The Rechargeable Sensor Pump won’t let germs spread

Simple Human Rechargeble Sensor Pump

The best thing about going into an automatic bathroom is that you don’t have to touch anything. No touching handles to flush the toilet, turn on the sink, press down the soap dispenser, or crank out paper towels. While a few germs aren’t going to kill you, having a facility you don’t have to touch seems rather necessary in high-traffic areas. While your kitchen may not be a high-traffic area, that is where a lot of raw foods are prepared, and you don’t really want chicken juice traveling into the living room or elsewhere.

While you likely already have some form of soap sitting next to your sink in the kitchen, chances are it’s a hand-pump. If you touch the top of the pump and wash your hands, there’s still going to be whatever was on your hands on the top of the pump. If you want to move to a motion-sensor method, then the Rechargeable Sensor Pump would be a good option. You can control how much comes out of the pump, and it is rechargeable as the name suggests. The sensor is said to be precise so you don’t have to worry about it dropping soap on your counter if you’re too close.

It can dispense in 0.2 seconds, and is extremely easy to refill. This takes gel soap, so if you love foam soap you’ll have to look elsewhere. This charges via USB, and you’ll have your option between an 8 fluid ounce white, or an 8 or 11 fluid ounce brushed nickel container. They cost anywhere from $60-70 depending on the size you’re wanting. This will make keeping your hands clean in the kitchen or bathroom simple, without the fear that some germs may still be lingering.

Available for purchase on simplehuman

 
[ The Rechargeable Sensor Pump won’t let germs spread copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

Rubik’s Cube Fridge Solves Your Need for Hot or Cold Food

ThinkGeek (and Bawls?) has the novelty cube-shaped refrigerator game in a chokehold. Along with the Borg Cube fridge, the store also released an officially licensed Rubik’s Cube fridge. I think it doesn’t look as sweet as the Star Trek baddies’ appliance, but at least it comes with replacement stickers so you can customize its look.

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Like the Borg Cube, ThinkGeek is selling the Rubik’s Cube fridge for $150 (USD). What’s next? A Companion Cube fridge? An Apple Cube fridge? An – oh snap. Don’t let us down, ThinkGeek.

[via DudeIWantThat]

Best Buy CEO Thinks Tablet Sales Are “Crashing”

141018 best buy ipad cartIs the trend of tablets starting to fade? Could PCs be seeing a revival? In the past there have been advocates of tablets who had strongly believed that tablets would eventually take over PCs, but according to a recent interview with Re/code, Best Buy’s CEO seems to think otherwise. He seems to think that the tablet boom is crashing and PCs are set for a revival.

According to Hubert Joly, “The tablets boomed and now are crashing. The volume has really gone down in the last several months. But I think the laptop has something of a revival because it’s becoming more versatile. So, with the two-in-ones, you have the opportunity to have both a tablet and laptop, and that’s appealing to students in particular. So you have an evolution. The boundaries are not as well defined as they used to be.”

His answer was in response to being asked on his thoughts about the declining share of PCs quarter after quarter. However Joly offered that as far as Best Buy was concerned, they were seeing a revival of the PC business. He claims that this happened when Microsoft had officially stopped support Windows XP. We’re not sure how that connection works, but perhaps with Windows XP out of the picture, customers had to start looking at newer products, like hybrids running on Windows 8.

However Best Buy is hardly the end all of all retailers, although they are certainly very big, but what do you guys think? Do you agree with Joly that tablets are starting to decline and that perhaps laptops or hybrid devices, like the Microsoft Surface Pro 3, could be the way of the future?

Best Buy CEO Thinks Tablet Sales Are “Crashing”

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Neverwinter MMORPG Coming To Xbox One In 2015

neverwinter 640x359One of the ways to draw attention to a gaming platform would be by announcing games for it that could have the potential of attracting more gamers. Well if you’re a fan of MMORPGs based on Dungeons & Dragons, you might be interested to learn that the free-to-play MMORPG Neverwinter is set for a release on the Xbox One console in the first half of 2015.

