Hasta La Gadget!

Gift giving is very anticlimactic. You hand something over, the recipient tears it open, and you’re done. Maybe there are hugs exchanged, maybe some high fives. Whatever. Cheetos, beer, and football the rest of the night.

But get a load of the Timeless Box. It’s an $100 aluminum (or titanium) box that is locked shut for a period of time – between a few days and a year. You put something small inside it, lock it, and hand it over. Then, a month later or whatever, the recipient hears a little click and the box opens. You can be gone, dead, flying around the world, in deepest space, and they get a little memory of you that pops out as if by magic. Note: do not put live animals into the Timeless Box.

Blew your mind, right? Boom.

I asked the creator, Ignasi Giró, for some help in understanding this thing. Giró is co-founder of Honest&Smile, a design agency in Barcelona, and he seems pretty grounded in the deep truths of the universe.

TC: Why did you build this?
Giró: We live in an “ever-connected” and kind of “super empowering” society. But we end up sending poor “Happy Birthday” messages from airport waiting rooms. Or forgetting about what we really wanted to become one year from now. So, I really felt there was room for a sort of “anti gadget” that removed almost all power to its users… but gave back two very precious things: A re-gained perception of time passing by, neatly confronting something from years ago with your present time and an extremely simple and easy to use time-capsule object, that won’t get lost with time, or that you won’t need to call NASA to set up properly.

Having this in mind, adding to it all the wonderful literacy and storytelling about the subject (from Dr Who’s TARDIS references, to “time travel tales” and general relativity, too), the idea grew quickly and developed into what you are seeing today.

Oh, and there’s also a virtual version, here, to beta test virtual boxes, that is completely responsive for phones and tablets.

TC: Isn’t it kind of morbid?
G: Ha ha ha, well, maybe, yes.. Some people take it that way, and start considering extremely cruel uses for it. To punish their kids, for instance, by hiding their iPod inside for a few days. Also, someone told us he would give a 10 years locked Titanium Timeless Box to someone, and leave it… empty! Imagine, waiting 10 years for it to open, and then find nothing inside. But most of the people connect with that special moment they don’t want to miss, when their kid will turn 18, or when that good friend in Europe will get married. Furthermore, people consider using it to send messages to their future self, as a kind of reminder of what you wanted to accomplish. And, well, yes, we can’t deny it, the Timeless Box can become a very valuable tool for someone wanting to leave any kind of legacy or message to their loved ones, to be opened in some future moment when he or she feels won’t be there anymore.

TC: How secure is it? Can I crack it open?
It’s built into a two pieces of solid aluminum (and there’s a Titanium one, too). It’s solid, sure. Off course, its not unbreakable. But you certainly will have to be pretty mean and aggressive to get into it. We feel the best safety mechanism it has is it’s design: it looks to beautiful to harm it or destroy it. And, well, it’s also a game: you can always break the rules, sure. But then it’s not a funny game anymore.

That’s some pretty heady stuff in this season of giving. Pretty heady indeed. You can pledge to get a Timeless Box right here. I’m going to fill mine with cheese.

I’ve often wanted to know what my daughters dog was thinking when she spends an hour outside, comes inside and immediately drops a deuce on the rug. I’m convinced the dog is simply an asshole. Now, a company has a product that it is working on, that is apparently a serious product for them, called No More Woof.

The goal of the product is to translate animal thoughts to human language. If this product comes to be, maybe then I could figure out why the dog craps in the house, not the yard. The device looks like one of those thought-control gaming headsets that have been around for a while and uses EEG technology. The company stresses that product is not available to purchase and is only in working prototype stage now.

The project is on Indiegogo seeking to raise funds to bring No More Woof to market. A pledge of $65(USD) will get you a micro version of the device that can detect two to three thought patterns. The full size rig will be able to translate four or more thought patterns for $300. Delivery is expected in April 2014. Squirrel.

We are at a turning point in terms of gadget manufacturing. The heavy hitters in hardware – the Sonys, the Samsungs, the LGs – are stuck in the mire of slow innovation. We haven’t heard much out of that camp this year – they’re keeping CES plans under wraps – but I suspect we’ll see a few big TVs and some thin laptops and a nice fridge or two and little else. The real innovation is happening far out in the periphery where hardware is an extension of software and smart devices are now the fastest moving consumer goods.

