Kitchen
My Plate-Mate stops mealtime mess
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My Plate-Mate is a unique spill guard that attaches to standard round child or luncheon plates (8"- 9 1/2") and helps to prevent mealtime mess. It can stop food from spilling off the plate on to the table and helps your child scoop his food on to his spoon or fork. My Plate-Mate is made in the US using 100% FDA approved food grade plastic and is PVC and latex-free. It is safe to use in the dishwasher and microwave and comes in pink, white and blue. As it is lightweight, parents may choose to take it to restaurants or friends’ houses, it could prevent those disapproving glares from the Maitre De!
Qubies: a quick and easy way to freeze baby food
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May 8, 2008 Qubies ice-cube tray is unique because it has the divider on the lid. Instead of trying to pour baby goop into a standard ice-cube tray, you simply fill the container, press on the lid and pop it in the freezer. A few hours later you will have a tray of 30 ml (about 1 fl. oz.) cubes of baby food ready for junior’s dinner.
Samsung's unveils largest french door refrigerator
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April 24, 2008 At a volume of 29-cubic-feet and offering a 16% increase in useable space while retaining the same footprint, Samsung is billing its latest French Door Refrigerator as the world's largest.
Thermador electric cooktops with infrared sensor technology
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April 23, 2008 Thermador's latest range includes electric cooktops with sensor technology that uses an infrared beam to continuously monitor the heat from the cookware itself and automatically maintains precise cooking temperature to help save time and effort in the kitchen.
KABOOST child booster: lift junior up to your level
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KABOOST is a child booster with a difference: it raises the height of chairs so your child can sit at the table in a normal kitchen or dining room chair. It is made of heavy duty plastic but weighs just 3.5 lbs so it is easy to carry and with dimensions of 13” x 12” x 6.75” it’s compact too. KABOOST has an adjustable spring system which means it easily adjusts to fit 4-legged chairs and can be attached within seconds. The wide base ensures that the chair is very stable and the rubberized feet are non-slip and won’t scratch Mom’s floor.
HDTV, digital cookbook and digital photo frame kitchen combo
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March 14, 2008 As the popularity of digital photo frames grows, so does the shapes, sizes and specific applications of the products on offer. The latest example comes from Pandigital, which has taken things to a new level with a frame that incorporates HDTV and a digital cookbook for the ultimate kitchen companion.
Kitchen cleaning Readybot Robot Challenge
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Few people rate kitchen cleaning among life’s highlights. To combat our dislike for dirty dishes, a group of veteran Silicon Valley engineers started the Readybot Robot Challenge aimed at constructing a general-purpose mobile robot capable of cleaning the kitchen.
New Band expands the uses for DaysAgo timer
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March 1, 2008 There’s nothing worse than finding a jar in the back of the fridge and testing the contents with your nose only to discover the contents have turned rancid or pouring milk into your morning coffee and seeing it curdle before your eyes. DaysAgo, the digital day counter which attaches to opened food containers and tells you when the contents need to go straight to the trash can, has a new accessory. “The band” is designed to be used on non-metal or odd-shaped containers, allowing you to use the timer on many more items.
Tefal Quick Cup: hot tea in seconds
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February 14, 2008 Increasing awareness of the urgent need to address global carbon emissions is leading to changes in the way we consume energy in our day to day lives. It's a classic "every little bit helps" scenario - from turning off appliances at the power point to using the "eco" function on the washing machine - and following this philosophy, Tefal has introduced a great little energy saver known as the Quick Cup. This device offers a fantastic alternative to traditional kettles that take an average of three minutes to boil (and often heat excess water that isn't utilized) by delivering the exact amount of hot filtered water needed for a cup of tea or coffee in three seconds flat while using only a third of the energy of an ordinary kettle.
Camping in style: Coleman's battery powered blender
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February 11, 2008 For those who love camping but can't bear to be away from their fruit smoothies, Coleman has created a battery powered blender that you can take just about anywhere.