In fact the game will actually be released first in China where apparently MMORPGs are a huge business. The game is then expected to make its way to other parts of the world and presumably other platforms as well, unless of course Microsoft has somehow managed to nab the exclusive rights to the console version of the game.

As far as content is concerned, it is expected to remain the same as its PC counterpart. According to Andy Velasquez, the game’s lead designer, “All the same races, all the same classes, all the same maps. The content will be there, with some minor exceptions. Since we launched on PC. We’ve added some bits to the endgame, and then we added another module which had another campaign at the endgame. So we’ll probably stagger those releases [in the console version].”

There will naturally be some changes to the console version, such as its interface which has been redesigned to fit consoles better, and also because unlike PCs, console gamers don’t really play with a PC and mouse. Velasquez adds, “From the beginning, we always received feedback that this would be great with a controller, and we even have a bunch of PC users who, using just a 360 controller, have come up with keybind files.”

So if you were looking forward to getting your hands on the Neverwinter MMO for your Xbox One, we guess you will have to wait until 2015 before you are able to do so. No specific launch dates were mentioned, but we will be keeping our eyes peeled.

Neverwinter MMORPG Coming To Xbox One In 2015

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Breaking Bad Pink Teddy Bear: Heisenbear

Breaking Bad was a great show that showed how a normal guy in a bad situation could go totally bonkers and turn into a drug kingpin. If you watched the show, you will remember that iconic pink teddy bear floating in the pool that had a missing eye and ear burned off. heisenbearmagnify

If you ever thought, hey I want a burnt up teddy bear, now is your chance. ThinkGeek has the Breaking Bear, or Heisenbear as I prefer to call it, available to buy. it has faux fur in pink and white. It also comes with a single eye and burn marks. The bear measures 18″ x 9″ x 5″ and has small parts so don’t give it to children. The rather nasty looking bear can be had for $29.99(USD) right now.

Crisis at the Border: A Tragedy of Incentives

A picture by Jennifer Whitney for The New York Times perfectly captured the humanitarian crisis at the border. It has everything you need if you’re looking for a way to get your heartstrings pulled at: It depicts a boy with a look of hope in his eyes handing over to a Border Patrol officer his birth certificate, which identifies him as Alejandro, age 8, and gives away his status as an unaccompanied minor of Honduran nationality who crossed the U.S. border illegally.

The journeys across the desert of unaccompanied minors hoping to flee poverty and violence are not, by any means, a new fad. New are the attention of the media and the qualifier of “humanitarian crisis,” which it is, at 50,000 unaccompanied minors detained by the Border Patrol so far, and counting. Understanding or explaining the immigration “phenomenon” that drives Central Americans to the United States doesn’t require major academic research or political philosophy theories, because it’s a matter of incentives, a concept so characteristic to the human condition and so basic to the framework of economic theory.

Infallibly, human behavior is fueled by incentives: Regardless of fear, violence, or legal consequences, nothing determines decision making as much as the chance to increase well-being or survival. This simple axiom is what, for decades, has moved millions of Central Americans to uproot their lives and put themselves through the hell of crossing the U.S. border by foot: In their cost-benefit analysis, the benefit of the slight possibility of crossing safely and undetected is still larger than the costs of potential deportation, physical suffering, the taxing journey and the conformity of staying in their land.

In a column published by the Dallas Morning News, Christine Wicker drew an interesting parallel between the voyage of the St. Louis and the unaccompanied-minor-immigration crisis, in which President Obama is pursuing legislation that will allow him to expedite the deportation of thousands of minors currently detained at the borders. In 1939 the St. Louis, a German trans-Atlantic ship, reached the U.S. with close to a thousand Jewish victims fleeing the Holocaust. There were no laws in place to provide them refuge, so the ship was turned away and had to make its way back to the war-ridden European coasts, where many of those on board faced sure death. Regardless of the legality of the policy decisions taken in this regard by the Roosevelt administration, a lot of ground could be covered in a discussion of their ethical implications.

