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Hack Amazon's Dash buttons to do things other than buying stuff
Amazon's Dash buttons are tiny adhesive physical triggers that can order for you, through the magic of WiFi, anything you need to stock up on. But that's not the limits of their power, if you're willing to tinker with them. Ted Benson, (who works at a company that likes to regularly perform such shenanigans with the aid of its web tools), reckons it''ll you take under 10 minutes to repurpose Amazon's physical iteration of Buy It Now. (I think he's underestimating the degree of incompetence this editor possesses, but anyhow.) Benson managed to hack a diaper-ordering Dash button to act as an Internet Of Things-style tracker for how often his (adorable) baby poops. Or how many times he wakes up in a night. The trick lies in the fact that Amazon's buttons aren't constantly connected to WiFi. For the sake of battery life, the buttons only come to life when pushed, meaning the workaround picks up when your button is trying to access the internet, and registers that as a trigger for anything but buying stuff from Amazon.
Amazon launches its own line of household goods, starting with diapers
Amazon already sells diapers and wipes in bulk, but now it's looking to give Prime subscribers an option of its own. The online retailer's new Elements program will do just that, and the first two products it's selling with the so-called transparent origins are the aforementioned baby supplies. Amazon touts its ability to offer a load of info on both of the items ranging from where they were made to a detailed ingredients list. In fact, scanning the package with the outfit's app will serve up all of the info right on your mobile device, right down to the expiration date. Just like the existing diaper and wipe options, you'll be able to opt in to Subscribe and Save automatic refills to save a little coin. On a regular pack of size 3 diapers, Elements pricing is less than comparable quantities from popular all-natural brand Babyganics ($10 for 40 vs. $14 for 31). These two products appear to be just the beginning as the company's aim at "everyday essentials" could likely include cleaning products and more. Of course, we'll need to see what those other offerings are before we nix the weekly trip to Whole Foods.
Super cheap diaper insert alerts parents to dehydration and more
As a new parent, there are some issues that I can't see with the naked eye. Things like dehydration and bacterial infections can go unnoticed in little tykes, but there's a group of engineering students that's are looking to help. A team from University of California, Riverside developed The Diaper Detective: a low-cost insert that employs chemical indicators similar to a home pregnancy test to reveal the aforementioned ailments. Using paraffin wax flow channels, the pad directs collected urine to areas where the indicator material resides. While the dehydration tests were quite successful (around 100%), bacterial infection trials suffered due to outside air exposure. Aiming to reduce infant mortality worldwide, especially in developing countries, the non-invasive method of collection can be made for around 34 cents and passed out easily by relief workers. What's more, the group says it can be adapted for adult use too, adding additional tests for more maladies.
WOWee and MicroVision offer 200-inch viewing and 'booming sound' on your mobile
Despite all the product rivalry at CES, a little romance was inevitable -- and not just in the Engadget trailer. WOWee, purveyor of the ONE portable speaker, has paired up with MicroVision and its dashing PicoP laser projector technology (shown above) to create a "marriage of sight and sound." It looks like the two companies will start out by simply bundling their respective wares, which will be available together in 120 countries from this quarter, rather than rushing to announce a hybrid device straight away. A wise decision, no doubt.
Inhabitat's Week in Green: salad spinners, diapers, and solutions to the Deepwater catastrophe
The Week in Green is a new item from our friends at Inhabitat, recapping the week's most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us. This week renewable energy received a giant jolt forward as Google unveiled plans to invest $40 million in North Dakota wind farms. Solar power is also having a moment in the sun as MIT unveiled the world's first solar cells printed on paper - we can't wait to see a post-it version that we can stick to our walls! Meanwhile a team of Swiss researchers are harnessing rays of light for an entirely different purpose -- they've figured out a way to create rain clouds by shooting laser beams into the sky. With the Deepwater Horizon oil spill still saturating the sea weeks after the leak sprung, we also looked at an array of innovative solutions for cleaning up the catastrophe. The first step to stemming the spill's damage is predicting its spread, which is why scientists are harnessing advanced virtual reality models to aid in cleanup efforts. We also took a look at the BP's first massive oil containment dome, which the company plans to lower 5,000 feet below the sea to plug up the leak. This week we also looked at several ingenious inventions that find incredible new uses for everyday items. Two students at Rice University have transformed a simple salad spinner into a centrifuge that can save lives by diagnosing diseases, and a Japanese company called Super Faith has invented a machine that can transform used adult diapers into an energy source. Finally, we were dazzled by two high-tech garments that harness LEDs to light up the night. Katy Perry recently took to the red carpet wearing a shimmering gown studded with thousands of blinking rainbow lights, and we were impressed by this LED-laden coat that keeps bicyclists safe when they hit the streets at night.
