Hand-cranked emergency chargers are nothing new, but the folks behind Voltmaker managed to come up with something novel based on the same concept. Instead of having to turn the crank laboriously, you’ll only have to hold the gadget and spin it round and round to generate energy.
In effect, you’ll be spinning the part of the charger that’s usually supposed to be turned manually.
Spinning should cause less strain since it’s a more passive action. Spinning the Voltmaker for two minutes will give you enough juice to make a quick emergency call. If you want to fully charge up the Voltmaker 2,000-mAh battery, then you’ll need to spin the device for two to three hours. So really, we just recommend using this nifty gadget during emergencies only – unless you don’t mind looking like a fool spinning this thing around for three hours.
The Voltmaker is currently up for funding on Indiegogo, where a minimum pledge of $69(USD) will get you one of your very own if you’re one of the first 3,000 early bird backers.
The smartphone-connected home security options keep coming, with the Goji smart lock latest to entice us to upgrade our door furniture and hook it up to the cloud. The Goji looks, at first glance, like the August smart lock announced last week, but Goji manages to squeeze in a digital camera to snap photos of
Try taking a coffee snob into Starbucks and you might have trouble; that is, unless you’re lucky enough to come across a branch with a Clover machine. The one-cup brewer – borrowing principles from a French Press and a vacuum pot, among other preparation methods, and which allows for far greater experimentation with beans, roasts, and strengths – has slowly found its way into a small number of Starbucks locations, a welcome distraction from big pots of Pike Roast and milk-heavy cappuccino. Even with Starbucks’ might behind it, though, the Clover has been a relative secret among the coffee cognoscenti, but all that could change in short order with signs of a new, super-auto Clover in development.
The original Clover machine was developed by the simply-named startup Coffee Equipment Company, back in 2005. An attempt to mix the flavor profiles of brewed coffee with the one-cup focus usually reserved for espresso-based drinks, it took a new approach to squeezing a mug out of 30-seconds of contact with hot water.
To do that the Clover’s creators came up with Vacuum-Press technology, a combination of French Press and Vacuum Pots. In a French Press, ground coffee is fully immersed in near-boiling water and left to brew, then the grounds separated out by pushing through a fine mesh. With a Vacuum Pot, water heated in a bottom glass globe is forced up into a second globe on top, mixing with ground coffee there. When pulled off the heat, the brewed coffee rushes back down into the bottom half, ready for drinking.
In Clover’s Vacuum-Press, a little of both takes place. On the top of the machine there’s the top of a computer-controlled piston, into which the coffee is loaded; water from a fixed tap above is poured in, and then – after some stirring and brewing time – the piston pushes up, with a 70-micron mesh drawing the grounds up to the top of the machine, while a vacuum sucks the coffee itself out of the bottom, into a waiting container.
Clover 1S Walkthrough:
There’s something of a spectacle to it, but more importantly it allows for a huge range of coffee flavors to emerge. On the one hand, the whole process is far more controlled than the somewhat haphazard French Press, with the water temperature precisely maintained, more consistency in how the barista can stir the brewing grounds, and more even extraction when the drink is ready. The general report from Clover drinkers is of exceptional clarity, with the delicate complexities of different coffees becoming clearer when made with the machine.
The complexity took on a new dimension in 2008, though, when Starbucks bought the Coffee Equipment Company, and announced plans to put several machines in its stores. It prompted no small amount of consternation among independent coffee shop owners, some of whom had already bought Clover 1S machines (at roughly $8-11k apiece) but who suddenly realized they would be beholden to Starbucks for parts and servicing.
However, a greater question was whether Starbucks’ push for coffee making simplicity could at all be balanced with the demands a Clover put on its accompanying barista. Starbucks had originally used gleaming La Marzocco semi-automatic espresso machines – which required the operator to grind and tamp the beans separately – but, in the early 2000s, switched to super-automatic machines that effectively do everything at a single button press. Known colloquially as bean-to-cup brewers, these are certainly easier to use (no complex staff training on grinders, tracking espresso shots, and the like) but give up flexibility and top quality in the process. For the sake of having consistently average shots of espresso, Starbucks lost the expertise that drew out great shots.
