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Thousands of 'Coolest' Kickstarter backers will only receive $20
Five years later, it's time to put a pin in the saga of "Coolest," the all-in-one entertainment system/cooler that broke crowdfunding records on Kickstarter in 2014. The Oregonian reports that in 2017 the Portland-based company and its founder Ryan Grepper reached a settlement with the Oregon DOJ that included a provision to send just $20 to backers outside the state who never received their promised hardware. In a message that blames the Trump administration's tariffs on products made in China, Coolest has finally admitted the remaining 20,000 or so backers (out of 60,000) will never receive their coolers -- a statement that comes after it was selling off coolers in a "cyber week" sale at prices of just $100 a few days ago.
The best gear for your backyard party
Ah yes, sweet summertime. The few months of the year when your time is best spent outside, and that means time in the backyard, if you're blessed with one. Here's all the gear you need to turn your backyard into an outdoor summertime haven.
Furrion's electric cooler keeps drinks cold for up to a week
Nothing ruins a tailgate faster than lukewarm beers, but with Furrion's Rova electric cooler, that won't be an issue -- even if your party rages for a week.
Honda's cutesy robot cooler keeps drinks within reach
Honda didn't just unveil a slick-looking EV coupe concept at the Tokyo Motor Show. It also had a robot... though it's definitely not the kind of robot you'd expect from the company. Its RoboCas Concept is a super-cute cargo bot that can follow you around while hauling whatever you like in its large, customizable carrying space. Basically, it's an autonomous cooler with giant eyes. Honda imagines people using it to open pop-up curry shops or haul pumpkins home from the farm. We could see this being incredibly helpful if you don't have a car, or if you'd rather not drive just to haul some food and drinks to the park for a picnic. There's just one problem: it's not clear that RoboCas will move past the concept stage.
Oregon authorities are investigating Kickstarter darling Coolest (updated)
When Coolest debuted on Kickstarter back in 2014, it set a funding record. The do-it-all cooler campaing took in $13 million for an outdoor beverage option with blender, Bluetooth speaker, USB charging and more. The company asked its backers for more money back in April, saying that the price it offered during the crowdfunding campaign was too low. What's more, some backers still haven't received their coolers despite the company selling them for a discounted price on Amazon, its own website and other retailers. The Coolest website says that if you hand over $400 for a cooler right now, it will ship in 48 hours.
Kickstarter has a new king: Coolest, an all-in-one cooler
Back when it introduced its first smartwatch, there's no doubt that Pebble took the crowdfunding world by storm. But, more than two years after Pebble broke and set new records on Kickstarter, a cooler is now doing the same. As of today, Coolest is the most successful Kickstarter ever, at least in terms of money pledged on the site. The project has managed to lure in nearly 50,000 backers and collect a little over $10,424,610 so far, shattering Pebble's previous milestone of $10,266,845. Coolest is pretty much a portable party on wheels, complete with a plethora of built-in accessories, including a removable, waterproof Bluetooth speaker, USB charger, cutting board, storage space for plates and, wait for it, a battery-powered, rechargeable blender. In case that wasn't enough, the do-it-all cooler will be LED-lit on the inside, for those times when you're out camping late, and have a bottle opener to boot -- we all know how important the latter feature is. You still have a chance to try to get your own, but hurry because there are only 58 hours to go.
Kickstart this retro Mac cooler, so you can have it before it's cool
The world of Apple-themed drink coolers isn't exactly a bustling industry. In fact, I'm not sure I've actually seen one before today. Nevertheless, this adorably retro Mac-shapped box is called the MaCool and it's begging to hold your cold beverages. The MaCool is the brainchild of Scott Sefan, a Mac fan from Florida who clearly thinks that taking an old Apple desktop to the beach is a fantastic idea. According to its Kickstarter page, the MaCool can hold up to eight cans and ice, though in the product shots, it appears as though a 12-pack would fit without issue. You can currently pre-order via the funding campaign for US$39, though the price will jump to $59 after the "early adopter" pledge slots are filled.
NZXT's Cryo E40 laptop cooler sends a pleasant breeze wherever you like
NZXT is pretty good when it comes to avoiding unnecessary flourishes and providing straight-up PC hardware. Its Cryo E40 laptop cooler is no different, forgoing HDD slots and magic elixirs in favor of two 80mm fans that clasp magnetically to the underside of its steel mesh. These can be plucked off and moved around to suit your lappie's particular hotspots -- so long as you're using a 15-incher or smaller. The E40 rises to 60mm above the surface of your desk, covers an area 420mm wide by 300mm deep, and is powered via a USB cable that can also be shifted to the left or right to suit your ports. The price of all this flexibility? That'd be $28, please, with availability from next month.
