LATEST NEWS

Like pub style beer? Like Heineken®? Well, that's good, because Krups® and Heineken have teamed up to make Heinekin beer available to you from your own draft beer dispenser, the Beer Tender®. Just in time for St. Patrick's Day, the Beer Tender could add some jolly to your home celebration. read more »

Photo via Pedigree®
There is one social cause that is close to the heart of blogger, Absolutely True: shelter animals. When she heard that the Pedigree® company was no longer sending free food to pet shelters, she decided to do something about it. She is challenging all animal lovers to donate their weight in food through Pedigree, because Pedigree will match the donations to your local shelter. And True will award prizes for making the donations! read more »

Thoughtful Braille identification labels impressed into the tops of Japanese beer cans help both the blind and the visually impaired distinguish between alcoholic and non-alcoholic canned beverages. read more »

Yes, I just wrote about salt and pepper grinders, and I promise to get off the subject, but I just had to share these Fukasawa-designed Salt and Pepper Maracas with you, just for quick look at a beautiful design, but impractical concept. What can you do with these? read more »

New Lunar Rover

The engineers at Johnson Space Center in Houston have designed a new kind of Vehicle. It has no windows, doors or even seats. Then again, it is made to be driven on the moon.Although this isn't something I would expect to see at a car dealship anytime soon, it is still an amazing step in specialized design. read more »

A C$10,000 feasibility study, C$50,000 worth of design and construction on your prototype, and up to C$10,000 liability protection will go to the winner of the second annual Canadian Invention Competition, co-sponsored by Canadian Business Magazine and Nytric, a Canadian innovation engineering and consulting company.

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Pepper & Salt Balls Photos ©Chef'n

I go through two or three salt and pepper grinders a year, a ridiculous number for one who cooks only three or four meals a week. Either the tops break off or the blades get dull, or the turning mechanism fails. Another kitchen tool goes to gadget hell, where nothing is recycled. read more »

The big yellow robot in the picture above has the potential to save at least some innocent animals from being poisoned, and that's a start. The big yeller' is a high-throughput robot capable of testing thousands of cell-based chemical tests at a time, enabling toxicity results in a matter of hours, as opposed to years of animal testing. read more »

The gases you breathe out may provide a mirror of what's going on inside your body. In an effort to detect the minute traces of gases that may point to diseases such as cancer and asthma, researchers have developed a laser for low-cost, highly sensitive breath analysis. read more »

Animal Toy

My recent investigations into the mysteries of the United States Patent Office, well not so mysterious as it is undiscerning and undiscriminating, has unearthed a whole host of opportunistic patents. That is, the patenting of stuff we've all been doing, independent of the patent process, for centuries. And United States patent 6360693 is perhaps the best (worst?) example of this practice. read more »