Throw away fire extinguisher

The Japanese are at it again. This product labeled SAT-119 is a throw away fire extinguisher. Apparently it is as simple as throwing a can into a fire and Tadd-Dah! the fire goes away.

The product is made by a Tokyo company called Bonex. It seems that they have portable extinguishers as well as wall extinguishers that can be mounted. The website mentions that as of March 2009 the Tokyo fire department has officially begun using the product in action.

One thing I can't seem to figure out is what is in the pot that the man is throwing into the fire before they throw the can. I am wondering if the fire extinguisher is reliant on that substance. Either way, it's very cool and efficient.

Also, If this thing releases a smoke/dust like that of a Traditional Fire Extinguisher (There is some mature language in the clip but it does deliver a display of a tradition fire extinguisher), it can also be doubled as a great grenade prank. This could potentially help make putting out fires more cost efficient, as well as take the "Antique Prank" to a whole new level. Here's to hoping it makes its way to the U.S.A..

Paper towels are a thing of the past

This is it! What we have all been praying for late at night has finally been built. Our world as we know it will never be the same again. I introduce to you, the Furukawa Kikou "SWITL", or to me, the spilt condiment picker-upper.

Who would have thought, huh? Just think, now you may be able to spend a large amount of money to buy a machine that picks up your spilt thousand island salad dressing off of your table. This is entrepreneurship at its finest. This machine has a strangle hold on the paper towel market. Who is going to want to spend two dollars on some Bounty when you can whip out this thing?

This is living proof that there is a lot of free time in the world. Furukawa Kikou is a Japanese company and my next wish is that they sell the idea to an American company so we can enjoy late night informercials about it. This is a pretty cool gadget. I wish I had more information on what it is made out of but my research failed. If anyone can read Japanese check Furukawa Kikou and let me know how it works. If you have stock in Kleenex or Brawny its time to pull out.

Robots are taking over.

Those first 10 seconds or so are pretty boring huh? Yeah, until you realize that thing is not human and that is is a robot. The android was made by Geminoid, a research lab located at Aalbord University in Denmark. Their website says that it is the first of its kind outside of Japan.

Geminoid's first android was built in 2005. Imagine what they are whipping up in that lab right now. Six years is a long time. Apparently six years from now, we're going to have Wooly Mammoths roaming the earth again.

Between this robot and the ping pong juggling ones I posted two weeks ago, I think it is time we bring back one of my childhood TV shows, Robot Wars.  Now that's a good idea.

Someone is bound to win the nobel peace prize sometime soon for some ridiculous robot invention. This android is incredibly impressive. The lab is still working to expand its research and improve on the its next project. They released another android in spring of 2010. At this rate, in the near future no one will have jobs and we will all bow to them.

The Juggling Robot Race

There must be an underground race going on to see who can come up with the best ball juggling robot. The competition is stiff as today I present to you two videos of robots that have impressive juggling talents. I can't say for sure which on is better. At first glance I want to say the airborne robot, but the fact that the stationary one can juggle two balls at once, settles it at a tie in my mind. See for yourself. Which is the more impressive juggler?



In the red corner we have the Quadrotor ball juggler. Here you can see something that looks like it belongs in the movie Wall-E.  Every day we are getting one step closer to a robot apocalypse. This machine can be credited to Mark Muller and Sergei Lupashin. This is not the only machine they work on as you can see at their website.



In the blue corner a robot worked on by Paul Kulchenko and Emo Todorov out of the Movement Control Lab at University of Washington. This machine successfully juggles one ball at a lower distance than the video shown above, but.... skip to 50 seconds in to see its real power. The power to juggle two balls at once.

Both of these machine run on sensors that people way smarter than me have helped build. Win or lose they are both pretty impressive, especially if you were in a robot ping pong ball juggling contest. So I ask again, which is more impressive?

The unicycle on steroids.

First the unicycle, then the Segway, now the Solowheel.



The race to create the "greenest" means of transportation is in full swing. Now on top of hoping that the person on the Segway in front of you falls off, you can have double the opportunity with the invention of the Solowheel. The producer, Inventist, calls it the "smallest, greenest, most convenient People Mover ever invented".

The Solowheel reminds me of a robotic skateboard. It weighs in at a whopping 20lbs. It works like a Segway where you control the speed with the angel of your body. It is also battery operated.

The impressive part to me is the fact that it is so small. A disadvantage to the Segway is where do you put it when you need to go in somewhere? As long as you can lift 20lbs, the Solowheel can be carried into the workplace. You just might look a little dumb doing it. The product is another invention that will make so many of us lazier. If you can walk, you should feel a little ashamed using the Solowheel on a daily basis.

Segways have gotten increasingly popular since their release. Even my University's police department uses them. Hopefully for Inventist, the Solowheel catches on. Let's raise our glasses to all battery powered wheels out there.

Super Computer "Watson" makes IBM proud

I blogged a few weeks ago about IBM's brainchild "Watson." IBM developed Watson basically to establish the fact that they have the capability to turn our planet into a real life I, Robot.  In light of my theory, I suggest everyone does anything and everything that IBM wants. Who knows what they are hiding in their labs.