The NOFAN CR-95C: a fanless copper CPU cooler for your next-gen build
Interesting times to be shopping around for a processor, but what about a new cooler to go with it? This unassuming little work of art is the copper special edition of the NOFAN CR-95C, which is rated to cool CPUs of up to 100W TDP without the need for a fan. Judging from all the Intel and AMD leaks, that level efficiency ought to have you covered regardless of whether you opt for Ivy Bridge or Trinity -- so long as you don't mind hanging around until June, because FanlessTech reckons we won't see it go on sale any sooner.
Bit-tech's Mod of the Year contest underway: finally, something you're comfortable voting on
Like ponies to little girls, we always have a soft spot for mods here at Engadget. Who could forget Angel OD's liquid-cooled Wii, for example? Or Peter Brands' Frankendesk of a PC, the L3p D3sk? Well, it seems like we're not the only ones whose fancies got tickled by these things, as both made the list of nominees for bit-tech's Mod of the Year 2011 competition. The contest is serving up its biggest field to date with 25 projects. Entries include a PC that doubles as a mini Warhammer Dreadnought and another computer encased in a Star Trek Intrepid Mark II Class starship replica. If your tastes lean more toward the older than old school kind, Jeffrey Stephenson's got one of his wooden mods included in the bunch, as well. Naturally, you can check out the rest of the entries (and cast your votes) at the source below. [Thanks, Antony]
Corsair's Sandy Bridge E-compatible liquid coolers get plumbed in and tested
You'd be crazy to embark on a Sandy Bridge E upgrade without anticipating all the costs involved. Some might argue you'd be crazy, period, but that's only because they're haters. The fact is, if you can drop a grand on an i7-3960X (or $600 for a more sensible i7-3930K), then you can probably find some spare brass for a decent liquid cooler. So, which to get? The crew at HotHardware just reviewed Corsair's LGA2011-compatible H80 and H100 water systems, spiced up with a look at Intel's own RTS2011LC cooler for comparison. They concluded that both Corsairs were a cinch to install and easily surpassed Intel's offering by allowing higher stable overclocks without excessive decibels. However, they also cautioned that the hefty $90-$120 investment in a Corsair or any other high-end liquid cooler won't necessarily yield quieter performance than an air system, because you end up with fans and a water pump chugging away in your rig. See the source link for the full results and then click 'More Coverage' for Bit.tech's review of the H80.
Keepin' it real fake: the iPhone 4 has a fan in China (video)
With competition like the Samsung Galaxy S II showing us just how thin a phone can be, the iPhone 4 isn't quite looking as svelte as it once did. How's an Apple-loving gadget fiend supposed to stay faithful in a time like this? Why, by holding their handset next to something much, much thicker. Enter the "iPhone 4," which actually isn't a phone, rather a powered fan that serves to keep you cool, not connected. As you can see after the break, the Home button won't kick you out of an app, instead kicking that ducted air-mover into high gear, and while you won't find it in your local Apple Store, stumble across one of these plastic bricks in Shenzhen and it'll only cost you $10 or so to take it home. Small price to keep your handset feeling good about itself -- until September, anyway.Update: Jasper wrote in with a link of where you can buy one for yourself, if you're still suffering from a heat wave.[Thanks, Chris]
ORNL energy harvester turns heat waste into electricity, converts hot machines into cool customers
We've heard of turning yesterday's lunch into tomorrow's electricity, but a new energy converter coming out of Oak Ridge National Laboratory harnesses the power of a different type of hot waste. The as-of-yet unnamed thermal waste-heat converter has the potential to cool electronic devices, solar cells, and computers while generating electricity from excess heat. Its creators see the new conversion process being used to reduce the massive amounts of heat generated by petaflop computers. The converter employs up to one thousand tiny cantilevers attached to a one square inch surface (e.g. a computer chip) to produce between one and ten milliwatts of electricity -- admittedly a very small amount of energy. However, it's creators are quick to point out that a slew of these converters could generate enough power to perform small tasks in the heat-generating device -- things like sensing when a server room gets too hot for comfort. Sure it's a small step, but if they can get this stuff to save our future babies from cooking, we're all in. Full PR after the break.
