Prism USB Hub ‘Spectrus’ Serves As An Artistic Ultimatum

The fact that we don’t see much good Russian design is not (necessarily) due to the fact that there isn’t much, more that it is smothered by the vast amounts emanating from Japan and the US. But the relatively small company of ‘Art Lebedev’ likes to buck the trend, and they have produced something of real artistic worth with their new USB hub: the Spectrus.

Influenced by prisms this triangular USB hub offers seven new USB ports that have their individual ‘rainbow’ colour creating something that is not only striking but pretty appealing. But this is nothing new surely? Actually if you look around it is hard to find a USB port that is neither functional, cheap or a novelty but actual art, and I think that this fits the bill very well.

Obviously the quality of art is pretty relative, but I feel that even the most anti-science computer user can appreciate the beauty of this practical design even if it is only in the design stage (and there are a few different versions knocking around the web).

But I have not used the word ‘ultimatum’ for nothing: this is an avenue that we see very rarely in the tech world: and for a reason. Mostly people like things that are small, cheap or very functional: this is definitely not small (it is designed to stand out), as a ‘work of art’ it will almost definitely not be cheap and although it will be functional it will be nothing special, so why buy it?

It fills that gap that so many computer systems lack, that je-ne-sais-quoi that makes them individual and nice on the eye, and it is a clever way of relating computers to the natural world on which they rely. And with the rare exception of (in my humble opinion) Macs there are not many things that are designed firstly for design and secondly for their specifications, and it is nice to see a change.

In fact if you look under the specification driven surface you will find lots of examples of great computer ‘art’ that is ignored by most PC users: gaming characters consistently make good models for artists and even the more novelty items (such as the bit-byte-kilobytes etc wooden dolls) are still great examples of how the technology revolution has influenced the art world.

So I suppose my point is that although computers are wonderful, we should sometimes take a step back and take the opportunity to make them into something artistic and not necessarily the small or ridiculously efficient . In fact apart from the possible exception of your wallpaper I doubt you have any good ‘art’ on your PC, just a monochromic LCD and case combo – I know I do and it is a little saddening.

But back to the original product, the Spectrus is something different and although I doubt many people will be rushing out to buy it I think the nice design and lovely bright USB cables would really make an improvement to any system.

Via – Everything USB

Related Pages:

1. ProMotion Keyboard to Prevent Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
2. LG KF600 Review
3. Computer Weekly IT Blog Awards 2009 Nomination for Zath
4. R2D2 USB Hub
5. Archos 10 Netbook Launched

Get Your Free Zath Subscription!

Did you like reading this article? If so, stay up to date with all our latest content by either subscribing to our RSS feed, becoming a fan of Zath on Facebook or by following Zath on Twitter.

You can also sign up to the Zath Newsletter and receive email updates by simply entering your first name and email address below then clicking the 'Submit' button - signing up is risk-free, if you don't find it useful, you can unsubscribe at any point!

We hate spam too, we'll never disclose your email address to anyone else!