Hasta La Gadget!

The Coava Disk replaces paper Aeropress filters with a perforated steel plate

Anyone serious about their coffee has likely tried — or at least heard of — the Aeropress. It’s like a giant espresso-making syringe. You load it with coffee and hot water, plunge the plunger and mainline the coffee, not into a vein but into a waiting cup.

In short, it’s a great way to make cheap, quick espresso-ish coffee, with one possible problem — paper filters. The Aeropress needs a disposable paper disk every time you make a cup. And the Coava Disk coffee filter replaces this with a stainless steel reusable filter. If you make a lot of coffee, this may save you some money, but it also changes the coffee itself.

The holes in the Coava Disk are sized to let through a little “mud”, sludging your coffee up slightly, thickening the body and possibly — depending on who you ask — strengthening the flavor. I use a stove-top mocha espresso jug, which has its own built-in aluminum filter basket, but if I was an Aeropress kind of guy, I’d try the Disk. Not for taste reasons, but because I get European liberal guilt every time I toss disposable stuff in the trash.

The Disk is cheap enough just to try, and begins at $15.

DISK coffee filter [Coava]

See Also:

• Aerobie AeroPress – Wired.com
• DomePod Serves a Stiff Shot of Java on the Road
• Chemistry in the Kitchen: Five Ingredients to Save Up For …
• What's Inside a Cup of Coffee?
• Why Dark Coffee Is Easier on Your Stomach

Speck’s PixelSkin HD Wrap case is like the Apple Smart Cover, but without the smarts

Speck’s brand-new iPad 2 case shows the kind of direction third-party case makers can go in now that Apple has pretty much sewn up the covers market with its Smart Cover. Speck’s PixelSkin HD Wrap case takes some design cues from Apple’s cover, but adds a lot more protection for the paranoid and clumsy.

The PixelSkin HD uses no magnets. Instead you get a waffly, “pixelated” rubber skin which covers the back and edges. The front flap is jointed, though, just like the Apple one, and rolls into a supportive triangle.

With its bumper/skin design, the PixelSkin obviously doesn’t need the hinge magnets to hold it in place, but it could really do with a screen locking and unlocking magnet at the front. I have a feeling that once we’re used to the iPad automatically waking and sleeping as we open and close a cover, swiping to unlock is going to get old pretty fast.

Fortunately, if you can spare one of the fridge magnets that is holding the frankly terrible “painting” from your three-year-old onto your refrigerator, then you could simply tape that onto the case for the same functionality.

The PixelSkin comes in pink, blue and black, and will ship “soon” for $50.

PixelSkin HD [Speck. Thanks, Edith!]

See Also:

• IFixit Smart Cover Teardown: Contains Magnets. Lots of Magnets …
• iPad 2 Cover Is Smart, All Right — If You're Steve Jobs

This morning, I wished for a peek inside the workings of Apple’s iPad Smart Cover. Barely hours later, I get an e-mail from iFixit’s Miroslav Djuric, pointing me to iFixit’s teardown. Amazingly, the step-by-step photo essay is even more interesting than I thought it would be. Did you know, for example, that there is something called “magnetic viewing film” that lets you “X-ray” anything with magnets inside?

Before we begin, I’d like to complement iFixit in its choice of color. If you’re going to cut any cover open, it should be that horrible baby-blue one. (I have my eye on the pink one when they finally arrive in Spain.)

The guide starts with a look at the magnets and sleep sensor inside the iPad 2 itself, which iFixit previously disassembled. Along the right side are the magnets which hold the Smart Cover closed. These alternate their polarities, plus-minus-plus-minus. The magnets inside the cover run the other way, making the cover always sit in the right direction.

The other side of the iPad has the super-strong magnets that clamp the cover’s hinge to the frame. These are actually inside the back cover, and are curved to fit the shape of the iPad’s edge, ensuring they get as close as possible to the case on the other side of the aluminum shell.

Then it’s on to the Smart Cover, and the magic that is magnetic viewing film. This is kind of like e-ink. The film sandwiches a mixture of metal flakes and oil between its flexible sheets. In the presence of a magnetic field, the flakes align. Depending on the direction they line up in, they either show a bright reflective side or a dark edge. This makes a picture that is a good approximation of the magnets beneath.

The film shows the magnets inside the cover. On the right side, there is a grid of three columns and five rows (with one magnet “missing” top left), along with the sensor-triggering magnet. This may seem like overkill to hold it shut, but remember these magnets also have to keep the case rolled closed when folded up into a triangular stand (they attach to a steel plate in the far-left panel).

On the other side are six magnets, arrayed long-short-short, short-short-long. If translated into Morse code, this would read “DU.” Apple conspiracy theorists should start work on this right now. The patterns, combined with varying poles, means that the Smart Cover can only be attached the right way.

Finally, a word on the strength of the magnets from iFixit:

We just can’t keep these things off of one another! The iPad 2’s frame magnets made a solid two-inch leap across the table by the time we took the shot. Their attraction for one another is amazing!

iPad 2 Smart Cover Teardown [iFixit]

See Also:

• The Inevitable iFixit iPad 2 Teardown
• Photos: iFixit Rips Open iPad 3G
• iPad 2 Cover Is Smart, All Right — If You're Steve Jobs
• Smart Cover Colors – Wired.com

Like the new iPad, Pad & Quill’s new case is thinner, lighter and more colorful

Pad & Quill’s new Octavo case for the iPad 2 is a lot like the redesign of the new iPad itself. It’s thinner, lighter and adds a hole for the rear-facing camera. It also comes in a range of colors instead of the plain black of v1.0, and even has a fancy new option for the cover, in the form of an optional slip-pocket for papers.

There was a lot to like about the original Pad & Quill case when we reviewed it last year. It was better put together and a lot sturdier than the rival Dodocase, but it was also bigger and heavier (16.3 ounces). The new Octavo is almost as light as the original Dodocase, coming in at just 11 ounces (the Dodocase was 9.1 ounces).

The Octavo now comes covered with red, green or black leather, and for an extra $10 you can specify a pocket inside the front cover, useful for those scraps of paper less enlightened individuals keep pressing on you. The standalone case costs the same as its predecessor: $60.

Octavo product page [Pad & Quill]

See Also:

• iPad Case Smackdown: Dodocase Vs. Pad & Quill
• The Case: Another Beautiful Moleskine-Like iPad Case
• DodoCase

The PowerPod is a six-way power outlet combined with a desk-tidy. The power-strip section is circular, has a circuit breaker built in (the reset switch is underneath) and sports an on/off switch and light in the center. It is designed to sit on a desktop.

On top of this sits the desk-tidy, an open cylinder divided into three sections. Actually, it probably won’t spend much time atop its base, as the two aren’t stackable if anything is plugged in. And seeing as there are six sockets begging to be filled, it’s likely something will be plugged in, somewhere, all the time.

This curious design choice essentially leaves you with two separate, albeit matching, items. A pen-holder and an extension cord. How much would you pay for these items? If your answer is $150, then you’re in luck — that’s the exact price Scott Wilson & Minimal, the designer, thinks it can get away with charging. Available March 21st.

PowerPod [Coalesce via NYT]

See Also:

• Cruciform Power-Strip Makes Vampires Smile
• Quirky Jointed Power-Strip Is 'A Creative Outlet'
• Power-Strip Extender Means You'll Always Make Friends