The Sun Visor of the 21st Century + All The Tech You Need
It’s high time we stopped relying on a flipdown board to keep the sun out of our eyes and apply a little technology to the situation. Bosch is on the case with a simple solution which stays out of our way with a surprisingly lightweight solution. Currently in the concept phase at the moment, a transparent honeycombed Virtual Visor tracks your eyes, and places dark pixels between you and the sun. The benefit is that it only covers the amount of your vision required to keep the glare out. So far the concept is looking promising, and with things like driver-facing cameras soon becoming commonplace, the visor will be able to take advantage of what tech cars will already be packing.
Automatic Reading
You’re holding a magazine at the moment, so you either have a passion for the old ways or are bored in a waiting room somewhere. But wouldn’t it be nice if these words could literally be read aloud to you, and maybe not at the expense of someone else’s time? Orcam Read ostensibly fills this role, or more practically helping with dyslexia and reading fatigue. Simply point the device at a block of text and click a button to send out a laser. It then reads the text out loud to you. A version called MyEye 2.0 is a little more discrete, and attaches to your glasses and delivers the same service. The devices work on any physical media, as well as on screens. Orcam Read will be retailing for US$1,500 in the next couple months.
Your Personal Go Anywhere Airbag
You know I think it’s about time someone invented some way of protecting the head of cyclists somehow. Some sort of reinforced cap that could be strapped to the head perhaps? Wait wait, what about an airbag attached to your neck! Yes! Let’s do it! Wait, Swedish company Hövding already has? Awesome!
All joking aside, according to Hövding their cyclist airbag called Hövding 3 are 8x better than a regular helmet, and deploy in o.1 seconds covering your head like a blow up full face helmet. The collar is packed with sensors, analysing your every move 200 times a second. When you aren’t busy crashing, the collar can also track your riding statistics like any other fitness wearable. It’s like a Fitbit that saves your life! One final handy feature is its ability to immediately send an SMS to emergency contacts. Meaning they’ll know about you hitting a car at about the same time you do.
The Hövding retails for about US$332.
hovding.com
Re-Inventing The Segway
E-Scooters are for plebs and people ask too many questions when perfectly able-bodied people use wheelchairs. But there’s a solution. Take the front wheels off the wheelchair and you have the Segway S-Pod. Just a concept at the moment, this little pod can carry up to 150kg at 39.9km/h up to a range of 70km. Probably not appropriate for parking attendants, I can imagine the S-Pod being useful at tourist sites or Jurassic Park. Controls are simple via a joystick or tablet which can also control the mood lighting of the Pod. It can take wide smooth arcs around corners but its strength lies in turning on a dime. All in all, the S-pod may be the transport of choice for people tired of sending themselves underneath traffic while riding E-scooters.
The Quickest Tattoo On The Market
Perfect for when you need a tattoo in a pinch (look, I don’t ask questions about what you do with your life, you just probably need this ok), the Prinker S is the easiest way to quickly choose a design and swipe onto your skin. You can either make your own designs on your PC or pick from a library on your phone. Once you’re done, just wirelessly connect to the Prinker and get to printing! Using cosmetic ink, the design can stay on your skin for up to three days. It’s water resistant, but comes off with soap in no time.
It comes pre-packaged with a black ink catridge, so if you want colour, you’re gonna have to shell out for extra cartridges.
The Prinker S starts at US$269. prinker.us
BBQ The Smart Way
Weber is taking the guesswork out of BBQing with the Weber Connect Smart Grilling Hub. Rig the little device up to your BBQ to give you readings on temperature and even stick it into your meat to let you know when it’s ready to be flipped over. Using it in conjunction with your phone allows you to select how done you want your steak to be as well as sending other alerts for food readiness or estimated cooking times.
The LED display can handle up to four probes but comes packaged with just one meat probe and one ambient temperature probe.
Pricing starts at US$129.99 Weber.com
Why The Y-Brush
I’m honestly not sure how I feel about this device, so I’m bringing it to the court of public opinion. The Y-Brush is a revolution in tooth brushing technology, shaving valuable seconds off your morning routine to get on with non-hygiene activities. Simply stick this entire thing in your mouth and bite down for five seconds. It then vibrates and cleans your teeth. Flip it over and bite down again to do your bottom teeth. Here’s a life hack tip, if your mouth is big enough to accommodate it, buy two and glue them together, then simply bite down once, getting the job done in half the time. FasTeesH, the mind behind the Y-Brush claims that it can do in 10 seconds what a regular brush can do in 2 minutes. The US$125 package comes with a USB charger and one brush. Replacement brushes cost an added US$30.
A Vision For The Future
Using veterans from all the major tech labels, Mojo Vision has a bold idea of where it wants to take the future of augmented reality and vision in general. They promise that a contact lense, much like the one pictured, will be able to overlay the real world with information. Not only that, they hope it’ll enhance the vision of those already suffering poor eyesight by outlining objects in the world, or even creating total night vision.
It’s currently in the prototyping phase, with a contact lense embedded with the world’s smallest microdisplay, 0.48mm in size with a 14,000+ ppi pixel density. Or so they say. I’ll believe it when I see it.