Category: Home Appliances
IEC's vision for home appliance communications: it's good to have a talking washing machine
IEC (the International Electrotechnical Commission) has developed a new specification designed to allow various networked home appliances to communicate with one another, and with you. The complicatedly-named Home Network Communication Protocol over IP for Multimedia Household Appliances specification really boils…
Shiny Video Review: Logitech Pure-Fi Dream
My second video from the Logitech product-launch last week, this Pure-Fi Dream alarm clock not only docks your iPod, but contains two sensors on top, so with a simple wave of a hand over the device, the snooze function is enabled…
Shiny Video: Kat looks at the Logitech Harmony universal remote control
The trouble with writing about consumer electronics all day, every day, is that your brain gets chocker-block full of information about various products, you often forget if you’ve seen something before, or indeed…shot a video of it nine months previously when it was unveiled at CES. Whoops…
Twentyfour:London bar and nightclub is the most technologically-advanced yet
The launch of a new bar in London has got the whole of Shiny Towers in a tizz, not just because it’s literally down the road from our offices and we’re renowned cocktail-supping gals, but because it promises to be not just London’s most technologically-advanced bar, but possibly the world’s too.
It’s reportedly the first bar in the world with a fully-interactive interior, where customers can control projected images on every wall, choosing between ‘dot matrix sci-fi chic, crashing sea surroundings, Californian desert scenery’, or even your own images and videos. If you fancy getting even more involved with the interior decoration, you can play with the interactive virtual Koi Carp, or dance and watch your thermal shadows on the walls replicating every shape being thrown…
Fake colour-changing LED garden stones
Remember back in January 2006, when British secret agents were caught planting a fake stone in Moscow, kitted out with espionage gear such as microphones and cameras? I imagine that the international scandal inspired the company Wiedamark to create lights disguised as garden stones. Not exactly international espionage, but still darn sneaky…
Perfect Japanese rice, automated, with Zojirushi's "Ultimate" Rice Cooker
Compared to pasta, or a nice jacket potato, rice can be a bit of a mystery to cook. Those in the know probably use the “absorption method”, hoping that they time the cooking just right so that there’s not a horrible burnt-on sticky mess at the bottom of the pan and crunchy grains of rice at the top.
Unsurprisingly, the Japanese love affair with both technology and rice has come to the rescue, as a highly detailed article at Tech-On! proves.
Believe me, there’s not much you won’t know about cooking perfect, Japanese-style (slightly sweet and sticky) rice once you’ve read it — or indeed, how Zojirushi has perfected a machine to do it automatically.
Colour-changing tap light turns red when 30°C
Who wants boring blue-tinged transparent water flowing from your taps when you can mod your system up with some speccy COLOUR-CHANGING lights? It’d be like a party in your bathroom, just add some doof doof music and you’re off!…
The space saving Microwave In-A-Drawer
If you happen to be a bit sort of surface space in the kitchen, you might want to check out the Microwave In-A-Drawer from Dacor.
Cat Genie: completely automated, plumbed in toilet for your feline friend
Anyone who has owned a house-trained cat — in other words, one that doesn’t do all its business outside in next-door’s garden — will know the true joy of changing cat litter.
Enter the “Cat Genie” automated cat litter box, which sounds like the ultimate in luxury for both you and your cat.
If your cat isn’t too fussy and can get over the concern of pooping into something that looks like it could also blend it if not careful, then the days of it using old, soiled litter are over.
Shiny Video Review: Energy Saving Kettles
Susi teams up with Hippyshopper‘s Abi to try out some eco-friendly gadgets in the form of energy saving kettles. Brave Cap’n Weaser also ventures into unknown territory by taking her very first sip of tea… ever. We salute her…