For most of the last decade the TC team hit CES and wandered the halls, writing about as many gadgets as possible and filling up the page with update after update. Recently there’s been little need. Some of the best products – from the Pebble to this amazing 3D scanner – have come out of small design houses. Devices like 3D printers get short shrift at CES but they’re some of the most exciting new CE products on earth. Quantified self gear is underrepresented as are consumer robotics. Wearables may be big this year, but hardware makers don’t know how to build them correctly. Clearly only Google and Eric Migicovsky do.

What are we doing at CES? We’re going to do our regularly scheduled live run through of all of the halls – you guys seem to enjoy that every year so we’re maintaining the tradition. But the real action will be around the convention center. Last year we spent 90% of our time in our own booth, out on the CES parking lot. It was open to all comers, you didn’t need to have a badge for CES, and we were in the perfect spot to grab foot traffic. And grab it we did. In the hours we spent out there we met the guys from Gtar, Zivix, and Pebble. We saw folks making amazing heads-up displays, cool chip designs, and wearables. We interviewed the CEOs of Dropcam and Fitbit and generally ignored the festival inside. Who needs to film a nicer TV when the future is wandering the parking lot?

This year is even better. We’re running our own Hardware Battlefield where one lucky hardware startup will win $50,000. We’re inviting some amazing judges including Bre Pettis, Slava Rubin, and Trae Vassallo. We’ll also be holding interviews in our tent and meeting and greeting members of the Las Vegas tech community.

Want to join us? Just look for our tent on the LVCC grounds and hang out. We need an audience and you don’t need a badge to come by. We’ll be doing giveaways as well, so maybe you can grab yourself a bit of gear.

Hardware is different now. It’s not the domain of the big guy. In fact, they’ve already lost.

Wi-Fi routers are usually boring. Designed to look as innocuous as possible, designers basically go for the “black box with lights on it” approach and head home. Not Airfy.

Originally introduced at Disrupt Berlin, Airfy is one of the sexiest Wi-Fi routers I’ve ever seen. It looks like a cross between an Art Deco lamp and a Legend of Zelda Rupee. While the device is a fully-compliant 802.11ac/n router, it also acts as a Bluetooth iBeacon and allows you to set up a sort of local, wireless point-of-sale system in your office or shop. Using a mobile app, the service supports mobile payments via a proprietary POS gateway. Finally, the device can also act as a shopping aid.

Not running a corner shop? The Airfy also has 50 built-in LEDs that light up when various things happen on your system. For example, you can have it change color for Facebook updates, commerce sales, or phone calls and you can use IFTTT to program interactive features. You can also add features like “paid” surfing, commercial-based free wi-fi (users can watch a quick commercial to log into your router) and the data is WPA2 encrypted. As a stretch goal the team will add a camera to the mix, allowing you to use the router as a home security device and a built-in audio out for wireless streaming. In short, they stuck everything in here but the kitchen sink.

The team is looking for $169 for the 802.11N model and their standalone beacons will cost $49. They are looking for $100,000 and have raised $2,000 so far. The site is a bit nebulous as to how they’re going to pull off their most exciting features – especially the virtual POS system – but that’s what Indiegogo is for. Considering we’ve seen these routers in the flesh and came away impressed, however, I’m sure the team will figure out all the vagaries before they hit the stores.

Depending on your bathing habits, you might actually use up a whole lot more water in a shower than in a bathtub. Well, enter the Amphiro A1, which has been proclaimed to be the first self-powered shower monitor that will actually engage users, all in order to save an average of 23% of one’s thermal energy. This would mean the ability to actually save up to $135 each year, all without having to give up your comfort. Just where will the Amphiro A1 fit in? It happens to arrive in an innovative design component which will be integrated right in between the shower hose and the handheld shower head.

The Amphiro A1 is green enough that it does not need any kind of batteries, where it is powered by a small generator which will harvest the energy for the display and electronic components, all directly from the water flow itself. The moment water runs through the device, the display will turn itself on, and the smart shower meter starts will begin to measure the amount of water and energy consumption. The Amphiro A1’s display points to your existing water consumption, water temperature, your energy consumption and the associated energy efficiency class. Installation is a snap, taking just three fast steps without the need for any tools or prior DIY experience. Hopefully it will be a successful Indiegogo project 50 plus days from now. It does seem as though smart meters do have a place in the future of mankind.

Amphiro A1 Self-Powered Smart Water Meter original content from Ubergizmo.