Bloom’s Fresco chair grows with your child
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January 25, 2008 The European design team at Bloom has created the Bloom Fresco contemporary chair that grows with your child. With a funky egg-shape and dazzling colors such as rosy pink and bermuda blue, this chair won’t clash with your existing kitchen décor and you’ll be able to use it for years. The Bloom Fresco starts as a cradle from birth to six months, it then transforms into a high chair and finally becomes a play chair suitable for children from 36 months up to 36 kg/79 lbs.
Transparent toaster concept: pounce when it's perfect
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December 10, 2007 No matter how sophisticated our toasters have become in the last 50 years, they still haven't managed to overcome one simple problem: how do you make sure your toast comes out exactly how you like it? The transparent toaster concept from Inventibles uses heated glass technology to let you watch your slices gradually browning over so you can pull them when they're perfect. Are we looking at the Toaster 2.0 here?
Celebrating 40 years of microwave cookery
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September 20, 2007 After completing a 6 feet (1.8 m) tall, 750 pound (340 kg) prototype in 1947, the Raytheon Corporation introduced the first commercial microwave oven to the world in 1954 and 13 years later Amana brought us the very first domestic bench top microwave. In the 40 years since is inception the microwave has fundamentally changed the way we live, shop and eat.
Brownie baking pan has the edge
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September 4, 2007 True brownie lovers who savor the edges of chocolatey treats will love this new pan from Baker’s Edge. The 9” x 12” x 2” Edge Brownie Pan was designed specifically with “edge-lovers” in mind and is promoted as the only one of its kind.
PalmPeeler tackles last frontier of kitchen chores
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August 11, 2007 Peeling vegetables has to rate right up there with taking out the garbage and cleaning the latrine as one of the least popular household duties and given the vagaries in the way vegetables grow, a cost-effective machine that does it automatically is probably still a few decades away. In the meantime there’s the PalmPeeler - a gold medal winning device at the Business Week IDEA 2007 awards that promises to reduce global misery by just a few percentage points.
Americas most wanted: the self-cleaning garbage can
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August 5, 2007 Inventors and entrepreneurs take note; a new study in the United States has revealed that Americans are craving new technology that would enable them to relinquish more of their household chores. This seem a little obvious, but the catch is finding someone to invent the laundry folding dryer or the self-cleaning garbage can to meet the growing demands on the wish list of time-poor consumers.
Carbon Fiber heating technology for portable warming oven
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May 22, 2007 This is a technology with a wide range of application beyond its most obvious function of keeping food warm. Methode Development has developed a lightweight and portable food-warming storage solution that uses its own carbon fiber heating technology to maintain a consistent temperature indefinitely. This food-warming storage product is available in a convenient size for holding catering pans, and is powered through a standard vehicle cigarette lighter plug, facilitating use in food delivery or catering situations. Standard AC/DC wall plug accessories are available for use in restaurants and in-store environments.
Melitta Smart Mill & Brew – the Intelligent Coffee Pot
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November 17, 2006 Now here’s a must have for any self-respecting, caffeine-powered technophile – a coffee maker with real-time weather forecast information and the ability to brew a cup of coffee from either whole beans or ground coffee. The US$200 Melitta Smart Mill & Brew with MSN Direct incorporates Microsoft's Smart Personal Objects Technology (SPOT) and automatically detects current weather conditions, the day's forecast, probability for precipitation, and sunrise and sunset times, without the need for outdoor sensors, through MSN Direct.
The combination wine cabinet and refrigerator
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October 20, 2006 Liebherr is well known for its high quality wine cabinets and also makes a range of superb refrigerators so it was only a matter of time before someone got the bright idea for combining them. If you’re a regular wine drinker, it’s heaven sent as the wine cabinet holds 32 bottles and has two zones for storing and/or serving wine at the exact temperature desired, ranging from +41°F (+5°C) to +64°F (+18°C). In all, the SBS 24I5 unit has five different climate zones and ensures everything is kept as it should be. As such, we figure it qualifies as a new and innovative appliance that allows you to store all food and drink under perfect conditions.
