Jun 21

$100,000 Razor Has Just Two Blades

Posted in: household, Today's Chili

This kind of shaving excess is the reason eco-hippy recumbent riders wear beards

I’m having a hard time working out just who would buy this $100,000 Zafirro Iridium razor. It would have to be someone very rich, and very, very hairy. I’m thinking Robin Williams, but he’s way too smart to drop the price of a cheap apartment on a bathroom accessory.

What could possibly justify this price? Well, nothing, but that doesn’t stop Zafirro from trying. The two blades are made from white sapphire and “launch a new era of shaving” (the era of shaving whilst broke, I guess). These blades are sharpened using “high-energy, ionized particles”. Included in the price is ten years worth of cleaning, servicing and sharpening.

Then we get on to some more convincing reasons for the jacked-up price. Zafirro uses some very expensive metals for the construction. The handle, for instance, is made from iridium, a metal “from meteorites” which is “10 times more rare than platinum.”

If you thought that buying objects made from ivory or woolly mammoth tusks was non-PC, then you’ll be happy with Zafirro’s environmental policy: “Due to the limited global supply of iridium and the expense associated with manufacturing, only 99 of the Iridium line will be made.” Why make any at all?

It gets worse. The screws that hold the razor together are machined from platinum, and Zafirro calls the “leap” from regular razors to sapphire-bladed razors a “quantum leap” like that “from vacuum tubes to transistors, CB radios to the iPhone.”

It’s all so depressing. If Zafirro sells a single one of these, the world will be a worse place. And if you do buy one and manage to cut yourself on the 100-atom thick edge of the blade, I have something to help. Maybe I can interest you in a tiny square of toilet paper, made from the wood pulp of the Bois Dentelle. This is a tree so rare that only a few remain, up in the high cloud forests of Mauritius. I’ll sell you a sheet for just $10,000.

Zafirro Iridium [Zafirro via Book of Joe]

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Jun 16

Hookeychain Magnet Does What It Says on The Tin

Posted in: household, Today's Chili

The Hookeychain Magnet is a hook, a keychain and a magnet

Normally I wouldn’t bother writing about a novelty like the Hookeychain Magnet [Who are you trying to kid? -Ed] but this one is so much like something I made for myself a few weeks back that I kind of have to post.

The Hookeychain is just what it says it is: a keychain with a big magnet on it that doubles as a hook. I hacked something similar together from the spoke-magnet from a bike computer. My magnet breaks into two parts that screw together around a spoke. It turns out they also screw together around a keyring. As the back of my front door is covered in a metal sheet (it’s a bad neighborhood), I can just throw my keys at the door and they stick.

Or they would, if the magnet wasn’t shaped so only one side sticks. The Hookeychain solves this problem by hanging the keys on a cable, away from the magnet itself. The diagonally-sliced shape also makes it double as a hook for anything else you might have. You could hang a shirt on it to remind you to take it to the cleaners, for example, or use it to pin a shopping list so you don’t forget it.

$16, in black, gold or silver.

Hookeychain Magnet [Molla Space via Red Ferret]

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Jun 15

Power-Generating Saucepan Charges Cellphones

Posted in: household, iPhone, Today's Chili

For just $285, you too can own an iPhone-charging saucepan

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking “boiling water in a saucepan over an open fire is so wasteful. If only there were some way to use that excess heat to charge my phone…” Luckily for you, dear Gadget Lab reader, I have unearthed the perfect solution: The Hitochaja HC-5 is a pan which generates electricity.

As the water boils, the pan uses excess heat to generate electricity. The maximum output is 400mA, and it will provide a five volt DC, 2 watt supply to your chosen device. This is enough to charge an iPhone in “just” 3-5 hours.

I guess if you keep a pot boiling on a fire anyway, this might be a good solution. I can’t help think that all of the water and wood involved in keeping this thing going for five hours is more than a little wasteful, though. Weird as it may seem, the Hitochaja HC-5 is actually on sale in Japan, for ¥23,000, or $285. What?!

