The whole point of a Roomba is to vacuum for you so that you don’t have to put in any physical labor. Well, someone in Japan with a little too much time figured out a way to put the vacuuming labor back into the Roomba. Why? I don’t think anyone really knows. There are always kudos for new ideas and thinking outside the box, but this really just leads to us being able to pantomime all of the chores we don’t like. Though we could completely avoid the chores altogether.
This thing is still pretty neat considering it’s self-defeating design. It has many different options other than normal back and forth. A plus side is that there may come a real life Chibi-Robo type game out of this. If you have no idea what that is, it’s about a robot who cleans things.
While I wish I could attribute this clever floating lamp to the work of an anti-gravity machine, or even the Jedi, I’m afraid the real secret isn’t really that secret. It’s probably just voodoo magic. That or a reinforced power cord, I don’t know. The design3000 website is all in German, which is like Greek to me… but written in German. For ~$265(€195), which is actually quite reasonable for a design-y item like this, the FlapFlap lamp doesn’t even come with a bulb which is totally lame. But I’m sure the stunned look on visitor’s faces when they see it totally makes up for the lack of included accessories.
Sometimes there’s nothing more relaxing than sitting back and watching a good movie, but that’s not entirely true. Why expend all that energy to remain in an upright sitting position when Sapapa’s Tornado bed lets you lay back while still enjoying a surround sound experience? Thanks to a headboard embedded with an amp, a couple of speakers and a subwoofer, the Tornado can provide a pseudo home theater experience using a PhaseCue System which manipulates the audio signals to create a kind of surround sound effect. It’s no where near as convincing as a true 5.1 setup, but I doubt too many people need one of those in their bedroom.
The Tornado bed gets even better though. Using a hydraulic mechanism it can automatically adjust itself to four different positions so you don’t even have to sit up by yourself to better see the TV. Seriously, all it needs is some automated system for dealing with bed sores, maybe a feeding/water tube, and I don’t see any reason to ever get out of bed again. $3,600 to $3,800 depending on what size you want.
Sure, the real Death Star had planet-destroying lasers, tractor beams and an office with an awesome view of the galaxy for the Empire’s CEO, but you know what it wasn’t full of? Cookies. Now I’m not saying you could rule the galaxy with fear and oppression with nothing more than a ceramic sphere full of baked goods, but who would choose all that stress of having to deal with constant rebellions when you could simply sit back with a jar full of pecan sandies?
Not this guy. The only time I can see myself needing a laser capable of wiping out a planet is if I ever find the person responsible for the idea of putting raisins in a cookie. I’ve definitely got a score to settle there… Available exclusively from the StarWarsShop.com for $49.99.
I’ve yet to enjoy the ‘blessing’ of having a newborn infant in my household, but lack-of-rest assured, I will use every single electronic solution to my advantage when it comes to helping them sleep through the night. And I don’t care if this Easidream system is only available in the UK at the moment, I will re-wire my home to make it work.
The idea is pretty simple. The infant has just spent 9 months in the cozy confines of a womb, and suddenly they’re thrust into the real world. I’m pretty sure I’d spend all my time crying too. (Not just my usual 3 hours a day.) So the Easidream provides them with some of the comforts they’re accustomed to. First there’s a special mat connected to a control unit/air pump that sits under their mattress and recreates a gentle womb-like rocking motion with adjustable speeds and motions. It can even be controlled with timers so you can gradually ease off the thrill ride until your young’n is used to sleeping on a regular mattress.
The Easidream system also comes with Ewan, a plush sheep you hang on the crib which has a pink ambient glow and plays one of four womb-familiar sound effects like a mother’s beating heart. Both components are sold separately, and while Ewan is ~$50(£30.63) the Easidream rocking mat is a touch more pricey at ~$412(£255.31).
Mr. Beam (Mo Assem & Ruben van Esterik) is a small company based out of the Netherlands that specializes in giant lighting installations that use powerful video projectors to map graphics and animations over large buildings. But they’ve recently taken their expertise indoors with their fun Living Room concept.
Using only 2 projectors and some extremely careful planning and mapping, they’re able to project an entire 360° decor onto a living room filled with white furniture. This includes projected wallpaper and even carpeting. The concept, which is not unlike Michel Gondry’s Dead Leaves And The Dirty Ground video for The White Stripes (RIP) could make it really easy for interior decorators to try out an infinite number of pattern and color combinations before committing to a new decor in a room. That is if Mr. Beam ever decides to commercialize it.
More and more flash drives and external storage solutions are shipping with built-in encryption options, and it makes sense. Back when flash drives were just 32MB in size having one go missing was not necessarily the end of the world. But these days you can carry 100+ gigs of data in something that’s as easy to misplace as a pen, so making sure your digital life stays private and protected is a genuine concern. And the USB Crypto Adapter, from a Norway-based company called Hiddn, promises to make any drive secure no matter how old or small it may be.
As the name implies, the Crypto is an adapter that sits between a computer’s USB port and the storage drive and deals with all of the encryption/decryption details. It uses an AES 256-bit encryption algorithm which is still strong and secure, as well as a combination PIN and smartcard to access the files on the drive. None of the security or encryption keys are stored on the actual media either, so if they go missing there’s little to no chance your files will be accessible to anyone but you. Obviously it would be nice if the unit was a little more compact so it was a touch easier to travel with, but the ability to encrypt all of your drives, no matter what capacity or brand they are, makes it a handy tool to have on hand, even if you’re not an IT person.
We all love the game Pictionary Junior, you know, the one with the play-doh that everyone has to mold? Problem being, not everyone knows how to mold things very well, so the easiest way to resolve that problem? Give the people LEGOs. There is a game called Creationary put out by LEGO that helps you get through charades while playing with LEGOs. You can build dinosaurs, gas pumps, and everything in between. It comes with 96 cards, a buildable LEGO dice, minifigure, microfigure, and a rule booklet.
The idea is to let your imagination run wild, and be able to make it tangible. There are three levels of difficulty, so that all ages can play. This is definitely going to be a great family fun night game for sure. And at only $35, it’s a pretty cheap way to entertain everyone.
The Anti Sleep Pilot, which we originally wrote about back in November, was a small puck-sized device designed to sit on your vehicle’s dashboard and help you stay awake during long drives. It used a combination of motion sensors to detect recurring erratic driving movements that could indicate a driver is nodding off, along with random tests to determine the driver’s alertness. When the ASP decided it was time for them to take a break, it would alert the driver with a set of easy-to-understand colored lights. It was a simple idea that had the potential to actually save lives, but the $250+ price tag was a bit hard to swallow.
So I think it’s pretty great that the Anti Sleep Pilot is now available as a software-only product in the iTunes App Store for just $19.99. As iPhone apps go that’s not exactly cheap, but it’s a far cry from what the hardware version of the product will set you back. And it makes sense given that the motion sensor hardware used in the Anti Sleep Pilot puck already exists in the iPhone. But because the iPhone also has that lovely touchscreen, the app version of the Anti Sleep Pilot adds a bit more including real-time stats of your trip, a GPS powered map function that shows how far you can safely drive before getting fatigued and even control over your music so you don’t need to jump between apps while driving.
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