-
-
Topics:
The Speedster Espresso Coffee Machine
It looks like part of a 50's hot rod motor or a weapon brought by the Terminator to destroy mankind. But it's actually a Kees van der Westen 'Speedster' Espresso Coffee Machine. These Dutch masters of fine coffee-making machinery are known not just for quality coffee but also for inspired design. This machine is handmade to order in the Netherlands and requires professional installation. A true coffee-geek connoisseur would expect nothing less. This shiny, silver beauty has duel boilers (one for the coffee and one for the steam), a digital temperature control, Teflon-lined portafilters, and a cool shifter knob to pull the shots.
Like any espresso machine designed for commercial use, this one would be pretty high maintenance for home use. It requires a high degree of water filtration, 220V power and an experienced espresso technician to keep it running properly. Who cares what the costs are? This is an incredible and beautiful machine that can produce espresso that is truly sublime. This machine will set you back about $6,800. Read an exhaustive review from coffeegeek.com.
The Uni-ball Kuru Toga auto-sharpening pencil
The self-sharpening Kuru Toga solves an annoying problem for anyone who uses a regular mechanical pencil. Usually, after writing just a couple of crisp, clear lines, the lead dulls to a blunt chisel shape and penmanship degrades to a sub-literate hostage note. Experienced users have developed a slow finger twist technique, rotating the pencil every few words to keep a fine tip and line. But it's never perfect. The look is always uneven-- graphologists call it latently bi-polar. By adding a small "engine" inside the pencil that does the twisting for you, the self-sharpening Kuru Toga writes as clear as a gel pen-- line after line.
No more finger fatigue as the internal mechanism slowly rotates the lead with every stroke-- constantly sharpening it against the paper. The clear consistency is immediate and obvious. Users report that it's ergonomic design makes it ideal for diagramming, annotating, coding and extended note taking. And there are few broken leads. And if you do use it to write a ransom note, a judge and jury would probably reduce your sentence-- one of the many rewards of good penmanship. An enthusiastic review from CoolTools.com Clear demo graphics at OfficeSupplyGeek.com The Uni-ball Kuru Toga is available at JetPens.com for $6.75
Realtime translator Word Lens iPhone app
A man walks down the street It's a street in a strange world Maybe it's the Third World Maybe it's his first time around He doesn't speak the language He holds no currency...
Stumbling around a foreign country. You don't speak or read the language. Even simple menus are difficult. But you haven't come this far to sample global brands like Coke and Pepsi. You're constantly praying you'll bump into someone bilingual. But the farther you go off the beaten track, it's fat chance, charades, and locals with a lot of patience.
Quest Visual just released the Word Lens iPhone app to help solve this headache. It's an augmented-reality, optical character recognition translator, but that doesn't begin to describe a user's experience. It feels like magic in the truest sense of the word. Word Lens, the culmination of 2 1/2 years of work for creators Octavio Good and John DeWeese, will look at any printed text through the iPhone's camera, read it, and translate between Spanish and English. All in real time, matching the color, font and perspective of the text, then remapping it back onto the image. It's as if the world has been not only been translated but transfigured. Watch a demonstration here. autoplay:0]Because the translation happens instantly, you don't have to snap a photo and wait for it to process, or submit the text to some online service. When your camera sees the image in video mode, it automatically tries to run optical character recognition (OCR) on what it sees and then looks up the alternate word. There are still some problems. Words have a tendency to wiggle around a bit, switching between English and Spanish and sometimes flipping between alternate translations. The translations are frequently a little off, but you still get the gist of a sentence. Holding the camera very steady helps stop the "wiggling" effect. Let Octavio Good explain it. Itunes store-- price $4.99
The IF Mode Folding Bike
There is really no other folding bike like the Pacific IF Mode. Pacific Cycles has been designing amazing folding bikes for years, culminating in the IF Mode. It is a perfect fusion of art and function. You can hang it on the wall of your apartment like a piece of modern art and then take it out for a ride around the block.
You can show it off to friends at parties or impress people out on the street with its smooth rapid folding action. Its clockwork folding mechanism is naturally fluid and smooth, a radical design, unmatched among folding bikes. The IF Mode handles like a regular bike. Its full-sized wheels make it faster than most other folding bikes. Another great design aspect is the S-shaped frame which flexes slightly and absorbs shock, handling small potholes and rough pavement with ease. One of the most unique features of the IF Mode bicycle is its Swiss-made Schlumpf 2-speed drive. This gearing system fits right between the pedals, inside the bottom bracket. You shift by tapping your heels against buttons on the side of the crank arms. That means you don't have to move your hands to shift, you just tap the right side to cruise and the left side to start up or climb hills. The price: $2,500 from Pacific Cycles
Trio Classico speakers from Avantgarde Acoustic
Avantgarde Acoustic from Germany has been promising these new speakers for years, but their painstaking R&D took time. But now, the Avantgarde Trio Classico ($190,000) are finally available for sale. Apart size, five feet tall and four feet wide, and their stunning looks, the Trio Classico deliver otherworldly audio thanks to three horn drivers--a low-midrange, midrange, and tweeter--and four dedicated subwoofers, all of which combine to pump out sound literally capable of transporting you anywhere in the universe. And if you believe all of that, you might actually be crazy enough pay for them.
A video about the design philosophy of Avantgarde Acoustic.
What is the most important design quality for you?
Photo: Trio Classico speakers-- Avantgarde Acoustic Photos: Speedster coffee machine- Kees Van Der Westen Photos: IF Mode Bike- Pacific Cycles Photo: Spanish street sign- Jebulon Wikicommons Photo and Graphic: Kuru Toga-- Uni Mitsubishi Pencil
Comments
That is a really nice bike. I think I could convince myself to buy one - it would be cheaper than a new car.... And what is a better toy for an engineer used to working with pressures and flows than an espresso machine? I am sure I could do all the installation and maintenance myself. And then of course the new pencil to take orders.
If you relocate to a coffee drinking city like Portland-- you're set. They also bicycle a lot.
I know. I can't believe how much cycling they do in those misty climates. They need the coffee to keep from getting depressed.
The IF bike folding bike is indeed one of the nicest folding bikes out there - not to mention the coolest look it has.