Solar power might have just got a lot more convenient. The Window Socket offers a neat way to harness solar energy and use it as a plug socket. So far we have seen solutions that act as a solar battery backup, but none as a direct plug-in.

Simple in design, the plug just attaches to any window and does its job intuitively.

The window plug is designed to be as intuitive as possible, and can be used in an apartment, on a ship or inside a car – or anywhere with access to sunlight. Once charged it can be taken off the window and carried anywhere while in use – including on the move.

Designed by Kyuho Song & Boa Oh, and published at Yanko Design, the plug is potentially an elegant solution to the problem of solar chargers that are either unfriendly or inelegant to use.

The design would place a 1000mAh battery inside the device, enough to charge a mobile phone.

Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be able to power a device requiring a high voltage like a kettle or vacuum cleaner, but could provide a nice solution for mobile gadgets or less power-intensive appliances.

Want to live and die on Mars? Mars One has officially begun its worldwide search for astronauts who will fly to Mars in 2023—and never come back.

Mars One has begun accepting video applications for a mission to colonize the red planet in 2023.

The ultimate goal is to select 24 to 40 candidates who will travel to Mars in groups of four. Mars One wants to land the first group (two men and two women, ideally from four different continents, says CEO Bas Lansdorp) on the red planet in 2023, with the other groups following one at a time, every two years. Applications close August 31, 2013.

The nonprofit organization plans to televise the final rounds of the search in 2014, which means the first humans on Mars may be reality TV stars. But first, Mars One is asking the public to rate the application videos to help narrow down the selection pool. According to Norbert Kraft, the chief medical officer and head of the astronaut selection program, aspiring Martians should have five qualities: resilience, adaptability, curiosity, empathy, and creativity.

To filter out spam and frivolous entries, Mars One is charging an application fee that varies by country (it’s $38 in the United States). Applicants must create a 30- to 70-second video that explains why they want to go to Mars, and why they’re the best candidate. The pool will be narrowed to 24 to 40 in 2015.

If you’re one of the (uh, lucky?) people chosen for the program, you’ll move to the United States to spend the next seven years as a full-time, salaried employee of Mars One. Nine months of each year will be spent learning dentistry, emergency medicine, general medicine, engineering, biology, mechanics—anything you might need to know on an inhospitable planet with a population of four.

The other three months of each year will be spent in a Mars habitat mock-up, complete with a 40-minute communication delay to the outside world and simulated emergencies. The hardest thing they’ll face during the simulation? A broken toilet, Lansdorp says. “That’s when people get out of control.”

It will cost $6 billion to get the first group of four to their new home (the reality show is supposed to fund the mission). The company will use SpaceX spacecraft to send rovers and supplies ahead of the astronauts, and then the SpaceX Falcon Heavy will get the crew to Mars, where they will assemble their habitat and begin growing their own food.

Once on the red planet, the crew can do what they want—they won’t be taking orders from Mars One or anyone else back on Earth. “They will make a new civilization,” Kraft says. “They will make their own holidays, their own laws. We need to send mature people, because we won’t be telling them what to do.”

For more info goto Mars One.

LIFESAVER bottle is the world’s first all-in-one ultra-filtration bottle. Containing a filter size of just 15 nanometres, it removes viruses, bacteria and parasites from water without foul tasting chemical treatments or long stand times. LIFESAVER bottle’s built in pressurisation system to give a two litre per minute filtration rate – as fast as you can drink it!

‘Scoop and go” at any flowing or stagnant water source and be absolutely confident that you will be drinking completely safe, sterile water. If you are planning a trip to a region with questionable water quality, purchasing a LIFESAVER bottle will prevent any waterborne illnesses from ruining what could be the experience of a lifetime.

Most other systems use a ceramic cartridge, UV light or salt/electricty to remove pathogens from water. A ceramic filter will filter down to about 200 nanometres which means that smallest bacteria and many viruses can still pass through it. This is why you should always treat the water with chemicals such as iodine to ensure that it is entirely safe.

However, LIFESAVER Bottle filters down to 15 nanometres and as the smallest virus is about 20 nanometers across there is no way that these can pass through the filter.

Therefore you get completely safe and sterile water instantly and without the need for foul tasting poisonous chemicals. You also don’t need to carry a supply of batteries, salt or iodine with you.

