If you can’t stop hitting the snooze button in the morning, then you might want to look in to getting one of these water powered alarm clocks, which was created by Austrian design studio Vera Wiedermann to help wake up chronic snoozers.

The water clock uses a drip system to count down the time until the hammer is released and a loud chime sounds, and the only way to get some more time in the sack is to fill it up with water all over again.

So, unless you figure out how to refill this sucker while sleepwalking, it should get you up and going better than anything with a snooze button. And it’s nice looking too, made out of glass, copper and cord, so it won’t clash with your style or reset itself when the power goes out.

Link

An abandoned way to frighten a frightening animal
by Nan Swift, Improbable Research staff

These drawings tell the purpose and the workings of a machine called a “pop-up device for deterring an attacking animal such as a bear,” invented by Adam Warwick Bell of San Francisco and Anthony Victor Saunders of London. Mr. Bell is a patent attorney and a biochemist. Mr. Saunders is a mountain climber who walked atop Mount Everest (which, let us be clear, does not have bears at its summit) and other mountains, and often returned in reasonably good health.

The drawings are part of Bell and Saunders’s U.S. patent application (#10/634719), which they filed on August 5, 2003, and which, on June 7, 2005, the Patent Office declared to be “abandoned.”

The application includes this summary:

A device carried by the human hiker that comprises a pop-up (preferably inflatable) figure that is large and may be rapidly deployed by the user. The figure is meant to scare away an attacking or aggressive animal such as a bear. The activation of the pop-up figure may be accompanied by noises and/or smells and/or projectiles and/or smoke.The inventors say that their methods “may be applied to many different kinds of animal such as elk, moose, mountain lions, buffalo, hippopotamus, rhino, elephant, boar and other animals that are known to be dangerous to man.”

“The Invention,” they explain, “works on the principle of maximizing the apparent size and ferocity of the human, intimidating the bear (or other animal) and making it retreat from an encounter it fears losing.”

Bell and Saunders see quickness as being important:

The device increases rapidly in size, thereby scaring the animal and deterring the attack upon the user…. Inflation should be very rapid… the figure should be fully inflated within less than 1 minute, or within less than 30 seconds or preferably within less than 10 seconds or most preferably within less than 5 seconds.

Figure 1: Sequence of events showing (a) a hiker hiking (b) a hiker encountering a bear (c) the hiker activating the device of the invention (d) the bear fleeing in terror.” This sparely worded sentence from the patent application barely hints at some of the many alternatives to bells and whistles—both of which are explicitly mentioned, in the document, as being prior, inferior technology—that the inventors envision as enhancements to the basic invention.

Convenience
“The pop-up device may be carried by the hiker in any convenient manner,” say Bell and Saunders:

It may be carried as a self-contained unit that could be placed in a back-pack or side pocket of a knapsack… or carried in the hand… or incorporated into clothing or luggage… [or] incorporated into the hilt of a walking-stick.

The incorporated-into-a-knapsack version, especially, has a James-Bond-ness about it:

[W]hen confronted by a bear, the device could be quickly and easily activated by the hiker by pulling a cord. The figure would inflate and pop up out of the back-pack, presenting the attacking bear with a huge and frightening figure of an opponent, and optionally, concomitantly producing noises and/or smells and/or projectiles and/or smoke….

[The] pop-up figure may be separate from the back- pack or detachable from the backpack and may be left in place, between the human and the bear as the human retreats.

Deterrent Noises
The invention makes use of a noise or noises:

The activation of the device may additionally include a simultaneous noise, such as one or more explosive “bangs,” a fog-horn, or a loud roaring sound or a screaming sound meant to frighten, disorientate or startle the attacking bear…. [F]or example, one may chose a noise that resembled a deep and very loud roar, or an ear-splitting claxon.

Figure 2: The device immediately after deployment.

Deterrent Odors
The invention makes use of biological smells:

[The] deployment of the device may be
accompanied by an odor, such as the odor of a male (or female) bear, or a strong sulphurous or ammoniacal odor. For example, the musky odor of a bear would enhance the credibility of the ruse, and help convince the attacking bear that he is being faced with a very powerful, aggressive and musky opponent.

