Pizza Vending Machine

Sometimes I marvel at how instant we have all become. We want it straight on the spot pronto. In fact, it is only a matter of time before we are queueing up at vending machines instead of counters, and one step in that direction is the Pizza Vending Machine.

My first thought was that the machine merely heated up pre-cooked pizzas. Guess what? I was wrong. The pizzas are made from scratch in 3 minutes. Not only does it allow you to choose your ingredients and toppings, the pizza will be dished out in a convenient takeaway cardboard box. Furthermore, there are actually small viewing windows for you to watch the creation of your pizza.

Can somebody just bring this over here right now? The possibilities are endless. You can have it at schools, offices, convenience stores, and even mount it on a van and set up a store at the beach (or election rallies).

You can find more info from the company behind it here.

Internet Explorer 7 Tax

Internet Explorer was never made for web designing. Thanks to its inclusion in the Windows OS, however, it was popular in terms of usage. Till other strong competitors like Firefox, Chome, Safari and Opera came along. 

If you have yet to sample or jump over to another browser, you might want to think about it now. Kohan, an electronics retailer based in Australia has imposed an extra 6.8% surcharge on any online transactions done using Internet Explorer 7. Why 6.8 you ask? It's 0.1% for each month IE7 has been on the market. 

Basing the charge on the amount of work their web designers need to ensure it is compatible, the easier workaround this is simply to either use a different browser or upgrade to IE 8 and above. 

The official blog post here. 

Music

What transcends through time and space,

and ascends to the highest of heavens 

descends through the depths of hell? 

That which is not limited through geographical boundaries

or by the differing languages of men,

That conjures up vivid images in the mind

of rolling stacks of hay down the countryside,

or the flush of rain across one's face. 

That which mythic gods feed upon

and their stories foretold

that whose ancestors speak of

and wonders behold. 

No scale exists to weigh your

impact 

no line exists to limit

your impact.

Made up on notes

compounded through chords

amplified through dynamics

and vibrated through resonance. 

Music, is something that we can all truly

never ever grasp the importance of. 

World Map Aquarium

Forget about glass bowls with a sprinkle of goldfish inside swimming round and round and round. Or huge rectangular tanks brimming with water, fish, and a thousand and one ornaments inside. Don't build the world for your fish. Let your fish live in the world.

This coffee table aquarium is made from glass cut and shaped like the world. The unique design and functionality achieved a TIFF Award for its designer Takuro Yamamoto. Definitely a conversation starter at parties or when you have socially-awkward friends over, I'm pretty sure this would keep the kids entertained too. (I hope the glass is shockproof).

I can just picture a dozen colorful small fish gliding around the world. If you do want to up the functional aspect, I would suggest maybe pasting an atlas underneath this, so your kid can learn math and geography at the same time.

More info here

Wear your Thong

Sometimes, creativity has its downside.

Like that. In the world of multitasking and multi-purposeful, we tend to lose sight of the aesthetics (pun intended). Douglas Hamilton came up with this design where your flip flop can be worn as a thong. 

Each thong has a super elastic strap that you can pull to stretch out and just stand right in it to be a thong. I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be comfortable. Then again, I could just picture a brand name or logo plastered at the bottom of the flip flop being 'advertised' when converted to a thong.

I do think covered shoes would make a better, uhm, fit.

More info here.

Chameleon Bandages

Face it. Sometimes you have a cut on some place public, and that pale cheap flesh-lookalike plaster isn't really complementing your face much. What if you have a plaster that would blend in with the surrounding
colour?

The Chameleon Bandage has been entered into 2012 iF Design Talents competition. No details on how it seems to work, other than its shade slowly changes till the colour matches. If this design win, I know another use for it. Covering that ugly maturing pimple smack straight on your face.

You can get more info here

Iron Man, Literally.

Nothing like taking a movie title at face value, that is, the Iron Man.

It does look like a little fierce, but I'm pretty sure this iron (man) will get the job done. Not too sure where the steam vents are located, though I would advise you to position this near the door for maximum effect.

On second thought, if you do already have an iron at home, why not just use this as a security device? I would imagine burglars would get a shock when they break into your house, only to see the two white lights staring straight at him.

If only my clothes could be smooth and steamed with just a blast.

Link: Here

Small is Cheap

Advancements of technology yada yada yada means making movies can be low-budget and cost effective. Just like this one. Using handheld projectors, and everything else around you, an exciting movie can be made. 

