People have been talking about all the technology in your house communicating with each other for years but Microsoft’s taken the bull by the horns and done something simple about it.
They’ve teamed up with Californian company Fugoo to create a Windows-based platform which can be plugged into a whole heap of gadgets so that they can all talk to each other. And the result? An alarm clock which can talk to your coffee machine and tell it you’ve woken up and to start brewing your coffee, not only that, it can remind you of your first appointment and calculate how long it will take you to drive to work based on current traffic conditions. Your digital photo frame will also be able to sync up with your PC and display your favourite photos, stocks and shares info or the latest news as you slurp that freshly made coffee. The possibilities are endless. Pretty nifty, hey?
So what does it all cost? The system will be released in the US in June and will set you back a cool $99. The rest of the world will have to wait until 2010.
The guys behind the technology are already working on future uses for the gadget, envisaging “a refrigerator that can generate a weekly shopping list based on staples that have been used up, and then place a delivery order at a local supermarket’s web site. Or a lawn sprinkler that checks the weather forecast for the possibility of rain before turning itself on”. Watch this space!
If there’s one thing in your house that you thought they’d never computerize, would it be a tap? Well, the guys at iHome have decided that a touchscreen tap with face recognition is the future in household gadgetry. I have to admit, this is pretty cool. The SmartFaucet recognises your face and then remembers exactly what water temperature and pressure you like. And if you get bored while you soak? Just use SmartFaucet to catch up on a few emails or find out how your calendar’s shaping up for the weekend.
Reevoo is pleased to announce the winners of this year’s Reevoo Consumer Choice Awards! The winning products were found from over half a million reviews written by confirmed purchasers up to 1st April 2009. There were some surprise winners including the £16 Tesco Value MC-907 Hi-Fi which amazed everyone to take gold in the Hi-Fi category.
Big winners included Sony, who were awarded gold and silver in the television category, and TomTom with a clean sweep in the sat nav category. Nikon took the prize for best digital camera and Canon won gold in the camcorder category. UK-based vacuum cleaner manufacturer Numatic won an impressive silver award for its Hetty vacuum cleaner.
Apple were gold winners the laptop category, but only managed a bronze in the MP3 and iPod category. Perhaps even more surprisingly, the iPhone failed to make the top three in the mobile phone category, with Nokia winning gold and bronze and Samsung taking silver.
Reviewers praise the Canon HF10 for its easy menu system and fantastic optical and digital zoom. Customers loved its light weight, battery life and all-round great usability. “Almost everything is superb on this camcorder, the image is amazing.” “Light, easy to use, great picture quality.”
Reviewers judged the Krups stylish and easy to use and clean and praised its great tasting coffee. “Small and neat which makes it look fabulous in the kitchen…The coffee frother means you get a professional cup of coffee. The coffee itself is fabulous”. “I’m not a gadget person but I love this! The coffee tastes amazing and the aeroccino works a treat.”
Reviewers praised the Nikon for its light sensitivity range, image quality, build quality and speed. Comments included: “The best image quality in digital, equalling that of Hasselblad.” “Focusing is faster and more accurate and battery life is greatly extended.”
Reviewers were particularly impressed with its cutlery tray, how quiet it is and how easy it is to load. “Lots of room and well-laid out. Almost silent when it’s operating. Easy to load and unload. A pleasure to use.” “Easy to load…and with a lot of flexibility as to where to put items with the tray spacers being adjustable…A whole range of cleaning cycles… Economical on water and electricity. Cleaning and drying excellent.”
Reviewers praised the Tesco own-brand hi-fi for its sound quality and incredibly low price: “Bought this for my mum - she didn’t want any extra buttons”. “The sound is brilliant for such a small unit and for the price it really is value for money”.
Reviewers commented positively on the versatility of the winner’s steam function and the length of the flex. Comments included: “Best iron I’ve ever used.” “Irons like a dream.” “Has cut my ironing time in half.”
Reviewers commented on the stay-warm mode, the colourful illuminations and the quietness of the kettle when boiling. Comments included: “Super quiet fast boil.” “Looks great in the evening when lights are low”.
Customers loved how easy the 13 inch Macbook is to use, straight out of the box and lavished compliments on the typically high quality design of the laptop. “Product is simply flawless.” “Apple know how to make a sexy laptop”
Reviewers commented on the winner’s Tardis-like proportions - compact on the outside and surprisingly capacious interior. Comments included: “Able to use a 12 bun tin on shelf or turntable.” “It has a large capacity for roasting a 10lb bird.”
Reviewers regularly described the winner as light, compact, easy to use and complimented it on its good battery life and nice design. “Small and compact. Does everything I need it to in a simple way.” “I love the design of the handset, especially the shape! The sound quality is really good and I love that I can use a memory card up to the size of 2GB.” “Has everything you need e.g. phone, camera, music player and radio and its all good and efficient and very easy to operate.”
