Given how difficult it can be to find clothing that fits my lanky frame in brick and mortar stores, I don’t even consider shopping for clothes online an option. But a new service called Fits.me has actually come up with a pretty clever way to let people of all shapes and sizes see how a garment will look on them while shopping online. The secret is an animated mannequin with a body composed of separate panels that can be individually adjusted via servo motors on the inside. This allows the mannequin to grow or shrink to any body shape or size.
But the Fitbot, which exists as both male and female versions, isn’t designed to be used in clothing stores, or controlled remotely via a website. Online retailers can actually use it to produce an extensive series of photos of a given garment, showing how it would fit on an exhaustive series of body types. You can try out the service on the Fits.me website using the ‘Try it on’ button on the main page. You’ll need to take the time to measure your body so you can feed it your specific dimensions, but once you’ve done that you’ll be able to see just how well, or poorly, a garment would fit you.
I know I’ve seen bicycle/sofa mashups online before, but Jacek Holubowicz’s Sofa Bike has a level of polish and finish that makes it look like you could walk into a Schwinn dealer and take one home. But you can’t. The bike is a one-off, built by hand, to explore the idea of enjoying a bike date with a special someone. Two sets of pedals connect to two separate 8-gear hubs allowing each person to carry their own weight, and hydraulic braking and steering are handled by a single crank located on the left arm of the sofa. It’s even got a folding roof that easily pops-up thanks to a set of assistive gas springs, and its own sound system powered by a rechargeable battery. Best of all? The video I’ve included below makes driving it around look like a heck of a lot of fun.
As its creator Nathan Bergey points out: “The International Space Station (ISS) is a marvel of current technology and humanity. It’s a continuously inhabited orbital outpost, floating in space just over our heads. But often we forget it’s there.” So as a constant reminder, and a great way to know when you might actually have a chance of seeing it pass overhead, he created this ISS Notify lamp which lights up and remains glowing as long as the station is more than 10 degrees above the horizon.
The actual data for when the ISS passes overhead (for wherever on Earth you may be) is gleaned from a website called Heavens-Above which already does all of the calculations for the station’s orbit, which can occasionally change unpredictably. And because the ISS is designed to benefit all of mankind, Nathan was also kind enough to post everything you’d need to build your own ISS Notify lamp (minus the hardware) on GitHub.
Just-Eat, the website that makes it easy to order food online from local restaurants, apparently wants to take the whole takeout experience to the next level. Citing their own research which found that 74 percent of people in Britain preferred eating fish and chips with a wooden fork, and half felt that noodles from a carton should be consumed with chopsticks, they decided that their customers needed a way to properly enjoy their meals no matter what they ordered. So they created the Eatensil concept which is basically a Swiss Army knife with utensils.
Instead of nail files, screwdrivers and scissors, you’ll find a wooden ‘chip’ fork, a pizza cutter, a set of chopsticks, a bottle opener and of course a knife, fork and spoon. At the moment Just-Eat is testing the waters to see if customers would actually be interested in the monstrosity of a concept, which admittedly is a bit more environmentally friendly than plastic cutlery. But as far as I can see it’s missing one important tool that I often end up using when eating takeout: a Tide to Go stick
Having trouble seeing the time from afar when using your smartphone as an alarm clock? For the most part, iPhone alarm clock apps use a digital time display that’s larger and brighter than your traditional alarm clock hardware. But you know how people can be. You give ‘em an inch, and they take a mile. So if the iPhone’s display still isn’t big enough for you to read in the middle of the night, iLive’s Clock Radio Dock certainly will be.
Instead of a digital display, the iLive uses your iPhone as the hands, and the number 12, for a traditional analog clock face. Admittedly the hour, minute and second hands generated by the free accompanying app are a little on the small side, kind of negating the size advantage of the larger clock face. But I’ll still give them points for originality. As alarm clocks go it’s as functional as one would need, with dual alarms that can wake you to music, the radio or a beeping sounds. It’s also got a sleep timer and snooze function, a full function remote and can be yours for just $49.99.
