Hasta La Gadget!

The microwave is the lazy hungry man’s best friend. Developer Nathan Broadbent went and modified his oven to become even more lazy user-friendly. His Picrowave oven is voice-activated, reads bar codes, can be taught how to cook a particular item and more.

Broadbent used a Raspberry Pi to smarten up his oven. He even rewired its touch panel and made a new interface for it. The thing is, he doesn’t need to use the new panel, because he made the oven understand voice commands.

He also made an online database containing instructions for cooking. The instructions are tied to bar codes, which are read by a scanner that Broadbent connected it to his oven. In short, all he has to do is scan an item and the microwave will find out how to zap it from the database using Wi-Fi. If it’s not there, Nathan can just add an entry. He also made an online interface so that he can control the oven from a website, even from a mobile device. Finally, the oven can also tweet when its done cooking.

If only 3D printers were that easy to use. Head to Broadbent’s website to see how he made the Picrowave.

[via TechCrunch via DVICE]

Many people practice clean bathroom habits, but just as many are pretty nasty. Enter Kaspars Jursons’s redesign of the toilet, where he puts a sink on top of the urinal. Relieve yourself and immediately clean up. It puts the cleaning part right in your face. If you still don’t wash your hands after using this you have real problems.

The toilet is called STAND. It’s a great idea, but it would never work. People would be peeing in those sinks just for fun – and how clean can you really get with people’s aim being so bad, since it is so close to the urinal.

It’s just a concept, but not a terrible one. It just depends on people being respectable and not taking a whiz in the wrong section.

[via Gadget Review via Oh Gizmo!]

I know that you really had your heart set on buying the TARDIS, but Matt Smith is not getting rid of that. But he is parting with his first car. This Vauxhall Corsa was the first vehicle he purchased at age 18. It’s a 2000 model and it still runs, with only 60,000 miles on it.

Smith had this to say:

“While I have been travelling the universe in my TARDIS, my much-loved Vauxhall Corsa, aka The Shed, has been parked outside my parents’ house. As my first ever car, it has seen lots of adventures, not to mention a fair few mishaps (hence the dents). I’ll be very sad to see it go but I understand my parents want their driveway back! I’d love to find a new owner for this great little car, particularly as all the profits will go to Starlight, which is an amazing charity that brightens the lives of seriously and terminally ill children.”

He holds a special place in his heart for this car, but it is time to let go. Head over to eBay and put in a bid for a good cause.

[via BuzzFeed via Nerd Approved]

This 15 foot-tall steel brain sculpture can be controlled by your brain waves. It is called Mens Amplio (that means “mind expanding” in Latin). The interactive brain and head has been embedded with LEDs in the branching structures that represent neurons. Those are made from clear light-diffusing acrylic. The built-in LEDs show a sequence of light displays, which are controlled by an EEG reader placed on your head.

Raspberry Pi and Arduino processors are used to translate your brain waves into light patterns in real time. The huge brain also has flames on the outside, triggered only when the participant can successfully meditate.

It will show up at Burning Man this year, and then they want to take the giant head to schools in California to demonstrate it to kids and get them excited about science. technology and fabrication. The video below shows a 3D rendering of what you the finished sculpture will look like (without the flames.)

The Mens Amplio project is seeking additional funds on Indiegogo, if you want to take part.

[via Boing Boing via Damn Geeky]

Earlier this year we heard about Lernstift, a concept for a pen that helps kids spell and write correctly by vibrating to point out mistakes. The folks behind this promising invention have now launched a fundraiser on Kickstarter. The questions I had when I first saw it remain unanswered though.

Inventor Falk Wolsky’s idea for the pen remains the same. Its basic functions are still to oversee the user’s spelling and the legibility of his handwriting. When it detects a mistake, it vibrates to alert the user. But with the launch of their fundraiser, Wolsky and his colleagues have revealed more about the hardware inside the pen. Lernstift has a motion sensor, a gyroscope, an accelerometer and a magnetometer. The pen’s processor will use these devices to create a 2D image of the user’s handwriting, which it will then analyze using a handwriting recognition software.

While the team is confident in the pen’s hardware, they’re still working on the best way to process the data that its sensors gather to ensure a quick and accurate response. They’ve also revealed that they’re not working on their own handwriting recognition engine and will instead license one from an established company. That should make it easier for Lernstift to be released and updated to support more languages; the pen will only be able to recognize English and German when it launches, but they supposedly have access to a database of over 40 languages.

Pledge at least £89 (~$135 USD) on Kickstarter to get a Lernstift as a reward. I have to say though, it’s not clear at the moment just how polished or far along they are with the pen. Notice how they didn’t demonstrate even the pen’s basic functions in their pitch video.

As I said in my previous post about the pen, I’m still not sold on its usefulness. It’s still not clear how it will help you find out the right spelling, form or grammar. Yes, it could buzz the moment you make a mistake, but what then? How do you find out what you’re supposed to do? I’m hopeful that Wolsky and his team will answer these questions soon. Also, do kids still use pens?