Facebook moved to its new headquarters in Menlo Park, California and here are some pics from HQ which caught our eye. We particular like the huge, now iconic Like sign outside the building and the subtle nod to the founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg on a small piece of portrait wall art. Keeping a sense of humour is obviously important especially in the private call area, where a Superman costume proudly hangs.
Source: Time Techland
The Joby Gorillatorch is a hands-free adjustable tripod flashlight. With rubberised legs and magnetised feet, it will attach to anything. It also had ultra-bright LEDs and waterproof enclosure. Available through various online stores including Amazon.
Five years ago it would be too expensive to buy colour sensing consumer products. However with technology advancements things have changed a lot. Huey the Colour Changing Chameleon Lamp from ThinkGeek is affordable ($29.99) and a pretty sophisticated yet fun gadget. Put Huey down on any surface and he will light up and match the surface colour. The science behind it is really down to intelligent LEDs and an optical sensor inside Huey's body that detects the surface colour and then adjusts the LEDs accordingly to match it.
The 'companion device concept' is driving the nexGen consumer electronic products, where devices will merge and in essence will extend the capabilities of smartphones. One of the newest products to be hitting the market will be the ASUS Padfone. The tablet has an opening in the back to dock the smartphone, which then drives the tablet. The tablet comes with extra battery, a collection of ports and of course brings the bring screen to the smartphone. See video.
The new mobile payment device, Square is set to revolutionise how people settle their bills and already has seen high rates of adoption. Created by Jack Dorsey (Twitter Co-Founder) and Jim McKelvey this simple little device makes it easy for anyone to take credit card payments and is designed specifically with the small business in mind. Mr McKelvey, a glass blower and a one time small business owner himself lost potential sales simply because he couldn't take credit card payments. He explained his payment frustrations to Mr Dorsey and together they set to work on inventing this cool little gadget.
Square users register for the free device and once it arrives it simply plugs into the audio jack of an iPhone, iPad or android phone and it is ready to accept credit card payments. The devise does however rely on the internet for functioning, so in poor reception areas this may be a challenge (although they are working on this) and secondly it is only available in the US right now. However if it proves successful in this market there are plans to go global and set to become a standard payment method.
A collaboration between Polaroid and Lady Gaga as Creative Director of their Polaroid Grey Label line has turned out these GL20 high fashion, high tech sunglasses. Wearers upload photos with the built in camera which are then displayed on the LCD screens for others to see. These will become available later this year.
The ability to measure your lifestyle performance and habits may take a new form in the future thanks to new start-up company GreenGoose which lets people set lifestyle goals and automatically track performance using wireless sensor technology. The sensors come in several forms, to suit the activity you wish to track, for example sticker sensors which can be stuck to a water bottle, toothbrush or dental floss and exercise sensors which are credit card size and can easily fit in a wallet. The sensors all report back to an egg-shaped base station, which connects to an ethernet port of a wireless router and by registering your account online you can easily follow your own performance on any activity with a tracked sensor.
The company is at beta testing stage and it is too early to say how the general public will respond however if these sensors are inexpensive, easy-to-use and reliable we can see how these could be appealing to people to track their own lifestyles activities or make sure their kids clean their teeth! We think wireless sensors may become commonplace in a few years time and go through various shapes and forms as tech continues to develop but this is worth following.
Coffee Joulies brings a totally innovative concept, so much so that when this new start-up business launched it's fundraising campaign through Kickstarter for $9,500 it's target was totally surpassed with $235,560 raised to date. Basically Joulies are intelligent thermodynamic, non-toxic materials, shaped as coffee beans that serve two very useful purposes: firstly they cool your hot coffee down, up to 3 times faster than normal by absorbing the heat and secondly they help to keep your coffee warm by releasing this absorbed energy - all pretty clever stuff and they can be used in tea, hot chocolate or any other hot drink too.
An entry in the iF Design contest the T&T spiral ink chamber is very simple but clever. The spiral idea allows for double the normal amount of ink to be stored in a pen and therefore lasts twice as long. Designed by Kim Yeon-soo, Park Byong-gon, Han Chi-hoon and Kim Sung-geun.
The rise of Apple and their iPhone over the last few years has led to a stampede of savvy designers and businesses launching onto the market tons of apps and numerous types of phone accessories. However standing out from the crowd is design team, en&is's Passive Amplifier system. What makes this product so different is the low tech approach taken. This ceramic amplifier relies on no wires, plugs, electricity or headphones just the simple laws of sound. Definitely a cool way to listen to music or hold that conference call.
