Damn… I think I need to go have a cold shower. Mind you, the price tag’ll have the same effect…

What, I hear ye mutter, am I blathering about? Well, I’ll tell ye. But first, some background details.
Years ago, I worked in a warehouse fer electronic components. Among other things, we weren’t allowed to carry electrical items with us in case of static problems. This included non-mechanical watches. My next job wasn’t much help in the time department either. In a dairy, you were allowed the clothes they told you to wear and that was it. However, we could keep a phone in our pocket if it wasn’t flaunted too much.
With that in mind, it’s hardly any surprise that I don’t possess a wristwatch, is it? Not that I don’t like the idea, but I like an unencumbered wrist these days.
Then I saw this sweet bit of kit and knew I was right.

Wow… I could feel and hear the nerdgasms from over here…
This, my friends is the Celsius X VI II Remontage Papillon, a brand-spanking new mobile phone and watch combo that is so new it hasn’t been released for sale yet. It’s being premièred at the Baselworld watch fair next week. According to all the sources I could find anyway; the Baselworld site is very flash-heavy and was grinding too slowly fer me to stay with it.
Fancy another pic? Thought so.

{sigh….}
Anyway, not only does it look sexier than Christina Hendricks in a cocktail dress*, it’s also a top-notch bit of engineering too, as the article on Cool Hunting tells us.
Cheers also to Watchismo fer ruining my dreams by telling me the fiscal ruin I would face in owning one (roughly $275,000 a pop).

*I’m lying. Nothing could be that sexy.

See this?

It’s a tiny, postage stamp-sized piece of paper with some cool shapes and colours. Except that, to someone in the world, those funky shades mean the difference between life and death.
Developed by George Whitesides, a chemist from Harvard University, it has the ability, with one drop of blood from a patient, to show whether said patient is suffering from diseases such as malaria, HIV, hepatitis, and tuberculosis. Not only that, it can also tell the severity to which the disease has developed.
With the third world countries in mind, this potential life-saver costs a penny to make. Incredibly, the secret ingredient is nothing more nor less than the coloured inks used in comic books.

Superman to the rescue once more!
Visit the Inhabitat page for more info, plus a little clip on how it works.

*with a few extra stages, but that didn’t make fer such a snappy title…

James Dyson. Ye must know him; he’s the one that came up with those revolutionary (and funky-looking) vacuum cleaners. (if not, here’s a link to a cracking blog entry about him and his gizmos)
Well, he’s such a cool dude, entrepreneur and innovatist (don’t bother – I just made it up), that he’s also set up a design award for others to take up the baton. Not that he shows much sign of slowing…

Anyway.
Having close ties to several disabled and/or elderly people, I take a great interest in inventions designed to help make life easier for said folk.
With that in mind, say ‘hello’ to Adrian Lim, a student designer who’s made the award shortlist by putting some decent thought into one of the basic joys of life – making yerself a cuppa. Normally, a full kettle’s a bugger to lift fer those with weak arms, but that’s not a problem fer this wee beastie.

The rotary kettle simply rests on a pivot and gently springs back to upright when you’re done. In fact it’s under such mechanised control that it can also be used by those who have the strength, but not the control, to handle a kettle of boiling water.
I hope these go into production soon. They’re going to sell like hot (tea)cakes…
Full details over at The Australian design Award.
(original find on I New Idea)

In this day and age, we’re encouraged to keep a close eye on our power usage and keeping our personal carbon footprint to a minimum.

As a lot of people realise, it takes a bit of effort to do things like getting up to turn the TV off, looking fer the ‘off’ switch on a remote control and waiting more than five minutes to have a healthy meal .

With such folk in mind, may I present the most attitude-laden ‘green’ gizmo I have yet encountered:this regulator (sadly, still only a concept, not a saleable product) actually registers when your phone charger has had its mandatory allocation of juice and spits out the connector, effectively cutting off the power completely.

Sure, there are other gadgets out there that cut the power off from fully-loaded equipment, but none which seem to show such disdain fer your power-hungry ways…

*Yer lucky you got that as a title. I was also considering a bulemia gag or something else along the lines of spitting and… no, I think I’ll stop there…

This is well put together and informative. So, you’ll probably want to skip over it because it’s not a cat video or some viral that everyone has already seen but you.

Take a look at this; it’s the Atmos 566 and it’s the sweetest bit of chronometric kit I have ever seen.

Considering it’s made by Jaeger-LeCoultre, the watch specialists, it’s bordering on the chunky side, coming in at 1 foot tall and just under 7 inches thick. However, the funky thing about it is that it’s designed to run on changes in the ambient air; temperature difference is all it takes.
Apparently, Marc Newson, the designer, wanted the Atmos to reflect the universe in miniature.
Shame the price tag isn’t likewise shrunk – costing from $2,600 and up to a whopping $70,600, I think I’ll stick with my humble little bit of plastic fer now.

It’s always good to check in on ParryGripp.com and see what is new. Loads of fun stuff, but I can’t resist adding the most recent because I love me some nachos.