Imagine how perfect this would be at a tech conference, or in an IT company’s waiting area? I think it’s a lot of fun. The design pokes fun at the idea of falling asleep at your computer on your keyboard. The sofa folds down into a flat bed and the adjustable surface is controlled using tiny motors.

Arms folded and cheek pressed on the keys. Sooner or later, at home or at work, we all end up by falling asleep on our computer’s keyboard. Turning the archetypal image of a keyboard, into a sofa bed, QWERTY is proposed to hold you on its soft “keys” on evenings while working in the office or at home on a rainy afternoons spentwatching the home video, bringing a pinch of irony in our daily life.

Anyway QWERTY is much more than a sofa bed. Thanks to micro electric motors controlled by a remote control, every single key/cushion is adjustable in height to give total freedom to the full available surface. In this way, the furniture becomes a playful carpet, a comfortable support but an unconventional surface, to let the users to be able to design new configurations useful for everyday life, and to be happy to finally sleep on their keyboard.

www.zo-loft.com

During the first meal of the day it’s quite commonplace to read a newspaper (or a smartphone) with breakfast. Chewing doesn’t require our full attention, after all, and all sorts of things were happening while we slept. But is there a more elegant way to combine our news and breakfast than dual wielding?

The Image Toaster is a project by Scott van Haastrecht that combines your news with your breakfast. It’s a Wi-Fi-connected appliance that scours the web for a popular photo of the day, then burns this image into your bread.

Now, that image is rendered fairly low resolution. A filter converts complex pictures into a small grid of black and white pixels. These binary commands fire off to the toaster itself, which uses servos to adjust a correlating grid of burners into on/off positions.

So in its current form, the Image Toaster is more of an art project than a feasible alternative for news consumption.

Even still, the toaster is a fascinating case study on how to inject more information into the natural world around us. In this clip, we see the simplest of variations: a heart, conveying Valentine’s Day. But there’s no reason why something similar couldn’t, maybe upon measuring your blood sugar, print Xs and Os on the pieces you should or shouldn’t eat.

More abstract data possibilities might work even better–like a general density map might signal how many @ tweets came your way in the night, or which parts of your day will be loaded with meetings.

The possibilities are endless, so please don’t admit, just yet, that most of us would probably settle for a crispy print of the latest Garfield.

This is the expandable Capstan Table from the UK furniture maker Fletcher and it will make you question if magic is real. The round tables come in four standard sizes, and expand by simply rotating the top 180 degrees manually or electronically by remote.

Why We Love It: This is one of the most innovative tables we’ve ever seen. The Fletcher Capstan Table expands from a standard 6.5- or 10-foot table to one that measures anywhere between 20 to 30 feet across.

UK furniture brand Fletcher was inspired by a similar patent dating back to 1835, and the design features a star shaped leaf at the center with six pie-shaped leaves that expand and fit together seamlessly.

This unique and amazing table is capable of automatically doubling its seating capacity whilst remaining truly circular in the process. Expansion leaves are stored within the table and are self positioning as the table changes from one mode and appearance to an entirely different one. Operation, which can either be manual or electronic, is a sight to behold and extremely quick.

Every component used is of the highest quality and designed to last for generations. Tables are made for domestic or harsh marine situations, the quality and method of construction allowing for external positioning on the deck of a yacht.

Where To Buy: Through the Fletcher website, or email info@dbfletcher.com to order.

Cost: Tables are customizable, and range from $50,000 to $70,000.

Prepare to be amazed, the sensational Rolls-Royce Wraith coupe has been revealed, and it’s the most powerful Rolls ever!

Reviving a name first used by the brand in 1938, this two-door fastback coupe version of the Ghost is the most powerful Rolls-Royce ever and develops 624bhp and 800Nm from its 6.6-litre twin-turbo V12.

That eclipses the Ghost’s 563bhp, while the Wraith also has 20Nm more torque than the saloon, with the staggering 800Nm output available from only 1,500rpm. The result is 0-60mph in 4.4 seconds – that’s three-tenths up on the Ghost.

To make the Wraith more agile than the saloon, the company has also tweaked the suspension, widened the rear track and shortened the wheelbase. Rolls says the new suspension will “discreetly amplify feedback”, while the steering will weight up at high speeds.

