By David Ponce

You might argue that going out into the wild and being outdoorsy involves leaving your electronics behind. You know, get away from it all and all that. But lets face it, that won’t happen. And if you’re away from the grid for a prolonged period of time, you’re gonna want to do something about getting those gadgets charged up. The PowerPot is a special cooking pot that contains thermoelectric materials. This means that it will generate electricity as you’re heating up your dinner. There are two versions, which generate 5W and 10W of energy.

The Regulator Cord on both models has a high-temperature connector which plugs into the backside of the PowerPot, and three feet of flame-resistant cabling leading to the USB plug. This makes the PowerPot usable on open wood fires in addition to stoves

The basic PowerPot V, which contains 1.4 litres of liquid and generates 5W starts out at $125 while the larger 1.9 litre PowerPot X generates 10W and goes for $200. They’re currently projects on Kickstarter and if they reach their goal, they should ship in June.

[ Project Page ]

By David Ponce

Storing wine is of course best done horizontally, and that’s why wine racks exist; something to do with keeping the cork moist and such. But wine racks usually come in set sizes, accommodating a particular number of bottles and that’s it. They’re not infinitely expandable, like the above Winehive. It’s a really clever product that uses only one aluminum part, which slots into the others to form a hexagonal structure into which you can store as many bottles as you’re willing to purchase parts. They’re sold as “packs” of 12 slats (for a lack of a better word), with one pack being able to store 5 bottles. 2 packs (24 slats) can store 9 or 10 bottles, depending on your chosen configuration. And it goes up from there.

Right now on Kickstarter (and fully funded) a pack goes for $45, two for $85 and four for $165. Like most things, the more you buy the cheaper each pack gets, with an investor option of 170 packs going for $5,000 or roughly $35 per pack.

It’s a clever design, one that happens to look quite snazzy as well.

[ Product Page ] VIA [ Uncrate ]

By David Ponce

Lucid dreaming is the bee’s knees, and the Remee mask can help you make it possible. If you don’t know, these terms refers to the ability to become aware that you’re dreaming and to take control of what’s happening. Imagine the possibilities: riding a unicorn into the sunset, or chatting with Eitnstein only to discover he can’t give you any answers because you don’t gain knowledge magically through dreams… Anything is possible. But doing this is extremely hard. There are a bunch of tips and tricks online to help you become aware that you’re in a dream and subsequently controlling it, but they can only take you so far. The Remee mask adds some physical help. It contains an accelerometer and six red LEDs. When the mask has detected, through your movements, that you are in one of the later stages of REM sleep (where dreams often occur), it will flash a pattern repetitively. Inception-style, the lights will then “bleed” into your dream, giving you a visual cue that you are in fact asleep. With a bit of practice, you might learn to recognize these lights and consciously remain asleep and dreaming, all the while taking control of the action.

We’re not sure how well this works, but the principle sounds promising. A lot of people agree as the company has surpassed its Kickstarter funding goal of $35,000 quite handsomely ($86k+ at writing). For $80 you can have your own Remee, which is expected to ship in early July. Buy it now though, as the price will go up to $95 later on and there may be a longer wait as the company works through fulfilling the Kickstarter round of orders.

[ Product Page ] VIA [ CNet News ]

By David Ponce

So, doing the FaceTime thing is not fun. At least, not for us basement and darkness dwellers, seldom exposed to the light that might make us more presentable to a remote audience. But as it turns out many of you do enjoy it and would probably benefit from the purchase of this here Galileo iPhone dock. It secures your phone in place and lets you rotate 360 degrees (and up and down) from a remote iOS device. It’s as simple and intuitive as swiping your finger; the camera is able to rotate through 200 degrees a second so it should be able to keep up with even the most elusive target. Also the company is in talk with third party developers who will be able to access its SDK and code applications for the Galileo. Time-lapse and panoramic photography have been discussed.

It’s available for pre-order from the fully funded Kickstarter project for $85 right now. It’s going to go up to $129 after that. Delivery? Sometime in June of this year.

[ Product Page ] VIA [ Technabob ]

By David Ponce

It seems to be a good time to try and pick up the guitar. After games like Guitar Hero eventually died down, we’re seeing a new wave of applications meant to get you to play an actual instrument, as opposed to a plastic controller. First Rocksmith came out and quite frankly did a pretty awesome job. But you’re limited to playing on your console, with the amps and pedals as virtual on-screen options. The Tabber system being developed here is pretty different. It’s a sleeve with 13 LED light strips (wedged in between the first 12 frets and open notes), which “are all connected to an Arduino Uno processor. Power is supplied through a rechargeable lithium-ion battery. The kit will utilize Bluetooth technology to control all of the lights from your mobile device. You will have an application that you can download to select through songs, chords, scales, light patterns, and lessons, and that’s just the start.” Sure, it won’t teach you proper finger positioning technique, but it’s a start. It’s supposedly very low profile and does not affect sound performance at all.