Daysago – for tracking how long a jar has been open
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October 19, 2006 When something makes the pages of i4u, Kitchen Contraptions, Gizmodo and Shiny Shiny in the same fortnight, it’s obviously got something going for it – and it has. It’s a small timer which keeps track of how long a jar has been open so you know when to throw it in the trash without having to stick your nose into an olfactory minefield. DaysAgo counters have a simple LCD display and can attach with either a magnet or suction cup and although it’s a ripper device, we can’t help but feel that at US$12, it’s a bit exey to be used in a large household – doing a rough count of open jars in our household, we’d need US$250 worth of daysagos.
The kitchen timer/clock for serious multi-taskers
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October 12, 2006 Like it or not, no matter how much you try to avoid it, there are some things that run to a very strict schedule. It might be the personal trainer every Tuesday morning at 6am when on all other days you can sleep to 7.30am, or it might be that the exquisite meal you wish to prepare needs military precision in coinciding the readiness of the hollandaise sauce with the Chateaubriand. American Innovative is a company which specialises in creating “products that make sense” – interestingly it’s key successes so far have been related to solving timing issues. The company's first offering, the Neverlate 7-day Alarm Clock is a bedside clock radio designed with a variable schedule in mind and the company’s latest product is a kitchen timer for the serious home chef, the avid entertainer and the modern multi-tasker. The Chef's Quad-Timer provides four countdown timers with indicators arranged to look like a 4-burner cooktop -- what's on the stove and what's being timed are intuitively linked - green lamps indicate which burners are still cooking, red lamps are done. Though both products are available in some countries other than the U.S., the company is seeking international distributors.
Microwave In-A-Drawer enables new possibilities in Kitchen Design
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September 26, 2007 The Millennia 30” Microwave In-A-Drawer promises to remove the design limitations that have forced the conspicuous placement of the microwave oven in the kitchen. It’s unconventional configuration allows for installation almost anywhere in the kitchen yet be easily accessible and unobtrusive. As it can be installed at waist height or lower, it is perfect for under-the-counter installations, in islands and open-plan kitchens. It’s a similar concept as the Liftmatic space-saving oven with an elevator and the door on the bottom, though it solves different problems.
The Asahi Refrigerator Robot holds and pours six cans
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September 12, 2006 It might seem a trivial and highly specialised application for a robot, but the task of getting another beer that seems to be one that is ideally suited to a robotic servant and that’s exactly what the Asahi Refrigerator Robot does. The little fellow holds and chills six 350 ml cans and at the touch of a button will dispense a can, rip the top off and pour a perfect beer every time. Japan’s Asahi Breweries held a special promotion earlier this year and gave away 5,000 robots via a lottery for participants who had collected 36 seals from special Asahi beer cans. There’s no sign of the robot hitting the market just yet, but there is a video which shows the little tyke doing its stuff. We suspect a 12 can version will be required for foreign markets. Via Gizmodo
The WinePod micro winery kitchen appliance
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September 5, 2006 Man has been making wine for more than 10,000 years but never has it been this easy. The WinePod is a new domestic device for artisan winemaking – a US$2000 micro winery just being readied for launch and seeking international distributors and we see this as a winner because it is just sooooo sophisticated. The insulated, self-cleaning, fully computerised, three foot tall, metallic urn-shaped appliance includes everything required to make 75 litres of the wine of your choice and is above all, easy to use. It wirelessly connects to your PC/Mac, which monitors Brix, pH and temperature to keep things happening exactly as they should and the WineCoach software mentors you through the wine-making process to obtain the best results for the particular variety of grapes you choose. Wine Coach enables you to collaborate with professional winemakers who are dedicated to the different wine types so you can learn the fine art of winemaking from your own personal consulting enologist. The software also enables you to compare notes and interact with fellow wine enthusiasts using the system and it can all be self-contained in an apartment or in a cupboard with the obvious rewards that the final product will bring. The waiting list already runs to April 2007 but a few orders might prompt an increase in production and we’re very bullish about the prospects for this baby.