The inventors suggest an alternate, or perhaps additional, type of odorant, and perhaps using some means to direct its flow in some particular direction:

A gas or liquid-such as a pepper-spray type liquid or an odorous or noxious gas or liquid, could be sprayed at the threatening animal using a container, such as a pressurized container, optionally using an aiming device.

Smoke, Too
The inventors gave thought to smoking the bear. They write:

[T]he deployment of the device may be accompanied by the production of smoke that would confuse, startle or disorientate an aggressive bear or other dangerous animal. Smoke may be produced from a typical “smoke-bomb” type of device, which is a chemical, pyrotechnic composition, which when ignited produces smoke, which may be coloured….

Safety appears to be evermost in Bell and Saunders’s minds, as here when they immediately add:

When using a pyrotechnic-type smoke bomb, it may be desirable to minimize the risk of fire by shielding any heat or fire generating element from the environment….

A few sentences later, the reader is almost forced to envision what seems an elaborate, stylized dance involving three figures, one of whom vanishes stage left, leaving the other two to contemplate their next move:

The smoke-producing device may be combined with [the] pop-up figure that is also detachable and may be left in place, between the human and the bear as the human retreats.

Figure 3: The device can emit noxious smells and sounds, as indicated graphically here.

And Projectiles
Near the end of the patent application, Bell and Saunders also toss in a little something extra to toss out:

Additionally, the deployment of the device may be accompanied by the launching of projectiles. [This] would further confuse, scare, and disorientate the bear. Such projectiles could be launched from a mortar or mortar-type device.

If you want to try building your own version of this device, and to do it using purchased components: there’s at least one inflatable bear head on the market.

_____________________

This article is republished with permission from the May-June 2011 issue of the Annals of Improbable Research. You can download or purchase back issues of the magazine, or subscribe to receive future issues. Or get a subscription for someone as a gift!

Visit their website for more research that makes people LAUGH and then THINK.

The Crovel, short for Crowbar Shovel, is the must have tool for survival in most any situation. It’s a spade, machete, saw, crowbar, hammer, and can also be used as a grappling hook, basically an amazing wonder-tool for extreme conditions. Guaranteed to make surviving the zombie apocalypse a whole lot easier.

Link –via Joystiq

Life has some great slideshows and their collection of weird culinary gadgets is no exception. Take this weird spinning spaghetti fork for example. Can someone tell me why we don’t have one of these in the Neatoshop?

Link

(YouTube Link)

So it never helped anyone open up a hair salon in their home, and it only cuts your hair into one generic style, but the Flowbee is as fun to use as it’s name is to say. Watch this educational video about the proper usage of this marvelous device, then try and resist the urge to buy one of your very own!

-via BestWeekEver

This Italian-made toothpaste squeezer is hand-crafted with chrome plating, non-slip silicone feet, and has an engraved logo. Don’t waste toothpaste. If you use it for 200 years, it will pay for itself! Link -via Boing Boing

ZionEyez, a Seattle startup recently offered to sell you a pair of their Eyez video recording glasses if you made a $150 donation to their KickStarter fund, and wow, did they get a good response. No wonder considering how awesome the promised specs are for Eyez. With their donation drive coming to an end, ZionEyez has raised $343,415 (more than six times their original goal of $55k) from 2106 donors.

Link

Link

A new gadget pen created by researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign creates functional electronic circuits on surfaces such as paper and wood . Using liquid metal ink made of silver nanoparticles that only dries when applied to a surface, the pen is meant to be a fast, easy and portable way to create simple circuits in any shape the user can draw, circuits that could be placed on surfaces of virtually any shape.

Link

Do you want to learn how to send a fun 330 volts of electricity into the back of your friend’s neck? Do you not want to have to deal with the awkwardness of ordering a professional taser for home use? Then this guide on how to create a homemade taser is for you.