As hyperbolic as a comparison between the plights faced by the victims aboard the St. Louis and those faced by unaccompanied minor immigrants might sound, it provides for a valuable thought experiment that incorporates the ethical considerations surrounding the deportations that will continue to come as long as both a broken immigration system and the war on drugs remain unchanged.

While it is true that many of the families that these children are hoping to reunite with are also in the United States illegally, a lot have managed to make a living for themselves, in environments where minorities have a place within a community, as opposed to being the victims of the chronic marginalization in the Central American societies they have now escaped from. Some of them have achieved a stability they don’t want to risk by making a trip back to their countries of origin to visit the babies they left behind, who have now grown into children and young adults unafraid to endure long journeys just to be able to reunite with their parents. Some have saved enough money to be able to afford paying smugglers a fee that, without any guarantees, buys them a shot at bringing their children from Central America.

According to investigative journalist Oscar Martinez from the Salvadoran digital media outlet El Faro, it isn’t a surge in violence or an increase in poverty levels what has caused the migratory flow to escalate. The ugly statistics that depict the deadly Salvadoran reality — and that of the region — have fluctuated around the same levels since 2008, when 51.7 out of 100,000 Salvadorans were murdered. It declined to 39.6 in 2013 due to a truce between the main players in the gang wars, and though these levels have slightly increased in 2014, not a lot has changed in the region dubbed by the United Nations as “the most violent in the world.”

It is also untrue that rumors of more flexibility toward immigrants have undocumented families harboring hopes of an amnesty that could provide legal status: Families are well aware of the threat of deportation, which is communicated in campaigns in their countries of origin and remains the main talking point of U.S. politicians when meeting their Central American counterparts in summits.

What also remains unchanged is the desire of parents to reunite with their loved ones. It is this element that has sparked a burgeoning market: Smugglers are capitalizing on the relative economic stability that some undocumented workers have achieved in the United States and are competing for their business, some of them by lowering the fees that were simply unaffordable for many families in the past.

Deportations won’t solve the roots of the problem; they only tackle the symptoms. The incentives to flee the homeland, like the violence that arises from the war on drugs that empowers cartels without affecting the consumption of narcotics, the politically motivated growth of the American welfare state that could be attractive to so many, the apparent inability of Central American societies to rehabilitate marginalized communities — none of these elements incentivizing migration is affected by deportations. And because the crisis at the border is a human tragedy, it’s nothing more, at the end of the day, than a tragedy of incentives. And it will remain tragic as long as incentives remain unchanged.

Ford To Ditch BlackBerry For iPhones For Its Employees

It’s actually interesting to note that while in some parts of the world, there is a huge amount of support for BlackBerry, there are other parts of the world where companies are wasting no time in getting rid of BlackBerry devices. While it seems that BlackBerry might have gained a supporter in the German government, they might soon be losing customers from Ford Motor.

According to a report from Bloomberg, it seems that Ford will soon be ditching their BlackBerry devices by the end of the year. In its place, the car manufacturing company will be equipping their employees with Apple’s iPhone instead. The first wave will see about 3,300 BlackBerry handsets replaced by iPhones.

Ford is also expected to provide an additional 6,000 iPhones to its employees over the course of the next couple of years, meaning that BlackBerry could potentially lose about 10,000 customers over the next few years. According to Sara Tatchio, a Ford spokeswoman, “We are going to get everyone on iPhones. It meets the overall needs of the employees because it is able to serve both our business needs in a secure way and the needs we have in our personal lives with a single device.”

While Apple’s iPhones have never really been viewed as an enterprise device, the Cupertino company’s partnership with IBM has suggested that Apple will be doubling their efforts at pushing iOS into the enterprise market, and we reckon that Ford’s choice to replace BlackBerry devices with iPhones is a step in that direction.