New machine provides power, water and refrigeration
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August 6, 2006 When disasters happen, be they natural (hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes etc) or man-made (war), three essentials top the list of must-haves: water, electricity and refrigeration. Now two University of Florida engineers have created a single unit that can provide all three. With further development, it is expected that the unit will be made compact enough to fit onto a large truck. The system marries a gas turbine power plant to a heat-operated refrigeration system. The refrigeration makes the gas turbine more efficient, while also producing cool air and potable water. The turbine can run on conventional fossil fuels, biomass-produced fuels or hydrogen.
The Messermeister Magnablock Pro
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June 6, 2006 One thing that all fine culinary artists have in common is a love of their knife collection. The knife is the primary tool of food preparation and a fine knife collection is sure sign of someone who takes pride in what comes out of their kitchen, be it a professional pastime or otherwise. The Messermeister Magnablock Pro will probably find its way into the homes of many master chefs as it’s the best way yet that we’ve seen to artistically showcase cutlery. While traditional, bulky knife blocks store knives in slots, the Magnablock Pro securely holds knives on its exterior in a beautiful fan-like shape. Cooks can easily identify each knife for the specific task at hand. Shaped at 90 degrees, the inside of the solid beech wood block consists of strong magnets that securely hold up to 10 knives, with five on each side.
The folding cutting board
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February 16, 2006 Living proof that you don’t need a 2GHz processor and fuzzy logic to have a gadget that makes life easier is this folding cutting board from the MomaStore. The outer portions of the cutting board fold upward so you can ensure the food you’ve lovingly chopped all goes into the pan. The polypropylene board is designed such that the integral hinges snap between being locked flat for cutting and locked into a chute for pouring while a patented cross hinge manages the lockout and snap action.
The AeroPress Coffee Machine: a new concept in an ancient art
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January 16, 2006 There’s always a better way – ALWAYS! Humans have been consuming coffee for 1200 years, the first coffee shops opened 500 years ago and coffee is the world’s second largest traded commodity, behind only oil. More than 1.5 billion cups of coffee are consumed every day with the US market for coffee machines at 20 million a year and growing. You’d think we would have already perfected the best way to produce a cup of coffee from coffee beans, but several years of research by Stanford University mechanical engineering lecturer Alan Adler (the inventor of the Aerobie flying disk which holds the world throwing record of more than a quarter mile) appear to have found a better coffee machine. Independent reviews suggest the new Aerobie AeroPress delivers the smoothest, richest, purest and fastest cup of coffee (under 30 seconds) you’re likely to find and the bonus is that the AeroPress costs just US$30. And while it might look like a French Press because both use immersion and pressure, it works quite differently.
Refrigerator with the lot - Maytag Ice2O
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January 13, 2006 There’s not much more you can expect of a refrigerator than this. It’s Maytag’s newest and top-of-the-range refrigerator, the Ice2O French Door Bottom-Freezer with an external ice and water dispenser. The Ice2O combines the best features of a side-by-side and bottom-freezer refrigerator in one design, along with the largest-available fresh food capacity.
The Kitchen of the Future
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January 12, 2006 You are at the office and decide to invite friends over for dinner that night. What's for dinner? Just pick up the phone and call home. Your kitchen can give you a heads up on what foods you have in the refrigerator and pantry, suggest menus that use some of those foods, and once you've selected the menu, it will supply a grocery list for other items you need to pick up. Use the same call to leave a message for your spouse to put some wine in the refrigerator to chill. Sound impossible? When the brightest minds at the Industrial Design Operation of GE Consumer & Industrial were asked to design the Kitchen of the Future - that is how they imagined it. For a demonstration of GE's Kitchen of the Future, see this WMV movie, and for a video explanation, click here.
