There comes the time in every young person's life where they decide to graduate from the microwave to the stove. And fail miserably. Now instead of retreating dejectedly back to the kitchen microwave, where the rest of the appliances can point and make fun, you can hide your shame with the iWave Cube. The little microwave measures one cubic foot (about the size of a Kleenex box), and weighs just 12 pounds. Unfortunately, you'll still need to plug it in, so there's a limit to how far you can run. The iWave Cube comes in black, red or silver, and retails for $130.

Yeah, this idea has definitely been around the block a time or two, but Eureka Aerospace is doing a whole lot more than just envisioning yet another concept. Its 200-pound, 5-foot long prototype has recently undergone testing, and reportedly, it's been able to completely and utterly incapacitate any vehicle that dared roll in its path. The device has been used to shut down four whips thus far, each from a distance of 10 to 50-feet, and all it took was a microwave pulse lasting some 50-nanoseconds to do it. According to James Tatoian, the outfit's CEO, a version that weighs just 50-pounds and can disable rebel rides from 600-feet away is only a couple of years from reality, but it's highly doubtful that these will be available to the general public. Depressing, we know.

[Via Slashgear]

Sanyo is already pretty big on induction heating (IH), but the company seems to think it has found an even better way to speed up cook times while still producing food that's (presumably) edible, announcing what it claims to be the "world's first" microwave / IH oven hybrid. Dubbed the Enegreen, the oven doesn't simply offer two ways to cook your food, instead putting both cooking technologies to use simultaneously, with the IH component cooking food from the outside in and the microwave cooking from the inside out. Supposedly, that'll translate to about an 85% reduction in cooking times -- for instance, cooking a hamburger in just under two minutes. As its name suggests, the oven is also aiming to cut more than cooking times, promising a 37% reduction in CO2 emissions compared to other induction ovens. Not surprisingly, all that near-instant satisfaction won't come cheap, with the Enegreen oven set to demand 624,750 Yen (over $5,000) when it's released in Japan this April.

[Via Far East Gizmos]

We're all about giving golf claps where they're due, and a healthy round is certainly in order for Mr. Brian Schulkin. The doctoral student in physics developed a breakthrough terahertz imaging device, dubbed a T-ray, that has already demonstrated its ability to "detect cracks in space shuttle foam, image tumors in breast tissue, and spot counterfeit watermarks on paper currency." The Mini-Z marks the first time such a powerful device has become portable in nature, weighing just five pounds and taking up about as much space as your average laptop. Taking home the first Lemelson-Rensselaer Student Prize ($30,000), Schulkin explained that this device didn't pose the same health risks as typical X-rays, and unlike ultrasound, terahertz waves can provide images and spectroscopic information without contacting an object. As expected, the patent-pending technology is already up for licensing, and has already received quite a bit of fanfare and commercial interest from larger companies. So while you may never personally encounter Brian's earth-shattering invention, we're fairly sure this young lad's working days are already drawing nigh if he so chooses.

[Via Physorg]

The humble microwave: source of hot cups of water, stinky popcorn, and now, apparently, sterile kitchen sponges. A Reuters article recently reported that microwaves are great tools to sterilize bacteria-laden kitchen sponges -- but unfortunately for the not-so-sharp, it turns out that Reuters didn't tell the witless that the sponges should be wet before getting their nuke on. Apparently, more than one person threw his dry sponge into the kitchen microwave only to discover that the thing melted, burnt, stunk up the joint like hot bacteria, and reeked like burnt tires. One more for the Darwin awards. So for the uninitiated: yes, you can throw your kitchen sponge in the microwave for a few minutes to sterilize it. Do make sure it's wet, though, k?

Apparently being able to zap your meal in favor of kindling up a fire using sticks and lighter fluid just isn't efficient enough. If you'd prefer to maximize your couch time even more by not even mashing buttons on the face of your microwave, Daewoo's new device hears you loud and clear. Sporting a countertop design (as opposed to the "in-a-drawer" variety), brushed aluminum finish, and ironically enough, a full-fledged keypad, the voice recognition microwave recalls up to 40 cooking commands to get things fired up with just a shout. Niceties include its ability to react to anyone's voice (not just the programmer) as well as automatically determining the time required to properly heat / cook your food. Daewoo claims a "95 percent accuracy" rate on its automated determinations, so be sure not to scold it too fiercely when it torches your dinners the other 5 percent of the time.

[Via OhGizmo]

If sporting a TV / microwave hybrid is too embarrassing for guests to see, or you just need one more completely extravagant household item to brag about, Dacor's got you covered. Its latest offering takes the conventional convention oven and relocates it away from the wall or countertop, and into a dwelling area most usually inhabited by silverware and Saran wrap. The Millennia microwave in-a-drawer was apparently engineered to be installed under a counter, in a kitchen island, or essentially any location where having a microwave would look thoroughly gauche. The 1.0 cubic foot cooker sports 950 watts of roasting power, defrost, reheat, and popcorn modes, 11 power levels, child lockout, automatic shutdown sensors, a timer function, and a nifty "one-touch" sliding door. While we aren't sure what this (presumably costly) device will run you, nor how much of your kitchen you'll ravage while installing it, you'll have the rest of the year to weigh your options and decide how important kitchen aesthetics really are to you.

[Via Gizmag]

If any of our peeps at Tel Aviv University have been noticing some suspicious holes around the campus lately, here's your culprit. It seems some researchers at the university have created a microwave drill that can easily bore holes through concrete, glass and other materials without leaving so much as a trace of dust left behind. It works by heating up the material to a toasty 2,000 degrees Celsius (over 5,400 degrees Fahrenheit), which softens the material enough for a metal rod to be pushed through it. Like any good death ray, however, the microwave drill has its weaknesses. For starters, the beam is unable to penetrate steel or sapphire, and there's also the small issue of microwave radiation, which could have some nasty consequences for the poor soul stuck operating the drill. According to the researchers, however, a simple shielding plate should be enough to protect anyone in the vicinity of the monstrosity -- maybe, but are there enough steel plates to protect us all if the device falls into the wrong hands? Like ours?

[Via Core77]