Hasta La Gadget!

Try to use this concept kit without simmering your skin, I dare you

It’s Friday, which means I’m cranky enough to pick apart an ill-conceived concept design. This week we take a look at Ziv Lichi’s Kettle and Mug, aka Hoffee, a rather pretty piece of kitchenware that puts a tea/coffee mug inside the scalding interior of an electric kettle.

It works like this. You put the fluted cup into an identically-shaped receptacle in the middle of the kettle. You then carefully fill the surrounding moat with water, and switch on. As the water boils, the cup heats.

Then, when the water is roiling towards vaporization, the kettle clicks off. What on earth do you do next? Do you reach in and try to pull out the now too-hot cup by its rim, your delicate fingers mere millimeters from the blistering sea below?

Or do you pour the hot water into another, presumably cold receptacle, which might defeat the one and only point I can see to this design: Making tea. Good tea has to be hit by still-boiling water (as the Brits and Aussies know well) to make a good cup. This can involve pre-heating your teapot. But not pre-heating your cup! All that will do is burn your lips and lengthen the time it takes for the now-brewed tea to be drinkable. And while the cup is hot, the pot is still cold.

Also, imagine pouring from this kettle with the cup inside. As you tip it past perpendicular, the cup will slide out. Good luck catching it with all that boiling water sloshing around.

I guess it could be that you’re not supposed to put the cup inside at all when in use, and this just makes a take-anywhere coffee kit. But then, I can already fit at least one cup inside my regular kettle. Utterly bewildering, and yet I still kind of want to try one out. Or at least watch somebody else do it.

Mug in a Kettle [Yanko]

Like HAL 9000, the Airsketcher will track your every move. Unlike HAL, it won’t leave you in airless space to die

Then Airsketcher fan is just a regular ol’ desk fan, only it has an eye and will track you ruthlessly as you move around the room, mercilessly blowing air at you. However hard you might try, there is no escape.

Unless you put down the little flag that the Airsketcher uses to tell where you are, that is. Not only does the electronic eye keep the flow of cooling air focussed on you, wherever you wander, it can also recognize different symbols and act accordingly. Thus you can show it a card and it will switch on and off, or adjust its speed.

As someone who neither has nor likes air-con, but has to make it through hot and humid Barcelona summers with nothing but a dumb floor-standing fan, I for one welcome our new ventilating overlord. If only the designer, Keita Watanabe, would put them up for sale.

AirSketcher [Persistant via Oh Gizmo!]

See Also:

• First Look: Dyson's Blade-Free Wonder Fan Blows Our Minds …
• USB Fan, And Not the Kind You Think

Dyson unleashes DC41 Animal vacuum cleaner for pigpen apartments originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 01 Sep 2011 19:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Sony SRF-18 will be released in October with cutting-edge AM/FM technology. Photo courtesy of Akihabara News

Sony’s SRF-18 portable radio speaker setup features technology that would have been unremarkable two decades ago.

The tiny speaker system has an AM/FM radio, sound recording, and an auxiliary input for whatever peripheral device you’ve got (be it smartphone or 8-track player). The tuner looks straight out of the ’70s, complete with yellow sliding bar and thumb-driven dial.

Sony’s Jambox lookalike can sustain continuous play for several days on two AA batteries. If you plan on using it at your desk and don’t want to burn through batteries, however, there’s an AC adapter available for purchase (sold separately, of course).

At the very least, the SRF-18 comes with a decent paint job. The unit is sold in pink, white or black options, and is currently set for a Japan-only release in October. It will sell for 3,500 yen, or about $45.

[via Akihabara News]

The R2 unit will be available through Japanese import sites next month. Image courtesy of Lucasfilm Limited.

You won’t find Princess Leia begging for help when you turn on Sega Toys’ new Star Wars-themed projector. You’ll have to settle instead for a brilliant rendition of our galaxy instead.

The R2-D2 Homestar Planetarium is the latest in Sega Toys’ line of astral projectors. But unlike other models, it’s the only model that identifies a fully operational Death Star. Condolences to members of the Rebel Alliance: Alderaan is no where to be found.

The unit stands at 8 inches tall, and the LED projector runs for up to three hours on four AAA batteries. The planetarium will be available for 6825 yen ($91) when it hits stores in Japan next month. Stateside astronomers and Star Wars geeks will be able to procure the projector from import sites like Japan Trend Shop, which is taking pre-orders. Pairs well with the Blu-Ray edition of the movies, also out in September.