I wonder if entrepreneurs will soon have classes to teach budget filming. Imagine that. Earning big bucks to teach people on how to make cheap but good videos. 

Enjoy! 

Watch the Time

The owls hoot above you, and you wonder what time it is. You've been tossing and turning into bed but sleep seems to evade you. Check the time on your phone? Nah, it's being charged at the power socket across the room. If only, you could flash the time somewhere, anywhere.

How about a laser watch that flashes the time on your arm?

You wear it like a normal wrist band, press a button, and ta-dah! The time appears on your arm. It's still a conceptual design though. If you really like it, you might want to click your support here.

Face Mug

Time-management sometimes gets the worse of us. We hold printouts on one hand, and on the other is the parcel that we just picked up at the counter. Then, we walk past the pantry and how can we resist the sweet aroma of caffeine beckoning to us? But, our hands are full, and our desk is just so so so far away. So we struggle and do a bit of an acrobatic act. One hand holding the mug of coffee, the other hand holding the printouts, and the parcel wedged against our chest, between both hands.

 Ah! There're free cookies on the pantry table too. What to do? Say goodbye to such predicaments with the Face Mug!

It will cost you $18 USD, but the time it saves you is priceless. Get it here.

Helicopter Ceiling Fan

Ceiling fans are probably one of the under-rated products at home. How often do your friends that come over to your house exclaim 'Wow. Nice ceiling fan! So erm, cooling?!'

That will change once you fix this.

This is an inverted helicopter that functions as your ceiling fan. This is something that will definitely start conversations when you have a party at home, or maybe a business meeting in the office. It is a reproduction of the Hughes/MD 500 in 1:6 scale, and made of fibreglass with carbon fibre blades and an aluminium internal structure.

If only its headlights could serve as another source of light in the room, wouldn't that be awesome eh?

More info here

Joggobot

If you run regularly, and yield to the weakness of your mind, you would find it hard to challenge your own timings. Rather, your body seems to go against you and encourages you to slow down and take a breather. Some choose to plug in a pair of earphones and pound the feet according to their music preferences. Others opt for audio promptings or encouragement through social media and mobile apps which track your running distance, speed, and even lists how many calories you have lost.

Yet, a very annoying problem is the long trailing cable from your phone or music player and its irritating bounce and swing against your glistening sweat-layered skin. You could get a pet. A dog preferably, and not a cat, to run along with you. Though the audio encouragement you would get would be barks and a bow-wow. Or you can consider the Joggobot.

The helicopter drone will fly a few feet in front of you, so you are constantly chasing it. Think of a dog chasing a bone dangling from a string attached to a wooden branch on its back. In this case, the camera on the drone locks onto a blue and orange marker on the runner's Tshirt to track the progress and be together.

If you run off the path, or for some reason, it just can't seem to find you, the Joggobot will make a landing.

While this does sound like a pretty cool toy, and healthy one, my only concern is for runners in the concrete jungle. Would the Joggobot be able to sense other joggobots or traffic lights or birds in the area? What if the weather changes?

Perhaps future versions might come with a gps chip on the joggobot, and an emergency button on the shirt. When runners encounter an emergency, they can press the button and the joggobot will relay the gps location to the nearest police post or centre. The button will have to be water-proof of course.

You can get more info here.

Bluetooth Watch - Cookoo

Don't be misled. This bluetooth watch doesn't allow you to cook. What it does, is to inform you when something happens on your phone such as an incoming text message, an incoming call, or your phone battery is low.

Currently, the list of features this watch can do makes it a very very suitable companion for your smartphone. It can notify you of incoming and missed calls, text messages, emails, facebook chats and messages, twitter updates, and anything else to your imagination like using it as a remote control for your phone's camera.

Of course, as we all know, bluetooth does sap quite a bit of your phone battery life, so this watch is probably useful for those who need to leave their phones on silent mode at work.

The watches are currently in production, but if you want to fund a minimum of $80 USD, you will be guaranteed one when it is out. For more info, check here.

Scanbox

As the quality of in-built cameras on mobile phones gets higher and sharper, it only reasons that its uses will multiply, like scanning. Despite you being such a talented phone photographer, you can never seem to find the right balance of flash and white balance to take a good scan of that name card, or product, or photograph.

Enter in the Scanbox, and no, it's not an app.

All you need is $15 USD and you can get this. A small rectangular opening at the top is for you to position your phone (and the camera lens), as it will take a nice shot of the thingamajig you place in the scanbox.

Find out more info here.