In contrast, a Clover 1S is a lot more time-consuming than hitting a button and watching espresso drip out. Though the extraction takes around 30-40 seconds in all, there’s a fair amount of engagement through the process as a whole: the barista has to decide on the water temperature, how long to stir the grounds (not to mention how aggressively), and when to decant the coffee. The spent grounds have to be squeegeed off the piston mesh into a waste chute between uses. Before all that, there’s helping the customer through the decision process of actually picking beans that might suit the clarity a Clover delivers, then grinding them appropriately. How, critics questioned, would that fit with the fast-paced bar of a downtown Starbucks?
The answer was that it didn’t – or, at least, it hasn’t yet. Starbucks’ exact roll-out of Clover machines hasn’t been numerically detailed, though it’s certainly not many; the greatest number are in the US, of course, while foreign locations are lucky if they get a glimpse of one of the brewers. The UK, for instance, has just one Clover in all of its Starbucks stores.
That may well be about to change, however, with the apparent arrival of a new Clover machine. A freshly-filed US patent application – “Apparatus, systems, and methods for brewing a beverage” – spotted by Spudge seemingly describes a multi-brew-module coffee machine that uses the same principles as the 1S, but with a blast of super-auto convenience.
“In one embodiment, a system for brewing a single-cup portion of coffee is provided. The system comprises a first brew module, a second brew module, and a third brew module. The first brew module, the second brew module, and the third brew module are each configured to brew a single-cup portion of coffee in about 30 seconds or less. In such an embodiment, the first brew module comprises a first doser assembly, a first upper subassembly, a first interior subassembly, and a first dispensing portion. The first doser assembly is engaged with the first upper subassembly and is configured to receive one or more hoppers. The first upper subassembly comprises a first wiper assembly for automatically cleaning the upper subassembly after a brew cycle. The first interior subassembly comprises a first piston configured to raise and lower coffee grounds during a brew cycle. The first dispensing portion is engaged with the first interior subassembly and is configured to provide brewed coffee to a drinking receptacle after a brew cycle” Starbucks Coffee Corporation patent application
Where the original Clover was one part of an overall coffee making process, the super-auto Clover takes charge of all stages. It automatically grinds the beans, measures out the right dose, brews, and then cleans itself, all in the space of around thirty seconds or less. Starbucks’ engineers have even seen fit to include a little “visual theater” for the customer, with cooling vents that serve the bonus duty of puffing out aesthetically pleasing steam and letting the coffee smell spread around the store.
A cluster of hoppers on the top of the machine would allow for multiple bean options, potentially giving the mass coffee market the same sort breadth of choice that tea drinkers have been enjoying with their individually-wrapped bags for years now.
For Starbucks, it’s an opportunity to translate an interesting but niche acquisition into something far more relevant to the bulk of its stores. The company knows that a big chunk of its North American audience still prefers brewed coffee to espresso-based drinks, and luring them in with the flexibility of an on-demand, by-the-cup brewing process – perhaps with a little extra on the tab, in recognition of how unique an offering it is – could mean a neat chunk of extra business.
It also stands a good chance of being cheaper to run in the long term, too. Right now, Starbucks’ drip machines make coffee in bulk, and that has a relatively short shelf life. The company’s policy is to dump whatever’s left after two hours and brew up a new batch, no matter whether it’s almost all been sold or just a cup’s worth has gone. In contrast, a super-auto Clover could scale to suit, kicking out a theoretical two drinks a minute per module in rush hour, or idling with no waste during lull periods.
Is the coffee connoisseur missing out by the absence of a more involved barista? There’s inevitably something to be lost when you take control out of the hands of trained, enthusiastic people and give it over to repetitive routines; whether Starbucks’ staff will actually have any real clue about the Clover coffees they’re serving, or simply point to well-rehearsed marketing blurbs on a card by the machine, remains to be seen. Then again, if they’re so potentially clueless to begin with, perhaps it’s better in the long run that they have as little input into the making of your drink as possible.
