Household

Could everyone just dole out a round of golf claps for Yoon-Hui Kim and Eun-Kyung Kim? Swell, thanks. These two designers have conjured up something that any second-rate hotelier (we kid… kind of) would love, as the Solar Vertical Lamp provides an eco-friendly (and eye-catching) alternative to those drab lamps from the 1980s. With the blinds open, you’ll hardly notice anything unusual, but all the while tiny solar pads are being charged up; when time comes to shut these very blinds, a lighting instrument appears to brighten the otherwise darkened room. Brilliant, right?

[Via Inhabitat]

No, your eyes don’t deceive: it’s a Lego safe. Apparently Lego’s computer-equipped Mindstorms NXT can be used for something more practical than launching robots into space (great as that was), and believe it or not, this box is actually kind of secure. Five double digit codes protect your valuables, and the dial goes both ways, so there’s a left and right entry for each number — hence, over 305 billion possible combinations. Moving the safe will trip motion sensors and set off an alarm, and bars inside strengthen the structure, so while master diamond thieves won’t be deterred, surreptitious little siblings might. Video after the break, and check the right nav through the read link to dig up building instructions.

[Via Digg]

Few devices receive as much attention to re-design as the mousetrap and alarm clock. Regarding the latter, Anupam Patahak, a Mechanical Engineering student at the University of Michigan, takes a natural light approach with his Rise and Shine Alarm Shades. At a predefined time, the modified alarm clock silently (or noisily) kicks off a servo to wind open the shades. Nothing like the deep, battleship gray skies of mid-western suburbia to rouse a young mind from sleep. Video after the break.

[Via Hack A Day]

Simple in design, perfect in execution, we bring you Santiago Cantera’s Escape Clock. No tiny snooze buttons to fumble with here dozy Joe, just one big key that shuts off the alarm when meeting the business end of a morning beef hammer. Set it on edge and you’ve switched from alarm clock mode to an in-room stereo. The worst part? It’s just a concept… for now.

[Via Design Launches]

Now, we’re sure that everything’s on the up and up here, but the lack of information about the TouchDiva from any source other than the makers of the TouchDiva gives us pause, especially as the product’s apparently launching on December 1st. Regardless, here’s what we’ve gathered: the device is a 15.4-inch touchscreen unit you install in your home, and, via the magical wonders of the internet, you get all the music your heart could ever desire, free of charge — besides the $75 $13 monthly subscription fee, of course. The Danish manufacturers claim to have “agreements with the four major music companies in the world (Warner, EMI, Sony-BMG and Universal),” giving them access to over 2 million songs. Housed inside the unit are two 125W ICEpower (Bang & Olufsen-manufactured) amps, and the Diva itself has just two buttons — an on / off, and a reset, giving it a pretty stark exterior. As you can probably imagine, it’s um, not cheap — in fact, you’re going to have to cough up $6,000 $1,100 if you want one, and you’ll have to live in Europe, where the device is (supposedly) about to go on sale.

Update: As a few commenters have pointed out, the prices are in Danish Kroner, and we’ve updated to reflect that.

Read - Danish invention will change music sales
Read - TouchDiva

[Thanks, Soren]

The Moshi IVR (Interactive Voice Responsive) Alarm Clock is a chatty one. Instead of those perfectly reasonable physical buttons which have been providing us with additional five minute segments of sleep since time immemorial, the Moshi IVR wants to talk you through your morning. To activate a command, just say “Hello Moshi.” Moshi will most likely mutter something threatening under its virtual breath, and then ask you “Command Please,” to which you can instruct the clock to tell you the time, set the alarm, inform you of the temperature and a bunch of other things. Sounds great, and we doubt Moshi will be able to murder you in your sleep without any life support systems or pod bay doors under its dominion, but we still fear the prospect of attempting to reason with a too-smart-for-its-own-good alarm clock during one of those dreaded “before noon” hours of the day. Moshi IVR is available now for $50.

We never thought we’d live to see the day that digital photo frames had cooler phones than our parents. Actually, okay, that doesn’t surprise us at all — and T-Mobile’s helping us live out that reality with the Cameo, its Parrot-sourced frame that features integrated GSM hardware and a dedicated phone number that lets loved ones shoot pictures to it from afar via MMS or email. The rumored details have turned out to be spot-on, meaning that you’ll be paying $99.99 for the frame plus another $9.99 monthly to keep the line active. An exact launch date has yet to be revealed, it’ll be available at some point in mid-November.

We’ve always thought our basement full of old Newtons and Amiga machines was pretty spooky, but we’d admit that we’ve been one-upped by Pennsylvania’s Halloween Park, which built an entire haunted mansion using off-the-shelf HAI home automation equipment. Designed by Digital Panacea, the system is “run by typical motion detectors, contacts, resets, and timers,” which trigger spooky sound effects and mechanical effects, including a leaping ghost nicknamed Dead Fred. That’s way more interesting than the usual home-automation setup, we’d say — any of you planning on re-rigging your systems at home before the kiddies come by?

You know, the future used to be so much cooler before we gave up on our dreams of flying cars. Now instead of powering jet engines, it looks like our automobiles will power household appliances, and household appliances will use technologies like GE’s SmartMeter to communicate with the local power grid. This could lead to such sexy contrivances as refrigerators that wait until off-peak hours to run the automatic defrost cycle, and (in coordination with tiered pricing for electricity and some new energy storage options) a bit of relief from the old fossil fuels. Maybe this is not exactly the stuff of William Gibson novels, but to hear more about “Energy Management Enabled Appliances” go ahead and hit that read link.

Not that we haven’t seen LCD-equipped rangehoods before, but ILVE’s VELA just has that art deco flair that so turns us on. All personal details aside, this here kitchen appliance was designed by Marco Valerio Agretti and features a 4-speed touch control extraction, optional automatic switch-on / speed regulation, all stainless steel construction, a light indicator for filter management and a washable anti-grease filter. Now that you’ve survived that snore-fest, here’s the real details you’re after: there’s a 10-inch LCD TV built right in there, and with that comes a remote control and an RCA input / output for hooking up your cable box, a DVD player or any flavor of game console. Unfortunately, actual specifications of the TV — as well as pricing for the entire unit — are nowhere to be found, but it’s pretty safe to assume those who have to ask probably won’t be buying. [Warning: PDF read link]

[Via T3]