Coupons Go Upscale

SFGate: LivingSocial heralded a new era last month when it offered a $10,000 coupon for a penthouse-suite package at the Fairmont hotel: Daily-deal sites are going upscale. After getting started on small-ticket items – cupcakes, manicures and yoga sessions – LivingSocial and its larger rival Groupon Inc. are pursuing buyers willing to spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars on […]

Instaprint from Instagram

Engadget: Instaprint aims to recreate the photo craze of yesteryear by tying it in to Instagram — the wildly popular (and currently iOS-only) app that lets you apply various filters to your photos for quick sharing among friends. The Instaprinter (our term, not the company’s) is essentially a modified Zink photo printer with internet connectivity and tie-ins to the Instagram […]

See Through Cam

CNET: Remember those X-ray glasses advertised in the back of comic books? Imagine a handheld camera that can reveal the unseen, inner structures of everything from concrete bridges to body parts. Researchers at Missouri University of Science and Technology under engineering professor Reza Zoughi have developed a patented device that can show the inner structures of objects in real time […]

One Cigarette Pack

TrendHunter: The 1Z from Continuum is a conceptual cigarette package designed to help smokers quit. The 1Z is designed to carry only one cigarette, two matches, and a stick of gum. The idea behind the 1Z from Continuum is that smokers are bound to relapse, but if you give them only one cigarette to smoke per pack, it will increase […]

Simple Wallets

Leffot: A wise old gambler once said, “You got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em”. Sage advice no doubt and exactly what our new billfolds are all about. These svelte sheaths are about as low tech as you can get, just a single piece of Horween shell cordovan, three folds, and voila your cash is […]

Precision Coffee Maker

Gizmodo: The coffee’s often underextracted, even in typically great shops—and that’s not surprising when you’ve got one barista trying to handle five hand-crafted coffees simultaneously with only his two hands. Consistency is hard. It requires care, man. Unless you’re a robot. Like Starbucks’ Clover Precision Pourover machine. Right now, there is only one of these machines in the whole world. […]

Tree Windmills

Inhabitat: Large, utility-scale wind turbines are fantastic and can generate a lot electricity, but they also require a lot of land and infrastructure. What if we could harness the power of the wind closer to home in an unobtrusive way? NL Architects explored this idea of ‘domesticating’ wind power with Power Flowers – tree-like structures outfitted with multiple vertical axis […]

Pharmacy Vending Machine

Springwise: There’s been virtually no limit to the vending-machine innovations we’ve seen over the years, and in the latest spotting Swedish Green Cross is using its technology to sell non-prescription drugs. Perhaps even more interesting than its use of automatic vending however, is that it recently began running specials through location-based service Foursquare. With nine vending machines in three Swedish […]

Meetup at the Metro

Springwise: Metro Mates is the first service we’ve seen targeted at commuters underground, adopting Bluetooth technology to allow usage on the New Delhi Metro. To join the service, users create an account on the Metro Mates website and enter key pieces of information about themselves, such as personality traits, physical build, and whether they are seeking a relationship or a […]