All jokes aside, Watson showed up strong. The computer smoked Jeopardy! champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. The computer displayed its ability to comprehend even the most abstract questions. It really is impressive what IBM constructed.

I do think it was a little unfair in one aspect. There were many questions that these three geniuses obviously knew the answer too. When this was the case it seemed like Watson was always the first to buzz in. You can see the expressions on especially Ken's face when his finger just was not fast enough. If the questions were presented in Scantron format, I think the scores would be much closer. Anyway, IBM deserves some major credit. The experience was pretty cool to witness. Start the clock on the Chinese to respond with something to one up Watson. 1 pt America.

Shave your head in 20 seconds?

In 30 years we will seriously have more free time than we know how to handle.

I came across the most ridiculous video today. I strongly debate whether this is legitimate or not but if it is, I have come to the conclusion that humans have unlimited potential.

The video is pretty self explanatory, it shows a helmet with four razors blades on the inside. If you turn the helmet on, the blades will move and shave your head in about 20 seconds. Did I mention it is also wired with tubes that inject shaving cream during the process?

Judge for yourself, but seriously, where does the hair go?

I hope this ride comes to life

First things first, I need to tell a little story about my childhood. When I was little, the best thing about Spring wasn't the weather or the flowers. Hands down, the best thing about Spring was this carnival that used to come in right down the road from me. To this day I still think about it every time the season comes around. There were five great things about this carnival.

1. The funnel cakes

2. The Gravitron Ride

3. The pictures of really sexy woman I would win from that game where you pop the balloons with darts

4. The fact that I knew the owner of the carnival so whenever I wasted money on games I would just talk to him and he'd give me the prize anyway.

Lastly, the BEST thing about this carnival was the fact that I had a best friend named Kyle with severe motion sickness. Kyle would throw up on the Spinning Swings, The Scrambler, The Gravitron, and basically any ride that spun at a decent speed. The fact that he would be consistently peer pressured (by me) into getting on these rides every year is actually still pretty fricken hilarious now. 

What makes Kyle so important to this post, is this video of concept carnival ride I came across. The video is the a model of a ride invented by Thomas Casey. The video calls it "The Rings of Saturn" I call it, "Kyle's worst nightmare."It's basically two Ferris Wheels that spin in all directions and allows the seats to spin. Every year there is some sweet new ride at some amusement park that is the new" Tallest" or "Fastest" ride. Six Flags and Disney World can have all those roller coasters. I just pray, for the sake of seeing Kyle on it, that this ride gets picked up and dropped off at the carnival near my house.

New Age Beer

The next time you visit a major sporting event, you could witness the magic of your beer filling up through the bottom of the cup. This new dispenser works with magnets allow the beer to flow up through the bottom. The new dispenser will surely lower the rates of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome in vendors across America. I'm not quite sure of any other benefits that the dispenser has, but doesn't it look really cool? Hopefully this can cut down on the lines that grow heavily during the seventh inning stretch of baseball games. In a few years or so, this might be how you fill up your Diet Coke at McDonalds. This may or may not catch on, but it sure makes you wonder what other possibilities it may be used for.

Future of Cars?

On Saturday, Catharine Smith published an article for The Huffington Post about a new car system that would make driving easier, safer, and more efficient. The system works like a train of automobiles  on the highway. It's like train-cars that move in an out of the wireless system when ready. The train cars are have one professional driver in the front that controls all of the cars. This allows for all the other drivers to do basically whatever they want. You can sleep, eat, read, etc. on the way to your destination. The smarter we get, the lazier we get, but if it is safer, more efficient, and saves on resources who can complain? Stay tuned in the years to come. Sartre and Volvo are testing the system now in Europe. They are predicting it could take over ten years to get this wireless car system to run full steam.

Super Computer to Compete on Jeopardy!

On February 14th, the world will be able to witness something really magnificent. IBM has built a computer with a seemingly unlimited potential for knowledge. What is more impressive is that the computer named Watson is able to display its knowledge in the form of answers to Jeopardy! questions.

Watson will compete in a traditional game of Jeopardy! against champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. Watson's  opponents are not normal champions, they are two of the top game show money earners of all time. Each has earned millions of dollars through the game of Jeopardy! Jennings won over 70 straight games of Jeopardy! to earn the bulk of his winnings.

Next month the showdown will commence. It's kinda scary how powerful technology is getting. Hopefully Watson isn't the next Skynet. I personally don't think the humans have a shot, simply because I think the computer can hit the buzzer faster than them but who knows. What do you think?

Is Cash A Thing of the Past?

Starbucks likes the reputation of being modern and customer friendly. They have free wifi, their drinks have fancy Italian names, and they position their coffee shops in classy places like Barnes and Nobles. They may have outdone themselves with their latest idea though.  Starbucks has announced that you will now be able to pay for your orders in many of their stores with a bar code straight off your smart-phones. They hope this will make those purchases a lot quicker.

Now people can buy those new 31 oz Super Coffees and get cracked out on caffeine in record time. All jokes aside, this really is some interesting technology. An innovative move such as this begs the question, what is next? Will all chains start using technology like this? Soon we may not need wallets or credit cards. Do you think this is for better or worse? Will you be using the Starbucks App?