In the end, it’s the coffee in the cup that’s important. That has far more to do with beans than it does machines. Back when the first Clover 1S started showing up in Starbucks locations, the NYTimes sent down Cup of Excellence co-fonder George Howell to taste the various options. Although there were some “interesting” flavors in his opinion, the overall feedback was of too darkly roasted beans (something often done by roasters to make broadly homogenized blends less dependent on the whims of the supply chain, not necessarily because it makes for a stronger cup) that ended up making underwhelming or even unpleasant cups of coffee. Bad input, bad output. Starbucks may well have solved the Clover convenience issue, but it’ll have to match that with great tasting beans if it doesn’t want all that clarity to show it up.
Around these parts, we all love bacon. That goes without saying. We can’t get enough of it. We also can’t get enough bacon related merchandise. Or things to help us cook it better. The bacon press is a must have if you want to keep your bacon straight rather than curly. This bacon press will keep your bacon down, like the man keeps you down, so that it fries up straight and delicious. It has a handle and is in the shape of a pig. There’s no better way to force your bacon straight.
Any press would work, but you need the pig. The right tool for the right job people. You can get it from Amazon or for about $12(USD).
Forget shelling out good money to get a professional haircut. Real men cut their own hair and they prefer to do it with one hand tied behind their backs. The Single-Handed Barber should help. It’s basically a one-handed Flowbee.
This $59.95(USD) gadget will cut your hair evenly in any direction, giving you a closely cropped, clean-cut hairstyle while keeping that haircut money in your pocket. It’s just like combing your hair – and losing it as fast as you comb it. The trimmer’s rotary cutting system and razor-sharp stainless steel blades will cut your hair as the unit is moved circularly through your head. Really, this thing would sell tons if it looked more like a UFO and cut deep crop circles in your hair. I’d buy that.
You get a few attachments to cut hair in four different lengths (1/8″, 1/4″, 3/8″, or 1/2″), and the rechargeable battery can deliver four five-minute haircuts after a 16-hour charge. You can also just plug it directly into an outlet if you can’t cut that fast.
Unsurprisingly, Hammacher Schlemmer doesn’t show any before and after pictures of haircuts done with the Single-Handed Barber.
My neighborhood is right off of a highway that has nice broad shoulders. That means on any given day you’re bound to see anywhere from 5 to 30 or more bicyclists pedaling up and down the hilly, but smooth highway. Many of those bicyclists I see have smartphones attached to the handlebars or to their arms in wearable cases.
There are a huge number of available applications for smartphone users who also like to ride bikes. The apps can do things such as track their ride history, route, and even keep up with their cycling cadence and performance. Many of these people end up running bicycling specific applications as well as listening to music at the same time. What that means is battery life for a mobile device is greatly impacted.
A new project has turned up on Kickstarter called the Siva Cycle Atom that is a small power generator that you connect to any bicycle to keep your gadgets charged on a long bike ride. The project is currently seeking $85,000 and has raised over $52,000 with 28 days to go. The Atom uses what the developers call top-of-the-line magnetic rotors, powerful lithium-ion batteries, and will be built in the United States.
The device allows the power generating unit to directly charge your smartphone or other gadget and it comes with a removable battery pack as well. The designers constructed the Atom to output USB compatible 5 V at up to 500mA. The removable battery pack holds 1300 mAh of power. The device generates different amounts of electricity depending on how quickly you ride. At 3 mph, the power output is 0.75 Watts. At 10 mph, the device puts out 3 W of power and at 15 mph the power output is 4.5 W, which is the maximum output. If you want one of the Atom devices, a pledge of $95 will get you a unit by November of 2013.
A recent survey done by ChangeWave Research shows that 19% of consumers would most likely purchase Apple’s iWatch when it launches. 5% of consumers are “very likely” to buy the iWatch when it launches, while 14% are “somewhat likely” to purchase it. The survey was conducted from March 4th through March 19th, with over 1,713 North American consumers participating in it.
While that 19% seems a bit grim for Apple’s iWatch, a survey done in January 2010 suggested that only 18% of consumers would purchase Apple’s iPad, which ended up selling 300,000 units on its first day, 1 million units within a month, and 3 million units within 80 days. It is currently the most popular tablet in the market, with over 5 variations available and with over 100 million units sold so far.
