By David Ponce

Without taking sides in the natural gas vs. charcoal debate, let’s just state some of the facts. Charcoal is often considered more flavorful due to the smoke it produces. Natural gas on the other hand is more convenient and can often burn hotter than charcoal. But the Cook-Air portable BBQ brings a bit of innovation to the fray that could tilt things in the favor of… wood burning, an often overlooked alternative. The Cook-Air uses its own 100% wood briquettes and forcibly blows air over them as they burn, thereby raising their temperature as high as 1,100F or the equivalent of 65,000 BTU. This makes it the most powerful portable BBQ on the market. It starts up in as little as 5 minutes and the 5-speed fan allows for a 5 level heat adjustment. Because it’s portable, it will work with D batteries and a car charger as well as a conventional 120V socket.

It’s $200.

[ Product Page ] VIA [ Gizmag ]

By David Ponce

The “I’m” folks are at it again. “I’m” as in that’s the name of their products. First it was the I’m Watch. Now it’s an entire line of related products called I’m Circle. And what they’re proposing is quite revolutionary, if only too good to be possible. The idea is to eliminate overlapping technology in various devices by simply removing that particular tech from them and putting it in one central hub that would then act as a processing server. For example, there’s a microprocessor in your phone. There’s also one in your tablet. Why do you need two, when you could just share one?

The center of this new proposed ecosystem of tethered devices would be the I’m Core, the keychain-sized hub that would contain a quad-core processor, a GPS chip, a WiFi chip and a SIM card. Then, there are plans for a smartphone, a tablet, a flatscreen TV and what looks like a media server, all of which would connect to the I’m Core. They’d all be named something starting with “I’m”, with a stated time to market of late 2012. And I’m ready to bet good money this will never happen. Here’s why.

In principle this is a good idea. But there are tremendous hurdles that a virtually unknown company, with unknown funding and expertise, can’t overcome. And there are so many loose ends… Like how to fit a SIM, a GPS chip, a Wifi chip and a quad-core processor, as well as a battery and some charging apparatus in something that’s supposed to be the size of a matchbook? And how can a simple quad-core processor be expected to keep up if a user decides to simultaneously watch an HD movie, get on his phone, while someone else in the house uses the tablet? And how can a company who’s only brought a touchscreen wattch to market suddenly be expected to crank out four or five revolutionary devices at once? Within a year and without a prototype or even proof of concept? This… just can’t be done without huge sums of money and well oiled R&D departments. Maybe this company can put their money where their mouth is and I’ll be proven wrong. In the meantime, I’m calling BS.

[ Product Page ]

By David Ponce

This is not a new product by any means, but I got to hear a demonstration of the Evertune guitar bridge at The Startup Debut and was really impressed. It’s a specially designed guitar bridge that keeps it in tune at all times. The way it works is as follows. The frequency of a string is determined by three factors: its length, weight and tension. Two of these, length and weight, are pretty constant. But changes in tension will cause changes in pitch. So the bridge features springs that pull on the string with a constant force. It you turn the tuning peg one way or the other, the spring in the bridge adjusts to keep the tension the same, thus staying in tune. And it works. Really, really well.

Now, you have to understand the system’s limitations. There’s an effective range outside of which turning the pegs will change the frequency, so you have to stay within that. But there might be times when you actually want to get to the upper edge of that range and play there; if you want to bend your strings for example. And this is somewhat of a weakness in the system, in my opinion. Most guitar playing involves bending of some kind, so you’d want to stay at the edge of the effective range most of the time anyway. But if you’re spending time finding that edge, you might as well spend it tuning the guitar in the first place. It’s a fundamental flaw, but not one that dimishes the Evertune’s effectiveness. If you want to play chords for example, this is perfect. It’s for more bluesy stuff that you’re going to run into trouble.

In any case, the device itsellf is around $330 but you will need to spend more money on having someone install it for you, and this typically costs an extra $200-$300. The company is working to have guitars with Evertune pre-installed.

[ Product Page ]

By David Ponce

Induction ranges are nothing new. These are the stoves where nothing gets hot until the pot is placed on it, and then supposedly only the pot heats up. It works by running a copper element under the surface and passing an alternating current, which creates an oscillating magnetic field, which in turn creates a current in the pot, whose electric resistance causes it to heat up. That’s the science behind it. In regular inductive stoves, you have to place your pots in designated areas. The Freedom range from Thermador does away with this and offers you a “full-surface induction appliance with the flexibility of a natural-mapping user interface that intelligently recognizes cookware size, shape and position to deliver heat without boundaries.” This lets you do some serious space management, choosing the most efficient way of placing your pots and hopefully making your cooking a little more efficient. And a little geekier.

In practice however, induction ranges suffer somewhat from the fact that once hot, the pots themselves transfer heat right back onto the stove through conduction. So you can’t really place your hands on the range right after you’re done cooking. Still, having the entire surface available for cooking is pretty nifty though I’m not sure it’s $4,949 worth of cool.

[ Press Release ] VIA [ Gizmodo ]

By David Ponce

Being confined to a wheelchair is not easy, at least we can’t imagine it is. And while being able to propel yourself with your arms can become second nature after a while, some electric assistance can probably be appreciated over longer distances. Currently in development in Japan, the WHILL is an twin-hub attachment that can go over the wheels of a wheelchair and provide said electric locomotion. The device is then steered a bit like a Segway, with the user tilting his upper body in the direction he wishes to travel.

Each of the hubs contains a separate 24-volt motor, powered by a lithium-ion battery pack. These turn the chair’s wheels, propelling it up to a top speed of 20 km/h (12.5 mph). The battery reportedly takes two hours to charge, and offers a range of approximately 30 kilometers (19 miles).

The WHILL project is currently looking for volunteers to test it. There is no word on price or availability.