Link

Ben Fry created a database of all the hacks in all the episodes of the TV series MacGyver. Click on a dot and it will display the episode, the plot, and how MacGyver managed to do something miraculous with whatever he had at hand. For example, in episode 27, MacGyver was stranded in the wilderness. He put an earpiece from a headset together with a tube and made a working stethoscope (plus three other things in the same show)! Link -via Gorilla Mask

Craig Turner has a problem with neighborhood cats peeing on his property. They spray the house, doors, car, and worst of all, the air conditioning vents. I would just get a dog (which I did), but Turner constructed a homemade defense that involves cameras, motions sensors, and lots of planning. How successful was it? You’ll have to watch the entire video to find out. Warning: urination. -via Metafilter

Photographer Todd McLellen’s latest project involves disassembling machines and appliances, sorting and shooting the parts, and then throwing them all in the air as if the gadget is exploding! At his website (click “new work”) you can see more photographs, and a fast-moving video of the process. Link -via Buzzfeed

Joseph Tame

The iRun features four iPhones on rotatable mounts, an iPad, and Android handset, three mobile Wi Fi routers, a four-in-one atmospheric monitor and a heart monitor – all to record his route round the 26-mile circuit.

A post on Tame’s website states: ‘This technology will allow me to broadcast live video on two cameras (using either skype or FaceTime to a local studio for re-broadcast), send live location/pace/heart rate data via Runkeeperon the iPhone, transmit temperature, COx/humidity/noise levels via a custom-made Android app – and do all of this while looking incredibly cool.’

Watch Tame looking incredibly cool in action at Japan Probe. Link

This project has something for everyone: those who enjoy gadgets, bicycles, graffiti, overthinking, steampunk, art, and/or rainbows! Creator Akay calls it a “complicated technical solution to aide in simple acts of vandalism.” Read more about it at Underwire. Link -via Laughing Squid

From the guys who brought you the Engineer’s Guide to Cats and Christmas Laser Beam Cats, comes instructions for making festive mechanized holiday accessories for your cat. -via Laughing Squid

German designer Christoph Thetard designed a versatile kitchen appliance that uses no electricity, because it’s powered by the chef’s foot! The R2B2 has three attachments: a chopper, blender, and grinder that all connect to a rotary gear powered by a flywheel contained in the cabinet. Bonus -running the machine with your foot also burns calories! Link -via Mother Nature Network

In the bootleg markets of Shanghai, you can purchase an ePad, a iRobot, or an iPhono. You can even get an MP5 player! But I was really impressed by this guitar peripheral for the Wü game console. See these and more in a gallery of good at Classy Hands. Link -Thanks, Lee!

Oh, did you think Morse code was obsolete and had no use in the modern world? Here are six ways the code is still used -although most of these gadgets were designed specifically for geeks who know Morse code to show off their knowledge. I would be impressed! Shown is a Morse code leather arm guard, a steampunk creation by Etsy seller ProfMaelstromme. Link -Thanks, David!

We can always dream up new products that make life easier, no matter how difficult they would be to actually produce. In 1939, Popular Science predicted that we would one day received newspapers printed at home with data transferred by radio broadcasts. That particular invention never came to be, at least in the sense it was envisioned at the time. Why print out the news when you can just read it on your computer screen? This item is one of nine products that were never developed, although some of the end results came to us by other inventions. Link -via Dark Roasted Blend

A Braille PDA, a foot mouse, a breath-controlled device that allows computer users to move a cursor around a screen by blowing into a microphone.

There are several gadgets on the market right now, and more on the horizon, that make it easier for people with disabilities to use computers, and TakePart.com reviews some of their favorites.

You don’t have to be disabled to want the futuristic-looking, LED-lit, ergonomic Gravitonus work station (above), but it was designed for people who are paralyzed. Among its many features is a special attachment that aligns three screens with the user’s best field of vision in any body position. It also has surround-sound and a subwoofer built into the back of the seat so the sound is felt, not just heard.

Photo: Gravitonus.com

Link – via takepart

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Marilyn Terrell.

Considering how much we use technology in our lives, it’s scary just how easily our gadgets can be turned to spy on their owners. Consider the amount of information that passes through your computer or cell phone – the ability to log every keystroke or read every single text message gives someone the knowledge of your ongoings. Of course, these are only the most basic ways of spying, on you, through your technology.

