I’ve written about the Invisible Helmet which was chic and fashionable, but this helmet is all about being practical. Helmets are usually bulky and inconvenient to lug around and not easy to store because they are so awkwardly shaped. It’s just an object that people accept being annoying…however, there’s always a solution for annoying things, which is why I introduce you to the Overade Collapsible Helmet.
Not only does this helmet save space, but it even fits in your purse or briefcase. If you’re a city gal like me, you’ll appreciate this invention because we all know closets are valuable space, and a hook used to hold a helmet can now be used to hold a new coat…who doesn’t love that?
Coming in at a hefty price of $97, it’s still cheaper than the hospital bill you’ll get when you crash your bike not wearing a helmet! So I’d say, the money is worth it.
There’s no getting around it, we’ve all been in the situation where we’ve consumed just a little too much alcohol. I know I’m guilty. When put in a noisy, dark, for better words-crazy environment, it’s easy to get carried away and have one too many. However, a clever new “ice cube” may be able to assist you in slowing down your alcohol consumption and assisting you in getting home safely next time this occurs.
Invented by a student attending MIT, these cubes were produced to stop you from getting too drunk before it’s too late. The cubes-which are consisted of “LED, an accelerometer, IR transceivers and a battery, and are ensconced in an “edible and tasty” jelly cube” are simply added to your glass and let the night begin. The cubes have three main colors (green, yellow and red) and even light up and blink according to the music in your environment…talk about a pimped out ice cube.
Once the night begins, the cube will start off green, and the accelerator inside the cube is able to detect motion and then calculates how many sips you’ve had, hence the changing of colors. That, along with the timer cube, provides an estimate of how much alcohol has been consumed. So when you are on your second drink, the cube will change from green to yellow, indicating you have consumed lots of liquor within the past so many minutes, and you should consider slowing down a bit.. However, Yellow is my eyes means speed up, so if you move onto the third drink the ice cube will turn red telling you (and everyone around you) that you should put the glass down and take a break. But if the night is young and you ignore the red flashing light, and continue the night getting rowdy the cube will go a step further and text your sober friend alerting them that you’ve had a crazy night and may need some help getting home.
These seem like an angel sent from heaven. Where were these when I was in college?
Brushing your teeth is just an automatic task to complete when you wake up, and before you go to bed. You don’t question it, you just so it. But the time has come, when you can finally be rewarded for doing a good job…and I don’t mean a smile from the dentist, I mean an actual reward.
So let me explain. It seems that Beam Toothbrush has finally created an app-connected toothbrush that’s syncs with your smart phone, and is able to track your brushing habits with a sensor and gives you reward options to pretty much anything you can imagine, such as video games, tickets to movies, and even deals on purses and shoes (my dream come true woohoo!)
In addition, it plays music for a full 2 minutes (the dentist-recommended time) so people know exactly how long they are brushing for. The app then keeps track, able to tell you what time of day you brushed and for how long, as well as if you happened to miss a brushing. This data can even be emailed to your dentist so they know how you’re doing…so cool.
Coming in at a reasonable price ($50) it’s much cheaper than most electric toothbrushes, and the app is free, so it seems like a no brainer to add this app to your daily routine. Once I heard “deals on purses and shoes”, they had me wheeled in. Good marketing I must say.
While we mourn the loss of Neil Armstrong, the pioneering nature of humans remains undeterred. We forge onward in the world, discovering and engineering to fit our needs. Yet, our favorite thing to do with these amazing feats is to categorize them: thus, if you’ve yet to hear, we have the World Economic Forum’s 2013 Technology Pioneers.
To be considered a Technology Pioneer, the company must be “pushing new frontiers” and “committed to improving the state of the world” via new, pivotal technologies in business and society. With this award, the Forum recognizes the role of technology in the aforementioned fields. Chief among the Forum’s interests though, is the conceptof “hyperconnected reality”, the idea that the world is becoming ever more interdependent. Even as we remain physically thousands of miles away from each other, technology drives our communication to be quicker and more complex. It’s the pangea of communication that redefines how “individuals, enterprises and governments communicate with, and relate to, one another”.
From over 700 nominees, a committee has narrowed it down to the twenty-three in three categories (technology, health and energy) that have best fulfilled the criteria of “innovation, potential impact, growth and sustainability, proof of concept and leadership” as determined by a group of really smart people (legitimately holding expertise in the areas of import).These companies help to Illustrate the importance of mobile-based solutions to new products and services.
Every one of the nominees was beyond rad (as I would say if this were the 80’s and that were the done thing) and was put through a rigorous decision process by the committee. My decision process is by far the antithesis of “rigorous”, but I’ve gone ahead and chosen just a few from the list to show off.
From Information Technologies, Telecommunications and New Media: Moshi Monsters
Mind Candy’s website Moshi Monsters allows kids ages 5-12 to adopt a monster avatar (undoubtedly they’re still too cute for the adult concept of a monster) and take care of it, of course by buying things using the monster currency “rox”. That’s not really new. Neopets and other various tag-a-long sites allowed for the same thing. It’s the new world Gigapet. The difference is that this site is subtly preparing kids for more mature social networking sites, like Facebook. We all know what goes on there and understand that social networking can be harsh, combining high-speed communication with all of the semi-anonymous feelings that allow people to feel unaccountable for their cyber actions. Give it up, your kid doesn’t want to go outside. You might as well give them the benefit of learning to navigate the system early. This is probably the lightest idea out of the whole bunch.