The interior of the two-tone car on the Geneva stand looked suitably lavish with Phantom grade leathers and what CEO Torsten Müller-Ötvös described as a luxrious and yacht-like interior. The steering wheel and centre console also feature more controls and switches than we have seen on previous models from the brand.

The Wraith also debuts a new Satellite Aided Transmission system. This uses satellite maps and data to help the eight-speed automatic gearbox predict corners, motorway junctions and roundabouts, and select the most appropriate gear.

Rear-hinged doors open to reveal a Ghost-inspired interior featuring new matt Canadel wood panelling. There’s also the option of Starlight headlining, with 1,340 handwoven fibre optic lights – this is the first time it’s been offered outside the Phantom.

A new voice command system allows drivers to tell the sat-nav where they want to be navigated to, while the new infotainment controller has a smartphone-style pinch to zoom facility. It even lets users draw letters for postcodes.

The Wraith is priced from 245,000 Euros, which should translate to around £220,000 when the first cars are delivered here towards the end of the year.

The Apple iWatch is rumoured to be in some form of production right now – we round up the news and speculation on its specs, features and potential release date

Apple is rumoured to be developing a wrist watch of some description, which would most likely synch up with an iPhone or iPad to give you updates on you’re wrist, allow you to control other devices and pull data from the cloud.

Supposedly a team of ‘about 100 product designers’ are working on the iWatch – including managers, marketers and software and hardware engineers who previously worked on the iPhone and iPad. That’s according to two people ‘familiar with the company’s plans’, which puts them in a remarkably small category.

According to the two in the know, the project is ‘beyond experimentation phase in its development.’

Apple iWatch Features

A further two informers claiming to be au fait with Apple’s various super-plans say it is experimenting with a ‘wristwatch-like device made of curved glass’, operating on iOS. The NYT notes Corning has developed bendable glass last year called Willow Glass which could be used to wrap around something wrist, and cites Forrester’s claim that “Apple’s certainly made a lot of hiring in that area”.

There are also claims Apple is in discussions with Chinese manufacturer Foxconn, which makes a large number of iPhone and iPad parts, about producing an iWatch. Foxconn are apparently working to make more power-efficient displays and stripping down chips, aimed at multiple Foxconn customers. This Wall Street Journal report also claims Apple has hired employees with backgrounds in sensors and related tecehnologies.

Apple iTV, Siri and iCloud

While many have dismissed the idea of a Apple iWatch in the past, some are coming around to the idea in think pieces. The Cult of Mac notes that recently Siri and iCloud has become massively important to Apple – and that these two technologies actually lend themselves very well to a wristwatch strategy. It also points out that it would be particularly well suited as a remote control to any TV that may be being worked on. The Apple iTV is an entire area of speculation in itself, which we’ve collated and summarised for you here.

It has also been pointed out that an iWatch wouldn’t be such a dramatic new area for Apple, since the square iPod Nano with watchstraps can act as, well, pretty much a watch with knobs on. A Blog To Watch also concurs that Siri integration will be key.

Apple iWatch: Flexible/curved screen

Apple iWatch: Battery

There are reams of speculation on precisely what tech the device would have under the hood, which at this point may seem like a rumour bridge too far – but certainly one thing that would seem obvious is some form of better battery performance, since you wouldn’t want to take a watch off and charge it twice a day like can be required for a smartphone. On this point, some have highlighted a patent Apple owns for wireless charging.

Apple iWatch: Design

While early possibilities led us to believe an iWatch would be effectively an iPod Nano on a strap, the latest developments are much more intriguing. According to a patent application unearthed by AppleInsider, Cupertino has been investigating the possibility of a wraparound design similar to the slap bracelets of the early 1990s.

According to the patent, the iWatch could be made of a flexible screen that wraps entirely around the user’s wrist and utilises solar power and kinetic energy to keep the battery topped up.

A couple of interesting mockups have hit the web, but unfortunately there wasn’t much to be gleaned from the handdrawn sketches submitted as part of the patent application.

Source: AppleInsider

The baseball cap. One of the most iconic fashion accessories of the last 50 years. It transcends culture, interests and trends since it was adopted as a fashionable item of clothing away from the sports field.

