Hasta La Gadget!

What’s not to love about birds? Many are beautiful to look at and even some of the tiny creatures flit around from flower-to-flower, pollinating the world and making it a prettier, greener place for all us humans to live in.

So why not lend a hand and provide them with some accommodations in exchange for their help in keeping our world a prettier place, as it should be? No worries if you’re not very handy with a hammer and therefore, find yourself unable to build your own birdhouse, because Klaas Kuiken’s ceramic birdhouse roof tiles are here!

They’re basically roof tiles with a small birdhouse built into the top of the tile itself. If you have a couple of shingles that are up for repair, then why not be a good neighbor to the birds in your neighborhood and replace them with these tiles instead?

Klaas first designed these quirky clay birdhouses in 2009, but now they’re finally available for purchase. You can check his site for ordering information, but you’d better hurry, because only 100 birdhouses have been produced so far.

[via Colossal]

In cases of real emergencies, most emergency lights are pretty much useless if you don’t have the required number of and type batteries to power them up. You can consider yourself lucky if you come across sealed packs of double As and triple As as you stumble around in the dark, but if what you’ve got is a set of batteries in mixed sizes, then you’re pretty much doomed.

Panasonic was well aware of this problem, which is probably why they came up with the BF-BM10 flashlight which is also known as the ‘Any Battery Light.’

I think the name pretty much says it all. You can use any size of 1.5 volt battery that you can find lying around in your house, from the tiny AAAs to the huge D-sized battery. The flashlight uses one battery at a time, and you can expect up to 86 hours of operation if you insert four brand-new batteries into the slots.

Panasonic was inspired to invent the flashlight after demand for portable torches soared after the devastating earthquakes in Japan last 2011.

At this point, the Any Battery Light will only be made available to the Japanese market, and will go on sale later this month for 2,000 yen (~$24 USD).

[via Japan Today via Bit Rebels]

Most people are lazy by nature. They get even lazier on Friday and Saturday nights, since they’re all suddenly unable to leave their seats to open their bottles of soda or beer using the opener on the fridge. What they do instead is use the old edge-of-the-table trick to pop the cap off of their bottles. Good for them, but bad for you and your furniture.

This behavior gets even more common especially when you’re throwing a party or having a chill night with friends. Nobody really wants to be a party pooper by insisting that everyone get up to get their bottles open. The solution? The BROpener.

It’s a neat little strip that you can stick on tabletops and other furniture to transform them all into bottle openers. It’s got a space-age industrial-strength adhesive strip on the back to hold it in place. Basically, you’ll still be doing the edge-of-the-table technique on the BROpener, so your furniture stays protected, and the adhesive tape can easily be removed with a twisting motion.

It’s also magnetized, which adds a bit of convenience since your bottle caps will stick to it once the bottle’s open, so you won’t be dropping bottle caps all over the floor.

The BROpener is currently up for funding on Kickstarter, where a minimum pledge of $14(USD) will get you a single opener.

[via OhGizmo!]

I don’t have many spices in my kitchen cupboards, but I might start carrying more if I had these quirky plastic spice containers by Qualy that double as snow (or rather, spice) globes.

It’s a fun idea and I wonder why somebody didn’t come up with it sooner. Of course, they’re not very good for organization since there’s no space to label your spices. If you’re the forgetful type, then you’ll probably have to taste the spices in each jar every once in a while to figure out which is which. Designer Teerachai Suppametheekulwat’s concept itself is adorkably cute, and gives you free rein to have a little fun with your spices.

Fill the Christmas tree and polar bear jars with sugar and salt, while some granulated garlic might look good with the cactus since it could pass of as (extremely pungent) sand. I’m not sure what would go well with the bunny, camel, and dormant tree, but I’m sure you’ll find a relevant spice to add to each if you’ve got a lot of them in your inventory.

Qualy is based in Thailand, but you can get the shakers with the trees over at the MoMA Store for $39 (USD) – or $35.10 if you’re a member. I’m not sure where you can get the animal series though.

[via Core77]

Interactive furniture is pretty uncommon. After all, your first consideration in making a piece of furniture is to create something that’s sturdy, durable, and comfortable. Aesthetics usually comes second.

And then there’s the Thermochromic Table. It looks like a simple, minimalist table and bench at the outset, but it’s the finish that sets it apart from the rest.

Because of its thermochromic coating, different parts of the table might temporarily ‘change’ in color once it comes contact to someone or something hot. For example, a person’s hand or steaming cups of coffee, as you can see in the gallery below.

These tables are made by Jay Watson Design and costs £1,850 (~$3,000 USD). Or you could just buy some thermochromic paint pigment and cover your own furniture with it.

[via Geekologie]