Shoppers love the portability and price of this Walkman: “Great picture & sound quality. Awesome value for size & features. Comes with the BEST IN-EAR HEADPHONES I’VE EVER OWNED! Amazing bass response!” “This Mp3 is a well designed item. Its looks are good, it is featherlite in weight and its battery life is excellent at 30 hours. The video play back and screen resolution is fandaby dozy.”
The Stylus Photo R2880 was a clear winner for customers who rated it highly for its high quality printing, easy to use software and great colour reproduction. “The picture quality is fantastic.” “It’s so quiet and smooth.”
Reviewers praised the compactness of the winning model, ease of use and the accuracy of its directions. “The Tom Tom is magic, I haven’t got lost yet.” “Easy to use. Quick to connect and plan or re-plan the route.”
The top TV offers hassle-free high quality images, with perfect marks for ease of use: “Totally stunning! Waited so long for the perfect TV to be made and it’s finally here. Looks the absolute biz even when not on. All in all a very happy customer and proud owner of this stunning set.” “Picture quality is fantastic, the best I have seen on ANY television.”
Reviewers praise the winner’s great suction, its quietness and ease of use: “I’ve owned Dysons, Electrolux’s and Hoovers…this is the best of the lot. Highly recommended for the money!” “Excellent suction, and great for hard floors too. Variable suction means you’re not just blowing the dust around on the wooden floor. With four cats and three kids, I really needed a decent hoover, now I have one!”
Reviewers commented on the winner’s quietness and singled out its internal light and superb cleaning performance as outstanding features. “This washing machine is the best we have ever owned. It is extremely quiet with a good choice of programmes and very easy to use. The express programme is particularly useful - only 30 minutes from start to finish and gives a good result on most types of laundry - very eco-friendly!” “Very quiet. Easy to use with intuitive controls. Lots fo great features like calculating load weight and amount of detergent required.”
Review comments on the winner include: “Fantastically well made.” “A real cook’s cooker. The first thing people say when they walk into my new kitchen is “look at that cooker!”" “Best cooker we looked at from a very extensive list of cookers in our price range.”
A simple and classic design has propelled the Pure ONE to the top of the list: “I bought it as a Christmas gift for my technophobe septuagenarian mum and when testing it with her I was very happy to find that she could easily work it out for herself. It’s to replace her 1950’s ghetto blaster. I actually would like one for myself and really love the design of it - simple tasteful design and decent sound quality for the price.” “Excellent radio - bought for mother-in-law and she loves it. Simple enough to set up (for me!) and operate (for her!!). She says this DAB radio has opened up a whole new world of clarity for her listening choices. Loves it so much, she’s bought another for her cousin. Would highly recommend this item.”
Amazing image quality has shoppers blown away: “This DVD player does everything except the washing up. No matter what I put into the player, it recognizes it, and is simple and very easy to use. A great buy.” “Everything really! Great machine and does all it should and all i want! Great picture on my standard Sony flatscreen TV too.”
A toaster won the miscellaneous kitchen appliances section, narrowly beating a pair of Kenwood food processors. Reviewers praised the stylish design of the toaster, and the flexibility in settings to make the perfect slice of toast. “Simple, practical, stylish and with excellent build quality”
The neat design, easy controls and exceptional performance of the Milele GT 316 ES made it the customer’s choice in the fridges, freezers and fridge-freezers category. This freezer also boasts an A** energy efficiency rating which has made it a favourite in shoppers eyes. “Extremely low energy consumption. Quality of build, ease of use and performance”
How annoying is changing phones and having to get all your contacts onto your new handset? Moving all your contacts onto your phone memory or SIM, taking phones apart, swapping SIMS (if your new handset’s not locked), yadda yadda. It’s got a lot quicker with the use of software and a computer but don’t you just wish it could be instant? Well now, thanks to this little gadget, it is. The Instant Cell Phone Backup just plugs into your old phone and at the touch of a button, all your contacts are stored, ready to be loaded onto your new handset.
Then just plug it into your new handset, use the aforementioned magic button and you’re done. In the words of Aleksandr the meerkat “simples”.
What do you do when your sense of direction is about as accurate as a Fred Goodwin’s in a financial crisis? You buy a pair of these sat nav shoes, that’s what. Now I know I’ve talked about super shoes before but these are pretty cool. Just enter the postcode in your heel and you’re away.
Get directions from the LED DNav Bubble on the front of your left shoe which will point in the direction you need to walk and beep if you’re heading the wrong way. You can also use a Bluetooth headset so that you don’t walk around sounding like that guy out of Police Academy and you will hear instructions like “bear left at the next McDonalds”.
It runs on two rechargeable AA batteries and it’s speakers are waterproof so jumping in puddles is still very much on the cards. And do you remember the robot legs we featured a couple of months ago? These would go perfectly on the end of them for completely effortless travel!
So next time someone tells you to get lost, just pull up your trouser leg, show off your shoes and walk away, content with the notion that getting lost is very much a thing of the past.