[ Manufacturer Website ] VIA [ Geeky Gadgets ]

By David Ponce

It was just a few days ago that news was spreading of Sharp’s new 12MP image stabilized CMOS sensor. Roughly the same size at the sensor in the iPhone, it’s the world’s smallest to have stabilization. And while the cramming of so many pixels may or may not be a good idea, turns out that the stabilization capabilities are pretty darn impressive. Just watch the video below to get an idea. Incidentally, it’s mounted inside the “Sharp AQUOS SH-01D, a skinned Android handset from Japan’s NTT DoCoMo which also packs a 1280 x 720 3D display into its waterproof case.”

VIA [ Petapixel ]

By David Ponce

Argentinian ad agency Del Campo/Nazca Saatchi & Saatchi is on a roll. First we heard about their work with the BGH Quick Chef, a microwave oven that signals readiness with customizable music instead of a beep. But their latest campaign with Norte Beer, a South American brewer, is pure genius. They’ve created the Norte Photoblocker, a beer cooler that makes it impossible to take a good picture of you within its effective radius. It does this by detecting a flash and immediately flashing one of its own, ruining the pic. Why would this be good? Ok, picture this. You’re out at the club getting into all kinds of trouble. Great times… until pictures are taken and you’re inevitably tagged. By the time you get around to doing some damage control, well, by then it’s too late. Better to have the photoblocker around.

The device actually exists and works. It’s been planted in a few regional bars and photoblocked pictures were still uploaded with the subjects well protected. Savvy club owners would do well to look into ways of acquiring more like these. As the ads say, “What happens at the club, stays at the club…” However, there doesn’t appear to be concrete plans to bring the device to North America.

Incidentally, do yourself a favor and hit the jump to watch the two commercials in question. They’re really, really good.

VIA [ Fast Company ]

By David Ponce

Researchers from the University of Washington and Aalto University Finland have developed a prototype contact lens that contains a single LED pixel, a custom made integrated circuit and an antenna. They then tried the lens on live rabbits (under general anesthesia for comfort) with no adverse effects.

Awesome!

The display consists of an antenna, a 500 × 500 µm2 silicon power harvesting and radio integrated circuit, metal interconnects, insulation layers and a 750 × 750 µm2 transparent sapphire chip containing a custom-designed micro-light emitting diode with peak emission at 475 nm, all integrated onto a contact lens. The display can be powered wirelessly from ~1 m in free space and ~2 cm in vivo on a rabbit. The display was tested on live, anesthetized rabbits with no observed adverse effect. In order to extend display capabilities, design and fabrication of micro-Fresnel lenses on a contact lens are presented to move toward a multipixel display that can be worn in the form of a contact lens. Contact lenses with integrated micro-Fresnel lenses were also tested on live rabbits and showed no adverse effect.

So yeah, this is very rudimentary but… baby steps, baby steps! And while we don’t expect things to remain at the single-pixel level forever, later iterations will inevitably go up in pixel density very slowly. This means that when the first commercial generations reach the consumer level, it will likely only be for displaying things like text. But as the technology is further developed, we have no doubt that always-on alternate/augmented reality will become possible.

We’re several years away, but there you have it. Barring accidental death, if you’re under 60 today, there’s a good chance you will live to see this happen.

[ Link To Paper ] VIA [ MedGadget ]

By David Ponce

Nanotechnology can be awesome, as is awesomely demonstrated in the video above. What you’re seeing is a sneaker coated in a thin layer of Ross Nanotechnologies’ NeverWet superhydrophobic compound repelling chocolate syrup like a boss. We don’t know what it’s made of, really, aside from magic. Its water repellent capabilities are incredible. Water simply does not touch it. A drop of it on its surface forms a nearly spherical bead and unless on a perfectly horizontal surface, simply shoots right off. And it’s not just water but pretty much anything: chocolate syrup, mud, oil… you name it. The applications are endless. NeverWet provides anti-corrosion, anti-bacterial, anti-icing and self-cleaning properties to anything it coats. It even allowed an iPhone 3G to remain completely submerged for 30 minutes before dying.

Hit the jump for a bunch of jaw-dropping videos. If you don’t feel like clicking we will say this out here: we can’t figure out how to get them to take our money!

Update: And… they went and made all their videos private. Nice.

NeverWet Fabrics from Ross Nanotechnology on Vimeo.

NeverWet Anti-Icing Demonstration from Ross Nanotechnology on Vimeo.

NeverWet Video Collage from Ross Nanotechnology on Vimeo.

[ NeverWet ] VIA [ Geekologie ]

By David Ponce

Oh supermodels… It’s well known they don’t eat and really only absorb moisture from the air. Kind of like this air moisture harvester that’s so useful it recently won its inventor, Edward Linnacre, this year’s James Dyson Award. Meant to be used in places where the lack of rain brings devastating droughts, the Airdrop (as it’s called) works in the following way:

With a deceptively modest design, Airdrop filters hot environmental air through a turbine, feeding it through a copper tubing system–with copper wool to maximize surface area–and into the earth where it cools and releases moisture. The dry air is then re-released into the atmosphere and the collected water pumped through semi-porous hoses to the plant roots. In his initial prototype, which was much smaller than the current design, Linnacre was able to produce a liter of water per day.

Currently a prototype that is likely to be much smaller than any production model, the Airdrop is able to harvest 1 liter of water per day. The technology used makes it very simple to install and maintain and it’s hoped it will be used by farmers in drought affected areas.

Linnacre will be receiving £10,000 (and another £10,000 for his university) to further development of the Airdrop. As mostly poor farmers would benefit from this, it’s unlikely he’d be able to get any traction on social funding sites like Kickstarter, which are usually visited by people with easy access to tap water.

[ Project Page ] VIA [ DVice ]