Hasta La Gadget!

Wireless chargers already exist, but I’m not a big fan of the current setup because it’s not convenient at all. Sure, you don’t have to plug anything to your device, but today’s inductive chargers require that the device being charged remain in contact with the charging dock or platform. That leaves your device more tethered than if you used a charging cable. But what if wireless charging worked like Wi-Fi? That’s what a company called Ossia is working on.

Founded by physicist Hatem Zeine, Ossia is working on a wireless charging technology that it calls Cota. Like today’s inductive charging systems, Cota requires a power transmitter as well as a receiver on the device to be charged. Zeine claims that the receiver can be made small enough to fit inside gadgets and even AAA batteries. Best of all – and this is the trillion dollar claim of Ossia – the Cota transmitter can supposedly power devices up to 30 ft. away. Furthermore, Zeine claims that Cota is as harmless as Wi-Fi, it works through walls and it can charge multiple devices at once. In other words, it’s just like having a Wi-Fi router except this one sends electricity. You can skip to around 2:30 in the video below to see Zeine demonstrate Cota:

Wow. If Cota takes off, future mobile devices won’t need high capacity batteries, because we’ll be able to charge them all the time. Just imagine how convenient that would be.

[via TechCrunch via Engadget]

The Owlet isn’t a baby monitor is the usual sense of the word. I mean, it lets you monitor your baby, but not in the way that most baby monitors do, which is let you hear what’s going on at the moment.

Instead, the Owlet is actually a bootie that measures your baby’s vital stats. It’s pretty compact and fits into a washable bootie (yes, it’s waterproof too), so it shouldn’t be too hard to keep this particular monitor on your child.

The Owlet works in conjunction with an app that lets you see how your baby is doing, providing quick stats on your baby’s position, temperature, oxygen levels and heart rate. It can also detect if they are sleeping.

Its creators were hoping to raise $100,000 to fund production, and have already exceeded their goal. The project was rejected by Kickstarter (I’m not sure why), so they have taken to creating their own crowdfunding site to raise the money. You can make a pledge of $159(USD) to get one of your very own Owlet baby monitor. That seems like a small price to pay to have this sort of peace of mind.

[via C|NET]

Last year when I saw YEI Technology’s Unreal Engine demo of their 3-Space Sensors, I mentioned how it might be able to integrate with the Oculus Rift for a more immersive virtual reality experience. Turns out the company had the same plan all along. YEI recently launched a Kickstarter fundraiser for PrioVR, an improved and affordable version of the 3-Space Sensors.

The PrioVR sensors are significantly smaller than the 3-Space Sensors and will also include an input unit. The latter is for plugging in additional external input, i.e. physical controllers such as a joystick or a gamepad. Data from sensors and input units will be sent to a “centralized wearable wireless hub architecture”, which in turn will beam the data to a base station that has a USB output.

PrioVR currently comes in two developer kits: PrioVR Lite includes 11 sensors, 1 input unit, the wireless hub, the base station plus the straps needed to wear all of the electronics. The PrioVR Pro kit adds 6 more sensors and 1 more input unit to the Lite kit. As expected, the kits will come with SDK and API so developers can adapt or build games around PrioVR. YEI Technology also said that “major game engines will be supported” and that they will also release “demo projects and open source code examples.”

Pledge at least $450 (USD) on Kickstarter to get a PrioVR dev kit as a reward. I wonder what gaming companies and console makers think of all these virtual reality hardware. The Omni VR treadmill in particular seems to be in direct competition with the PrioVR. I also find it hilarious that Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft seem to have given up on motion-controlled gaming when in fact they popularized it with their respective efforts, especially with the Wii and the Kinect. I guess they weren’t able to connect the dots to virtual reality. Perhaps no one really did until the Oculus Rift hit the scene.

However, while the PrioVR and other VR hardware have immense potential, I think it’s safe to say that we’re still years away from seeing consumer versions of any of them. I think the manufacturers need to sort out who their partners will be and eventually release a complete package for consumers and game developers alike. They can’t expect us to buy various VR hardware separately without knowing which games they’ll work with. Remember, as of now these sensors and headsets are separate from PCs and consoles – you know, the machines that actually run games. If folks are already balking at the Xbox One’s price, imagine how they’ll react when they find out you have to shell out hundreds of dollars for a console or a gaming PC, $300 for the Oculus Rift and then $450 more for the sensors. Holy crap. A subscription-based cloud gaming setup – with free-to-play games – almost makes sense from my wallet’s perspective.

[via PrioVR]

Many are on the constant search to find the perfect shirt. Not just any shirt, but the shirt for all occasions – something that can be worn to work and donned for a night out. Of course, you’d still have to layer on cardigans or accessories in order to make the full transformation, but what if I told you there’s a shirt that can literally morph into anything you want it to?

Designed by Vernon Chen and Joanne Lim Jin Xuan, the Plexus is made of pixelated, color-changing nano-magnets (is this possible? It might be, in the future.) These tiny components allow each panel to be able open like a louver and provide ventilation too.

It’s a reactive, interactive shirt as it morphs and changes color and design based on its wearer’s surroundings and agenda.

Sounds pretty amazing, right? The big catch is that it’s just a concept design… at least for now.

[via Yanko Design]

Missing the beach and the good times that you had with friends and family by the shore? Longing for the good vibes that you get from breathing in the salty ocean breeze? Well, you might one day be able to catch wave after wave of it right in your own home with the SEAbreeze.

This concept design is a pair of air quality devices that look like extremely fancy vases. However, it’s actually a humidifier and dehumidifier combo that can create a mild breeze throughout the room without a sound.

The humidifier requires an input of salt water to produce humid, salty air like that at the ocean, with its byproduct being salt that can be used for cooking or cleaning. On the other hand, the dehumidifier recaptures humid air and has clean, dehumidified air and desalinated drinking water as its output.

The SEAbreeze is definitely an ambitious design but it could be interesting if it’s ever produced. It was designed by Fanni Csernátony and is a 2013 Electrolux Design Lab semifinalist.

[via Yanko Design]