While the new ActiFry from T-fal can cook anything from seafood to risotto to even desserts, its biggest claim to fame is being able to cook up to 2lbs of fresh cut french fries using just a spoonful of oil. Now you might be asking yourself, “how is such a thing possible when my local McEatery uses a tank of oil deep enough to hide a nuclear sub?” Well my first guess would have been stolen alien technology, since I’ve never seen an overweight extra-terrestrial, but it turns out the ActiFry uses a patented stirring paddle and pulse heating system to cook up crispy fries that are considerably better for you. (When using a healthy oil of course.)
Now I still wouldn’t recommend eating french fries every day (4 years of college proved that to be an unhealthy experiment) but the ActiFry seems like a far better alternative to a vat of scalding hot oil sitting on your kitchen counter. $299.99 from Amazon.
Invented by husband and wife team Farah and Jim Shaikh, the Yoomi bottle could seem like the greatest thing since sliced bread for parents who are tired of having to find a way to heat up bottles for their infants when they’re not at home. The secret is a sealed warming unit that sits just below the teat. Pushing an orange button activates the heater, and 60 seconds later, after the milk has had time to flow through a series of channels, it reaches the comfortable temperature of breast milk.
The warmer will maintain that temperature for up to an hour since it uses chemicals similar to a warming gel pack, and it can be recharged around 100 times before needing to be replaced. The Yoomi bottle costs around $37 and a set of two teats is about $7.50, so while it’s not cheap, it’s not necessarily designed to be used every single day.
In my experience there’s no structure on Earth more stable than a tent, oh wait, I mean just the opposite, which is why I’m really intrigued by Tamrac’s new ZipShot tripod. It uses tent pole-like legs to make it ultra compact when folded (15 inches long when collapsed) and light (just 11 oz.) but at the same time it opens in just seconds, and can apparently support even DSLRs up to 3 lbs in weight. Now I have to assume Tamrac has ensured the whole thing is stable when setup, since they’re not exactly an unknown brand when it comes to photography, and if it works as promised the $50 price tag doesn’t actually seem too unreasonable.
Made from biodegradable and recyclable plastic, the Aqua Jar attaches to any plastic bottle that has a standard threaded opening making the beverage inside easier to pour thanks to a contoured spout and generous handle. It was created by industrial design lab GR for home accessories company balvi, and while the Aqua Jar doesn’t appear to be on their site just yet, it will supposedly be available in orange, graphite and frost colors.
Well here’s a brilliant idea. A subsidiary of NEC called NEC Electronics, or NECEL for short, have developed a TV remote control that will never require you to change batteries, nor will it ever run out of power. Every time a couch potato picks up the remote and pushes any of the buttons, the vibrations of those motions generates a small amount of electricity which is enough to perform basic TV remote operations like changing the channel or adjusting the volume. The remote, or at least its power unit, is being developed in conjunction with another company called Soundpower, and instead of it just being a research project, the companies intend for the technology to hopefully hit the market in the next couple of years.
Designed by Jiae Kwon, Map-Holes are replacement man-hole covers that serve as a sort of static compass for tourists and pedestrians, showing them what direction to head to find a particular landmark in the city they’re visiting, and letting them know how long it takes to walk there. The idea definitely has merit, but I don’t think replacing man-hole covers is the ideal solution. Not only because they usually exist in the middle of a street, but they’d also have to be perfectly oriented in order for them to be effective. If one gets even slightly misaligned, there’s going to be a lot of misguided tourists.
As if breaking your foot or ankle wasn’t already painful enough, having to hobble around on a pair of crutches for weeks just adds insult to injury, literally. Unless you manage to get your hands on one of these Freedom Legs from Forward Mobility. Made from lightweight composite materials it allows you to walk on your injured leg by off-loading the weight to your thigh. There’s no pressure on your injured foot or ankle like when using crutches, but the Freedom Leg lets you stay mobile without tying up your hands and arms and it keeps the injured leg in use during the recovery period, reducing the atrophe of the leg muscles.
Good news for sedentary sports fans with frustrated aspirations of grandeur. Thanks to the wonders of technology (and UK-based firm Real Time Race) they should now be able to take part in some of the worlds biggest sporting spectacles. Well, kind of.
The basic concept is designed to allow gamers to take a virtual place in real environments and events – all with naught but an internet and web browser enabled device.
Real Time Race says the technology could be applied to “skiing, mountain biking, equine eventing and water sports etc,” but that sounds a bit pants, and fortunately they’ve been focusing on motor racing so far.
Prior to a big race, the track environment will be captured by a Google Streetcar-alike vehicle, which along with 360 degree cameras sports a gizmo on the back which fires lasers all over the place to work out how far away everything is. The data is then processed and makes its way to a browser where it should play something like a conventional video game map.
The (real) cars participating in the race will also be captured, as well as fitted with navigation systems which transmit their position on the track, allowing couch-bound speed freaks to test themselves against the best in the world.
The technology still appears to be in the proof of concept rather than “actually fun” stage, and the car handling and physics are woeful, but it does seem rather promising all the same.
If you can stand the massive and utterly gratuitous use of exclamation marks and apostrophes, you can read more and download a demo here.
I thoroughly enjoy 3D films when it’s done properly, but for 3D to become something more than just a novelty, there has to be a way to get rid of those polarized glasses. And that’s where innovations like 3M’s new optical film comes into play. It features small, dome-shaped lenses on the surface of the film combined with prism-like structures on the underside to create a 3D effect that is visible with the naked eye.
Now unfortunately the film can’t just be applied to any LCD giving it instant 3D capabilities. The display has to have independently controlled LED edge lighting on the left and right side which is used to distinguish the different images meant for the left and right eye. However, the film allows the LCD to be easily switched between 2D and 3D modes, and has already gone into production for small and medium sized displays.
Related Tags: Health, Innovation, Kitchen
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