Ford To Ditch BlackBerry For iPhones For Its Employees

, original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

Hollywood Keeps Film Format Alive By Purchasing Film From Kodak

film camera 640x640Many movies are being filmed in digital these days. Why? Well for starters filming digital is a lot easier than film in the sense that it is more accessible. For example a budding cinematographer can go to a camera shop and pick up a DSLR camera which can shoot very nicely in digital. Finding a camera that shoots video in film is not so easy, and probably won’t be cheap as well.

In fact movie studio Paramount had announced earlier this year that they will soon start distributing all their films in the digital format for the US market, with other markets to follow after. Interestingly enough it seems that while digital does seem like the way to go and is probably the future, it seems that some big names in Hollywood will be teaming up with Kodak in a bid to help keep the film format alive.

According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, several directors and movie studios have come to an agreement with Kodak in which it will see studios committed to purchasing film from Kodak in set quantities in the years to come. Whether or not they actually shoot with it remains to be seen, but it is an effort to help keep the film format alive and relevant in today’s digital world.

One of the directors who announced his commitment, Quentin Tarantino, was quoted as saying at this year’s Cannes festival, “I believe that digital format represents the death of cinema as I know it. Screening in digital format is like turning on the television. That’s not what film is about.” Judd Apatow, another famous director said that both film and digital “are valid choices, but it would be a tragedy if suddenly directors didn’t have the opportunity to shoot on film.”

In a way it is sort of like how film cameras are still around and are still favored by professional photographers. There is a certain warmth and tone that one can capture on film that is hard or impossible to replicate on digital, but what do you guys think? Any cinematographers want to weigh in on this development in Hollywood?

Hollywood Keeps Film Format Alive By Purchasing Film From Kodak

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iWatch Might See A December Release [Rumor]

iwatch concept moyano wristAccording to the rumors, Apple’s iWatch is set for an announcement this October, but when exactly can we expect its release? Well according to reports out of China (via MacRumors), it seems that we can only look forward to the iWatch’s release in December. The report claims that the iWatch will most likely be released alongside the 5.5-inch iPhone 6.

Earlier rumors have suggested that Apple could have run into some production issues with the 5.5-inch model of the iPhone 6. The 4.7-inch iPhone 6 is apparently on track and could be released in the next few months, while the larger iPhone model is said to be delayed possibly until 2015.

This will be an interesting move for Apple as the company typically favors releasing products ahead of the Black Friday sale in November, so a release in December does seem a bit late and could possibly miss the holiday shopping deadline. However it is also possible that Apple could release the 5.5-inch iPhone and iWatch in limited quantities in the meantime to appease customers while they work on churning out more units.

In any case take it with a grain of salt for now, but if you were eyeing either the 5.5-inch iPhone 6 or the iWatch (or even both), you might want to prepare yourselves at the possibility that you might not be able to get your hands on it this year.

iWatch Might See A December Release [Rumor]

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Samsung Gear S Trademark, Another Smartwatch From Samsung?

Samsung gear live runtastic 05 640x426As it stands, Samsung has five smartwatches in the market at the moment. They have the original Galaxy Gear from 2013, the Gear 2, Gear 2 Neo, and Gear Fit that was announced earlier this year, and they also have the Gear Live which is an Android Wear smartwatch announced by Samsung a few months ago.

However could Samsung have a new smartwatch in the works? Well according to a recent trademark filing by Samsung, they have filed for the trademark for a device called the Gear S. Given that the Gear brand of devices from Samsung are for their wearables, there is a chance that this could be another smartwatch from the South Korean tech giant.

Unfortunately not much is known about the Gear S at the moment, although some have speculated that the Gear S could be the rumored Gear Solo, which is a variant of the Gear 2 with SIM card capabilities, meaning that it will not have to rely on your smartphone for internet connectivity as it would be able to hook onto a mobile network of its own.

It is unclear how true this rumor is, but previously LG had also been rumored to be working on a smartwatch with a SIM card as well, although that model will reportedly be limited to the South Korean market and will not be making its way overseas. In any case we’ll be keeping our eyes peeled for more info, so check back with us at a later date for the details.

Samsung Gear S Trademark, Another Smartwatch From Samsung?

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