Introducing Capify – A baseball cap reinvented. Social, connected and built for sharing.

A cap is much more than a functional thing you wear on your head. It is an extension of you and your personality. Now you can take this expression to the next level with a Capify Cap.

Just tap your phone against the hat and you are connected. And its not just for you, your friends can also tap discover your story quickly and easily. Your cap can connect a mobile phone to your social profiles, websites or portfolios, or even your favourite sports team.

Our caps are made from the finest quality material, and by the best manufacturers in the world. We understand that people are really passionate and particular about their caps so we plan to have a range of designs and styles to match anyone’s taste.

Right now we have built our tech into two styles, either a “Fitted” cap or an “Snapback” cap. These two styles are available in either a plain colour option with no logos of branding on them, or you can choose to customise a hat with whatever design you like, you just send us the artwork.

We also customise existing hats that you may own. We integrate our NFC tech into your hat lining so it is seamless and hidden.

Finally we are happy to integrate our tech into any major hat manufacturer hat that you may prefer. So if you want your favourite team’s hat from New Era or Truckfit or Starter we will add our tech to the hat and then mail the hat to you in the post.

You can set your hat up to access any digital touchpoint that you like. Your cap becomes more than a fashion accessory, it becomes a virtual extension of you and your personality.

If you are a photographer or artist you have a new and memorable way of introducing people to your content with a simple tap of their phone.

If you are a musician you can spread the word about your new the song you made yourself or are just loving right now. Seeing the cap working first hand is incredible and unforgettable.

Any one of these ideas can be easily set up for the cap:
Videos on youtube
Your personal instagram feed
Your new song on Spotify
Your website
Facebook / Twitter / linkedin profile

First unveiled back in CES earlier this year, the new Cubify Cube 3D Printer is now available to purchase. Cubify has designed their new Cube 3D Printer to be the lightest, smallest, & most affordable home 3D design system on the market, and offers a number of bundles to get you started 3D printing at home. 

“With the next generation Cube, we are giving consumers the best ever at-home 3D printing experience with more options for more fun.” said Cathy Lewis, CMO 3D Systems, “Our growing selection of 3D Apps, designs and lifestyle accessories on Cubify.com makes 3D printing accessible to everyone and our sustainability and safety enhancements makes 3D printing responsible and enjoyable for the entire family.”

The Cubify Cube 3D Printer is now available to purchase starting at $1299 with plenty of optional extras available to customise your setup.

Source: Cubify

HTC doesn’t have a smartwatch like the Pebble, but it does have the HTC Mini, an NFC-equipped remote control and handset accessory which will be exclusively offered in China alongside the HTC Butterfly.

The svelte handset – resembling an old candybar-style dumbphone – hooks up via Bluetooth to your Butterfly, so HTC suggests, and can be used for making calls without pulling the smartphone out of your pocket, as well as other things.

NFC is used to pair the HTC Mini with the Butterfly – aka the non-US version of the DROID DNA – after which point it works as a remote terminal. In addition to calls, it can show messages on its monochrome display, calendar entries, and call logs.

However, it will also apparently work as a remote control, useful when the Butterfly is plugged in to your TV and used as a media device. Then, the Mini can navigate through menus when the Butterfly is tethered near to the screen via HDMI; it also looks like it can be used to trigger the shutter in the camera app.

Finally, there’s a handy “find my phone” feature which makes the Butterfly ring when you’ve put it down somewhere and can’t locate it. No word on how much the HTC Mini might cost, though we’re hoping the company releases it as an accessory in markets other than China.

As well as unveiling the worlds first wireless Dj Controller in the form of their new Orbit at this weeks NAMM exhibition. Numark have also been showcasing a number of other devices including the new iDJ Live II Controller.

The iDJ Live II Controller has been designed by Numark to provide users with versatile control over a wide variety of computer-based and mobile DJ platforms.

The new Numark iDJ Live II builds on the technology and features included in the first controller, and is equipped with an updated low-profile design and USB connectivity, enabling it to be used with both laptop based and mobile DJ software and platforms.

The iDJ Live II includes a standard layout of DJ controls, including a crossfader, EQ knobs, and capacitive touch-activated platters. But unfortunately no information on pricing or worldwide availability has been released as yet.