And because tech is totally our thing, PrimeSense is tops too:
What’s cooler than 3D Television? Well, a lot of things. Television that can see and understand (to some extent) its surroundings is definitely one of them. PrimeSense is the 3D sensing technology inside Microsoft’s Kinect and is making devices respond to your physical gestures. It is very nearly a technological slave, but sans the Skynet technicalities. PrimeSense’s combination of technology and algorithms projects a series of red dots (that is the technical term, yes) across a room, cycling every 60 seconds to form a 3D model of the room and detecting any motion within the range. While, the major part of this living room revolution may be its application in video games, the absolute best part is that it will end your ongoing search for the television remote. That’s good enough for me.
LanzaTech deals with a topic especially near and dear to my heart, the topic of microorganisms- the cutest thing you can’t see. A more solid reason to appreciate LanzaTech’s genetically modified bacteria is that it converts carbon monoxide into ethanol (useful) while yielding other valuable chemicals (neat). The synthetic organism feeds off of fumes from industrial production. Carbon monoxide is added to the system so the microbes react to create a chemical broth with the necessary components for rubber and nylon production. Mid-paragraph summary: the process captures the greenhouse gas before it can become harmful and provides an inexpensive fuel from an abundant and problematic waste product. LanzaTech has already demonstrated the effectiveness of the process at a Chinese steel plant, licensed the technology to a company in India and is in talks to provide jet fuel for Virgin Atlantic (with a US grant to boot).
MC10 are wearable electronic circuits that conform to the body. MC10 takes a different approach to making the same technology small; they make it functional in its miniaturized state as well. For them, making it functional means making it flexible. They break away from the standard, protective hard shell in which most circuits are encased. MC10 strips away the ultra-thin layer of silicon containing the circuit and connects it to a mesh of stretchable, bendable nano-ribbons. The resulting Band-Aid like patch is five microns thick and, of course, can adhere to skin. The biopatch seems to be the ultimate monitoring solution. It can keep track of blood sugar levels in a diabetes patient, the temperature of a newborn baby, vital organ statuses and can even be placed within the skull to alert epileptics of an impending attack. Outside of the hospital, the patch can be used by athletes to monitor the body’s reaction at different performance levels. “We are material agnostic” says Chief Executive Officer David Icke. They aim to make the technology conform to the human body instead of forcing the body to adapt as it had to do with rigid precursors. MC10 perpetuates a theme present among many of the WEF’s Technology Pioneers: innovations to fit human needs, not to create them.
The impacts of these companies’ goals are innumerable and I have only made mention of four of the twenty-three. I urge you to visit the World Economic Forum’s site and see what other fantastical innovations could be integrated into your life before you know it.
When learning to ride a bike for the first time as a cute little kid, you are sure to debut some funky knee pads and a fresh new helmet. But once those training wheels come off, there’s no way of knowing how you’ll adapt to the intimidating two-wheel bike. It’s a big transition, but wearing a helmet is a must.
However, as children get older, they tend to care less and less about safety, and more into how they look and how others perceive them, leading them to ditch the lame and ugly helmet. I would assume it’s because no one likes to have helmet hair!
Once you hit adulthood you go through another transition, and suddenly realize that the helmet is there to help you, and it’s best to wear it proudly. Like always, rebellious people choose not to wear one, and would rather risk getting hurt if they were to crash or get hit by a car.
But if you are one of those rebellious people who think helmets are ugly and wish they were invisible, I have found quite an interesting solution. Known as the “invisible helmet”, it’s sure to impress just about anyone. The Hovding is a collar that instantly transforms into a helmet when it senses trouble. It has airbag features, and can transform from collar to helmet in an astonishing 0.1 second. In addition, it has a “black box” feature, similar to those used in airplanes, which can sense accelerating speeds and angular velocity, sensing a crash ahead of time.
The best feature is that it’s covered by a removable shell which means you can change the color up to match whatever you’re wearing. In my life, everything has to match, so that is a major plus in my eyes! It’s safe to say that next time I hop on a bike I’ll be rockin’ one of these with my head held high.
Whenever I am planning a vacation, attending an important event, or just need some alone time, my go-to place is the nail salon. I’m sure many gals (and guys; after all it is 2012) agree with me. It’s relaxing, and just makes you feel refreshed and ready to go.
However, I have been slacking on my weekly trips to the nail salon, mostly because I can’t stop myself from buying nail polish whenever I run errands. If I see a sale sign, I will surely walk out of the store with at least three bottles. The weird and crazy colors always catch my eye, and I could easily estimate I have about 25 bottles sitting on a shelf in my room. Yes, I guess it’s safe to say I have seen a lot of sale signs when I go out. But this way I can change up the color whenever I’m bored, and if I don’t like the color, I have many others to choose from.
But the worst possible thing that can ever happen is when your nail polish chips. If I’m having a bad day, and I chip a nail, my day is automatically spiraling downhill. Especially on vacation, when I don’t have any backup or nail polish remover. I’m left to display messy, chipped nails. But clearly I found a solution to fix that, after all I am a trend-seeking missile.
NailPak, which was featured on the TV show Shark Tank, is an all in one nail polish with nail polish remover and a filer, all equipped in one bottle! My heart just stopped.
I think I say this all the time, but WHY DIDN’T I THINK OF THIS!? It’s so genius. It’s perfect for traveling, gives you everything you would need to give yourself a quick manicure, and with so many colors to choose from, I simply must get my hands on one.
However, I have been slacking on my weekly trips to the nail salon, mostly because I can’t stop myself from buying nail polish whenever I run errands. If I see a sale sign, I will surely walk out of the store with at least three bottles. The weird and crazy colors always catch my eye, and I could easily estimate I have about 25 bottles sitting on a shelf in my room. Yes, I guess it’s safe to say I have seen a lot of sale signs when I go out. But this way I can change up the color whenever I’m bored, and if I don’t like the color, I have many others to choose from.
