Hasta La Gadget!

Even though they’ve been around for thousands of years, umbrellas still have two main parts: a canopy and a shaft. But this concept for an umbrella by 22-year old industrial design student Quentin Debaene gets rid of the canopy in favor of something cooler, er drier: air.

Debaene calls his concept the Airblow 2050. He imagines it will use Dyson’s digital motor, which today powers Dyson’s famous bladeless fans and powerful vacuum cleaners. The idea is for the motor to suck air from around the bottom of the shaft and then force it out in a small arc on top, making an invisible canopy. You won’t have to deal with a wet or broken canopy or bumping into other people’s umbrellas. You may even be able to use it to literally blow people away.

I don’t know enough about engineering and physics to fully judge if the concept will work as intended. I’m also wondering why it still looks like an umbrella or at least, an umbrella’s handle. Wouldn’t it be better if it was a small device that you could clip on your backpack or hat? Would we be able to use the Airblow 2050 to carry our stuff and/or friend? Could it be modified and used as a lethal weapon? If a small child pointed it downwards, could said child then use it as a means of transportation? So many questions.

[via Coroflot]

While many newer vehicles have built-in tire pressure monitoring systems which alert you when you have a low tire, they’re not always that great. In my supposedly schmancy 2011 Mustang, the TPMS can only tell you that some tire is low, and not even by how much. How useless is that? Well now that know about this new aftermarket tire monitoring system, I might just have to order one.

The TireHawk Bright+ TPMS Kit works wirelessly with your iOS or Android phone to communicate the exact tire pressure and temperature of each of your vehicle’s tires in real time. And you can configure it with your optimal settings to alert you if your tire is over or under its limits.

The kit includes a set of four sensors which sit on the valve stems of your tires, along with a compact wireless gateway which you can plug into your car’s cigarette lighter or USB jack and acts as a bridge between the 433Mhz sensor network and the 2.4Ghz Wi-Fi network.

There’s no word on pricing or a release date for the TireHawk system at this point, but it did just hit the FCC for approval, so I imagine it will be released very soon.

Remember how the BBC was asking Adobe to keep Flash for Android on life support for a short while? The broadcaster just removed any doubts as to why with the launch of BBC Media Player, its solution for that day when the mobile plugin is well and truly buried. Starting with iPlayer on the mobile web and moving on to both radio as well as an updated version of the Android app due next week, the BBC will be using close Flash cousin Adobe AIR for streaming playback on Android phones and tablets. It can’t quit Flash technology cold turkey given the sheer number of devices still running Gingerbread or earlier, which rules out HTTP Live Streaming for now. Media Player isn’t necessarily the most elegant solution — we’re seeing reports of sub-par video and other hiccups — but it will keep those episodes of Doctor Who rolling on most Android hardware and let the BBC push out updates that address as many of the Google-inclined as possible.

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Mobile

BBC Media Player to give Android users their iPlayer fix in a mostly Flashless world originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 19 Sep 2012 15:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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iRobot may be best known for its household automatons, but the company’s expertise goes far beyond circular bots built for sweeping and scrubbing floors. Its Warrior and 110 FirstLook bots are built for the military, and now the Advanced Inflatable Robot (AIR) arm model is joining its armed forces brethren. The AIRarm prototype is essentially a Packbot whose metal arm’s been replaced with an inflatable version able to lift four times its own half-pound weight. That might not seem like much, but considering most rigid robot arms can only lift a fraction of their own weight, it represents a sizable gain in strength-to-weight ratio. Plus, the arm can get stronger by simply dialing up the air pressure. As an inflatable limb, it can also operate delicately around meatbags — just as the air pressure is increased for strength, it can be decreased when in close proximity to people so as not to injure them. For its prototype effort, iRobot’s going to get a $625,000 contract from DARPA to continue the AIRarm’s development, and you can see a bit of what that money will buy in the video after the break.

Continue reading iRobot’s AIRarm prototype bot has an inflatable arm for manipulating objects, was built at DARPA’s behest

Filed under: Robots

iRobot’s AIRarm prototype bot has an inflatable arm for manipulating objects, was built at DARPA’s behest originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 22 Aug 2012 07:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Rejoice, Apple junkies on a budget, for Apple’s refurbished store is no longer completely empty. It’s now loaded with a lot of deals with discounts up to 38 percent—all in stock. More »