I’m as big a fan of streaming/downloading content online, or watching TV on demand, as anyone these days. But I also have to admit that at times I still enjoy the randomness of broadcast television, and just flipping on the TV and taking what I get. The feeling is hard to describe. But it’s like The Simpsons. While I own every season on DVD (up to season 10 of course) and can watch a given episode whenever I want. There’s still some appeal to randomly stumbling across a classic episode on TV.
But for most people, enjoying broadcast TV is limited to sitting at home on the couch in front of the flat screen. It’s not always easy to take it with you. Portable TVs are always an option, but who wants to bother when you probably already have a laptop with you while traveling? So most of the time you’ll settle for a show or movie you’ve ‘purchased’ online. But with Elgato’s EyeTV Hybrid dongle you don’t have to settle. If you’re sitting in an airport and want to see what’s going on with the local news, you can just plug it in to your laptop and enjoy broadcast TV right in your lap. It can even turn your laptop into a portable DVR, stream a live broadcast to your iPhone or iPad and best of all, the hardware is smaller than some flash drives. Check out our full review after the jump.
While probably outnumbered by scientists, engineers and even pilots, there’s apparently still a place at NASA for architects. And before turning his focus to more terrestrial endeavors, the designer of the Cricket camping trailer, Garrett Finney, actually worked on the habitation module for the International Space Station. So when it comes to designing small spaces that are as functional as possible, I can’t think of someone more qualified.
Each Cricket trailer is built to custom order, so customers get only what they want and/or need, and apparently range in price from about $10,000 up to $17,000. Amenities include a very compact stove and sink, equally compact shower and toilet, a tiny dining table and a couch that folds flat providing sleep space for a couple of people. The hard shell exterior is also strong enough to allow a couple of hammocks to be strung up inside for extra sleeping space for kids. The Cricket trailer is even light enough to be towed by some 4-cylinder cars since it weighs in at around 1,300 lbs before packed with provisions. And it takes just 20 seconds to set up once you’ve arrived at camp, which basically involves popping up the roof which is made extra easy with the assistance of automatic gas pistons.
Awww… Who says giant, faceless, multinational corporations don’t have a heart? 3M, innovators when it comes to anything that sticks, will soon be releasing a new type of medical tape they’ve created that provides the same level of adhesion as standard tapes, but is far easier to remove. Important not only for the comfort level of patients, but often times injured areas are surrounded with sensitive or fragile skin tissue. Not to mention when body hair gets involved.
The secret to the new tape’s gentle demeanor is its silicone-based adhesive technology which has a reduced surface tension allowing it to settle in and hold onto crevices in the skin, while still being reposition-able without losing its stickiness. It also interacts with skin in a different way than traditional acrylate adhesives. So while being removed the energy of the bond between the adhesive and the skin is mostly dissipated through the adhesive, resulting in less pulling, pain and damage to the skin.
The new tape is being launched on June 22 for use in hospitals and medical facilities, and here’s to hoping the new material eventually makes its way to consumer products like bandaids.
One of the trade-offs to carrying the slim and svelte MacBook Air is that you can’t swap out the battery with a backup if you’re away from a power source. But that doesn’t mean you’re completely out of luck. Looking like something purchased from a Radio Shack back in the 80′s this external power source for the MBA runs on 8 x C-cell batteries. They’re not as easy to find as AA’s in an airport setting or convenience store, but if you manage to find enough they’ll give you an extra 2 hours use of your laptop.
When full the backup weighs in at around 2.2 pounds, so carrying it around as a ‘just in case’ power solution pretty much ends up cancelling out how light the MacBook Air feels. And besides the fairly expensive $247+ price tag, it can only be used with Apple’s MagSafe Airline Adapter, which is an extra $50. So in this case it’s almost cheaper and easier to carry a fully charged netbook to fall back on when your MBA is dead.
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