Philips flags off with the F1 AT&T Williams Shaver

With Formula One's first-ever night race about to burn rubber on Singapore roads this September, there'll be no putting the brakes on vendors quick to sip from this trophy cup. Among those warming up their engines at the starting line is Philips. Its AT&T Williams Shaver HQ 7390 (S$219; US$155) will be steering onto retail shelves in the same month. Co-designed by Philips and apparently key members of the design team behind Williams' 2008 Formula One car, the WilliamsToyota FW30, it features Nico Rosberg's racing number for the 2008 season, No.7, below the start button.

We're tickled by the marketing speak--"Beyond design, the HQ 7390 shaver’s performance is revved up with features including ultra thin shave heads that flex to hug facial contours like an F1 car taking tight corners…" Though what's probably more useful to users is the shaver's waterproof capability for shaving in the shower and easy cleaning, rather than its F1 trappings.

Still, if you're a Formula One addict who fancies owning a piece of Grand Prix history on your grooming kit, well, here's your chance. Too bad, grid babes not included.

Go ahead, cover your keyboard in syrup

In the spirit of breathing new life into old gadgets, as well as creating the nerdiest breakfast tool ever, designer Chris Dimino managed to make a typewriter into a waffle maker.

The Corona-Matic Waffle maker (which is currently only a prototype) not only produces an extremely large, rectangular, and potentially delicious waffle. Since it's made from an old Corona typewriter, it imprints a keyboard shape into your breakfast food.

The product was spurred by a challenge from Dimino's art school, the School of Visual Arts in New York, to take a "useless product" and make it functional again.

It's hard to say if this item will ever become commercialized (how many Smith Corona-Matic typewriters are floating around?) but it's a bit more appetizing than one of Dimino's other typewriter-inspired inventions--the Ashes to Ashes urn.

Via CNET Crave

Electric bike offers green urban commuting option

This feels very strange.

I'm riding down an alley in San Francisco, pedaling as you would on any bicycle. Each time I put my foot down, the bike presses on a little further. It's all very normal.

But then, with the flick of a switch on the bike's handlebars, it shoots forward with a strong, smooth, motorized thrust. Quickly, I've hit 20 miles an hour.

This isn't normal anymore.

This is Ultra Motor's A2B, a US$2,500, zero-emissions scooter that just happens to also be an electric bike.



The A2B looks very much like a regular bicycle, except that it has some very heavy-duty looking components, and a wide center stem in which its Lithium-ion battery is enclosed.
Read more »

New fashions for Fall-ing

It's a problem we all face at some point: parents or grandparents start to get wobbly as they get older, followed by the inevitable falls and broken bones from which they frequently never fully recover. A team of Virginia Tech researchers has recently completed a study of the efficacy of pants with strategically placed sensors to determine the likelihood that a particular individual will take a tumble.

In a nutshell (you can read the abstract at IEEE Xplor, but the paper itself will be behind a paywall when it's published), Liu, Lockhart, Jones, and Martin from Virginia Tech's e-Textiles Lab determined that placing accelerometers at the ankle and hip to measure variations in vertical acceleration and angular velocity can identify gait irregularities that presage falling.
Read more »

Kyocera goes for gold--the fake kind

If you see people sporting a fancy gold Kyocera watch or mobile phone in the near future, don't assume they necessarily laid down a bundle on it. The Japanese company has come up with a new ceramic that closely resembles the texture and color of 18-karat gold. Kinda cheapens the Dolce and Gabbana RAZR now, doesn't it?

In developing the new gold ceramic material, Kyocera says it raised the brightness level approximately 5 percent over previous gold ceramic products while retaining the material's hardness.

The company says the new material is five to 10 times sturdier than gold, resulting in superior scratch resistance. At the same time, it's lighter. The new ceramic is about a twentieth to a twenty-fifth cheaper than available 18-karat gold, Kyocera adds.

The lesson here? The technology of fake gold seems to be making progress--good news for all of us who prefer to go the faux route.

Via CNET Crave

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