Month: April 2021

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  Salahe Bembury is a footwear designer, with the Cole Haan Lunargrand among his credits. His virtual LZ-F Electrified interior uses a mix of natural materials, including granite for the steering wheel. [credit: Lexus ]

By their nature, car companies are rather conservative. Cars are expensive, after all, so there's an element of caution involved in such a large purchase. This explains why you see so many variations of silver exteriors and black interiors—safer for resale value that way. Which is why I'm so enamored with these concept interiors that Lexus has commissioned for its latest concept, the LZ-F Electrified.

The car company offered up the interior of the LZ-F Electrified as a canvas for footwear designer Salahe Bembury, artist Ondrej Zunka, and the leather crafters at Hender Scheme, each of whom came up with something radically different.

Bembury's take contrasts the advanced technology of an EV with plenty of natural materials. The seats are made of cork, with a rough suede on the seatbacks. The center console is made from cedar, and the steering wheel appears to be cut from granite.

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  I have no gun, but I must shoot. [credit: Nintendo ]

When you get down to it, "shooting" in a video game is really just a way of projecting a directed line of intent from your character to another visible point on the map. This basic fact is a large part of why shooting a gun has become such a natural means of interacting with games from a first-person perspective. If your character is looking at something, shooting a gun lets you instantly and easily engage with whatever you're looking at.

There's one other major real-life action where this simple point-and-shoot mechanic applies: photography. Nintendo was among the first game-makers to realize this over 20 years ago, creating Pokémon Snap for the Nintendo 64 as a new type of first-person "shooter" (it doesn't hurt that cameras fit much better than guns with Pokémon's family-friendly branding). In the years since, though, only a handful of games have taken Nintendo's lead and replaced "shoot a gun" with "shoot a photo" as the main verb.

So it's down to Nintendo to revive and expand its own good idea with the awkwardly titled New Pokémon Snap for the Switch. Though the update can get a bit repetitive and tedious at times, this secret-packed photo safari is a great mix of chill moments and competitive personal striving for the best shots.