Month: January 2014

Categories
Cooking

WonderWok ignites flame war with outdoor grills

The Premise. The wok is a versatile kitchen staple that has been around for thousands of years. Whether frying, steaming, boiling, or sautéing, the wok can do it all. But when it comes to outdoor cooking, most people turn to their grill or maybe a smoker. Traditional electric or gas stove tops just can’t get hot enough to set the wok a-rockin’.

The Product. The WonderWok is an outdoor grill that unleashes unbridled heat directly to a wok. The wok rests on top, allowing the chef to move it at will. It also comes with a grill and griddle attachment. The WonderWok’s base is silver while the wok and attachments are black. Installation involves simply hooking it up to a propane tank, much like a conventional grill.

The Pitch. The Indiegogo campaign chronicles how Gregory Wong dreamed the WonderWok into existence.  AnAsian cuisine chef with his own YouTube channel, Wong understood the need for something like the WonderWok on the mass market.  Where his campaign lacks is in explaining the product itself.  There are no pictures of the WonderWok in the campaign itself and only fleeting glimpses of its commercial kitchen-like design in the video. The same aversion to stills shows on the WonderWok’s Web site. Wong hopes to raise $100,000.

The Perks. Reward tier pricing may prevent the WonderWok from winning out versus conventional propane grills that can cost a few hundred dollars. Wong offers seven reward tiers that include variations of perks such as bamboo chopsticks, bumper stickers, recipes from his YouTube channel, baseball caps and the like. Only a contribution of $5,000 or more will earn a WonderWok with an estimated delivery date of April 2014.

The Potential. The WonderWok could represent a slice of stir-fried heaven for Asian cuisine chefs who want to expand into more outdoor events; it will be a harder sell for the average weekend backyard burger flipper. Beyond the huge price displarity, there are already several other less expensive alternatives such as Mr. B-B-Q Cast-Iron Wok is a heavy wok designed to sit directly on the grill. Eastman Outdoors sells a similar Outdoors Steel Wok Kit, that is essentially an outdoors grill with a wok on top, much like the WonderWok, just not quite as hot. With these alternatives, it may be difficult for Wong’s creation to find a steady role in the world of outdoor cooking, but professionals should be able to offer at least a wok-on role.

Categories
Cell Phone Accessories Chargers/Batteries

Ark opens doors to wireless charging on the go

ArkChargerOnly Apple knows for sure why it abstains from supporting wireless standards such as Qi. But if the company did come out with a portable charger, it’s a good bet it would look a lot like the Ark, the rounded square of which resembles the previous generation of its AirPort Extreme router. As with other chargers that support Qi, you lay the phone atop the surface and it simply begins charging. However, since Qi adds a bit of depth to the phone, you may need to add a different back cover or, in the case of the iPhone, a case as the Ark’s creators have. After that, you can fill up the Ark with electricity as if it were Noah’s animals, and set it down on any flat surface deemed worthy to serve as a smartphone refilling station. Set to sail in March 2014, the naked Ark starts at about $65 with a host of other  early bird and reward tiers offering bundles with adapters for the Galaxy S3, S4 and iPhone.

Categories
Cell Phone Accessories

HOYO gets your smartphone to cut it out in the shower

HOYOWaterPouchPlumbing was invented by the Romans, who were not advised of the eventual arrival of smartphones vulnerable to water. This may have something to do with why there’s no good place to put your mobile companion when taking a shower. Londoner Georgey Sheehy seeks to bridge the words of water and wireless with the HOYO. While there are many waterproof pouches for smartphones and tablets, the HOYO allows you to play through a protective barrier while affixed to a wall or even embedded inside a shower curtain. That latter configuration will involve taking a knife to your bathroom’s bare body barrier, but offers the advantage of easy insertion and removal as well as placing the all-important potential porthole on the other side of where the water is. Still, that could make HOYO a no-go, you know? The £15 HOYO should be available in either wall or shower curtain configurations in June 2014.

Categories
Connected Objects Sleep

DreamNet opens lucid dreaming to analysis, app variety, collective unconsciousness

The Premise. The idea of lucid dreaming — in which one is aware that one is dreaming and wakes to remember the tale — has been around for a long period of time. Up until recent years, however, it’s been the kind of thing that people have had to take on entirely themselves. For many, lucid dreaming is difficult enough as it is, and it can take years to learn even just the basics. As today’s technology is pushing just about every industry in the world in a new direction, it should stand to reason why lucid dreaming is heading in a new direction.