It looks like a potentially promising system, but it’s a Kickstarter project at the moment. This means that if it doesn’t reach its $45k goal, it’s a no-go for the Tabber. It’s $150 on pre-order, so get yours now if this rocks your boat.

Get it? Rocks… No?

Ok.

[ Kickstarter Tabber Project ]

By David Ponce

Alright, so we’re still trying to get our heads properly wrapped around Instaprint. It’s supposed to be an inkless printer (relying on ZINK technology instead) that works with Instagram, the photo application popular with all the hipsters. Simply tag your picture with a predetermined hash, and the machine will print it. The idea would be to have this setup at, say, a party. And then people who take pictures with Instagram and tag them appropriately will be able to simply walk up to the Instaprint machine and collect their pics, Polaroid-style. It’s even possible to set it up to work without a hashtag; a predetermined set of GPS coordinates gives everyone within a certain area access to the printer.

It’s a neat idea, but we have a few questions. Who is this for? Obviously, you could end up having to print an enormous amount of pictures, so whoever owns this has to be prepared to pick up the tab. Other than venues like bars or clubs, who will buy this? Which brings us to the other question, that of funding. Currently on Kickstarter, the project needs to raise $500,000 to get off the ground. At $400 a pop, that’s a lot of printers. As of this writing, 53 have been pre-sold and the project is up to roughly $40k. It’s not bad, but it’s a far cry from the half million they need. We really would like to see them succeed and wish them well, but we’re just not sure there’s a market there…

[ Project Page ]

By David Ponce

Having a bike light is always a good idea, lest you meet a much larger vehicle at night for a decidedly unpleasant collision. Now, there are those lights that require batteries to operate. And there are those that use contact dynamos to power the light. But the Magnic Light, currently on Kickstarter, does away with contact altogether. And it doesn’t require you to install magnets along the rim (which produces inconsistent light):

Magnic Light works with all kinds of metallic rims (normally aluminum, steel or magnesium). While aluminium and magnesium are not magnetic (but paramagnetic) they are conductive. Relative movements of magnets and neighboured conductive material induce eddy currents in the conductive material – in our case the metallic rim. These eddy currents have their own magnetic fields (see Wikipedia) which are absorbed by the Magnic Light generator kernel and by this way produce electric energy. Although there is no friction the absorption of magnetic fields has a minimal braking effect, so we don’t get energy for free. Magnic Light contains the most efficient LEDs currently available (CREE XM-L T6) to get maximal light from minimal energy.

So, it looks pretty nice, doesn’t touch your bike and lights up your path. What’s not to like? Well, the price for one. The back light is $85 while the front is $130. And… well that’s it really. Maybe if the little bit of innovation were seeing here is your thing, hit the link and pledge away.

[ Product Page ]

By David Ponce

Cycling in an urban environment, it’s not a bad idea to see where you’re going. Lights help but these tend to get stolen quite a bit. That’s why we like the The Defender bike light by Gotham Bicycle Defense. Not only does it look somewhat badass shaped like a gun’s barrel revolver’s cylinder (the reason for the design? “As you know, city biking can be a battle. We captured the struggle of the urban cyclist in our design” says the company) but it’s also pretty darn hard to take off your bike. It’s secured in place with a “security screwdriver”, which you can’t find in a hardware store. It’s the sort of tool an opportunistic thief is unlikely to have on them, making them much more likely to move on to the next target.

The solid aluminum Defender light is also water resistant and waterproof up to 1ft.: heavy downpours will not damage it. Even removing the 3 required AAA batteries requires a small Allen key. The 6 bright LEDs will sip these batteries at a rate that should give you 100 hours before needing a change.

$50 will get you one (down from the expected $70 retail price) and in usual Kickstarter fashion you get more perks with more money down.

[ Product Page ]

By David Ponce

Waking up is one of the hardest things to do and surely countless jobs have been lost after an unfortunate morning snoozing session. There are many alarms on the market that try to tackle this issue and the Ramos Alarm Clock, currently on Kickstarter, is one of the better ones. It features a clock that stays by your bed and a remote wireless pad. When the alarm goes off, you have to get out of bed and walk to this pad to enter a code. By then, hopefully, you’ll just decide to stay out of bed.

But the features don’t end there. You can preset the number of snoozes you allow yourself in the morning, after which you have to walk to the pad. Also, some people like to make their own snooze by waking up before the alarm goes off and changing the time. The Ramos deals with this by going into a lockdown mode 30 minutes before it’s due, forcing you to get out of bed anyway. There’s also a Courtesy Mode that takes your housemates into consideration: the alarm rings for 10 seconds, then pauses for a minute. This gives you a window of opportunity to get out of bed and disarm the clock, sparing the sleep of others in the house.

The Ramos clock comes in two flavors: a $160 LED teak wood clock or a $350 nixie tube clock, also in teak wood. More expensive options exist for fancier finishes and longer range control panels.

[ The Ramos Alarm Clock ]