People around the world use ice every day to chill drinks of all sorts. It doesn’t matter what you’re drinking, be it a Dr Pepper, tea, or a glass of 20-year-old single malt, making the drink nice and cold often makes it taste better. The problem for a lot of people is that simply dropping ice cubes into your cup means that drink will soon be diluted if you don’t gulp it down quickly.
A project has turned up on Kickstarter that lets you make your drinks nice and cold without adding any additional water to change the taste. The project is called Pucs and they are simple little devices made of solid stainless steel. The idea is that you take the Pucs and place them into your freezer along with the little wooden holder.
Once those Pucs are nice and cold, you can then pull one out and drop it into your drink. The people behind the project say that the way the solid little chunks of stainless steel work one will add a little chill to your drink while adding additional pucs will drop the temperature of your drink even further allowing you to custom tune the temperature.
Another interesting use for these objects is in hot beverages. You don’t have to put these in the freezer to absorb heat from hot beverages such as coffee. You can drop one into a cup of coffee that’s too hot to absorb some of the heat allowing you to get your caffeine fix more quickly. The Pucs are machined from solid 304 stainless steel and are 100% inert. They are unable to change the flavor of your drink and will not absorb smells or flavors from the freezer. They’re designed to be cleaned with soap and water or in the dishwasher. A pledge of $35 more will get you six Pucs and a maple case to place them in. The project was seeking $2500 and has raised almost $14,000 so far with 44 days to go.
We have talked about the interesting little Breathometer a couple times in the past. This device is the world’s first smartphone breathalyzer. The idea is that when people go out to eat and drink with their friends, they can take the Breathometer with them and use it to determine if they’ve had too much to drink.
The last time we talked about the little device it had raised a little bit over $80,000 and had another 18 days to go. The campaign now has only 48 hours left and will fund on Saturday, 13 April. So far, the project has raised $131,011. That means it raised enough money to get one of the stretch goals added to encourage additional pledges.
At $100,000, the people behind the Breathometer project promised to add what they call a safety net. That safety net creates a one-click calling feature for friends and local taxi services. I can see that being useful if someone is too intoxicated to work the numbers on their smartphone.
With a couple days left in the program, there is a chance he could reach the $150,000 level, which will add four additional colors to the mix. At $200,000, the developers of the project promised to add a feature to help stop drunk texting. You can still pledge $100 and get your own Breathometer by July 2013. If you’re in no hurry, a pledge of $20 will get you one devices by January 2014. The project was originally seeking $25,000.
I’m a fan of gadget teardowns if for no other reason than to see exactly what’s on the inside of some of the coolest gadgets out there. Not too long ago I mentioned that iSuppli had performed a teardown of the Samsung Galaxy S4. The caveat there is that the company didn’t actually have a device to work with, so they only guessed what was inside.
On the other hand, iFixit has got their hands on the new HTC One smartphone and did a teardown the old-fashioned way using heat, screwdrivers, spudgers, and copious amounts of gadget lust.
The result of their work is a gutted HTC One smartphone showing us all the glorious insides. The downside is the One isn’t the easiest device to open up. In fact, it took the gadget surgeons over half an hour just to take the back cover off, and while doing it, they damaged the plastic bezel which surrounds the aluminum case.
Once inside, they found the brains of the operation – a Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 quad-core CPU, running at 1.7 GHz, along with 2GB of DDR2 RAM, 32 GB of Samsung flash memory, Qualcomm power management and 4G modem chips, a Broadcom combo 802.11ac/Bluetooth 4/FM receiver chip, and a variety of other utility chips.
The HTC One’s 1080p 4.7″ LCD may look great, but it’s a pain to replace – as you have to take everything out of the rear case, including the motherboard – before it can be removed.
In the end, iFixit gave the HTC One an abysmal repairability score of just 1 out of 10. If you worry about breaking your smartphone and being able to fix it, you’d be better off buying insurance. Easy repairability just isn’t in the cards with the HTC One.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
Where the original Clover was one part of an overall coffee making process, the super-auto Clover takes charge of all stages. It automatically grinds the beans, measures out the right dose, brews, and then cleans itself, all in the space of around thirty seconds or less. Starbucks’ engineers have even seen fit to include a little “visual theater” for the customer, with cooling vents that serve the bonus duty of puffing out aesthetically pleasing steam and letting the coffee smell spread around the store.
