Hasta La Gadget!

Coffee and crowdfunding aren’t new bedfellows, but an Italian project to rethink the espresso machine, La Fenice, may be the most ambitious we’ve seen so far. The chrome and wood … Continue reading

Dr. John All was taking snow samples on his own on Mount Himlung—in Nepal’s Himalayas—when the glacier broke under his feet. He fell into a 70-foot crevasse and suffered multiple injuries, but he managed to escape using an ice pick, filming himself during an agonizing adventure that lasted six hours.

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DARPA, the US government’s R&D arm, is looking to Oculus Rift to make cyber-warfare more approachable to the American military, immersing the military in 3D representations of target networks. Part … Continue reading

Take two really smart Mechanical Engineers from the University of Florida, give them a luke warm beer and they come up with a brilliant idea. They used their knowledge of engineering, heat transfer and their love of cold beer to come up with the SpinChill.

They found that cooling a container of liquid in a tub of ice took much longer than if that container was constantly spinning. The reason for this has to do with heat transfer. If the container is just sitting in the ice the outside layer of the liquid cools and it insulates the inner liquid which slows down the overall cooling process. By spinning the container it allows the warm liquid in the center to reach the outer edge where it can be cooled instantly.

You would think that by spinning a can of a carbonated beverage it would make it explode and spray everywhere upon opening. Again, these guys are pretty smart and go into great detail on their site about the difference between shaking a can and spinning one. We won’t go into that amount of detail in this post, but trust us, it won’t explode. Immediately after spinchill-ing your beverage, you can open the can and have a nice refreshingly cold beverage in 60 seconds.

One of the things we wondered about was bottled beverages. It says on their site: “The Spin Chill quickly cools almost any container of beer, soda, or wine by spinning it in ice.” But they don’t show it being used with any bottled beverage. For $29.99 you can own one of these now, or for $12.00 you can buy just their “Chill Bit” which has an adapter to run off of your own drill.

via Gadgeteer

Need a place to have a private conversation on your cell phone at work? Or maybe you need to change into your super suit? The Finnish company Framery designed a sound proof “phone booth” for you to do either.

Many people at work are subjected to an open floor plan with seemingly square miles of cubicles where you can hear everyone and don’t get a second of private time. Framery goes into great lengths to discuss the importance of the sound insulation for privacy, the acoustics inside, and the design of these booths.

They have four different designs, and one of the four is actually large enough to hold more than one person. They are selling it as a small mobile conference room and it appears to be a good solution to have some privacy and to avoid disrupting those around you.

via Neatorama