Exercise your water clean!

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As part of an architectural festival in Poland, Jakub Szczęsny designed this outdoor exercise area which, when there are a few people using it, will actually purify water. I couldn't find any details on efficiency levels or quantity of water processed, but it's a good idea nonetheless.

Read more at I New Idea or at the project page.

Radio Gaga

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With this radio, you can certainly rock and roll. Well, 'roll' anyway...

As ye may be able to tell from the picture, there are no external controls as we would expect for a radio. Underneath, though, there are tracking wheels running on an 'x/y axes' basis; one for volume and one for tuning in to stations.
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Developed by Il-GuCha, a South Korean, it has been designed with blind people in mind. This way, there's a minimum of fuss and no unnecessary dials. It's not in production yet, but it's only got to be a matter of time, right?
See more of Il-Gu Cha's work HERE.

Pinball wizardry. Yes, it's a pun and it's crap. Just read it, will you?

You know what you don't see in pubs these days that used to have them packed to the gills with people?
Pinball machines.
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The thing was, pinball machines are a toy and don't make money like fruit machines do, so out they went and in came the cash-gobblers.
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Nevertheless, the fact remains - I WANT A PINBALL MACHINE. But they ain't cheap, ye know. Not only that, but there's all these fiddly bits that could go wrong.
Is that a fact? Well, take a look at this baby, the Multipin digital pinball machine. It's all top-end graphics, so no physical parts to destroy. Not only that, you get the opportunity to have 17 tables in one!

Take a look at the video:

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Looks good, but would it ever have the same feel as a table with all the physical gubbins?
Anyhow, if yer still interested, ye can buy one for a mere $6,000 from NanoTech Entertainment.
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Recharging your batteries: going that extra mile.

 

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Rechargeable batteries. They're a good thing, right? I reckon so anyway. I mean, I have an mp3 player which is on quite a bit. However, I decided before buying it that I wanted one where I could change the battery as and when the juice ran out - after all, you hear all these stories about iPods and the like being useless all of a sudden just because the battery died. 

The internal, hard-wired battery.

Sod that.

Naturally, I quite clearly had to invest in a set of rechargeables and a unit similar to the one above. Plug it into the mains and the little blighters soak up that juice like a happy sponge and are ready and raring to go in a few hours. Great stuff. I even went to the trouble of buying a unit with a built-in cut-out system that switches the whole thing off after the batteries have been done to a turn.

The thing is though.... you know those hand-cranked radios you can buy (as invented by the incredible Trevor Baylis)? Well, I was looking at them and wondering, 'surely somebody has come up with a wind-up charging unit?' Because my current unit still has to take juice from somewhere.

And they have.

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Sadly, it's only a power unit, rather than a means by which batteries themselves can be recharged.

So near and yet so far.

But then I found this. I hope you don't suffer from carpal tunnel or some other wrist-related RSI (stop it you mucky buggers, I know what you're thinking...).

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Yes, that IS an AA battery and yes, you do have to do what it says on the tin cover. Essentially, this little beauty is powered by vigorous shaking and works on the basic science of a kinetic motor. Take a look at the picture below for a peek at the internal workings.

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The sharp-eyed among you will have noticed one drawback with this otherwise brilliant design: the battery's capacity for storing energy is reduced by half - the price of installing a kinetic motor half the size of an AA battery inside an AA battery.

Having said that, for those that have the mind to do so, take a couple of these in each hand when you're out jogging and the pumping action should do both you and the batteries a world of good. 

And you know what?  They may last long enough to do the job.

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Thanks to I New Idea for the story.

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