Every town has that one house that goes a little overboard with the holiday lighting, and as ostentatious a display as they put on the can’t hold a candle to Kenny Irwin’s Palm Springs residence dubbed “RoboLights”.  According to the authorities at HGTV and TLC,  RoboLights is the largest known residential light display built in the country, sporting over seven million lights and featuring over two hundred multi-ton giant robots, several animatronic robots and four life size villages spread over four acres.

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We all need a little sunshine – or at least the illusion of it.  With that in mind, Norwegian designer Daniel Rybakken has created light fixtures that replicate daylight for sun deprived interiors. Hailing from the land of Polar Nights, Rybakken has examined the ways natural light can provide benefits to the human mind and seeks to replicate those benefits in his work.

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We don’t get many lamp posts around here, but Italian designer Sandro Santantonio’s futuristic-looking floor lamp design for Lucentec demanded a mention.

With its slender, fluid shape, no doubt you’ll receive a generous helping of light – and adjustable light at that with the flexible head. From the base, looking like a drop, develops the hollow body of the modern lamp; the top part also has the shape of a drop. The Semjase offers a nice blend of the decorative arts and technical flash. And light… it offers light. I like it. I think it looks cool, but then again if I were sitting on the couch reading and looked up I might think it was sort of menacing looking and might be plotting to kill me. [via contemporist]

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Handcrafted entirely from cardboard boxes discarded by local businesses, Scrap Lights are in a (completely made up) word, “Trashtastic.”  The brainchild of the design team over at GrayPants.com, Scrap Lights utilize the corrugated surfaces of cardboard to create patterns of diffused light.

The latest series of Scrap Lights, JUPITER, pay tribute to that behemoth of a planet.  Jupiter, along with its four Galilean moons, Ganymede, Callisto, Io, and Europa, are available as set or individually. All of the lampshades are handmade and therefore will vary slightly in shape, making each one as unique as their owners.

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At first glance, you might think Craighton Berman’s Coil Lamp is an artifact of the 70s, but upon closer inspection, you’ll notice the black plugs on either end, giving away the lamp’s true identity as a coiled power cord. Berman says he wanted to reduce the domestic lamp to the “absolute minimum of defining element”s, and he’s succeeded by wrapping the cable around laser-cut clear plexiglass. The Coil Lamp measures 17 inches tall by 11 inches wide, and you can actually buy it directly from Berman: The “handmade” version, for $150, comes fully coiled and ready to use, while the “DIY” version includes all the parts you need to coil your own. [Craighton Berman via Core77]

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The circle-and-line symbol above is usually understood as “press this to make power,” but that won’t work with Lana Savettiere’s Turn On Lamp. It plays on the familiar power button of consumer electronics devices, but acts like a conventional lamp switch, requiring you to turn it over to the opposite side. Finished in opal plexiglass, the front and rear of Turn On are identical, so you could place this anywhere in a room, or even outside, as the lamp’s internal LED lights run on rechargeable power. And don’t be intimidated by the photos: Turn On’s not as huge as it looks, measuring roughly a foot in diameter. [100 Percent Design via The Design Blog]

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Those who want to set the mood but fear the open flame might consider Simon Enever’s Candleamp. The enclosed candle mood lamp gives off a warm glow inside its metallic enclosure. All it needs is two soy candles at the base, and the light is reflected many times over, adding a bit of mystique to your romantic evening. And no need for matches here, thanks to a hidden push-button mechanism that both lights and extinguishes the flames. Extra safety comes from the insulating cover an sturdy wooden base. Enever wants to “a younger, more fashionable market.” Does the Candleamp do the job? [via Coroflot and Enever]

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When most people play pool or other games of skill, they prefer to limit their distractions. Apparently those with way too much money to spend on frivolous toys go the opposite direction. The Obscura Digital Cuelight, which is featured in Esquire’s Ultimate Bachelor Pad, uses a series of sensors and a projector to cast images on the table that follow the balls around as you play. Examples include flames flaring from the balls as they roll or a virtual water surface that ripples as the balls pass over–visually interesting, but rather useless overall. The designers are addressing the system’s lack of billiard-based functionality and are working on software that would provide visual cues as to where and how exactly to hit your next shot–kind of cheating, but certainly an aid that could benefit the beginner. Of course, the $80,000 for the system (no pool table comes with that) is a rather expensive price to pay. Check out video after the break. [via Gizmodo]

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