Handy water purifier for travellers

Water borne diseases continue to rule the kingdom of ailments! Water is something we humans cannot stay without and the availability of clean drinking water is difficult when we are on the roads and travelling to far off places. The problem of clean drinking water is all the more prominent in third world countries. Grayl, which is a Seattle based startup has come up with a brilliant handy solution to this clean drinking water problem.

The device has G3+ Three technologies in one for clean, safe water
G1 – Triple charged mesh captures germs (protozoa, bacteria, and viruses)
G2 – Ultra-powdered activated carbon from natural coconut husks filters odor, flavor, industrial and pharmaceutical chemicals, and heavy metals
G3- Antimicrobial agent to keep it fresh between uses

To put it simply the device consists of a double-walled container with a mesh filter system contained within the base of the inner cup. Once the outer cup has been filled with water, the user then places the inner cup inside and pushes down, forcing the liquid through the filter. The filter combines three technologies to ensure the water is properly purified: a triple charged mesh the capture germs, a layer of ultra-powdered activated carbon and an antimicrobial agent to keep the filter fresh between uses.

GRAYL is effective against disease causing water-borne pathogens, metals, chemicals, flavor and odor. This innovative idea could help millions of people in the various parts of the world where clean drinking water is a LUXURY!

World’s slimmest Watch!

We love to see radical design changes in products that are a regular use product and the design of which has remained unchanged for ages known to us. One such daily use product used by billions of people is the all so omnipresent Wrist Watch. We have always known the watch to be comprised of straps and a dial, either analog or digital. How about just a wristband that doubles up as a watch?

The idea for the CST-01 began in December 2011 when Dave Vondle, one of the founders of Central Standard Timing, taped an E Ink display around his wrist and said, “I want a watch like this.” A year later, they designed a watch that highlights the most innovative qualities of E Ink’s SURF segmented displays; ultra-thinness, readability, ruggedness, flexibility, and low power. The patent-pending CST-01 is assembled by laminating thin, flexible components into a 0.5mm pocket etched into a single piece of flexible stainless steel, making it different than traditional digital watches, which typically use the same form factor of an analog watch.

The CST-01 charges in 10 minutes and lasts for an entire month on a single charge, thanks to its paper-thin battery. The first of its kind, the MEC will keep the CST-01 ticking for 15 years. The CST-01 charging station uses embedded magnets to align and hold the watch to the charger, making charging a literal “snap.”

Both Dave and Jerry, designers for this brilliant watch, work at Ideo, a global design and innovation firm. Together, they have over 24 years of experience inventing, engineering, and designing products for the world’s top brands. In their spare time, they like to make stuff!

Monitor your back-ache

Back pain and various other back problems affects almost every human being sometime or the other in our lives. In most of the cases the Doctors attribute the condition because of wrong posture and poor sitting habits. No body really tells us what is the right posture till we actually develop the back pain and then its quite a herculean task to get out of it completely. Wouldn’t it be nice if we had someone or something that guided us towards having a right posture? Here is a device that does exactly that for you…

 

Developed by team of Monisha Perkash, Charles Wang andAndrew Chang, the LUMOback is worn around the waist and features an imbedded ‘posture sensor’ able to monitor the user’s lower back spinal posture. When the device senses a slouch, it will vibrate as a reminder to the user to sit up straight. The LUMOback can also be paired wirelessly with an iOS device to track posture improvements over time. So you actually know how you are doing with your body posture over a period of time.

 

The developers of LumoBack believe they have added ‘Voice to your body’ through this device. Indeed, its a way your body tells you to sit straight and not slouch!

Check out more details about the product here How It Works – LUMO BodyTech Inc

Umbrella gets a new look!

There are some products that have remained the same shape and look for generations that we can remember of. This is because they solve the purpose for which they were made just in the shape and size they have been made for all these generations. One such product is the all so useful UMBRELLA. 

However came across this unique redesign that Stephen Collierhas given to umbrella. The Rainshader is a more crowd-friendly umbrella, designed to reduce the chance of dripping on someone’s feet or poking them in the eye.

 

How often we step out in the rain with our umbrella and only our head remains shielded while rest of our body gets wet because rains do not always come vertically downwards!! Covering your back with the Rainshader seems so very practical and useful.

 

There have been many others who have tried to make changes to the model of the Umbrella but nothing seems to be more practical upgrade than this Rainshader. Unlike an ordinary umbrella, which channels water in all directions from its center, the Rainshader instead channels water forwards and backwards via parallel panels of material. The back of the Rainshader hangs low over the user’s shoulders and the front is cut away to see forwards (though sideway vision would seem to be impaired, so the Rainshaded should go extra carefully when crossing roads).

 

So here we have an umbrella which gives your own private space protected from the nature’s wrath in Monsoons.

Portable Solar powered socket!

Solar powered products are the rage of the day. Anything and everything that runs on solar gets immediate media attention. But have we ever thought of how to harness the solar energy that is around us in our workplace and homes? There is abundance of solar power around us where we sit and work everyday. Designers Kyohu Song and Boa Oh have done just that and conceptualized a simple yet usable and practical device that each one of us can use. Its the Window Socket solar powered outlet.

What I like best about the product is the simplicity and usefulness of the product. The portable socket attaches to a window pane that is receiving sunlight. On its underside, it has solar panels that generate the electricity. The solar panels suck energy from the sun. The charger converts that energy into electricity. You plug into the charger.

Even better, the charger stores that energy. After five to eight hours of charging, the socket provides 10 hours of use. You can pop it off the window, stick it in your bag, and use it to charge up your phone with solar energy, even if you’re sitting in a dark room.

I am not sure how much of power it can generate but then the objective is to save as much of small bits of fossil fuel that we can in our daily lives. The power from this solar plug should be sufficient to charge up our power hungry cell-phones and other mobile devices.

Send human touch wirelessly!!

There is no limit to the human imagination. The product below is working to give a new dimension to this. How would it feel if you are alone in another part of the world but can still receive the touch of your loved ones across the oceans and mountains?

The panGenerator in collective collaboration with Cheil is working on an innovative technology of transmitting the human touch between two individuals via bluetooth and internet connection provided by the smartphones. Its called remote tactile communication.

 

The bracelet is comprised of two elements, one for sending data and the other for receiving. Touch sensor located on the upper side of the bracelet converts swipes into tactile/haptic motion on the receiving device. The device is currently an early alpha version – the next version will be about 50% slimmer and the temporary textile strip will be replaced with casted polyurethane.

Checkout their video on the product. 
TACTILU – a bracelet for remote tactile communication ( work in progress )

Harnessing Kinetic energy to solve lighting problem

Danielle Trofe has combined aesthetics with pure science in her beautifully designed LED Hourglass lamps that are powered by the kinetic energy of falling sand! A brilliant self sustaining lamp…She has found a beautiful way of putting across a fact to the consumers that the source of energy will end unless we work towards preserving it.

The shape of the lamps are like hourglass and the lamps need to be flipped to continue working and require the user’s involvement to stimulate awareness of the finite nature of lighting energy sources. The lamp works on the simple principle of falling sand and is also solar powered to have a back up.

Read about her more on…

Danielle Trofe’s Hourglass LED Lamps Use the Kinetic Power of Sand to Produce Light