The Product. DreamNet offers a new way for people to embrace lucid dreaming. The sleep mask-like device is a programmable headband that allows users to create their very own personal lucid dreaming experience. When synced with a smartphone or tablet, the software associated with DreamNet takes a sophisticated approach. It lets you choose a specific point in your sleep schedule to trigger an alarm, which alerts you that you have entered into a dream. It utilizes an EEG to monitor brain waves, which you can even go back and analyze in the morning, Perhaps the most fascinating thing about DreamNet is that, true to the product’s name, it is trying to build a network of dreamers. that share data in order to create more effective analysis.

The Pitch. Synapse, the team behind DreamNet, has created an effective campaign for those who want the nitty-gritty on the headband’s components, choice of processor and software origins even if a lot of it reads like hard-to-follow inside baseball. Much praise is offered to researcher Bill Murphy, the narrator of the video.

The Perks. DreamNet has a unique pricing structure. For those who are willing to submit at least four of their sleep sessions to the company for research purposes, the product can be had for just $140. Otherwise, the entry point for DreamNet is $150 for early adopters, and is due to ship in June 2014.

The Potential. Lucid dreaming products are all over the place. The smartphone-optional Aurora, a similar product to DreamNet, raised more than double its funding goal on Kickstarter. What sets DreamNet aside from the competition, however, is that it offers a state-of-the-art way to not only trigger the headband’s alarm at a specific point in time, to track what’s going on when you sleep and to contribute ultimately to the state of lucid dreaming research.

Categories
Organization Tech Accessories

FirstStand 2 gets all your mobile madness in line

FirstStandThere are many charging stands and docks available for smartphones and tablets, but relatively few can accommodate the multiple mobile devices that stuff our modern pockets and bags, much less are ready for the emerging wave of smartphones. Straight outta Brooklyn comes the oxymoronic Firststand 2, however, employs a clever hollow tube-like design that not only plays well with a smart — or really any —watch, but also accommodates resting phones and even tablets. The space inside the tube can be used for cables, keys and other small items. A bevy of length configurations stretch from a $29 early bird to a $99 combo that includes a 10″ and 4″ stand. Alas, backers’ digital darlings will likely have to flail about in lesser homes until at least May 2014.

Categories
Cycling Music Winter Sports

Jalapeño mixes beats to your extreme feats

editors-choiceThe Premise.  Your favorite music flows. You wipe your brow with the last dry spot on your shirt before bearing down for that last attempt at nailing this trick, lest the daylight and your body give out. Start your run, compress for the jump, pop, hit the air, and then the silence, the calm, that instant between bad idea and successful trick. Time and sound resume, and you can stop holding your breath. You stuck that! What could make this moment better? How about if your music was more than a backtrack to that trick? What if it was the unique score to that moment?

The Product. The Jalapeño, so named for its cubist resemblance to the spicy pepper, is meant to enhance the extreme sports experience by allowing your movement to remix music; essentially, shredding on a board or bike creates the effect of a DJ mixing.  Along with the accompanying Beat Farm smartphone software, it allows your jumps, spins and turns to slow, freeze, cross-fade between tracks, and pan audio between headphones.

The Pitch. A compact (under 3x2x1″), durable, weatherproof design and a seemingly sturdy mount make the Jalapeño viable across a wide range of applications from snowboarding, to BMXing to breakdancing. Its campaign includes multiple endorsements and three videos depicting testimonials, product demos, and brief explanations of operation, but little technical info about how it actually works. The only info about the creators is that they “first met at the University of Pennsylvania’s IPD graduate program.” In fact, technical development information is lacking overall. Not a campaign designed to appease techies, there are only two prototype development photos, and short, broad descriptions of the development state.

The Perks.  Early birds will pay $199 for essential equipment (Jalapeño, mount, software), and everyone else can expect to pay $239, or more, for packages that include extra swag like tees and hoodies.

