Iconoculture: Too swamped to hit the food court? Deskbound diners keep their workspaces clean with Vessel’s workplace dish set, a stylish, professionally minded mess kit that wraps up neatly in a desktop-size placemat. The pert, practical kit packs a complete personal workplace place-setting, including a plate, bowl, cup, and utensil set. It’s designed to fit in front of a keyboard […]
Desktop Dining
Real Estate Prices On The Go
The Mobile Technology Weblog: SMSeenHuis (“Text a House”) is a Dutch service that allows mobile users to text the Real Estate boards outside residential houses. In response, they get details of asking price, address, number of rooms and square footage, along with the Real Estate Agent contact details. Participating real estate agents pay a EUR 20 fee (USD 27 / […]
Easy Skateboarding
Iconoculture: Yep. Skateboarding’s popular, but not everyone’s ready to stick the sick tricks. Garage Manufacturing’s Softrucks practice (non)wheels for skateboard decks that let newbies learn, practice, and perfect tricks without wheels (or the outdoors) getting in the way. Made from flexible urethane, these stationary trucks simulate actual skating conditions to let the rider master footwork while maintaining balance. Skateboarding is […]
Disposable Phone Charger
Mobile Digest: Not entirely sure if they appeal to our environmentally-friendly side but a company called Cellboost is offering the first ever disposable battery recharger for mobile phones. As soon as your handset battery goes blink you plus the cigarette lighter style charger into the socket and you have power. Might be worth keeping a few handy in your bag […]
New High-Speed Registers
LinuxElectrons: As memory modules have evolved from slower single data rate (SDR) solutions to double data rate (DDR), the need for increasingly precise signal control has led to the increased use of registers. To address this design need, Royal Philips Electronics today announced a new family of high-speed registers for memory-intensive applications such as high-end servers and advanced computing. Optimized […]
Idiot-proof PCs For Our Grandmothers
The Register: A Dutch company has developed a PC to ease old people’s fear of computers. In May 2005 Secure Internet Machines (SIM) will introduce three versions of its simPC, which comes preloaded with software and services, such as online banking. The basic model costs €299. One model is just a flat screen with all electronics built-in. There is also […]
Ferrari Baths
Yenra: Jacuzzi has announced a new initiative called Morphosis and unveiled a new series of whirlpool baths — Alpha, Gamma, and Sigma — that were designed in conjunction with Pininfarina, legendary for their Ferrari car designs. Morphosis is a new and important Jacuzzi initiative focused on seeking out ventures in order to combine the best design aspects from outside the […]
Digital Audio Is Hot
Technology Review: Ten thousand songs in your pocket. Millions of tunes on the Internet at your fingertips. And books on tape — they’re going down the path of vinyl records. Welcome to the new world of digital audio. Though the first portable MP3 player debuted in 1999, most personal music libraries still consist of piles of CDs, and relatively few […]
How About A Green Light, Sir?
RFID in Japan: A recent article on Mainichi Shimbun discusses uses of near-future technologies including RFID. It argues that RFID tags can enhance the safety of the elderly and the handicapped at pedestrian crossings. The scenario goes as follows: The elderly and the handicapped receive RFID tags whose information is registered in a database. They wear the tags on their […]
Smiley, Happy Robots
Tech Digest: Not that we have a spare £3000 knocking around, but if we did chances are we’d invest the lot in an irobi from Yujin Robotics. Quite the cleverest robot at CES irobi is a web based perky-looking android (there’s echoes of R2D2) that does everything from home monitoring to entertaining kids with karaoke nursery rhymes. It can wander […]