House-Shaped Booklight

Reading in bed is a soothing way to unwind from a long day for many people. With this booklight, you’ll no longer have a need for a bookmark, nor will your book have any dog eared pages. Just place your current book right on top of the light and you have yourself an interesting way to keep track of what page you’re on. The light uses a low energy 11 watt bulb. Which means you can leave your book on the light all night long and the bulb will never get hot enough to damage the book. Just plug the light into the wall and it will give you a soft light to read by.

The dim light would be great to help slow your brain down a little. Unfortunately, right now the light isn’t available through the Firebox US site. That means that unless you’re in the UK you may be out of luck. The price is set at £39.95 and if they come in stock for the US again, they’ll cost you $64.

Source: random-good-light.com

Sense concept plays with your emotion

We often think that machines are cold and unfeeling devices, making their decisions based on logic and logic alone (those who watched Terminator Salvation ought to be able to relate), which is why we rely on our feelings to churn out more human-like devices, as in the case of CD&I Associates with their Sense concept. The Sense concept is a wireless device which is touted to offer a “more emotional connection between users and experiences” using touch and smell. This would mean users will be able to experience haptic, thermal and olfactory sensations whenever they indulge in games, sit through a movie or even shop online, thanks to a tactile hand sheath and flavor-ink printed output. I’m not too sure about the flavor – would you like to taste your own blood in your mouth after getting pummeled to a pulp by your opponent in Street Fighter IV? How about having a go at Left 4 Dead, only to smell bile and other offending scents which might lead your wife to think you’re secretly harboring a skunk at home. Still, this concept ought to be commended as CD&I Associates wants to elevate everyday experiences like shopping, gaming and watching media online to a whole new level thanks to their wireless sensory aid.
The system, with its tactile, heated sheath will be able to stimulate nerve receptors in the hand that in turn recreates the pressure, temperature, roughness, softness, or hardness properties of an object that is currently being viewed. Of course, there is a whole lot of work to be done here since the developers will need to encode the smell, touch and taste variations of multiple subjects being viewed, which is an extremely tedious task to say the least. Half a dozen flavor cartridges will feature in the Sense, where it is capable of mimicking basic flavor types including bitterness, sweetness and saltiness among others. They are also toying with the idea of including seven more wax cartridges with micro emanators to reproduce different types of smell. All in all, the Sense concept looks and sounds like something just for the rich – I would much rather spend my money purchasing an ink cartridge for my printer instead of refilling these flavor and wax cartridges. What about you?

Source: Gizmag.com