The Potential.  This seems like a ton of fun. Who doesn’t want their own personal soundtrack enabling you to mix and remix.  Shredding to your own sounds looks like it will add a new element of fun to showing off, but the challenge will be in ensuring that the novelty doesn’t wear off.

Categories
Imaging Video Wearables

meMini records your life after the fact

editors-choiceThe Premise. Sometimes the most precious memories in life can be the most unprecedented. These unexpected moments can add a delightful twist of color into life, and they should never be lost or forgotten. But oftentimes it’s either too cumbersome or too late to pull out a camera and take a video that can be cherished forever.

The Product. The meMini is a wearable camera that lets you record events after they happen. Designed to be small and unnoticeable, it magnetically clips onto your clothing and records continuous loops that can be set anywhere between five seconds to five minutes. If something special happens but you were unable to pull your camera out in time, there’s no need to worry. Simply press the Recall button and the meMini will send that moment to its secure cloud based server for you to view later on your meMini.com profile. Because life’s most precious moments deserve to be shared, meMini also has an iPhone app that makes it easy to share your videos with family and friends.

The Pitch. Co-Founder Sam Lee starts off his narration of the meMini by introducing it as the world’s first wearable camera that makes it possible to record moments after they happen. He then shows the process and the detail that he and his team went through to make sure that the meMini was both simple and innovative in the way that we capture, store, and share our most treasured memories.The device eliminates the need for cords and memory cards because of its unique cloud-based storage system, which makes it easy to go back and relive memories in their purest form as they happen. Lee and co-founder Ben Bodely end the video by asking for a donation to fulfill their first order to put the meMini into production.

The Perks. Scheduled to be shipped in June 2014, a few early bird specials that will land you a meMini in the color of your choice for just $149. After this deal is over, you can still claim the same prize for $159, which is still a pretty good deal for a 1080p HD video recording device with image stabilization.

The Potential. Going head to head with wearable video capture products such as the Looxcie 3, the  meMini could change the way that moments are captured. Instead of a performance in front of a video camera, the meMini captures a memory as a candid visual that accurately portrays the moment as it happened and as you remembered it.  Wearable cameras still have their share of stigma, though, and the meMini’s battery will power it for only three hours at a time. Still, it’s the closest thing we might have to the rewind button on what we’ve experienced.

Categories
Food and Beverage

Pricey SolarCooler uses light, irony to keep your cold ones cold

The Premise. If there’s anything that can ruin a trip to the beach, it’s a cooler full of warm beverages or or water-logged sandwiches. It’s a scenario that most people have found themselves in at least once or twice, yet it seems unavoidable unless you want to keep running back and forth between the beach and an ice machine. After all, even the best coolers start to lose their cold temperatures after sitting in the sun for a long enough period of time.

The Product. The developers behind the SolarCooler are billing the product as “the world’s first solar-powered refrigerating cooler.” Converting energy from that great gaseous giver of life, the cooler maintains a low temperature throughout the entire day, perfect for keeping drinks and food cold and ready to consume. It even makes its own ice. In addition, the SolarCooler can be used to charge cell phones and other USB-powered devices, making it somewhat of an all-purpose beach workhorse.

The Pitch. The TechCrunch video posted on the SolarCooler’s campaign page does a decent job of explaining what the device is capable of, but it would’ve been nice to have seen a more “produced” video that shows how the device works. Normally, this wouldn’t be a big deal, but it makes the SolarCooler team appear a bit less professional than they could. One interesting aspect of the pitch, though, is that the SolarCooler is being touted as a solution to keeping vaccines at the perfect temperature for transport. This makes the product a bit more viable than it would be if it were only used to keep beverages cool.

The Perks. Sunlight may be free, but the SolarCooler is anything but. An “early bird” special price of $950 (delivered in June 2014) may seem exceptionally high as it is, but the cooler will actually be retailing for $1,200. One look at the price is enough to send people running away in a sweat no chilled beverage can aid. But, as the project owners point out, the SolarCooler’s features extend beyond recreation to include the transport of potentially life-saving vaccines. Indeed a $5,000 pledge will allow philanthropists to “adopt” a full vaccine SolarCooler.

The Potential. The price, bulkiness and overall novelty of the SolarCooler makes it less than ideal for those who are looking for a simple solution for keeping drinks cold on a hot day. If there’s any market for this product at all, it could potentially be for vaccine transport. Still, at about 40 times the cost of your average chiller, it’s tough to see demand for the SolarCooler heating up.

