Categories
Food and Beverage

The Hypercool lets your brews chill in only a minute

The heat of the summer season means beaches, barbeques and lots of brews, something the crowdfunding world has always been cognizant of with projects like the Coolest Cooler and the Kreweser. But while these offerings meant easier ways to transport food and beverages along with extra features like USB chargers and wheels, none address the age old problem of warm drinks, aka the bane of a get-together.

patent-claimedThe HYPERCOOL portable cooler address this problem using the magic of physics. It can be filled up with water, frozen overnight, and then be used to rapidly cool cans or tall boys of one’s favorite beverage. How? Using an external motor that spins the can over that bed of ice. The friction cools the beverage in just 60 seconds; wait 30 more seconds and it’ll be ice cold.

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Categories
Connected Objects Luggage and Bags

The Modobag carry-on won’t ride into the sunset

The last time Backerjack covered the Modobag, a numerous luggage-turned-transportation projects had already failed before the team behind the Modobag LLC went out to attempt raising $160,000 in 2015. Unfortunately, that Kickstarter ended up being a dud, raising just $21,000 of its original goal.

Modobag LLC is back at it again with its Modobag rideable carry-on luggage, this time opting to focus its crowdfunding efforts on a flexible Indiegogo campaign instead. Despite the lukewarm reception the last time around, the product is receiving a much warmer welcome this time. That’s not surprising: At its core, the Modobag is a compelling offering, which is why it’s still pretty much the same bag the team offered last year. It still combines a roomy 2000 cubic inches of interior space with a motor within that can achieve a top speed of eight miles hours per hour with a range of about six miles. (This isn’t Fast and Furious, folks.)

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Categories
Connected Objects Imaging

Find Dory (in Ultra HD) with the Octospot 4K diving camera

editors-choiceWhile action cameras like the GoPro are more popular than ever, none of them address the particular challenges divers experience. Factors like pressure, temperature, and quality require equipment that balance toughness with quality.
The ideal diving camera is versatile, durable, easy-to-use, and able to generate high-quality stills and video. The Octospot does all of this and more. The cylindrical device is made of anodized aluminum and polycarbonate for a sturdy design that doesn’t require an external casing like other action cameras. This allows divers to get to a max depth of 656 feet without any adverse effect on the product. While they dive, the Octospot constantly monitors depth, temperature, and pressure data, displaying it all on the device’s 0.5″ OLED display for quick reference or overlaying that information later over the 12 MP stills and 4K-caliber video divers can review and easily share using the Octospot iOS/Android app. 

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Categories
Connected Objects Sleep

This smart pillow has you covered from A to Zeeq

Both the quality and amount of sleep people get are directly correlated with their quality of life. Despite that common knowledge, most Americans report not getting sufficient sleep because they engage in the bad habit of snoozing their alarms, or they suffer from snoring. Snoozing an alarm starts a new sleep cycle that can’t be completed, and snoring shaves two to four hours of restorative sleep each night.

Inventor Warren Bell and Miguel Marrero are approaching the problem of sleep with their Zeeq smart pillow. This smart pillow works with a companion app used to activate the pillow every night. Before going, users set an alarm and answers some optional questions about their day on the app itself. Zeeq’s eight internal speakers can stream music from services like Apple Music and Spotify (that only the person can hear — not their partner) to help guide them to slumberland. While they’re sleeping, Zeeq gently vibrates when its built-in microphone detects snoring to encourage a change in position, all while analyzing sleep patterns throughout the night with its three-axis gyroscope.

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Categories
Connected Objects Health and Wellness

IBaby Air helps little ones avoid cute little coughs

Air pollution inside and outside the home is a common problem that many people confront each day –- often coming from places it’s least expected, including common household items. Small children are especially vulnerable to volatile organic compounds because they can’t process the chemicals as effectively as adults.

IBaby Air is a smart Wi-Fi air monitor and ionic purifier that allows its users to monitor their homes’ air quality. The purifier turns on automatically when air quality is low. It detects several common pollutants that are found all over the U.S., many of which are invisible and/or odorless, including carbon monoxide, methane and ammonia. It works in conjunction with a companion app for Android and iOS mobile devices. iBaby Air sends alerts and daily room reports to the user’s mobile device.

