Archive for December 2011 | Monthly archive page
Designed by Danish coffee-machine-maker Scanomat, the Top Brewer consists of a tap that can simultaneously dispense up to three types of liquid (such as coffee and cream), which runs down to an aluminum-bodied brew unit, that is enclosed inside the Top Brewer cabinet. You’d just shuffle into the kitchen in the morning, and grab a cappuccino in the same way that you’d usually get a glass of water from the tap in the sink – that said, it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to put your mouth right up to the coffee tap. Unlike traditional coffee-makers, which draw power continuously to keep the coffee hot, the Top Brewer shuts off completely when not serving up Java.
The Tooth Guardian is a concept designed by Yu-Hsin Lin, Chu-Che Chang and Shang-Hsuan Lu, to help cut down on unwanted dentist visits by integrating a camera system into your toothbrush. An LED light on the brush illuminates your mouth, a micro CCD captures what’s going on inside, and a UV light sterilizes your toothbrush when you’re done. The camera takes a look at your chompers while you brush, and displays an image of what it sees on your bathroom mirror – the idea is that you would see where you’re missing in your daily brushing routine, or be able to catch things like cavities early.
The Windowfarms system downsizes and personalizes veggie growing by placing an indoor farm in the window. The first system was made using recycled plastic water bottles, had an upper and lower reservoir that funneled nutrient-enriched liquid down through martini cups to the plants below, and produced 25 plants. The original plastic-bottle-based, do-it-yourself hydroponics system design has been available for a while now but the developers are getting ready to make a new, improved kit version available. The Windowfarms indoor farm allows the crops to take full advantage of the light available at the window, assisted by personal living space climate control, and regularly feeds the roots with organic liquid soil.
Hidden within a gorgeous walnut outer shell with hand-carved motif and controlled by deliciously old-school physical buttons and sliding volume pot, the black circuit board heart of this music player is home to some top notch tech with one purpose – to deliver audiophile-pleasing, Hi-Fi-quality audio. The Colorfly Pocket Hi-Fi C4 pro sends the source signal through eight audio enhancement stages before it’s released to the listener – the end result being the first portable player in the world capable of handling 24-bit/192kHz resolution audio files. The somewhat old-fashioned user interface consists of physical buttons, a simple OLED display and an ALPS volume slider.
The cylinder-shaped speaker features a movable cap, which needs to be twisted in order to activate the speaker. The unit is claimed to offer an impressive 30 hours of battery life. By twisting the cap you also adjust the volume, reportedly up to 80 dB. According to the creators, multiple speakers can be paired with a single Bluetooth device and placed around the house, so you can enrich the sound experience or seamlessly switch between them. Additional features include a 3.5mm audio jack, as well as an AM/FM radio.