Categories
Cell Phone Accessories Input Tablet Accessories

Bpen makes a stand with a stylus

The Premise. Touch screens devices are all the rage these days. The only problem? You have to touch them, leaving behind messy fingerprints on every phone and tablet. Also, as smartphones and tablets become capable of more and more, it’s become increasingly necessary to prop them up. It’s much easier to Skype, play games, send e-mails and many other things if both hands are free and the tablet or phone is upright.

The Product. Bpen really is much more than a pen as its slogan claims. It’s a multi-use tool that works for almost every smart phone and tablet out there. Bpen is a regular pen, a stylus that can be used on touch screens, and a stand for tablets and smart phones. It may just julienne potatoes as well. It’s made out of aluminum and comes in six different colors. The pen comes with the option of buying a base to help it function better as a stand (though the base isn’t entirely necessary outside of the car). Part of the pen folds out and plugs into the headphone jack to provide stability as a stand. In addition, Bpen’s creators have come up with a mini Bpen, lightweight enough to attach to a keychain.

The Pitch. Bpen’s Kickstarter campaign shows a video of the Bpen in action, displaying its wide range of uses. The rest of the campaign details how the idea for Bpen was conceived, as well as how the idea was developed. Lior Avrahami, Bpen’s creator, is looking to raise a modest $5,000 on Kickstarter for his product in a 40-day stretch.

The Perks. A minimum of $15 will get the backer two of the mini keychain Bpens. From there, an early bird special of a $25 donation is rewarded with two Bpens. Going up to $50, the backer will receive a set of Bpens and two bases as well. With each tier, the backer can choose which color their Bpens will come in. In addition, some tiers have the added perk of getting ink refills for their pens. Avrahami predicts that pens will be received by backers in April, which, given his experience with the factory he uses, is realistic.

The Potential. There are a lot of styli and stands out there for smartphones and tablets. Other dual stylus/pens exist, such as the lovely Wacom Bamboo Stylus Duo found here, but none quite so Batman that they also act as stands. One drawback of Bpen is that when the stand is in use, it renders the headphone jack unusable. Other than that, Bpen should be a handy accessory to draw upon.

Categories
Aerobics

Tread Pad sucks out the whimsy from a Dance Dance Revolution workout

The Premise. Home gym equipment can cause more headaches than it’s worth. Between the bulkiness, awkward shapes and price associated with home machines, sometimes getting that daily exercise is best left going to an actual gym. As technology is advancing at an alarming rate, however, new equipment is hitting the market all the time, some of which seems to be an excellent alternative to the issues that have been associated with home gym machines ever since they first came out.

The Product. The Tread Pad is a new kind of workout device that utilizes touch pad technology that is operated entirely by foot. It resembles the appearance and functionality of the dance pad for the game Dance Dance Revolution, but the flashy graphics and sound of that game have been replaced with some sterile red LEDs. This likely helps conserve battery life. The device allows for continuous tracking of calories burned, distance, average speed and number of steps. Perhaps the best thing about the Tread Pad, though, is that it only weighs 10 pounds and measures in at 24”x30”, making it semi-portable and easy to store.

The Pitch. If there’s anything that hurts the Tread Pad, it’s the campaign video. It feels dated, and as serious as a heart attack it seeks to prevent. The product is being billed as a customizable, easy-to-use device that could potentially replace the type of exercise equipment we use today.

The Perks. There are only a handful of different tiers to choose from with the Tread Pad. Entry level sits around $150, which would be very reasonable for a true treadmill substitute. However, despite its billing, the Tread Pad doesn’t offer the full leg extension that a treadmill can. Also, the reward’s description as “pre-retail” leaves it unclear as whether the device itself would be a late prototype of if you’re simply getting the final version before it’s available at retail.

The Potential. The Tread Pad seems like a product destined to show up on late night infomercials but for its price. It could be helpful to have a versatile aerobic aid that can travel fairly well and store easily. And the device’s different exercise modes may help routines stay reasonably fresh. Unlike with the original Dance Dance Revolution game, though, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of joy in using it, something the campaign points out all too well.