Hasta La Gadget!

If you paid even the slightest bit of attention during science class, then you know better than to drink seawater. Despite how inviting it may seem (“hey, it’s still water after all!”), seawater causes severe dehydration so you’re better off thirsty than taking a drink of it.

Unfortunately for those who find themselves stranded on lifeboats or rafts in the middle of the ocean, it’s a temptation that’s hard to resist. Then along came Puri.

It’s a portable seawater desalinating bottle that uses pumping action to remove the salt from the seawater. It’s still a concept design for now, but wouldn’t it be amazing if it became a reality? Puri could then be put on lifeboats, where they can be used during emergencies and save lives in the process.

So that’s probably looking too far ahead, but hey, it could happen.

Puri is designed by Younsun Kim, Kangkyung Lee, Byungsoo Kim, and Minji Kim and is a 2013 IDEA Design Awards entry.

[via Yanko Design]

Now Back To The Future fans can turn their iPad into the Grays Sports Almanac that Old Biff gave to Young Biff in Back to the Future II. It’s just too bad that it didn’t arrive in time to get some future scores.

Oh well. So you won’t get rich with this thing, but at least your iPad will be protected and look awesome. And who knows, maybe some dude from the past will steal it from you. Then he’ll be upset that it has no sports results and all he got was a lousy flat TV. Which will then lead to an iPad being manufactured in 1984. Great Scott!

So what are you waiting for? Make like a tree and pre-order one now for $30.79(USD) over at Firebox.

Welcome to Japanese Technology from the Future Friday!
It’s already Friday west of the international dateline – here in Japan, it’s totally the future. The weekly JTFF is our somewhat technosnarky coverage of 2-5 particularly important, specifically Japan-related tech stories. Get yourself hip to the micro & macro that went down while North America was sleeping – check in with Akihabara News every Friday morning and BOOM! Ahead of the game, you win.

:: JTFF – May 3, 2013 ::

• New Pacific Rim Trailer for Japanese Audiences
The JTFF doesn’t often jump into entertainment stories, but since this one’s 1. about giant robots fighting alien sea monsters (“kaiju,” Japanese for “monster”), and 2. directed by Guillermo del Toro, it’s not only wildly relevant (perhaps you’ve noticed our recent renaissance in robotics coverage?), but also promises to maybe, just maybe be a decent blockbuster-scale robot movie. Jump through to see what the suits up in marketing decided to aim at the Japanese.
[PACIFIC RIM JAPAN TRAILER – DIGITAL JOURNAL]

• How Robots are Changing the Way We Age
Interesting and very comprehensive coverage of why and how robots will be all up the developing world’s aging process. Of course anyone worth their Robo-Dorky merit badge knows Japan’s aging society is the vanguard of the “Yeah so we’re getting old really fast and who’s going to take care of us ummm okay let’s do robots” club, and this piece provides a very nice contextual framework for how the issue’s addressed both here and in the rest of the world. For a primer, you might want to begin with our own coverage here.
[GETTING OLD WITH ROBOTS & STUFF – FISCAL TIMES]

• Japan’s Taking Nuclear Energy Tech to the Middle East
Not only is Japan funding off-shore wind farms in the eastern United States, they’re also taking J-Tech nuclear energy know-how to the UAE and Turkey. After Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s pan-Arabian hobnobbing, a deal was inked for Japan to sell nuclear tech to the UAE, and this bodes well both for tech exports and maintaining Japan’s steady stream of UAE fossil fuels, for which it’s a platinum-level customer. Motivation and angles on the agreement with Turkey are not quite as easy to parse, but appear to be part of Japan’s ongoing efforts to boost technological exports in lucrative markets outside of the traditional electronics, automotive, etc.
[THINGS GO WELL FOR ABE IN THE UAE – UPI] – [TURKEY GETS SOME NUCLEAR J-TECH – JAPAN TIMES]

That was the JTFF, and live from the future – that is all!

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Reno J. Tibke is the founder and operator of Anthrobotic.com, where the JTFF was born.

Tokyo at Night image via PhotoEverywhere.

Ali Razeghi, an Iranian scientist who is the managing director of Iran’s Centre for Strategic Inventions, has done something only the great Doc Brown has done: he’s created a time machine. But unlike Doc’s DeLorean, Razeghi’s “The Aryayek Time Traveling Machine” can only take you to the future. What are we waiting for? Let’s go! More »

3D printers are all the rage these days. Who would’ve thought that this concept would be turned into a reality one day? It’s developments like these that make me wonder if there are things that can be considered as truly ‘impossible’, because so far, all I’m seeing is a lot of impossibilities being realized.

Another concept that we might see in our homes one day is the Clothing Printer.

I think its name pretty much says it all. This wall-mounted touchscreen device would print clothes for you, right in the comfort of your very own home. It would be connected to a host of clothing retailers so all you’d have to do is make your selection, tap, and wait for the machine to ‘print’ your clothes out.

The machine could even be loaded with different fabric cartridges to produce the exact clothing you’re looking for. The machine would also be able to break down clothing into its components and recycled.

So this might not be as straightforward as a 3D printer, given the complications of stitching, sizing, patterns, and the actual sewing, but hey, it could happen.

The Clothing Printer was conceptualized by industrial designer Joshua Harris as a futuristic living idea for the year 2050. If things go well, we might very well see the Clothing Printer sooner than that.

[via Bit Rebels]