Mmm…wonder if it works?
We stumbled across a new site the other day which promises to provide an on-screen eye test service using nothing more exotic than your monitor and a smartphone. The project is clearly still in beta (because there’s a big beta badge on it) so we’re happy to give it a bit of slack, but there is one huge problem which the developers seem to have overlooked.
Dress Down Fridays have proved that people feel less than comfortable in conventional business attire, which is probably why more and more firms are introducing these casual dress days to their calendar. It’s probably something to do with the ties and collars, or maybe it’s just the hassle of having to wear so many bits of clothing to maintain the proper appearance. But now there’s another way to do things.
It looks like you can never have too much information, right? We’ve got teh Internets, 24/7, cable, satellite, terrestrial and IP TV, mobile internet, FM radio and even quaint text services if you know where to look. But it’s not enough. Apparently we need more.
With the world population slated to reach 9 billion people, housing becomes a real problem. But Japanese construction firm Shimizu Corp has an innovative idea to solve this. Ocean Spiral is planned as an eco-friendly underwater city that would house 5,000 people and be powered by the sea bed. An artist’s rendering shows the futuristic structure divided into three sections. A floating sphere – the “Blue Garden” – will be 500 meters (approx. 1,640 feet) in diameter. It will lie…
Denim jeans are a huge business around the world, but the one thing we kind of ignore is what happens to all that lovely cotton when we’re done with it? Landfill? Well now there’s a really innovative alternative which promises to change the way we approach the use of fashion and clothing in general.
So everyone loves a nice bit of fruit now and then, and there are even those who delight in a decent bit of broccoli with their meals. But the problem is fresh produce tends to go off pretty quickly, which means you end up throwing a lot of it away unless you can eat it quickly. But this ingenious product promises to reduce waste and keep your stuff fresher for longer. 꾾ᴢ
There’s more than one way to keep safe on the roads if you’re a cyclist, so it pays to use them all if you can. Sure bright lights, high visibility clothing and a very loud horn will help, but what about throwing in a little bit of fun psychology as well?
If you’re looking for a song on YouTube, chances are you’ll find at least 50 blurry videos captured by cell phones at a concert and posted by fans. If you go to a show it’s likely you’ll see a sea of cell phone screens pointed at the stage by people who are clearly more interested in videoing than engaging in the performance right then and there. Well now there’s a company which is looking to change that, and it’s bound…
We almost certainly eat too much. Too much of this, too much of that, too much choice, sugars, carbs, junk. You name it, we consume too much of it. So it’s interesting to come across a product which claims to provide all the nourishment the body needs, but in a convenient easy to consume smoothie mix.
When the chips are down, you definitely need eggs. And of course the best way to harvest the little critters is to get your own personal laying factory in place. Which is where this very cute Hobbit Chicken Coop, from US artisans Wooden Wonders, comes into play.
We love it when clever people come up with clever uses of basic technology, and this is one of those cases. The #X campaign has a very simple, but powerful message – don’t text while you drive. There are more teenage road deaths caused by texting while driving than anything else, so this is a hugely valuable initiative. And it’s simple to do.
Catnip is to cats as pizzas are to computer engineers, so it’s a wonder it took so long to exploit the fact in an intelligent way. Give a cat a catnip ball, so the saying goes, and you can have them freaking out for minutes, but grow them a catnip patch and you’ll have them ecstatic for life.
With all the incessant focus on computer hacking, banks, passwords, credit cards and all that stuff, it’s easy to forget that real spies don’t just rely on cracking our digital domains. They also spend a lot of time delving into our trash cans, digging out old acquaintances and even snooping on our mail.
There are chilli peppers and then there are chilli peppers, and the Bhut Jolokia, or Ghost Chilli is the world’s hottest, at least according to the Guinness Book of Records. It’s so hot that villagers in India apparently use it smeared on fence posts to keep the elephants away. We’re talking ten times hotter than a habanero chilli. Get the idea?
Every so often in tech a new product arrives on the market which doesn’t quite make sense, but is still rather cool. These products often don’t find a mass market, but what they do is point the way to a future iteration which will eventually indeed make waves, and possibly even create a new market segment. The new Panasonic Lumix DMC-CM1 Smart Camera [original] is just such a product.
