designboom
Spoot: Spotted Early keeps designboom in one place: 3 stories so far. The section currently leads with “Project ARES puts 250 real electric motorcycles on the road, not just renders”, “Kenko's pieni III has no screen and no idea what you're pointing at: perfect”, and “Rivian's Halloween update turns your EV into a ghost-hunting light show”. Two hundred and fifty real motorcycles. The pieni III has no screen and no idea what you're pointing at. Spoot: Spotted Early New things, caught while they're still new and a little weird. Spoot finds fresh gadgets, clever inventions, crowdfunding campaigns,… The list below is every designboom story on Spoot: Spotted Early, newest first.
Project ARES puts 250 real electric motorcycles on the road, not just renders
Two hundred and fifty real motorcycles. Not renders. Not a Kickstarter that fades into vaporware. Project ARES is building them, with sculptural bodywork that looks like it was carved by someone who got tired of looking at the same plastic fairings everyone else uses. The analog-inspired experience is the detail that snags me, because electric bikes often try to be futuristic in the most boring way possible, all screens and abstraction. ARES seems to want the future to feel like something you actually hold onto. It's preparing its first production run now, which puts it ahead of most of the concepts we cover around here. If you liked the way Lutra's new camera sees through itself to find the subject, you'll probably want to watch where ARES goes next.
Kenko's pieni III has no screen and no idea what you're pointing at: perfect
The pieni III has no screen and no idea what you're pointing at. That's the whole point. Kenko's latest is a miniature film-camera lookalike that forces you to guess, frame wildly, and accept whatever comes back. No chimping. No retakes. Just lo-fi photos that feel like little surprises. It's a tiny, charming rebellion against the phone-camera reflex of checking every shot immediately. You load it, point it, and hope. That kind of spontaneity is rare in a world where your camera roll holds 14,000 duplicates. If you like the idea of constraints making things more interesting, check out our piece on the $146 Await camera, which limits you to 24 shots per roll so every frame has to earn its keep.
Rivian's Halloween update turns your EV into a ghost-hunting light show
Rivian's Halloween update doesn't just slap a spooky decal on the tailgate. It turns the whole EV into a ghost-hunting rig: interactive screens, paranormal sound effects, light shows, and a custom-built Ecto-R1 that would make the original Ghostbusters crew nod in approval. That's the kind of holiday energy we can get behind, the kind that burrows into the spec sheet and finds the proton pack hiding under the frunk. It's playful, yes, but it's also a clever way to make software updates feel like events. Rivian isn't selling a car here; it's selling a reason to gather the kids, park in the driveway, and pretend your commute is a containment grid.