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Categories
Fashion Luggage and Bags Music

The LiLu Smart Bag makes you the light of the party

The fashion of EDM culture is as unique as the music it produces, with festivals packed to the gills with attendees flaunting some of the most vibrant, colorful, and standout outfits you’ll ever see. It makes sense: the point of most of these festivals is to be happy and friendly — and make an impact while doing so.

While there are plenty of ways to do so, there aren’t many stronger than the LiLu Smart Bag. This slim purse sports a flexible LED panel that reacts in real time to music that’s playing, making it a perfect companion for any EDM festival. An internal pocket in the purse itself is great for keys and other small accessories, while beside sits a micro-USB slot to charge the LiLu’s 10-hour battery.

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Categories
Chargers/Batteries

The ATILIUM power bank keeps you charged up all day with dope design

Getting through the modern work day means having enough juice powering the connected devices needed to get from point A to point B. Because of this, there’s no worse feeling than seeing a battery indicator turn red as it begs for more power. People usually carry around charging cables and power banks to mitigate the problem, but in the end, no one really wants to do either.

Inspired by his childhood in Brooklyn, New York during the Golden Age of Hip Hop, Louis W. Colon III’s ATILIUM is an effortless blend of nostalgia and practicality. Immediately, the power bank’s slim design draws attention because it was made to resemble a pager, a cultural icon immortalized in countless songs, movies, TV shows and literature from the decade. By combining this design with a 4400mAh battery, the pager is resurrected for a more modern purpose.

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Categories
Music Video Games

Mogees Play makes the world your musical instrument

editors-choiceOne reason why music programs around the country are cutting back is the cost associated with purchasing equipment. Instruments are expensive
and until now, were the only real way to truly engage a student’s musical faculties.

In creating the Mogees Play, UK-based music and technology company Mogees is aiming to bring musical instruction to everyday classrooms and life without needing instruments, controllers, joysticks, or keyboards. How? A small sensor serves as the connection between tablets or smartphones and any object at all — a wall, a book, a table, even another person. Depending on how a user interacts with that object — a bump, a tap, a scratch — Mogees Play reads those vibrations and transforms them into different musical effects.

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Categories
Connected Objects Music

The GoDJ Plus is a lightweight DJ system that still drops tons of bass

Being a DJ is a glamorous job, filled with the people, parties, and music that would make anyone jealous of the lifestyle. But truly doing a great job means knowing music history and having the right equipment at the ready. The problem is that all of that equipment together usually ends up being heavy and awkward to effectively move around.

The advent of tablets have been great at lightening a DJ’s load but lack all the physicality of a true DJ deck. Enter the GoDJ Plus, a fully featured, portable DJ system that’s the size of A4 paper with a weight of just under two pounds to match. The sleekly designed, aluminum system sports two decks with two screens, two sets of LED-backlit pads, and a full set of tools from an EQ to a sampler to a sequencer. Interestingly, the GoDJ Plus doesn’t require a smartphone or a laptop to operate. Instead, 16GB of internal storage and an SD card slot lets DJs load in their own music or download songs from major streaming services using the device’s Wi-Fi connectivity, with dedicated CPUs within dedicated to each track, hardware, and software for optimal performance.

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Categories
Technology Video Games

The PGS portable gaming system goes way beyond catching Pokemon

Hardcore PC gamers are in a tough spot. They can either choose to stay indoors and play the most popular AAA titles on powerful, custom-built rigs designed to bring for the very best performance, or relegate themselves to handhelds and tablets that offer comparatively sub-par gaming experiences. For the PC master race, that’s not much of an option.

Despite its uninspired name, the team behind the PGS — short for Portable Gaming System — is looking give PC gamers an actual choice when it comes to moving and gaming. Luckily, it sports a sleek, 1.4cm thick design that looks like a PS Vita and Nintendo 3DS had a child — a scarily intelligent, capable child. The dual-screen, foldable device comes in two variants. The PGS Hardcore has a QHD IPS 2560×1440 display, 8GB of RAM, and a 128GB SSD. Both use the Intel Atom Z8750 designed for high-performance portable devices, allowing both to run games like Dark Souls II and Batman: Arkham City on medium settings, satisfying the most ardent gamer’s urges to take on that next boss no matter where they may be.

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