. But with this kind of outdoor access, it seems worth it.
I want to talk about pizza a little more. When you're carrying a pie home, that big box can be kind of awkward to juggle. But with a little bit of ingenuity, a standard plastic bag does the job just fine.
These accessible priority seats are brightly-colored to help them stand out. They also feature a design that shows commuters the kinds of people who should be offered these seats.
It's awesome that the person who put this fence up decided to go the extra mile, designing the fence around the existing trees rather than simply chopping them down.
The vicinity of a late-night pizza place is usually full of discarded pizza boxes, since they don't fit easily into most trash cans. This custom-designed garbage receptacle helps fix that issue.
Toast tongs are a helpful thing to have in the kitchen, but this toaster actually includes a set of tongs that are integrated into its design.
This bollard near a school in the U.K. is designed to look like a little kid to encourage drivers to slow down. I'm sure this gives drivers heart attacks on foggy nights.
This old briefcase might not look like much from the outside. But when it's opened up, you can see just how well its owner has designed it to accommodate their tools.
These intuitive measuring spoons are labeled, like most measuring spoons. But, because they're designed to visually represent fractions, you probably won't need to look at those labels at all.
This knife sheath is probably the most secure knife sheath I've ever seen, because it has a full-blown combination lock on it. Anyone who wants to chop veggies had better know the code.
