By David Ponce

Humidifiers are older than the world (not really). And humidifiers are ugly (yes, they are). Why should they be pretty, seeing as they’re essentially just functional devices, meant to stop your throat turning into parchment? Designers Youngduk Song, Sunman Kwon and Sungmin Kim don’t quite see it that way. If something is going to be in your house, why should it not be aesthetically pleasing? And this humidifier certainly is that. It is powered by either a retractable USB cord or a conventional 100V/220V plug, contains half a litter of water and can last up to 13 hours before needing a recharge. We don’t know how much it’s supposed to cost, but there appear to be plans for release in Japan this July.

Hit the jump for more pictures and links.

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By David Ponce

Right up there with other cultural faux-pas like loudly belching at dinner with friends, passing gas in a restaurant and spitting a fat loogie on a first date, is taking your shoes off and inducing nausea in your hosts. Of course cleaning your feet and regularly changing socks goes a long way to preventing that, but if you show up with your running shoes for some reason, there’s a chance they’ve become a microbial condo. A bacterial retirement home, as it were, harbouring microscopic malodorants of various kinds. Take care of things with the shUVee Shoe Deodorizer. It uses the power of ultraviolet light to kill as much as 95% of the eco-system inside your shoes. Just hang ‘em up there for a good hour, and you should be good to go.

For $99, it beats getting a new pair of kicks.

[ Product Page ] VIA [ RedFerret ]

By David Ponce

Since accelerometer chips have become ubiquitous, we are finding them just about everywhere from cellphones to fitness tracking devices (like the Fitbit) and now you can add the Beam Brush to the list. We’re finding the idea behind this one rather interesting. The device will connect to your smartphone via Bluetooth and inform you of when and for how long you brushed. Perhaps the idea is to shame you in having better dental hygiene or to simply help you maintain your already good habits. The associated app will give you rewards for keeping your goals and even generate little graphs with your brushing history. The brush itself is not motorized. And despite it being pictured in awful CG rendering, the Beam Brush should be on the market next month for $50 with replaceable heads at $3 a pop.

[ Product Page ] VIA [ MedGadget ]

By David Ponce

Kids young and old will like the Darth Maul Lightsaber nightlight. Because really, what’s not to like? It glows red when lit and costs $35. And it’s being released (surprise surprise) just in time for the re-release of The Phantom Menace in 3D.

[ Product Page ] VIA [ Nerd Approved ]

By David Ponce

As you may know, a certain day is just around the corner. And while most of us geeks might be spending it “forever alone”, those who aren’t are probably looking for little trinket to buy… Oh who am I kidding? You’re going to pick that stuff up from the gas station on the way home from work, aren’t you? Good on you! If romance is still part of the equation though, here’s the HeartPart. It’s a little plastic heart that breaks apart into two fork-like eating utensils. *Cue cheezy music here* Perfect for sharing a plate of fruit, each one of you holding one half of your heart, staring lovingly into one another’s eyes.

And while I vomit a little over here, you can go buy them for $9 for a 10-pack. They come in 5 colors.

[ Product Page (caution: auto-playing music) ] VIA [ CoolHunting ]

By David Ponce

If you’ve ever strayed into the household section of a bookstore, you might have seen those little zen gardens with the rake and the sand and the claims to inner peace and all that jive. The Zen Table you see above is centered around a similar concepts, but adds a fair bit of technology that simply makes it awesome instead of kitschy. See, it contains special sculpting sand, a robotic arm and a sculpting tip. This enables the device to create stunning images in the sand. What’s best is you decide what these images are. You can load the table with any bitmap and specialized software will convert this into a sculpting file. You’re then free to watch as the magic happens. If you watch the below video, you can see how this could be a crowd pleaser.

By the same token, if you’re buying this, you’re probably going to want to put it in the sort of the establishment that has crowds to begin with as it’s quite pricey. There’s a small-ish desktop version which comes as a kit or pre-assembled. This is $500 or $750 respectively. But the real coffee table… adds a zero to these figures, although it comes assembled in both cases. The $7,499 version might have been a Kickstarter only affair with special perks for early backers. Still, at $5,000, we see this in the waiting area of a fancy restaurant rather than someone’s living room.

[ Product Page ] VIA [ UberGizmo ]

By David Ponce

Having a fireplace in your home is nice and all, but it usually requires quite the commitment, construction-wise. There’s a chimney to be built, for one. And you need to make room for it too. Finally, if you live in an apartment, you can pretty much forget it. Unless of course you get a fireplace that you can hang on the wall, like a painting. The Serafin Liquid Fireplace mounts on a wall and burns an ethanol based fuel that allegedly produces no soot or smoke, so there’s no need for a chimney or flue.

It’s not the first indoors, chimney-less fireplace we’ve seen, but it’s the first time we see one that mounts on a wall. If you’re working on decking out your bachelor pad, there’s very few things that would fit better than a fireplace so the $649 asking price might be considered a wise investment.

[ Product Page ] VIA [ Technabob ]

By David Ponce

These have been around since forever and it doesn’t even look like you can buy them. Why post about them, then? Well, they’re cute as hell and it’s nice to know they exist. Also, I ate a bowl of estrogen this morning instead of my cereals and I’ve been acting funny all day.

Forgiveness is sought.

VIA [ BoingBoing ]

By David Ponce

We’re big fans of simple elegant design, whether its in consumer electronics or mundane everyday household items. Like the good old whisk. There’s nothing wrong with it, really, other than the fact that it takes up a bit of room in storage. So if you can keep things cheap and simple, why not improve on that? The preposterously named “Joseph Joseph Twist™ 2-in-1 Silicone Whisk” lays flat for easy storage, but becomes a regular balloon whisk when you turn the base of its handle. And it’s $10.

Ships in March 2012.

[ Product Page ] VIA [ Gizmodo ]