Need something to while away the days until the bank holiday? Well look no further than the Feel-Like-Love machine. It’s an interactive shopping list with a naughty twist.
Read reviews from shoppers who have found products that they absolutely Love, find out how they make them Feel and which bits they Like best. But also, what they Hate about poducts.
Get clever and find the hidden functionality and access to the secret vault of saucy reviews.
And best of all, you can embed it all on your own blog or website – even the naughty version…if you can find it. Just click “embed this” in the bottom right and copy the code to your blog or website. Here’s a sneak preview of the embedded versions…
If you have a tiny kitchen and thought that you never be able to fit in the luxury of a dishwasher, think again. The Gota dishwasher is so tiny it can fit on your worktop. And it’s a nice little energy and water-saver too.
It’s been designed by Ibsen Caldas and is made from ABS polycarbonate. The pre-wash steams up all the dishes and then saves the water from the steam process to wash the dishes later on in the cycle. Its internal tank stores enough water for a round of cleaning.
It’s a great gadget for singles or couples without children. They’ll even be really handy for holiday homes. It has enough room for six plates and six glasses so whatever you use it for, it’ll certainly beat washing up! No news about when we might be able to get our hands on one yet but we’ll let you know.
Now here’s a new way to use a phone – with your feet. Aussie inventor, Dr. Paul Gardner-Stephen has created a phone that sits in the heel of one of your shoes. So instead of fumbling around to find your phone in your bag, just slip off your shoe and flip the heel. Dr. Paul is frequently seen around his campus in Flinders University, Adalaide doing just that. And the phone has proved so popular that Dr. Paul is thinking of starting selling them online this year.
As soon as you attach a Bluetooth headset, it’ll be a whole lot more viable and a great place to hide a phone from thieves!
But apart from being a cool accessory, Dr Gardner-Stephen’s thought of how it can be used for the good of humankind. He is confident that his phone in a shoe (I’m sure there’ll be a nice catchy name soon – perhaps a “shone” or a “phoo”?), could be used to monitor patients’ vital stats such as blood pressure and pulse via a bluetooth device which will sit in the other heel. The info can then be automatically sent through to doctors wiithout the patients having to come into hospital.
It will also be used to tell emergency workers when a patient has had a fall by monitoring shocks and orientation changes. The shoe will then automatically call emergency services and put the whole conversation on speakerphone so that the patient can communicate when they’re in trouble.
So why house this genius idea in a shoe?
“Shoes are well accepted by most people, and are simple to put on and take off.”
But that’s not all of it…they’re also ideal for charging the device as “our feet, and therefore our shoes, conduct large forces as we stand and walk, and energy can be harvested to charge the device during ordinary activity.”
So it can all be recharged by walking or even standing still – now that’s my kind of gadget!
Heard about all the 3D TVs ready to rock our world? Well gear yourself up for a new range of 3D appliances – the Panasonic 3D washing machines. Oh yes. Viewing goggles not included. But before you think we’re all going to be sitting watching movies on our washers, it’s not that exciting.
Panasonic have recognised the need for our washing machines to handle their loads in a different way. They say that the machines of today will spin your washing and as a result, it will all stick to the sides of the drum, meaning that your clothes suffer from an inefficient wash. But with this 3D jiggery pokery, it will sense the weight of your load, how fast and hard it falls from the top of the drum to the bottom and then use just the right amount of spin to make sure all your threads get a good dosing of soap on all sides.
And if that wasn’t enough, they’re also super green. One of the machines, the NA-16VX1, operates to the prestigious EU A-20% energy efficiency standard and so uses 20% less energy than an ordinary A-category washer. All of the washers have shorter washes and use less water than the average machine too.
The tilted drum contributes to the water saving and the spin sense magic helps save energy by reducing unnecessary spin.
If you’re loving the concept, check out the Panasonic website for more details. If you’re looking for a more conventional machine, check out the washing machine reviews before you buy.
The GSMA Mobile World Congress took place last week and no doubt you’ve been hearing all about innovative mobile handsets ever since. Here’s a round-up of some of the best phones at MWC.
Sony Ericsson Idou
The Sony Ericsson Idou will seriously impress with its camera when it eventually goes on sale. It will be the World’s first 12 megapixel camera phone! Pretty impressive.
The Idou also packs in quality music and video playback in this sleek handset. It will be available towards the second half of this year with a shiny new name. We’ll keep you posted.
HTC Magic
The HTC Magic is the follow-up to the G1 and the second handset powered by Google’s Android interface. However, this time the handset will be exclusively available through Vodafone, rather than T-Mobile. It comes equipped with a 3.2 megapixel camera, MP3 player, GPS, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and trackball. It’s 3.2” QVGA touchscreen is home to an on-screen keyboard so, unlike the G1, there’s no slide-out QWERTY keyboard, making it a lot slimmer.
How annoying is changing 
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