GE's new phase-change based thermal conductor could mean cooler laptops -- literally
It's no secret: if your laptop sits atop your lap for an extended period of time, you're going to get burned -- okay, so maybe not burned, but you're definitely going to feel the heat. Luckily GE has been working (under contract for DARPA) on a new phase-change based thermal conductor that promises to cool electronics twice as well as copper, at one-fourth the weight. The breakthrough means big things for those of us who'd like to make babies one day, but we doubt that's why DARPA's shelling out the big bucks -- the new material functions at 10 times normal gravity, making it a shoo-in for on-board computing systems in jetliners. Using "unique surface engineered coatings" that simultaneously attract and repel water, the new nanotechnology could mean not only lighter, cooler electronics, but also an increase in computing speeds. Goodbye scrotal hyperthermia, hello cool computing! Full PR after the break.
Beer cooler built in the shape of Google's Android... just because (video)
The bounds of Android fandom, will we ever know them? The latest exhibition of one man's love for his mobile OS is this here beverage (we know it's only going to house beer, let's be honest) cooler, which has been lovingly recreated in the form and proportions of the Android logo. Standing somewhere over four feet tall, it's really a fantastically well executed DIY project, and its maker has taken the time to document it on video for us as well. You'll probably find the unfinished droid a little disturbing to see, what with its unpolished skin and rough edges, but maybe that's a fitting metaphor for the constantly evolving operating system anyway. All we know is that the end result is at least as sweet as Gingerbread, if not more so. See it all just past the break. [Thanks, Tony]
Watermelon cooler push cart: perfect for those sultry North Carolina summers
Crazily enough, the device you're staring at above -- jaw solidly on the floor, we're sure -- is real. As in, you can purchase one for you and yours. So far as we can tell, this here watermelon cart (priced at ¥19,950, or a whopping $231) serves to keep your voluptuous fruit cool when being transported from market to mouth, but everything beyond that is lost in translation. What's curious, however, is that this seems like a device created and sold exclusively in Japan. If we had to bet, though, we'd say it was originally dreamed up by a farmer in eastern North Carolina -- you know, the home of watermelon Cook-Out milkshakes, an official watermelon license plate and roads where chop-top school buses are frequently used as watermelon hauling machines.
Researchers develop air conditioning that's 90 percent more efficient, bone chilling
Everybody loves maxing out in the sweet chill of their air conditioning in the hot summer months, but it's inefficient, expensive, and extremely unfriendly to the environment. The good news today, however, is that researchers have developed an air conditioning system that could be up to 90 percent more efficient than standard setups. How so, you ask? The new tech, called DEVap, uses liquid desiccants to make dry air using heat and evaporative coolers take dry air and make cold air, making it far easier to cool already dry climates. Additionally, DEVap uses salt solutions in place of environmentally naughty refrigerants, CFCs, and HCFCs -- the main contributors to global warming. The tech is still in the lab, so until then you'll just have to keep fanning yourself off (or having your friend do that for you).
MIT gurus use polyethylene to suck heat away from your next CPU
Man, MIT is making all of these other places of higher learning look silly. For what seems like the fortieth time this month, scientists at the university have revealed yet another breakthrough that might just change the way we compute in the future. Polyethylene, which is about as common a polymer as they come, could very well become a vital part of the way your next processor is cooled, as MIT boffins have figured out how to cause said polymer to "conduct heat very efficiently in just one direction, unlike metals, which conduct equally well in all directions." If you're still struggling to figure out why this matters, have a listen at this: "this may make the new material especially useful for applications where it is important to draw heat away from an object, such as a computer processor chip." In fact, even Intel is taking notice of the development, though no one's saying outright when exactly this stuff will leave the lab and hit Dell's supply chain. There's no time like the present, guys. [Thanks, Kevin]
Interead expands COOL-ER e-reader line-up, announces additional content
Interead already let out some early word about its COOL-ER 3G e-book reader with a little help from AT&T, but it's now made things doubly official, and also take the opportunity to announce a new WiFi-equipped COOL-ER Connect model. While details on it are still a bit light, the reader will apparently boast a touchscreen of some sort, weigh just 5.8 ounces, and be available sometime this Spring (the COOL-ER 3G will follow in "mid-2010"). What's more, Interead has also now announced a new range of content offerings for its e-book readers, including the Coolermatic application, which will give users access to more than 1,400 newspapers, along with "select websites," and even Twitter feeds (no posting though, it seems). Still nothing in the way of pricing, but we're hoping Interead will have more to say about that once CES fully gets underway.
