Posts in Gadgets
Total 2 pages : [1] 2
Toyota Porte
Juniper Foo | Jul 29, 2004
More copycat styling from the Japanese, this time borrowing an idea from the Europeans (namely Peugeot), even down to the name (Porte in French means "door"). Toyota's Porte transplants the sliding door concept of passenger vans into a subcompact town car, making it possible for all occupants to enter and exit the vehicle through the same door. Unlike the two-sided Peugeot 1007 , the Japan-only Porte features a single door on the passenger side that's wirelessly controlled by remote. Now that there's only one entry, one wonders what the etiquette is on who gets to the door first. After you, my good fella. No, after you. No, no, I insist...
Price: ¥1,386,000 to ¥1,575,000 (US$12,640 to US$14,480)
Availability: Only in Japan
Device: Subcompact car with electric sliding doors
Basic specs: In 1.3-liter or 1.5-liter engine capacity, four-speed automatic, ionized climate control; silk-derived natural fabric seats, column-mounted transmission, flat-folding front seat, 99m long by 69m wide by 1.72m tall
Portable Pod Home
Juniper Foo | Jul 28, 2004
Imagine a whole population of pod homes bobbing up and down the Singapore River, up for grabs. It'll no doubt solve the land scarcity issue, but we're not quite sure if we'd want to share our backyard (or dockyard) so intimately with our nearest pod neighbor or have those yellow rubber duckies invade our turf come the bizarre annual Million Dollar Duck Race. Polish-born architect Marcin Panpuch envisions his floating pod fitted with solar panels and retractable screens for privacy, and split into three floors built around a core containing spiral staircase, kitchen, bathroom and toilets. The bottom lies beneath the river surface and can be utilized for storage, water tanks, heating and computer equipment. The spherical shape apparently minimizes the surface area of the house, cutting down heat loss to the environment. Whether it'll prove seaworthy is quite something else.
Price: Est. to cost from £20,000 to £30,000 (US$36,427 to US$54,640) to build
Availability: N.A.
Device: Concept portable home
Basic specs: Clear spherical pods that float, photovoltaic solar cells, water tank, amenities for a home
mp3blue Jacket
Juniper Foo | Jul 27, 2004
From reel to real, tech firms are doing the most amazing things to fabric a la Jackie Chan's Tuxedo. Today's technology-driven garments make phone calls, play music and do just about anything short of microwave your food. And who knows when that'll happen. The latest performance threads by German chip firm Infineon follows along the same lines as the multi-versatile Scott eVest, but ups the ante with a built-in sleeve keyboard and Bluetooth unit. A music system in the Rosner mp3blue jacket's electrically conductive material doubles as a headset when a phone call is made or received. Even as we write, word is Infineon is now working on a smart carpet embedded with microchips and sensors.
Price: 600 euros (US$728.50)
Availability: August 1
Device: Fabric with embedded electronic circuitry
Basic specs: Jacket with removable hood, built-in 128MB memory module Bluetooth gateway for phones, integrated Seinheiser headset, mic in collar, textile keyboard on the left sleeve, MP3 module holder, rechargeable 8-hour battery.
Küppersbusch Honeycomb Cooking Tiles
Juniper Foo | Jul 22, 2004
The future of cooking never looked so yummy. While the majority of Asian Chinese probably prefer open fire cooking for wok frying, those who treat their kitchens as showrooms will lust after Küppersbusch's Cooking Tiles. What's cooking is the German company's flush-fitting "honeycomb" cooktops which clearly take the cake for designer stovetops. Hegaxonal modular glass ceramic plates and controls let you comb through any countertop configuration or shape you want, up to 28 possible layouts. Now if they only had it in matte pink.
Price: From US$550 per zone; control unit separate at US$1,750
Availability: In the US and Germany
Device: Electric cooktops
Basic specs: Control unit for up to six cooking zones, nine-level power controls, residual heat indicators, automatic safety cutoff time, child-safety lock, 10.8kW electrical connection for control unit, 1.2kW to 1.7kW per panel
Stanford/Reuters Digital Dirt Bike
Juniper Foo | Jul 21, 2004
Developed more for remote villages with little access to the World Wide Web, the Digital Dirt Bike is still one very cool machine. No surprise it picked up the Chicago Athenaeum Good Design Award for 2003. The handiwork of US-based Whipsaw, a company dedicated to creating innovative products, the Bike is a solar-powered information and communication center on wheels. In rural outskirts where two-wheel chariots are a more practical mode of transportation, the Digital Dirt Bike is the perfect marriage to deliver all the villagers need as a life line to the modern world. Onboard is a notebook computer, printer, camera and satellite phone. The double lid of the weather- and shock-proof box contains solar panels for powering and recharging the equipment. There's even a portable tent for impromptu meetings in open fields. Nice!
Price: N.A.
Availability: On trial in Andra Pradesh, India
Device: Modified computer-on-wheels
Basic specs: Dirt bike, solar panels, notebook, printer, camera, satellite phone, sunshade
Total 2 pages : [1] 2
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