Hitochaja HC-5 product page [Mycom via Asaijin]

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Jun 15

Water-Displacing Weighing Scale Might Not Work So Well

Posted in: household, Today's Chili

The Water Climb weighing scale would likely turn into an impromptu cold shower

I never weigh myself, as I dislike bad news. But if I did, I’d take a look at this concept scale from Jaeyoon Park, Dajeong Kim and Jeong Heo. It’s called the Water Climb, and the most complex part it has is Archimedes’ principle of displacement.

The scale consists of a box, a bag and a graduated glass tube. You fill the bag with water, place it in the box and attach the tube to a hole in the bag. Then you jump on and water is displaced up the tube, allowing you to read off your weight.

Or does it? For this scale to measure my weight, I’d have to displace my own weight in water. Lets pretend that I weigh 70 kilos, or around 150 pounds. To weigh me, wouldn’t 150 pounds of water have to shoot up that tube? I imagine what would happen when I stepped on the scale would be a spectacular fountain of water, followed by a very wet room.

Still, I guess it doubles as a weight for supporting a parasol in the summer.

Water My Weight [Yanko]

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Jun 14

Buy Your Dad an Old-School Safety Razor

Posted in: household, Today's Chili

Buy your father a decent gift this year, instead of the usual junk you give him

Father’s Day, Mother’s Day, Grandparent’s Day and even Parent’s Day. What do they all have in common? If you answered that they are cynical cash-ins by greetings card companies and a great way for PR flacks to hawk the same plastic crap year after year, then you’d be right.

If you you think that they’re a wonderful way to thank your parents for putting up with you for so many years, then you’re wrong. But as you’re going to go ahead and waste money on your dad this Sunday anyway, why not get him something good for a change? Like this classic travel razor from Merkur, a miniature version of a razor so good that it has been on sale for 50 years.

There are no gimmicks here, just a nickel-plated and chrome-plated brass safety razor which unscrews into sections and fits into a tiny leather pouch. The blades are the old-school kind with two edges, and they are clamped between the screw-closed jaws so just the edges protrude behind a guard.

You’ll be saving pops money, too. Blades come in packs of ten which cost around four bucks each, or even $5 for 100 Compare this to Amazon’s $60 list prices for 12 and 15-packs of modern cartridges like the Mach 3 or Fusion from Gillette.

Luckily, my father sees through this nonsense and refuses to let me buy him as much as a card. Then again, he is as stubbly and scruffy as his son, so a razor would be as useless as buying shampoo for a bald man.

Available now, from around $40.

Merkur Travel Razor [Manufactum via Werd]

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Jun 10

World’s Toughest Blender Vs. World’s Toughest Phone: Fight

Posted in: household, Phones, rugged, Today's Chili

Unstoppable force meets immovable object

Sonim’s super-rugged phones have been around for years. Their technological innards are updated from time to time, but their core feature — indestructibility — always remains. Now, the folks at Blendtec have subjected a Sonim (last seen by Gadget Lab encased in concrete and still receiving calls) to the ultimate toughness test. Will it blend?

Before you watch the video of the Sonim XP3300 Force being dropped into the technological Sarlacc pit, let’s make a quick note of some of the other victims of Blendtec’s seemingly unstoppable blender. From hard drives to the iPad 2, nothing but Chuck Norris has survived its spinning blades. So how does the Sonim fare?

Pretty good. It takes a while for the Blendtec to get its teeth into the phone, which spends most of its time skittering around on top of the whirling knives below. At last, the battery cover succumbs and the whole mess disappears into a puff of toxic gray smoke.

When the torture stops, though, the phone seems to have survived pretty well. Its shell is worn smooth, but it’s still unmistakably a phone. I have the feeling that if you swapped in a new battery, the thing would probably accept a call.

Will It Blend? – Sonim XP3300 Force [YouTube]

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Jun 09

Xfinity Home Security makes home monitoring and management Comcastic (video)

Posted in: household, security, Today's Chili, video
It looks like Comcast’s trial bubble has been something of a success, and now the company is announcing that its Xfinity Home Security Service will be branching out beyond Houston to arm alarms, dim lamps and keep home automation freaks appraised of sports scores in an additional six markets (including Philadelphia, Portland, Jacksonville, Sarasota/Naples, Chattanooga and Nashville). Powered by iControl Networks’ Open Home automation and security platform, packages start at $40 a month and feature live video monitoring, lighting and climate control, burglar and fire alarm monitoring, and more — via touchscreen interface, web portal, and iPhone app. Now you too can put your family’s safety in the same hands that bring Gilligan’s Island into your home! Video, PR-palooza after the break.