Source: Numark

LAS VEGAS — Lego bricks are getting cozy with the iPhone and other Apple devices in the latest incarnation of the Mindstorms robotics kit.

Lego is set to announce Monday that a new, $350 Mindstorms EV3 kit will have the ability to talk to iPhones, iPads and iPod Touches through Bluetooth wireless connections. That means Lego builders can use the devices as remote controls for their robots or create simple programs that are then sent to the robots to control their actions.

Lego said the kit will go on sale in the second half of the year. It was announced as the International CES gadget show begins in Las Vegas this week.

Remote control was already possible with Android smartphones and the most recent Mindstorms kit, the NXT. Apple devices didn’t work because the “brain” of the kit — a juice-box-sized electronic brick — lacked a chip that would identify the Lego gadget to Apple devices.

Also new in the Mindstorms EV3 kit is a “two-eyed” infrared sensor that can pick up signals from a small infrared remote and locate it. In the kit, Lego includes the blueprints for a snake robot that uses its eyes to sense if someone is close to its head, in which case it strikes.

The EV3 will also be the first Mindstorms kit to be available in Chinese, Korean, Spanish and Russian. Previous kits have been in English, Japanese and a few other European languages.

As with earlier kits, the EV3 includes four motors and five different sensors. The new brick is compatible with earlier sensors and motors and is “more hackable than ever,” according to Lego. The first Mindstorms came out in 1998.

Cambridge, UK and Kingston, Canada – January 7, 2013: Watch out tablet lovers: An amazing new flexible paper computer developed at Queen’s University in collaboration with Plastic Logic and Intel Labs will revolutionize the way people work with tablets and computers.

The PaperTab tablet looks and feels just like a sheet of paper. However, it is fully interactive with a flexible, high-resolution 10.7″ plastic display developed by Plastic Logic, a flexible touchscreen, and powered by the second generation Intel® Core i5 processor. Instead of using several apps or windows on a single display, users have ten or more interactive displays or “papertabs”: one per app in use.

Ryan Brotman, research scientist at Intel elaborates “We are actively exploring disruptive user experiences. the ‘PaperTab’ project, developed by the Human Media Lab at Queen’s University and Plastic Logic, demonstrates innovative interactions powered by Intel core processors that could potentially delight tablet users in the future.”

“Using several PaperTabs makes it much easier to work with multiple documents,” says Roel Vertegaal, director of Queen’s University’s Human Media Lab. “Within five to ten years, most computers, from ultra-notebooks to tablets, will look and feel just like these sheets of printed color paper.”

“Plastic Logic’s flexible plastic displays are completely transformational in terms of product interaction. they allow a natural human interaction with electronic paper, being lighter, thinner and more robust compared with today’s standard glass-based displays. this is just one example of the innovative revolutionary design approaches enabled by flexible displays.” explains Indro Mukerjee, CEO of Plastic Logic.

For more info, see http://www.humanmedialab.org/papertab and come see it at CES 2013 in Las Vegas.

Fancy a slightly more portable games console? The first Xbox was the size of a small planet, the PS3 the size of a George Foreman Grill. Surely with some state of the art tech someone out there can make a good portable console? Yes, yes they can. It’s called the GameStick, it’s up on Kickstarter and here’s the blurb:

There are over 1,416,338,245 TVs in the world but less than 1% of them are used to play games! Crazy.

We think that’s because traditional games consoles and content are too expensive. So 12 months ago, we set out to challenge that by making the most affordable, open and portable TV games console ever created. At $79 GameStick offers the most affordable route to playing games on your TV.

Open: The mobile games market thrives on the use of open platforms and we wanted to bring the same ethos to TV. Open, so that more developers can innovate and develop quickly. Open, so that players can access more great games and get better pricing. Open because it’s about time that the walls keeping independent developers out are smashed down. And so, harnessing the Android ecosystem, GameStick is a completely open platform. If you love creating or playing games, you will love GameStick.

Portable: People are always on the go. Traditional consoles are big. We set out to create a big screen games console that was so small you could pop it in your pocket. It’s tiny! So small in fact that GameStick fits inside it’s own controller so you can take all your games with you to any TV you like, anywhere. Simply plug it into the HDMI slot, grab the controller and play away.

Read more on their kickstarter HERE.