Tassimo's new micro coffee brewing architecture
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September 5, 2005 There is ALWAYS a better way, no matter what the endeavour and it seems the capsule-based single cup brewer market comprised of Nespresso, Senseo, Illy's
E.S.E Espresso pods, the Keurig system at al, is in for a further shake-up. The pod system offers convenience, cleanliness and in a world starved of the one commodity you can never get enough of (time), a semi-automated micro system providing top quality makes infinite sense, particularly when it comes to delivering one of the world's most loved commodities. Coffee is the world’s second largest traded commodity, second only to petroleum – 1.5 billion cups of coffee are consumed every day in the world, more than half the U.S. adult population drinks coffee daily and they average 3.5 cups a day. Coffee makers constitute the largest segment in the small kitchen appliance category with over 19 million coffee makers sold every year in the U.S. But now, there’s a new system that uses a microprocessor that makes intelligent decisions for you and refines the science of coffee making enough to give it a competitive edge – using barcode scanning. The Tassimo system has two key components: the Tassimo brewing machine and proprietary Tassimo discs (T-DISCS). Through Tassimo's smart technology, developed and designed by Kraft Foods, the machine's microprocessor reads the bar code printed on the T-DISC label after it is inserted into the machine and automatically calculates the correct water quantity, brewing time and temperature to prepare the perfect beverage.
LG's jewel-encrusted refrigerator
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August 19, 2005 There’s something distinctly nouveau riche about the new limited edition jewel encrusted DIOS refrigerator from LG. Aimed at the Taiwanese market, the R-U719GWN three door refrigerator has all the usual LG high tech domestic wizardry such as an ice-maker and LCD panel, but comes with an extra helping of bling in that it has several inlays of Swarovski crystals – 4900 of them. What we can’t quite understand is why it’s so cheap - KRW 3,990,000.00 – approximately US$3900. Perhaps there’s a discount for being so over the top.
The intelligent coffee drinker's mug
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August 17, 2005 Have you ever wondered what possesses human beings to heat liquids to boiling point and then systematically pour them on the second-most-sensitive area of their body? It’s what Jolex, the inventors of the Brugo travel mug calls the “perfect temperature zone” for drinking coffee, soup, tea – the most common liquids we use in a travel mug – and it’s estimated to be between 150 degrees and 170 degrees Fahrenheit (65-75 degrees Celsius). It’s the point at which the aroma and flavour are greatest, but it’s an elusive zone and one that heated liquids are only in for a short time. By using a simple “tip and sip” motion, BRUGO transfers sip-sized amounts (one fluid ounce) of the hot beverage to the temperature control chamber, where it immediately reaches this “perfect temperature zone.” Only the liquid in the chamber is cooled and only this liquid exits the sip opening. A seal keeps the remaining coffee at its hottest and most aromatic. This inventive system eliminates the need for coffee drinkers to blow on their beverage, add ice to it, or wait for it to cool. Instead, they have immediate access to their hot beverage, and they can enjoy it longer at its peak freshness and flavour.
Nespresso’s compact coffee-made-simple System
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August 15, 2005 One of the greatest challenges in life is to create a coffee at home which is as good as the best coffee you can buy in your favourite coffee shop. It's a complex equation involving obtaining the right equipment, refining the technique and obtaining the freshest and best quality coffee. There's a definite affinity between computers, high-performance people and coffee - we're not sure what the common elements are but high clock speeds seems to be part of the equation and there are few technology environments where caffeine is not the staple diet. Which sort of accounts for why coffee is one of the largest cost-centres for this humble magazine - all press briefings are over coffee, we have our meetings over coffee, and we drink coffee in our spare time, sometimes so often that the entire staff can levitate by 4pm in the afternoon on a busy day. So the news that Nespresso has unveiled a new compact coffee system was significant for us. Now while Nespresso is clearly related to Nescafe, the concept behind it is at the other end of the connoisseur scale, as we have previously explained. Indeed, Nespresso is so focused on nurturing the brand’s upmarket pedigree, it has opened dozens of coffee boutiques in the world’s cultural centres selling just Nespresso-produced coffee.
Four door convertible fridge
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May 11, 2005 Samsung has unveiled a four-door convertible refrigerator with four zones, each with adjustable temperature settings to allow customised food storage. The four zones each have independent temperature control and can hence be configured to specific needs as needs change, offering unprecedented flexibility for food storage. For example, consumers can convert refrigerator space to freezer space to prepare for holiday entertaining, then they can increase their refrigerator capacity to store the leftovers when the party is over.