Continue reading Xfinity Home Security makes home monitoring and management Comcastic (video)

Xfinity Home Security makes home monitoring and management Comcastic (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 09 Jun 2011 18:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jun 09

EcoWash, a Dishwasher for Lazy Campers

Posted in: household, Today's Chili

The EcoWash is not Eco, nor does it wash

The EcoWash is yet one more thing for you to carry on a camping trip, although that’s probably not a problem. If you’re the kind of person who needs to take a dishwasher into the great outdoors, you’ll more likely be driving an SUV than hiking.

The concept design resembles a hosepipe on a reel, and it seems like you’d actually be better off just spraying your dirty plates with that. The EcoWash works thusly: the pampered camper puts his plates and cutlery inside, where they are held in a cage. He then fills the thing with water and turns a handle. Just like a slow salad spinner, the EcoWash rotates the plates and they supposedly come out clean.

But they won’t. This is the equivalent of dipping your dirty dishes into a bowl of tepid water, lifting them out and expecting them to be clean. The EcoWash doesn’t even have a brush inside.

No, a much better idea for the rugged outdoor type is to bring along your own maid to wash the dishes for you. Or just stay at home and order takeaway. You can manage to do that, can’t you?

Doing Dishes the Non-Electric Way [Yanko]

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Jun 06

LightDims: Tiny Sunglasses for Blinkenlights

Posted in: household, Today's Chili

Oh sweet mercy! Kill those awful glowing LEDs with LightDims

Modern gadgets are beset by a creeping evil, a blight which is slowly taking over our homes, disturbing our slumber and annoying everybody but teenage nerds who build their own liquid-cooled, glow-in-the-dark gaming PCs.

I am talking about — of course — LED blinkenlights, the usually-blue glowing pimples that pepper routers, speakers, computers and even USB hubs. Turn out the lights in any room with just one of these technological Will o’ the Wisps and you will be bathed in an eery and sleep-denying glow.

The usual fix is a strip of insulating tape, but that’s ugly. LightDims fix this. $6 will buy you a pack of little circular and rectangular stickers which you use to cover the offending lamps. Two kinds are available: Black Out and Original Strength.

The Black Outs do the same job as your electrical tape, but the Original Strengths go one better. They cut the light by around 80%, reducing the previous glare to a less intrusive dull glow. Thus you can still see what your gadgets are trying to tell you, but now they whisper instead of shouting. Think of them as sunglasses for your toys.

Either pack will cost $6, but you can double up or mix-and-match and get two for $10. That will buy you countless good nights’ sleep, and is a lot cheaper than my usual method of nodding off in my photon-filled bedroom: a good slug of Scotch.

LightDims product page [LightDims via Unpluggd]

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Jun 02

Polar Pillow Cools Hot Heads

Posted in: household, Today's Chili

The Polar Pillow is filled with gel to cool even the hottest head

Hot-headed? Can’t sleep? Polar Pillow has the answer. It’s a pillow filled with a cooling gel which conducts the heat away from your noggin and lets you nod off to sleep.

When I was a kid I always had trouble sleeping thanks to a hot head. No matter how many times I flipped over my pillow (with Star Wars pillowcase) to the cool side, it would warm up in minutes. This was likely due to the thick, bowl-shaped haircuts my mother forced on me, but whatever — I had a hot head.

The Polar Pillow uses endothermic gel to pull the heat away from your nut-case and dissipate it into the cooler air surrounding you (it might not feel cooler on a sticky summer night, but it is). The pillow is covered with a soft fabric layer so it doesn’t feel like you’re sleeping on a cold plastic balloon.

But best of all is the fact that you can never again lose a pillow-fight. The Polar Pillow contains a whopping 200 ounces of gel, or 5.7 kilos. Swing this baby at even the toughest sleepover opponent and you’ll cold-cock them into a long, long snooze. The price? An equally ridiculous $100.

Polar Pillow [Polar Pillow. Thanks, Molly!]

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