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Hands-on with Ambient's Weather Forecasting Umbrella
It may always be sunny in Philadelphia, but the weather can get pretty wild at Engadget HQ in NYC. Sure we could look out the window or watch the morning news to get a bead on the day's weather, but if we didn't employ some extraneous tech in our morning routine, we wouldn't be Engadget. Well were it to be available for purchase, our meteorological gadget of choice would be Ambient Devices' Weather Forecasting Umbrella -- but since it's not, our only chance to live the future came at Monday night's Showstoppers event. As you probably know by now, this umbrella features an LED ring at the base of the handle that lights up if rain is predicted (courtesy of Ambient's nationwide network); when you use it properly and store it handle-up, a quick glance is all it takes to decide whether or not you'll need some protection from Mother Nature later on. Unfortunately for our hands-on experience, it's pretty damn beautiful in Las Vegas this week, so our helpful demonstrator had to cheat and trigger the light manually to give us the full experience. After staring blankly at the ring of light for several minutes, we finally managed to avert our gaze long enough to suggest that the company hook up with the makers of NanoNuno to jack up the functionality even more. Team Ambient told us to stick to blogging and let them worry about product design. Anyway, check out some more shots in the gallery below... Hands-on with Ambient's Weather Forecasting Umbrella