Japanese company KDDI has developed technology for cell phones that uses something called accelerometers to track precise movements, then beams all that info back to a central location. And we’re not throwing the word “precise” around willy-nilly here. These guys can tell if whoever wearing the phone is sweeping versus scrubbing, walking versus running, doing number two in the bathroom versus doing number two in the secretary’s filing cabinet. It’s that sophisticated.

Link – via mentalfloss

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by nmiller.

This time the theme is April Fools’ Day and you will find things like the mildew lunch bag, a cellphone jammer and learn how to make pre-sliced bananas.

Link

YouTube user jeremiahjw has some compelling slow motion videos of stuff blowing up.  Not buildings or robots, although he does compare himself to Michael Bay.  The focus of his spendid ‘splosions is small stuff like the toy cars above, a variety of outdated gadgets, and most eloquently, Mr. Potato Head.  All set to wonderful, happy music.

About the embedded video:

The cars I used were “off brand” cars and Matchbox. The yellow truck was a Hotwheels, the only one to survive un-damaged. Filmed on the Casio EX-F1 at 600fps. One shot is at 1,200fps near the end.

jeremiakjw YouTube channel

An awesome collection of 16 various anti-theft gadgets that will help you keep your personal belongings, food and computer data out of strangers’ and thieves’ hands. Don’t miss the home security paintball turret!

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by talsiach.

Touch screen iPhones and other gadgets are cool, but if you can’t use them with gloves, you might just get way too cold depending on where you live. Fortunately, Instructables has a detailed set of instructions for making your gloves conductive so they can still work with your touch screen devices.

Link Via Craftzine

Pictured on the left is the 1st iPod ever made, it was released in 2001, it boasted an impressive 5GB storage and as you can see the design still looks good to this day.

See it along with other original gadget designs including the 1st ever general MP3 player, the 1st ever laptop and more at Blogbits.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Eavesy.

Everybody knows that Billy Mays is TV pitchman for OxiClean ("powered by the air we breathe!) and Kaboom ("tough on grime, easy on you") ... but wait, there's more! Did you know that the loud, bearded uber-salesman also pitched strange products like the Grater Plater and the Hercules Hook? (There's also the Green Now, a spray paint to paint your dead lawn green, but I couldn't find the video for it.)

In memory of Billy Mays, the king of infomercial, here are 5 of the strangest product he ever pitched:

The Grater Plater

[YouTube Clip]

What do you get when you combine a cheese grater and a plate? The plate that grates, of course, here's The Grater Plater. (The name alone is golden: Grater. Plater. Grater plater. Gotta love it!)

The Gopher

[YouTube Clip]

While my wife likes OxiClean, The Gopher is actually my favorite item Billy Mays had ever pitched (in the words of another late-night infomercial, "I'm not only a blogger, I'm also an infomercial customer!"). It just works well - many years later, I still use mine to grab things too high to reach (saves me from getting the step stool out).

Tool Band-It

[YouTube Clip]

The Tool Band-It is another in Billy May's long line of making a product out of two existing ones. This time, it's magnet + armband, to give you a magnetic arm band. Genius!

The AwesomeAuger

[YouTube Clip]

I distrust a $20 drill, but the idea behind the AwesomeAuger is pretty solid (I have a similar device - the drill bit alone cost me $20. It works well for boring holes in hard ground for small plants). The only thing that works better is The Garden Weasel's Garden Claw.

Hercules Hook

[YouTube Clip]

The Hercules Hook is in a class by itself: here, Billy Mays used his infomercial prowess to sell you a bent pin for hanging stuff on your wall. I myself am a nail-and-hammer kind of guy, but the Hercules Hook does work well (if you don't damage the drywall while you're pushing it in) though I wouldn't use it to hang shelves or anything like that ...

Billy Mays, RIP.

(Don’t miss the Zihotch telephone dial watch!)

Link

Really, do we need this? It seems they are still patent-pending and looking for investors but it shouldn’t be long before wide-eyed male venturists begin pouring their dollars into what could be an ill-fated rather than revolutionary home gadget.

The BraDryer is a patent pending technology dedicated to answering bra drying glitches with intensive care. It aims at drying bras via a female torso-shaped device while ensuring that fabric, wiring and padding remain intact.

Link – via gizmowatch

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Urbanist.

Link

Link via Double Plus Undead