Hasta La Gadget!

The Bang Bang egg cooker, designed by Lo Chi Di, is most notable for one gimmick. It pops the eggs out when they’re done, just like toast bursting forth from a toaster, or the brand-new egg itself plopping wetly from its mother’s cloaca.

To prepare your yolky breakfast, follow these simple steps. One, remove the Bang Bang from the back of the cupboard, ignoring the easy-to-use saucepan in front. Two, take up to four eggs from the base — an egg-tray which doubles as a wireless power supply for the Bang Bang — and find somewhere to keep the rest of the eggs while you cook.

Three, carefully pour water onto the base, avoiding any splashes on the electrical contacts of the unit. You may choose to use that easy-to-fill saucepan for this. Four, turn the timer to start the water heating, carefully estimating the time it will take for the water to come to the boil first and adding that to the cooking time. Return the saucepan to the cupboard.

Five, wait for the timer to tick its way to zero and pop up the eggs. You may also hope quietly to yourself that the water somehow transfers its heat to the top, uncovered part of the egg for even doneness. Remember, there will be no steam buildup due to the lack of a lid. Six, rush to remove the eggs with the provided tongs before they overcook due to the still-hot water below. Seven, eat.

I won’t take you through the cleanup process, nor the clearing of cupboard-space for yet another multitasker. I will give you one hope for the future of mankind, though: The Bang Bang is just a concept.

All Eggs In One Toaster [Yanko. Thanks, Radhika!]

Finally, a way to (almost) never leave your desk again. Combine this desktop microwave oven with supermarket delivery and a bucket under your chair and you can remain immobile. Forever.

The 2008 BrainWave is a concept design, and as such is riddled with impracticalities. For instance, it requires your microwave-meal to come with its own fork, and that fork has to have an RFID-chip to give cooking instructions to the BrainWave. A simple timer dial and start button would be better, especially as the RFID scanner is a bulky box on the side.

Also odd is the dry-erase board on the bottom, to be sketched upon when the oven is flipped into an upright storage position. Perhaps you could doodle ideas for your next meal, perhaps a tasty plastic tray of industrial mac’n’cheese?

The idea of a tiny microwave, though, is great, and I have wanted one ever since I saw 30 Rock’s Funcooker. After all, having a giant box taking up counter space just to reheat a cup of coffee seems wasteful. The BrainWave also wins for its USB hookup, which lets companion software on your PC control the microwave and display the status readout.

One note to the designer, Stephen Richard Gates: Make the BrainWave look less like a printer or fax machine. I’m pretty sure that microwaving a ream of paper is kinda dangerous.

Desktop Microwave Oven Concept [Steve Gates via Yanko]

The Drinkclip/Beltclip is a combination plastic cup-holder. The twist is that you clip it to your belt for on-the-go slurping of the day’s coffee ration. Over the last week, I have been testing it out in a variety of unsuitable situations. But first, a brief recap.

Almost three weeks ago, I gently mocked the clip as being both dorky and dangerous, inviting spillage of scalding-hot coffee directly onto your body. Readers agreed: “Imagine the fun when the crowd surges and the hot coffee is squeezed out of the squashed cup!” wrote ka1axy in the comments (somebody else tried to co-opt the thread with a fundamentalist anti-coffee screed: “coffee is bad for you anyway, stop drinking it and you wont be temped to buy this stupid thing.”)

The Drinkclip people got in touch and issued a challenge to test their device. I accepted. So how did it do?

Pretty good, although as ever I tried to abuse it beyond necessary limits. The clip comes in two parts. A strongly sprung clamp like that found on a workshop inspection lamp, and a detachable belt-clip-able section that does the cup-holding. When used together, the hinged joint lets the cup stay more-or-less upright as the clamp section sways.

The clip works great as a low-slung desk-bracket that keeps your coffee below notebook level for safer spills. And the detachable clamp is strong enough to grip even the thinnest surface safely. But that’s not the point. This is a clip to be used on the move.

I avoided coffee, mostly due to a Starbucks allergy which kicks in every time I see a children’s milkshake packaged for adults. Instead, I chose beer, and slipped the can into the included “koozie”, a neoprene sleeve which both insulates the can and keeps it firmly in the clip. Mounted directly to the belt, it is surprisingly spill-resistant and frees you hands for essential tasks like flipping steaks on the grill or making a turn signal as you cross four lanes of traffic on your bike. In fact, get the clip to sit upright when you’re in the saddle and it is rock-solid, mostly because your waist doesn’t move much as you ride.

Stage two was a stress-test for the full clamp assembly. Again on the bike, but not just rolling down the street. This needed to be brutal. I took the clip and a six-pack to Friday-night bike-polo and clamped the Drinkclip to my handlebars, ready for the full stop-start, herky-jerky ride ahead.

The result? A partial success. The clip did indeed stay put, but inevitably drooped down out of reach, although the can stayed upright thanks to the hinges. Worse was the thrashing around of the beer in the heat of play. As I dodged nimbly across the court, my handlebars were flung from side to side. The can was whipped back and forth like the head of a dropped fire-hose. I lost a lot of beer (although the wet patches did cause some opponents to skid and fall, a definite benefit).

Should you buy it? Sure, if you’re a pro-barbecuer then $15 is a steal, and the Drinkclip is certainly tough enough to last. If you’re looking to carry coffee across the city as you walk, don’t. Take a break, stop pretending your time is so damned important and stop off in a non-chain cafe for a real espresso, not some turgid, watery brew or creamy mocha-choca-fluffball.

Beltclip [Drinkclip]

Photo: Charlie Sorrel

See Also:

• First Look: Dorky Drinkclip Good for More than Coffee
• Too Hot to Handle: Hip-Mounted Coffee-Holder

Pop quiz: What’s the most important tool in any toolbox? If you answered “duct-tape” or “gaffer-tape” you would be correct (if you said “gaffer’s” or “gaffers”, you’re still right, but need some practice when it comes to reading).

But even gaffer-tape can’t help if you don’t have it with you, which is why the Infinity DuKJug looks so good (it even has an odd distribution of capital letters in the name, the word-equivalent of MacGyver’s mullet). The polypropylene water-bottle has a slim waist covered in a silicone grip. Peel this grip back and you’ll find space to wind two-meters (6.5-feet) of the magic tape, enough for most emergency uses.

The bottle also has a sippy-lid, a cord retainer for the regular screw-top and weighs just five ounces. The bottle costs around $10, and you can choose from a delight of Bondi Blue iMac-era candy-colors. MacGyver would be so proud.

DuKJug [Amazon via Digital Story]

We all have gadget without which we cannot leave home. It may be callphone or an iPod, or for some, a cosmetics-compact. For me, in the Summer months at least, it is salt and pepper. I keep mine in tiny, polycarbonate screw-top jars from Muji. I shall be replacing them immediately with the Swiss Spice Humid Proof, a grammatically-challenged portable salt-and-pepper pot.

Coming on like a kind of Siamese Tictac box, the humid-proof container has a tight-sealing, hermetic closure which can’t work its way open in your bag (unlike the Muji pots). It can be had with or without salt and pepper inside, and if you choose to order the full version you get some “Alpine herbs” mixed in with the salty rocks. Why would you carry your own salt and pepper around? For picnics, impromptu sandwiches made on the beach and, perhaps most importantly, as a quick-fix for poorly seasoned patatas bravas delivered to your terrace-table by a fast-disappearing waiter. Available now, for around $12.

Classic Shaker [Swiss Spice via Cool Tools]